I Claim My Darkness

I can't explain it in words exactly. Just days ago, I was enveloped in a crisis of titanic proportions and much like Whitman's says, it didn't go out with a bang, rather only a whisper. Now that's where the fatalism ends though. My last three days have been possibly the most exciting of my academic career so far. Not because of the material I was learning, but rather the people, the way of thinking about history, and well, then I'm at a loss for words.

Epiphany- ah ha! That's it. Where before the cold dark fog was suffocating me, now I feel like it is only right. I feel like I can't see into my own future. Just like driving home, the dark fog that weighed on me kept me sane, excited, and constant. I saw the lines. I have a good pair of head lights. I think I'll be ok. More than ok.

When I play a Tracy Chapman cd and lines from every song inspire me and tell the very feelings that I feel at that moment, I have to be under some kind of spell. The fog and the enchanting music? All the face swirled and all the names forgotten, but still I felt like these people were my family. How ridiculous- I know. But they made me feel welcome, smart, valued, and well like a long lost friend. So many things happened in 2008. My god I should write a book about it, because it has been like a roller coaster but by far the best year of my life- ever. More on what the hell i'm talking about later. For now, musings and trappings. Conundrums are always numerous and I just don't see them as a challenge, yet.

Funny video

Now, it wasn't my idea to send the video in. In fact, I'm morally and ethically against it. It was taken out of context. Can't anything be taken out of context really? I once had a professor who gave use fortune cookies at the end of the term. She was wonderful and colorful professor, an old lady with a great smile, curly short hair, and great fashion sense. She is a lesbian, and I found this out and liked her even more. Is that wrong? Eh, well she was and is a fantastic person. She was funny and articulate and scholarly. I want to be just like her. Well, she gives out fortune cookies for a reason. It is a college class, so this isn't an obvious common practice.

You need to realize that the fortune is a text, a recorded thought or piece of culture. To truly enjoy that piece of culture, it is only complete with the shell, the surrounding context. The influences, histories, and background makes the text truly juicy and truly tasty. But without the text, the context is meaningless and flat. They support each other. They don't support the truth. There are many ways around that and that silly truth is so flimsy anyways, who will really notice.

I look at this man and think wow, I have a face for a name. I read his book for a class. He is a professor of history and an eminent scholar, and all I can think about is a Neil Gaiman story of an Anthropology conference full of clandestine sexual encounters, drinking, and not a lot of Anthropology really. Would this man, who I see is married because he wears a ring, participate in such scandalous and tawdry affairs? He is clean, young, maybe in his early 40's. He is fit, a nice dress, but not too nice as in he would be gay. I once heard that gay men don't keep things in their pockets because they want to look good in their jeans. They don't want there to be any bulges to take away from the most important bulge of them all. I don't know what this may mean, but my husband has more in his pockets than I do in my purse. I wish I were joking, but I couldn't make this up. A leatherman, a mini flash light, a multi-tool, pens, pencils, key chains, USB thumb drive, wallet, inhaler, phone, and well, maybe an allan wrench set. No, I'm not joking. He looks like "Awnold" and like he pumped iron, literally into his thighs. On the surface this may seem super non-gay, but he doesn't keep things in he back pockets, so his nice hiney is unadulterated.

Again, what is this man like. I may idolize him a little because of my own dreams of prestige in the scholarly world. I realize this. Maybe this man is just, well a man. He fights with his kids about dirty dishes, he has bad morning breathe, he vacuums and folds laundry, he fucks his wife when they get the time. Normal. But is he really normal like I think. What if his normal is traveling for his work, sleeping in hotel beds, traveling around the world to research for books, meeting young women, and ambitious students who may be attracted by his power or prestige. Maybe he meets a young blonde or red head or coppery dark skinned girl with a nice smile, a mind of her own, and no scruples or qualms about casual sex. She's not getting a grade, so it makes you wonder. He is attractive. He has a nice smile and great smell, but maybe he is a nice guy. A guy who worships his wife, honors his marriage, and acts as a sage both to his children and students. His students trust him and like him and think him very entertaining. Maybe he doesn't have time to get bored of the tedium or sad with the loneliness of books and committees and conferences.

The movie they let leak was funny, but I know what happened before and after, and I'm not laughing. Maybe I hated that he could be pure and clean and such a good man. I wanted to bring him down just a little, but not publicly. It was never meant to be public. Our encounter was brief and totally by chance. My age never a deterrent, because I carry myself with an ageless maturity and an unmistakable sense that I will make the work give me everything I want and need. I wasn't staying in the hotel. He was. I had met him and hadn't thought of him in any particular way or pine to know about him. Again, it was chance set of situations which occurred to set up my clandestine meeting with this young and brilliant man. He paused awkwardly. I stepped in at an uncomfortable distance. This kind of space which is warm and crackling with tension, the promise of rejection almost as certain as Schrodinger's cat. Of course he knew, and I could smell stale mint on his breathe and I wondered if he lotioned his baby smooth face. I imagined where that face could be and I blushed and looked away.

