I’ve written a couple of internal blog posts about the meanings of colors in the inclusive Pride flag for my company’s LGBTQIA+ employee resource group. I liked the way this one about the color yellow turned out, so I thought I’d share it here.
It’s Monday and the golden hour sunlight fills my apartment with a stunning yellow light. Only 90 minutes before, my power had been flickering and I was holed up in my hall/closet/office space under a tornado warning. With the storm passed, power restored, and tacos in hand, I’m going about my social life in the online realm. Ocean Vuong is about to read some poetry on a Zoom event and comments, “My favorite aesthetic is queer couples eating snacks.” And I think that’s the cutest thing I’ve heard all day. I think about how the light breaks through the storm. I think, “Yes, some day, I will be part of a queer couple, and we will eat snacks.” Maybe we will send a photo to Ocean. And we’ll take the photo in light just like this light. For now, I have the light. I smile, close my eyes, letting the light fall on my face as Ocean’s words fill my ears.
—
I had a dream earlier this week in which the sun did not rise one day, and, I’m not sure how many days it went on like that, in the dream, but it was long enough. Long enough for out-of-work lighting designers and artists to create neon light projections on the sky with positive messages. I don’t remember the exact words of these messages, but, in the dream, whatever they said made dream-me think, “Maybe tomorrow, the sun will rise again.” And dream-me felt sure that it would. When I woke up, the sun was rising, and I was grateful that we live in world where we can still take that fact for granted. And I try not to take it for granted, but, some times, I do.
—
There is a steady comfort in the sun. It is there day after day, though the night seems long. It is there, behind the clouds, though it seems the storm may rage on for ages. The promise of its energy is constant – a beam threaded through the center of existence. So, of course, it is central in the flag. Essential for the rainbow. Essential for life. Vital. Its restoration and constancy keep us going, energizing us towards hope in the face of challenge.
Unfurling the swirling mass of my own radiant Nothingness.
Visible mending is the use of embroidery techniques to repair garments in a celebration of preserving a loved possession. It’s also a big FU to the fast fashion industry which is fueled by our insatiable consumerist culture. It’s a step in the right direction towards sustainability and a more environmentally conscious mindset.
I could write about that, but I’ve also been thinking about it as a metaphor for my own personal growth. Because that’s what I do. And if you haven’t figured that out already, then you’re new here and haven’t had more than a 5 minute conversation with me. Welcome! I’m so glad you found my blog.
What does it mean for me to look at the parts of myself that need attention and repair them? How do I do this in a way that structurally brings greater wholeness and honors the journey that caused the wear and tear in the first place. I have a quilt that is older than me, built from scraps of clothing from my parents’ and grandparents’ generations. It is in shreds and mending it in this focused, intentional way could very well take years. I’ve invited others to participate in this mending with me, but no one knows this quilt like I do. There are some tatters that are only mine to mend. Am I still talking about a quilt or am I talking about the traumas of my upbringing and those I inherited from the generations who came before me? I’ve known from a young age that the rage eating away inside, coming out in anxiety and depression, harsh words and stubborn indecision – it didn’t start with me. And I’ve also known, from a young age, that it was up to me to break this cycle. And it’s amazing how the work I’m doing on this quilt is integrating itself with the old fabric. The material I was given is being made new as I carefully weave over holes left by years of use and storage. Am I still talking about my family of origin or the quilt I spent hours studying as a child?
