A Quote

Down those old ancient streets,

Down those old ancient roads,

Baby there together we must go

Till we get the healing done.

            -Van Morrison

Old Wounds, New Tricks

Being in a romantic relationship is like inviting someone to come and live with you while you unavoidably reveal each and every one of your deepest, most intimate flaws—the flaws you spent so many years obsessively trying to prevent him/her from ever seeing in the first place. St. John of the Cross writes, “What you are always comes out; what you project rarely comes off…For almost a lifetime we may project an image of ourselves that enables us to get through, that deceives others and may even deceive ourselves.  In the end, however, what we are always comes out; and it is for what we are that we are responsible.” I think a romantic relationship, a deeply intimate one, is a place—and perhaps the only place—where the “real you” can’t help but surface and be revealed for all its grueling and ugly parts. In all other relationships, escapes and detours are often a possibility. But in true intimacy, the chances for escape seem impossible. Nowhere else do we get so close to another person. Nowhere else are we examined like a guinea pig at every moment—even, horrors, at our worst moments.

Luckily most partners can forgive and/or deal with all of the flaws; even better, sometimes advanced partnerships can design methods for turning each flaw into something healing and even productive. But what about when the flaws are more than just little flaws? What about when they are damaging to the relationship, to your partner? And worse, what about the behaviors that feel hardwired, like knee-jerk reactions that seem impossible to control or predict or prevent? 

            I have one of those. Growing up in a verbally abusive household, I quickly learned and mastered how to defend myself using words. After being exposed to my family’s brand of intense, toxic communication style, it became part of me, and though my rhetorical prowess defended me in my youth, I inadvertently bring that survival skill into my romantic relationships, I fear. And it took me the longest time to see it manifest and surface. 

            The first time I really saw it was a few months ago. I completely overreacted to something that was harmless. I saw myself escalate so quickly that my head was spinning by the end. How did I let myself get so worked up over something so small, so petty? How could I so easily wound a person I love and care about? When I started thinking about the grand scheme of things, my behavior was unwarranted and unfair. I was ashamed at my ability to react in such a way. 

A week after this incident, I was visiting my grandma's house in Lake Arrowhead. I was just returning from a day on the lake when my grandma lays into me about how Samson (my dog) ruined the blinds in the living room. She stormed off to her room, leaving me feeling like I walked into a battle zone without armor or weaponry. Shortly thereafter I apologized to her for the blinds, and she apologized back for yelling. That exchange got me thinking about how similar our reactive tendencies are. Grandma’s attack to me seemed ridiculous, entirely undeserved, and utterly unfair. After all, it was just an accident. I hadn’t left the blinds down for Samson to ruin on purpose. When I realized this coincidence in our behaviors, I thought back to other moments when my family demonstrated this same behavior during my childhood. The memories were suddenly circling around me like a swarm of wasps. What was worse, I started retrieving recent memories of myself acting out in that same fashion toward many people in my life. Despite my efforts to be otherwise, I was modeling the overreactive behavior I saw growing up, and with each outburst, I was hurting my loved ones more and more. The thing that startled me most was that I didn’t know how to fix it. 

When I shared all this with Dr. Dan, he had some trusty treatments for me to try. He assured me that this behavior was something I could reverse. He also assured me that this, like anything else in life, was an obstacle that I would have to work through. We came up with certain strategies that I could implement on a regular basis to help keep me calm and centered—like yoga and meditation. And we came up with actions that the people in my life could adopt to help temper me in moments of rising fire—like reaching over and soothing me when I start to get riled up. Perfect, I thought. Using these few strategies should make me better in no time. 

And yet, this reactive behavior is harder to shake than I imagined. What’s been really hard is that I often can’t even tell what causes the behavior to come and I usually can't recognize that it is happening in the moment. So Dr. Dan referred me to a woman who will do Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy with me. I go on Tuesday for what will hopefully be the beginning of a series of visits. Do I think she can magically cure me? Not really. But do I think that there is some hardwiring from the verbally abusive environment in which I grew up deeply embedded in my subconscious that is impacting my communication style? Absolutely. And I believe in the power of healing old wounds, especially when doing so can bring forward a better present moment. I believe in the importance of being transparent with myself about the problems I face today and will face tomorrow if I don't get to work now. 

When thinking about how I interact with my loved ones, I don’t want to be a battlefield full of land mines that go off when least expected; I want to be a safe harbor for the people in my life. While I trust Dr. Dan’s prognosis, I fear the possibility that I have already done much damage to my relationships. But I suppose that is the beauty of love and forgiveness, that both parties in any relationship keep saying yes, no matter the permutations of the problem.

Musings on the Annual Modern Language Association Conference

The hockey game had just ended, so crowds of jerseys were bustling about, mixed in with the academics sporting tweed jackets, scarves, glasses, and the necklace nametags that were assigned to all those attending the annual MLA conference. To add to the excitement, music was streaming loudly from a radio station trailer that was set up just between the Staples Center and the restaurant where Susie, my mentor, and I were dining. There were young people break dancing in the middle of L.A. Live—a lively pedestrian area filled with hotels, restaurants, clubs, entertainment venues, and cafes. As Susie and I shuffled through the crowds toward our hotel room, which was blocks away, I started to lament the fact that this experience was coming to its end and that I would have to wait another year before having this opportunity again. I had spent the last three days moving in and out of conference rooms, bumping into the professors who had worked with me on my thesis, overhearing conversations about whether or not a text changes if it switches media, watching PhD candidates nervously prepare for the interviews they had scheduled with university search committees, and attending panels that starred big timers and thus were so packed that people were sitting cross-legged between the rows. This was my first MLA conference, and there was no way I could have possibly prepared myself adequately for what it would become to me.