Could it be that I want to be a scholar or a scholar that sleeps around with other scholars. I couldn't tell after he left, or after he called, or after I met him yet again. It was meaningless sex. It wasn't even the best I'd every had. I have that feeling that I do for television characters I have crushes on, but he is real and I slept with him. It is never like the movies and it is always much more messy, grueling, and prefectible that television would have you believe. Sex with a character, not a start. It's so impossible. Maybe I like the theory and not the practice, but my conundrum is: you don't know if you don't like to practice if you don't practice.

I thought girls sleeping with professors was just in the movies, but it is never like the movies when I'm not a movie star by any means.

Wet cold darkness

When I set out in the morning in the winter, it is wet and cold and dark. There are days were it is much wetter. Some days the darkness is from storm clouds, and it feels entirely different if the darkness is because of a dense fog. The wetter days seem to be, well wetter, but in a way that you feel wet and muggy all over. I personally think a truly "wet" day is when even with layers and all the appropriate winter attire, a small insignificant drop of rain or water finds the only exposed skin (usually around the neck or head). Why is this "wet"? Sure it seems arbitrary or insignificant, but there are days full of rain where I could walk from here to there and feel free and less constricted by he turgid humid air and can escape those torpedo like dew drops that can chill you to the bone. They are frustratingly wet really, and it is when the rain encroaches on my world that I notice, "Wow, it's wet today."
The coldness one experience's in Oregon, according to my Midwestern family, is the worst. I fear the hellish winters and snow storms of Montana and South Dakota, but when my family came in March for my wedding, the rain chilled them to the bone as if they were stranded in an arctic dessert. "I can never get warm, the coldness go straight to my bones and I just can't get warm again." I'm used to this of course, and it never really gets below freezing where I'm at. It makes me wonder. Maybe the foreigner is gripped with the ailment: feeling the cold. Maybe I'm immune to it like a disease and can no longer contract it. Maybe I'm immune to Oregon cold alone, and when I visit somewhere else the cold will be like a disease. It affects the body, so then why not? It grips the body, makes it hard to sleep, makes one lose their appetite, and has the nasty habit of making you very very grubby. It's like the "wet" rain. It is the kind that wakes you up and says, "Hey! I'm rain and you better darn well listen to me. I've been around, but I haven't been paid enough attention." The cold may do the same thing, but I don't know. Maybe it isn't as sloppy as rain. Maybe it is more persistent, the cold, a wearing down without movement. Like pressure, you can't see it, but you can feel it consistently all over your body equally. If you increased the pressure carefully and ever so slowly, it could happen without you really knowing it.
I stood under cover at a bus depot waiting for my bus. It was much later than I usually head home, and everyone else similarly sought out shelter. I had an undershirt, a knit sweater, a wool jacket, jeans, boots, and a scarf, and a little drip drop crept down my chest. The knit cap I wore was little protection and it served to just keep my head warm. I was both burning up warm and freezing, and the muggy air just made me want to strip down into my underwear and let the cool breeze chill my skin and wick away the muggy sweat. It is only 5:30 pm but it is easily darker than any night of the summer, and it is much darker than the dark I left home in that very morning. My mood had gone south for a period possibly because of this weird brand of winter, but something changed today. Even in the depression wet and dark cramped depot, I could not stop smiling.

Obama's Strength

It is of course inspiring to see the turn out of support. To hear of people dancing in the street all around the world in celebration of your victory.

Then to imagine the chores you CHOSE to handle. They are deep and ugly holes and it is so hard to fix them and escape unscathed. Be it the economy (which like Bush correctly said (for once) this can't be fixed with a magic wand, otherwise he would do it), or the war, or jobs, or health insurance. These are like whole corporations. He is planning to revamp who corporations and make them more efficient while maintaining his morals and the inforcement of good virtues in the process.

It took a horrible president like Bush to divide this nation enough for it to willingly and fervently be united under a remarkable young black man. Thank you Bush, and you will pay for your mistakes in the ill will of the general interest. But for the best, you created an opportunity for optimism (not to be mistaken for creating the optimism itself, lets be frank). There was a vaccuum where pride and hope live, Obama fills it with humility and accountability, not promises but commands of service and sacrifice. To give and to serve. To be for the collective. Individualism is always protected by our system, and in fact, free thinking has been under the Bush administrative scrutiny. The free thinking of a country is most important for the growth and progress. Oppression gets you nowhere fast.

Good luck. I hired you, Barack, because I think you can mount the tasks ahead. I promise to be understanding and to do my part when you call on me. I will not hope for your fall. I'm too hopeful for this opportunity for change to sabatoge our survival and success as a nation. I won't let others sabatoge our hope either. You just do what you can, which is above what most are asked to do, and I'll be there when it doesn't work out perfect. The laws of the universe will bring you fortune if you feel fortunate. And I do.