I think about a series of masks I’ve started. I call it the Waste Not series, and I’m still exploring all the significance behind it. My methodology is simple: I take miniscule scraps, smaller than a pocket, some smaller than my thumbnail, and stitch them together to build a textured mask. The end result is not particularly beautiful by conventional standards. As I pull these pieces together, I’m reminded how the original fabric entered into my life. This bright green is from the pillows my grandma helped me make for my freshman dorm room. This red and gold pattern is from the couch cushions on the rattan couch my ex-husband and I had in our first apartment. This fabric was used in 4 different theatrical productions. This is batik from Indonesia. This is from my moth costume, which is from a velvet wedding dress from a costume sale in Indiana, which came from a very small bride who may or may not be alive to this day. And so on. My life is an amalgamation of experiences, of cultures, of desires, of rules, of people. You can go through my journals from junior high on and find references to the feeling that my heart is scattered in pieces around the globe…again and again and again. I didn’t have it as bad as some of my peers, but that’s the world where I formed an identity. I take all these scraps and create an ugly pretty mask – even as a mask it says “This is me. Maybe you’ll see part of yourself here, but you’re getting the whole mess.” Bless the people who stick around to take a closer look, to listen to the stories behind each sliver of fraying fabric, to invest their own swatches into the mix. I’m grateful for them. So many don’t take the time or effort. And I used to be one of those people – ignoring whole, remarkable sections of myself. But I can’t afford to ignore the threads and pieces that make me who I am.
I can’t ignore the threadbare parts, the broken parts, the ill-fitting parts. I’m no longer interested in hiding my imperfections. In creating masks, I’m also exercising a radical dance towards greater presence and authenticity. I am pulling tiny scraps of myself and stitching them back together, tenderly, painstakingly. And so, piece by piece, flow into flow, I reconstruct myself into a new, unique wholeness. It is happening before my eyes, even when I feel the weight of how immense my project will be. And on those heavy days in particular, I must get up from my work to dance.
I’m pulling out an older one for you all today. I’ve started a few other posts and nothing seems right. This one doesn’t either, but it’s the most finished. And sometimes you’ve just got to take the most finished thing and put it out there.
I wrote this 3 years ago when I was just entering my first romantic relationship after my marriage ended. We were in that agonizing phase of figuring out the implications of our feelings for each other. I was debating whether or not to go for the long-term relationship or if I’d try my hand at something seasonal. The long-term option won out, though it should have been seasonal. Some lessons need to be learned the hard way, I suppose.
I still like this piece, even though the specific relationship it’s referring to is dead and buried (Hallelujah). Something about it rings true because I still fall into those agonies. I’m more aware of the outsider feelings when they happen, and I realize it’s not just something that comes up with crushes. It happens in my friendships too – especially the newer ones. I often feel that I’m an alien in a human skin and I’m struck by the feeling of being outside, not belonging, of being exposed and rejected. I used to wallow in these feelings or suppress them. There was no middle ground. Now I recognize them as something that a lot of people feel from time to time and that they tell me something about how much I value authenticity and connectedness. The discomfort that comes is far less distressing these days.
This preamble has been far too long, so here it is, from about this time, 2016:
I started 6th grade late. I missed Titanic, Hanson, and Spice Girls. I thought the Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, et al were a load of sex-crazed crock. And yet, I started 6th grade at Greenwood Middle School. On picture day. I wore jeans, an embroidered blouse, and an amber cross necklace from Russia. I was homeschooled 4th and 5th grade. I had quit school a few times in 4th grade, maybe once in 5th too. I don’t remember. We tried homeschooling again for a few weeks, but it just wasn’t working. That’s why I started 6th grade late.
I’d never been in a school so big. I took it one class at a time, but there was this moment in math class when the enormity of this change came crashing in on me. We were taking a quiz. Just a short little pop quiz. The words “average, median, mode, and range” glared up at me. I knew “average” but the other words had no context. There was nothing else in the quiz to clue me in on what mathematical operations those other 3 words described. This wasn’t playground games with forgiving Russian kids who would patiently explain in simpler Russian or in beginner’s English or by pantomiming or just the pure, universal language of play. This was my education, and I was missing something. I was always missing something since we got back. I couldn’t handle it anymore, so I cried. I was quiet, but a classmate noticed and alerted the teacher. She was sweet about it – told me she wouldn’t count this quiz and reassured me that the material was pretty new for everyone. She was right. I wasn’t that behind and was able to excel in class shortly thereafter.