When Susie and I finished fighting the crowds in the street and finally reached our hotel room, we debated about whether or not we had the energy to wake up early to see another big-timer, Spivak, who was on the panel titled: “Is the Postcolonial South Asian?”  Susie used the word saturated to reason her reluctance, and I identified completely with that feeling. Saturated with the wonderful knowledge that was still soaking into my mind, saturated with red wine, with poetry readings, with books, with rich cheeses, and with the buzz that the entire experience created.

Susie is a full professor, and this is her first time presenting at the MLA. It’s a big deal, the MLA conference. It’s the biggest and most well-attended event for our field in the academy, and being only a month out of my master’s program made my presence there feel more than intimidating…it was unnerving. The conference is four days long and this year featured 821 panels (granted, 32 of those panels were cash bars and receptions…at least academics know how to unwind after such mental exercise). When trying to decide which panel to attend, one has an average of 38 options, making the fact that you must make a choice feel entirely unfair and cruel. Generally I tried to attend the panels that were specific to my fields of interest, but when you add into the mix that certain panels feature big-time theorists, writers, poets, professors, scholars, activists, and the like, making your selection becomes a kind of war of the worlds in your mind. When I saw Gloria Steinem’s name of the program for a Feminist Studies Conversation panel, I felt the same surge of excitement that sped up my heart rate when I was ten years old and watching a New Kids on the Block concert on television, and I decided to ditch my previous obligation (a poetry reading by Dana Gioia) to attend it.

But the apex of my time at the MLA conference came at an unexpected moment. I thought nothing could top co-presenting a paper with Susie on the Ah Quin Diary, especially when a flood of enthusiastic questions came in for us during the Q & A session that follows each panel. I knew it was a very rare occurrence for someone at my stage in the academic journey to be a presenter at the MLA conference. I knew that I was working on a unique and important project that would help define and shape my career and interests in a profound way. Being at the conference with my name in the program was a monumental point in my career as a graduate student and scholar, and I thought nothing could top it.  However, when I attended a panel that featured Judith Butler, a theorist whose work I had used in my thesis, I felt like I was at the pinnacle of my sensations. It felt surreal to be sitting there in her midst, like I was somehow legitimized as an academic and grandfathered into the world of academe. I felt like I belonged there.

My fate as an academic is still unknown to me. I find out by March whether or not I will be beginning my doctorate work this fall. And even if the doctoral-granting gods open the golden doors of the institution to me, the world after the PhD is growing ever frightening and dim. However, regardless of the fate that awaits me, I know that, for me, there is no other career or field as magical and exciting and enlivening as the one I endeavor to enter. This weekend taught me that it is not enough to be in love with ideas and learning and literature—one has to breath it, feel it, touch it, taste it, and live it. It sustains me.

The Awakening

No matter how many times I return to the pages of this novella, I never lose that sense of inspiration, gratitude, and awe. For an amazingly good read, pick this up if you haven't read it yet.

Favorite Quote:
"[S]he put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said. 'The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.'"

Thrift-Store Gem

Thrift Store Find: yesterday this dress came off the bench and got dolled up with a belt, which changed everything: $10 in Palm Springs

Existential Crisis/Human Condition

When anticipating a weekend in Palm Spring with a group of her closest girlfriends, one expects to return home feeling refreshed, rejuvenated, and relaxed. I, sadly, returned from one such weekend feeling exhausted, depleted, and upset. In fact, I doubt there has ever been an experience that has come so close to sending me into crisis, and by crisis, I mean existential... like Sartre-style devastation. The weekend impressed upon me the burden, the pressure, and the unrelenting weight of my solitude. I know that some people feel this weight pressing down upon them throughout life and ease that tension by incessantly seeking out lovers (the serial monogamists among us), that others are some how able to compartmentalize this tension by ignoring it or pretending to be unaffected by its presence (the eternal bachelors or commitment-phobs of the world), that others relieve the tension by believing in a god that is ever-present (within them, surrounding them, guiding them and thus preventing them for ever experiencing the starkness of being utterly alone in this existence), and that others, the more creative types, still manage to find ways to cope with the reality that we are, in fact, alone. Regardless of the categories into which we all fall, there are times when we feel overjoyed with love and abundance, and there are times when we feel the desolateness of our island. Whether it be god or lovers or friends or parents or mentors, we have all, at some point, felt let down, felt abandoned, felt alone. I am one who has accepted the state of my existential crisis; I am one who embraces the human condition: that we come into this world alone, we exit this world alone, and everything in between is only ours to really experience and feel. However, I am certainly not above admitting when I am in need of something more, something to help me cope, something beyond my ability to rationalize or make bearable my situation. Leaving this particular weekend with the girls was one such moment. And yet, despite my acceptance of my infinite solitude (which appears with great force in moments of intense anguish and/or disappointment) and despite the self-induced numbness I have been known to use as treatment for those occasions when the infinite solitude strikes with a hard blow, I am somehow able to muster up the humility required to admit my weakness: that I still have a choice about how to deal with it all, and I can choose to seek restoration, I can choose to find solace.