Sophie

The Will to Change and the Spirit of Service

The Will of Change is Wakening in You and I
I hope from today on we can stay optimistic- and keep saying yes we can
I hope our new president inspires everyone to serve, to give, and to care
Never have I wanted to give more than I do now
Never have I wanted to serve my country more proudly than I do now
When race and gender are stripped away, we are all people
All on the ever shrinking planet earth
And having someone who listens when we are at the most odds is what we need
Having someone who represents not one view but many
Having a leader who can argue both sides of a debate
Having a leader who sets an example for accountability at every level of our lives
Being proud of my country had never been a goal
Now it is a part of my identity and a part of my dream
Change for the better that happens between you and me
We are powerful as the many
We have proven the connection between you or me or Obama is not broken
It is thin and needs strengthening but it is perserved every time we say
Yes we can
Because yes we can is a command that holds power
A command that enables every person with just their one vote to change
The power to change is not just in our new president
The power to change is in our everyday lives
The will to change is what is awakening
The direction is new
The leadership strong and promising, though imperfect and human as you or I
And we can exceed our greatest dreams
Because we are no longer our own worst enemy
We are no longer holding ourselves back
There are those who don't feel like I doI hope someday soon they choose to
This isn't a party politics ploy or an Obama rally
This is real lifeAnd the change that happens is much bigger than our 44th president
He knows that
Do you?
People can realize their own potential for changing
By changing their mind to care

The will to change awakens in each of us as we see opportunities open to us
Opportunities made by us and for us
Goosebumps and tears aside, screaming and crying done
Restless nights of sleep will pass too
When we get down to itIt is time for work
Roll up your sleeves
The will to change is opening her eyes because we can and because we have
-Sophie

To Care or Not to Care

The question of this election has been that of movie magnitude. That cathartic and moving feeling of pain and anguish in expectation is something I've only every seen in the theaters. How sad but also how exciting. We pay money to feel that excitement. What is it about that feeling?

I think it awakens a part of people that cares. A part of people that can lay dormant and unconnected from a greater feeling of togetherness. To care. To care but also to take action. As an American I am taught that the American Identity is one of pride, freedom, patriotism, and individuality, but it is evermore clear that people, Americans are all about conforming, not standing out, not standing up, and never caring like we think we do.

Caring about more than myself. Caring about more than my children and their children. To care about other races, to care about the effect of a new president on other countries, and to care about more than my stupid student loans, coffee budgets, and my career future. Not everyone has the privileged and blessed opportunities I have been given. I won't take it for granted. I want others to have more. I want others to be treated the same. I realize the difference and gap in opportunities given. I realize the message sent to all those kids out there: although it would be great to go to college and get a career, the status quo is just not attainable for that tax bracket. Those kids are taught by inferior teachers who lack passion, then they are told the expectations that they need to go to a university to succeed, but they are given little to no help.

How will it look if a president walks onto the stage saying not only does he expect better of everyone, including teachers and students. And then, after he raises expectations, he makes a deal. He makes a deal that he will be there fighting for more opportunities if people just show up. To just show up and care.

I can genuinely say I care more about giving to my country under an Obama presidency. He race and his religion are mute points. His generous character, his ability to listen and debate, and his ability to treat every person with the same care and attention makes him a true leader, not just a president. I would love to follow his example. What a perfectly imperfect man. A man. He is not a god or a prophet. He is a man with dreams and doubts. He is a human who aspired beyond what he was told he could achieve. That isn't the American dream to me, that is a man's dream in world which promotes the American Dream cliche but offers this dream at a price and with preconditions.


Socialism as a threat does not make me shake in my boots. The consideration of others isn't scary. We all need to give to get. Could we make it an American ideal to taking care of others, to serve our country, and to be inspired by a presidential leader who represents the epitome of passion and love for the other man.

To care about how the world sees us, to care about how we are perceived, and to uphold an honorable image is achievable.

This election is about America. Not the "real America" but the idea of America. This idea is moving and morphing. This idea has taken a hard hit, but we can save it. The identity is beyond the president, because it exists in the minds and lives of living people. People are waking up to realize their American Identity has be horns waggled, vandalized, and abused to the fullest extent of the government's power. But instead of relying on McCain to change it all for them, they are giving their trust to a president who gives each person agency in their future. As it should be... but will it be?

I am struck by feeling of complete paralysis, followed by doubt and apocalyptic fears. I save up on chicken broth and saltines for when they will be all we can trade for batteries or other essentials. I feel a tightening in my chest and tears behind my eyes. I can't accept the chance that we have that "maverick" as our dead beat president with his power hungry gold digging girlfriend. They don't represent me, or Americans. I want Obama as my president. I want to care. I don't want these feelings of empathy for others to leave, to be cauterized by searing pain of the injustice of a McCain-Palin presidency. I want to care, but if November 4th comes and goes without my greatest wish coming true, my life's course will change. To recover would seem impossible and to see our country fall further is what I would have to look forward to.

Please, for my night time prayer tonight. Please Obama become the president so I can keep on caring. I want to stay human and feel proud. I don't want to fear and cower. Oh for sure it feels apocalyptic. But more than anything I know it only hurts and it is only scary because I care. To be or not to be, well I hope I still want to be after Nov. 4th, as well as to care.