Tonight, over 17 years later, I find myself emotional for very similar reasons. I feel I have missed something important and have possibly committed some egregious faux pas in the process. Just as my 11 year-old self scorned secular boy bands, my 20’s self has scorned the way romance works these days. Overall, I think of this as a positive – weird and good. But every now and then I feel like a complete alien and it is overwhelming. I feel romantic feelings and I want so much to share myself, but I don’t understand (or really care to understand) the game that is Modern American Romance. All I know is that I care incredibly for a splendid human, and I want to know and be known, to see and be seen, to hear and be heard. And most of the time, I feel those things without a trace of doubt or fear.
But every now and then, my own “other-ness” hits me like a ton of bricks and I might as well be back at Greenwood Middle School, feeling the immensity of missing things.
My Third Culture tendency to rush intimacy makes it feel that what I’m doing is natural. Until I realize what it may seem like from another perspective. I will dive right in with both feet, but I worry that, in the process, maybe I’m pushing a dear one into deep water unexpectedly, which is risky and could cause pain later on.
Here are the facts: I’m not going to follow a formula. I’m going to have a somewhat counter-cultural approach to romance. I am going to jump in.
I don’t want to be afraid of my weirdness, but sometimes I am. Sometimes, I am that 11 year-old crying in math class because I fear my offbeat life has lead me to miss something or make a devastating mistake. The discomfort can be overwhelming.
I am learning to be more comfortable with myself in general, but also in my approach to relationships (romantic or otherwise) specifically. Reading bell hooks helps put words to my desires. To use her train of thought, I want to live an authentic life guided by an ethic of love. Perfect love drives out fear (a paraphrase of 1 John 4:18). Living an ethic of love means there should be no place for fear. In place of fear, I seek gratitude and contentment. In place of fear, I seek peace. I am learning to replace “perfection” with “perfecting” because it is a journey and a process, not a finite destination.
“It’s B.S. that ‘you have to love yourself before you can love someone else.’ Human beings actually learn how to love themselves from being well-loved in safe and trusted relationships. (A lot of us are re-learning how to let people care about us. The right people.)”
My initial reaction to this post by Allyson Dinneen (a.k.a. @notesfromyourtherapist) was “That’s not true! If I don’t get a handle on loving myself, then I’m just going to keep getting into relationships with people who end up being dismissive of me and my feelings.” And I think there’s truth to both her insight and my initial thought.
I’ve been thinking about loving myself in new ways. I was raised on the youth group sermons about loving myself as a creation of God, my body being a temple, loving myself as a stepping stone to loving others and God better. These are fine approaches in theory, but ultimately, loving myself was always in service to something outside myself. It was the step to rush through in order to achieve selflessness. Of course, this played out in my relationships. Once I started to feel good about myself, I’d get involved with someone who liked the idea of me better than the real me because, the truth is, I liked the idea of me better than the real me. Acknowledging and accepting my whole self is a new practice.
Looking at self-love through the lens of mindfulness and meditation practice has given me a much deeper understanding of the concept. It’s helped me get out of the mindset that tells me self-love is just a stepping stone to a “love” I can give without regard to my own personhood. I’m realizing how deeply I had internalized the message that I was created to serve, to help, to sacrifice and that any part of myself that didn’t contribute to those ends was to be cut off and burned in the fire. Even though I’ve spent years deconstructing the constraints of my upbringing, I wanted to be careful with this one because I still believe that love is generous. From a shifted vantage point, I’ve been able to see more clearly how to be a friend to myself, to treat myself and my feelings with loving-kindness, generosity, and compassion. It means not rushing through the uncomfortable feelings, as much as I want to just be done with all the difficult emotions that accompany heartbreak, loss, and my own sense of aimlessness or feeling out of place. Now I look at these uncomfortable feelings as teachers. Instead of running and hiding from them, trying to pretend they don’t exist, I accept their existence and pay attention to how they shed light over what I value.
When I was mourning the loss of my marriage, someone told me “You have to be enough for yourself.” I clung to that idea, but, instinctively, I knew it wasn’t the full picture. Yes, we’re born alone and die alone – no one lives those experiences for us or can tell us exactly what is going on with the mind or soul in those moments. But life is also lived in communion with others. Togetherness and solitude are essential for living in the same ways that inhaling and exhaling are essential for breathing. You could say the same for loving yourself and being loved by others. They go together.
I’m beginning to see this interdependence more and more. I have people in my life who love well, and I’m beginning to take the things they say about me at face value instead of watering it down with an internal retort of “Oh, you don’t really know how bad I can be” or “Well, I could be better.” Some of them do know how bad I can be! Some of them do know that I have room to grow! And it’s taken me too long to accept affirmation without that voice jumping in to negate it.
Lately, I’ve had these moments where I look in the mirror and I think, “Look at you! Look at how far you’ve come! You are strong and stunning!” Even in lower points, the times when I’m crying for some reason (heartbreak/grief, frustration with my aimlessness, exhaustion from those outsider-alien feelings that creep in) I’ll look in the mirror and audibly speak to myself like I might speak to a friend who is crying. I comfort her. Caring for myself this way has been a long time coming and I’m looking forward to how this love is going to grow and change, how it’s going to affect my relationships with others.
And I’m not just bringing that back to the youth group days where the purpose of my love for myself was about pushing myself aside, making space for others or the Divine. I’m recognizing that the love I have for myself now is going to prevent me from being in relationship with some toxic people. I’ve stood up for friends in toxic situations plenty of times, but rarely for myself. Becoming a friend to myself has given me a new strength to recognize and remove myself from toxic situations. It is good, but far from easy. In her book, All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks writes, “Wounded hearts turn away from love because they do not want to do the work of healing necessary to sustain and nurture love…To love fully and deeply puts us at risk. When we love we are changed utterly…We sacrifice our old selves in order to be changed by love and we surrender to the power of the new self.” We live in a world where loving yourself with honesty and bravery is a risk. But, I can tell you, it is a risk worth taking.
It’s worth it to work against the lies we’ve believed about ourselves for as long as we can remember. Maybe these lies came from people who should have loved us well and didn’t, maybe they’re from the world at large or the particular sub-cultures that influenced our young minds, but whatever the source, what makes it so difficult to counteract is that at some point, those stories we were told became the stories we told ourselves about ourselves. It feels counterintuitive to be working against the self in order to love the self better. No one else can do this work for you, but, as my friend says, “it’s the greatest when they chime in.” It’s the greatest when we can chime in for ourselves and each other.
Chiming in and listening to the windchime song of another’s love for us takes vulnerability, it takes a willingness to give ourselves good gifts. I once told a loved one, “You deserve to give yourself good gifts. What are the gifts you didn’t get from your family that you can give yourself? Who are the people in your life who are a more authentic family? Authentic family brings you goodness, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to comfort. We can be comfortable with things that are harmful. How often do we stop giving ourselves the gift of vulnerability because it is uncomfortable? How often do we close ourselves to the goodness that comes to us because we believe the old lies that say we don’t deserve that or it’s good for someone else, but not for me? How many people never give themselves the gift of vulnerability as adults because it accompanied punishment in childhood? How have our wires been crossed so that we believe that good gifts like vulnerability and love are dangerous and that unhealthy patterns are good?” We have to ask ourselves these questions. It’s part of the process of re-learning how to open ourselves up to a love that allows us to be fully, honestly ourselves, to a love that is wide and embraces the necessity of togetherness and solitude.
If this all seems like too much, like an impossibility, I’ll leave you with another bell hooks quote (really, selecting only two quotes was editing myself, y’all just need to read the whole dang book):
In an ideal world we would all learn in childhood to love ourselves. We would grow, being secure in our worth and value, spreading love wherever we went, letting our light shine. If we did not learn self-love in our youth, there is still hope. The light of love is always in us, no matter how cold the flame. It is always present, waiting for the spark to ignite, waiting for the heart to awaken and call us back to the first memory of being the life force inside a dark place waiting to be born – waiting to see the light.
“The Maumee River does not begin. Formed out of the confluence of the St. Joseph River from the north, and the St. Marys River from the south, it is a continuation…”
-Ryan Schnurr “In the Watershed: A Journey Down the Maumee River
Convergence of three rivers / Convergence of three griefs…
I wrote this in November of 2017, not realizing how many more griefs would follow. I won’t share the rest of it. It’s shit. I use the word “nunnery” later. I only want to hear that word when I’m watching a production of Hamlet, why would I subject anyone else to it?
The point is, I’ve been thinking about confluence, about convergence, for years now. I walk by the confluence of Fort Wayne’s three rivers almost daily. I observe the changes in motion, season to season – how the ice forms in winter, the water rushing through tree branches in spring, the lazy pond-like days of late summer, the grey-brown in-between of fall.
When the Maumee is slow, it’s easy to forget her power. Walking above and distant from her along Edgewater, it’s easy to dismiss her as that dirty river over there. But there are flowers growing this year. More than last year.
My friend told me about a shaman who moved to Fort Wayne in part because of the spiritual power associated with the joining of three rivers. I don’t know if I buy into that myself, but I can’t deny the power of confluence as metaphor, as a way of experiencing life.
I have taken turns being the water, ever-moving, the bank staying put, and the debris floating along wherever the water flows. I’ll be the first to admit that I identify more with the water or the debris than the earth that stays behind.
I am never anywhere Anywhere I go When I’m home I’m never there Long enough to know
Ketchum, ID – Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus, Phoebe Bridgers
I consider the confluence as presence. In this moment, I am not beginning, I am formed from the confluence of elements behind and around me, I am a continuation stretching forward. Society may build dams, people may pollute me, but I persist. I find the planters of flowers and the watchers, the ones who renew the water. I learn their ways so I can become one of them. I take the confluence of griefs and joys, tap into the energy of what is and move forward.
Looking out over the confluence, I recognize a culmination of forces creating this exact moment. Before the sidewalk I’m standing on was here, there were the rivers alone, and before the rivers, glaciers. The rocks embedded in them were pulled along and deposited, altering landscapes. People came along and shaped the earth in our own pattern. But our streets still run along the river, defying the grid system that makes logical sense. For all we’ve done to manipulate and destroy, there’s part of us that still understands flow. We cannot be so easily disconnected from raw nature.
I’m approaching this all too directly. Ebb, flow, combination of elements, passing through, impermanence – it’s all there, has been there, doesn’t need explaining. I’ve been conscious of it since I was a child. At the prompting of society, I try to harness the power, change the direction of the river, wrestle nature to fit a gridded, mapped-out version of life. Well, I’ve lost the energy for that fruitless wrestling match. Living in presence embraces change.
There is beauty in brevity. In this moment, be the merge of two river-flows into a third, carried all the way to Lake Erie or to be deposited on the bank a mile down. In the next, be a funeral flower dropped in commemoration on Mother’s Day – out of one sight, into another. They say you don’t step into the same river twice. And it’s true, but how often do we wish it weren’t. How often do we long for home in a place without recognizing that it’s in us, we carry it along. More and more often, I look into the mirror and recognize in the brown pools looking back a homey comfort. I recognize: Only this person looking back knows it all and chooses to carry forward, being water, being earth, being the stuff carried along. What a gift to be present to a life with such perspective. What a gift to be confluence embodied.
There is peace like a river, but it has less to do with tranquility than it has to do with acceptance of motion. We accept the changes, the flow, the shifts in the earth under us. We join in the shaping and molding. We find the solid places within. We flow onward, welcoming the confluence.
“My name is Amber, but I sometimes go by Bear. I’ll answer to both.”
“Which one are you going by today?”
I fumbled for an answer, my mind sorting through my patterns, too much to review in milliseconds.
“Hmmmm…” A purchase of seconds.
When do I decide to go by Bear? Lately, it’s been just at places that ask for a name to go with my order. Maybe that’s because it’s an interaction that doesn’t require an explanation, but allows me a brief reminder that love exists. Is that just a cop out? Do I want to change my name to Bear? Should I start telling people my name is Bear more often? Do I have to pick one? Is Bear associated with certain character traits or gender presentation? Who am I today, in this moment? Do I feel like Amber? Do I feel like Bear? I’m feeling very awkward and I’m interrupting and excluding these other people and I’m here alone. Don’t think about that.
I don’t remember how I responded, but Devin knows Franny, and I told Franny my name was Bear. I’m honest and real, even if that leaves me open to a question I fumble over. It’s a stone that’s tumbling in my mind, unpolished. It’s tumbling, fumbling, stumbling. I do remember my answer didn’t feel accurate, but it was the best I could manage in the moment.
Bear is a name given to me, like a hug. My cousin, Jenny, started it as AmBear, which was swiftly shortened to Bear. It stuck.
I was seeing someone who used to call me Bear, adding honey to it. “Bear” already existed as a name of affection apart from this person, but with them it greeted me like the sun.
The sun disappeared over the winter. Though it shone bright some days, it was no match for the polar vortex. The stores of honey were rationed out, then depleted. We hibernated and winter drew herself out long. You know I’m not actually talking about the sun.
They said they didn’t want to break up. They said they loved me, but stopped calling me Bear, stopped touching me, stopped looking me in the eyes, stopped connecting. I did work for them, extending and overextending myself.
In early April, we attended Franny Choi’s book release party in Detroit. We were trying to be friends like normal, but I wasn’t allowed to talk about my feelings anymore, which is to say, I wasn’t allowed to talk about myself or to tell the truth. I wasn’t going to be called Bear anymore. I wasn’t safe.
Standing in line to get my new copy of “Soft Science” autographed, I started thinking about how I should introduce myself to Franny. I was feeling the weighty absence of human affection, and decided that I would introduce myself as Bear. I was claiming the affection that exists for me in the universe, even if the human sources of that affection weren’t physically present, even if the human that was physically present was no longer a source of affection. It was a small and mighty attempt to defy the looming void, to escape the phantom chill of winter.
The book release was our last adventure, and we didn’t even get a proper meal out of it. That dear person is now a stranger to me, and not for lack of effort on my part. Reconciliation work is not for those who let Fear occupy the driver’s seat. My own stubborn bravery won’t unseat someone else’s driver, as much as I want to claw my way in through the window.
“For Bear! with love & sharp teeth”
I haven’t done it this way before. I’ve let relationships drift away with distance and time and the opiate of social media. But this one, the choice to direct my labor back towards myself and not to the withering friendship, the choice to draw a line and say, “I love you and I can’t have a dishonest relationship with you. I love myself and won’t subject myself to toxic levels of cognitive dissonance for your comfort. I miss you and I need to direct my emotional resources to tending my little garden of new friendships that yield the fruit of authenticity and vulnerability. If you don’t want to participate in that work because it may require some discomfort, I can’t help you, not without breaking myself.”
Becoming Bear is choosing that authenticity over appearances, choosing Peace over keeping the peace.
That still hasn’t answered the question. Which one am I today- Amber or Bear? I’m both. I exist in the in between spaces, one foot very much here, one foot inching towards the next step. I have remarkably itchy feet, but Bear is someone grounded and present. But even Bear gets caught.
The rage clamps down on me, metal teeth digging into bone – hook to fish, trap to Bear. I’m attached to this abandonment, to old abandonments, to the way I’ve abandoned, to moving, moving, moving. Running away keeps me stuck. I’m dragging it along, this rusty old rage trap, but it won’t loosen until I push into it, get to the center of the trigger. I’ll push into the discomfort and spring open the latch.
I’m finding freedom in staying put and foraging. Then, perhaps, I’ll encounter my own honey.
Ambs the Bear 