I'm getting my first cord in capoeira this weekend. This is a big deal because I'm not good at capoeira. I live in my head. My body is only dimly related to who I am and where my identity lies. My body and I don't have a great relationship since it's been used to misclassify, underestimate, limit, and otherwise box away who I am and what I'm capable of all of my life. I've largely disassociated from it even though I know none of this is my body's fault.

It's complicated. I don't want a different body. I want this body to be allowed to mean something else, to communicate a different message than whatever people have been receiving. Over the years, I've tried to ignore the things that I cannot change meanwhile taking up less and less space.The end result is that I'm not very good at anything that requires me to communicate with my body. We don't have practice being on the same team, telling each other what we can do and will do.

But in the roda, I take up space. In practice, I move and they are huge sweeping movements. Cartwheels, kicks, escapes. I'm still not any good at it. I don't learn things nearly as quickly as the other beginners, I have a harder time remembering what I've learned, and confidence is a herculean effort. But I show up and I try my best to laugh through my frustration until it finally clicks. And the group is one of the most encouraging groups of people I've ever met. That makes being bad at everything easier.

I'm not joking when I say I'm bad at everything. I know I test the patience and creativity of the people who teach me. I'm a terrible musician who doesn't know how to live in my own body. I need to overcome that if I'm ever going to be a good capoeirista. Participating these last two years has been one of the most difficult things I've ever done.

I'm a recovering perfectionist though I'll deny it if you ever ask me. I don't know how or why people become perfectionists by my own experience often leaves me feeling like I don't have anything in common with other perfectionists. Except that I don't do things that I'm not good at. I don't start projects that I don't have confidence I'll be able to finish. And especially not when anyone is watching. Growing up, I knew that my mom conferenced with my teachers to see if anyone could tell if I'd been affected by the divorce, the remarriage, the health issues etc. That added an extra layer of pressure to making sure I never failed at anything in school. At some point, the anxiety that someone would find out that I wasn't fine just became anxiety about failing or trying new things or performing or not being enough. I've been terrified of being found "not capable" all of my life. Consequently, I'm typically a fast learner with two tiny Achilles heals: anything with music and anything that makes me use my body. Those are also the core skills which capoeira requires and builds.

But my capoeira group consistently affirms the effort that goes in regardless of the results. They watch for and celebrate the tiniest improvements. I'll not be expected to perform songs anytime soon, but they remind that someday I should try it even though they know how bad I am at it. They've let me be terrible at a thing for years now. They've let me learn slower than I've ever learned anything in my life. And I've never had that before. I've never had the freedom to do something badly for as long as I want. I've never had the safety of learning clumsily, gracelessly, slowly. It's such a gift.

It's only recently that I've been learning with any skill the balancing act of empathizing with people without losing myself in them. To feel what they feel but to still feel my own emotions too. To do this without apology for what I feel or anger for being swept up (sometimes forcefully) in what someone else is feeling.

No one "makes me" feel anything. But often my habit of empathy creates the expectation of empathy. Friends and coworkers sometimes seek me out to make themselves feel understood even if I can't do anything else for them. Sometimes this isn't good for me. Sometimes I've been feeling too much for too long. Sometimes I lose myself and I forget that their depression, anger, resentment, frustration, and loneliness is not mine, is not me. Sometimes I've been feeling enough of my own negative emotions and I don't have the bandwidth for more.

I feel guilty when I reach the end of what I can give. And sometimes I feel angry when I feel used for my empathy. But I'm learning to sail these seas without taking them all into my boat. And I think that's the most accurate metaphor I know. Some days, I sail the seas. Other days, I fill my boat with ocean water. But knowing the difference, feeling the difference, upholding the difference--all of these things are good steps to be making.

The message that I've been getting is that I ask for too much at all the wrong times. The question has become -or maybe always was- whether I can make do without some of the things I need like communication, openness, and honesty. While I know that no amount of love can make someone heal for you, it would mean so much if they tried.

There are friends though who have become family. They are the ones who were able to meet me halfway saying "I'll try if you try." And again, "I promise not to bring any weapon home but the truth." Without these, I would be estranged from humanity.

They will try to tell you what to do with your anger. But you should know that they are only protecting themselves. What they mean is it's hot. And they are sweating, uncomfortable next to your blaze.

Don't let them touch your flames. If they come with water, burn white hot so they cannot come close enough. If they come with dirt or blankets. let your flames dance higher than they can hope to reach. You don't hate them, but you know somewhere deep inside that they will starve or smother anything they do not understand.

After they leave, you can relax and let your rage dampen to a dull roar. Find the space in side of yourself to sit beside the fire of your anger. Ask it gently what do you have to teach me?

As often as not, I have heard the strangest truths come from the mouth of anger. Sometimes it is trying to tell me that I am more valuable than I have been lead to believe.  Sometimes it is the war cry that says the world was never meant to be this way. It is worth fighting for them to be better. Anger has led me to fight impossible battles just because they were right, just, and worthwhile.

It can do the same for you; but you have to listen, you have to burn.

Five letters.
That's how many it's taken for me to finally write with clarity and honesty. It usually takes me two though sometimes I can do it in one.

This is a practice that I started in middle school. It gives my anger something to chew on. When it's done digesting, I can usually tell the difference between want and need, hurt and damage, idealistic hope and a possible future. When my anger is done eating, I am left with only bones.

I wrote every time our stepdad moved out, every time dad chose his girlfriend or his selfishness over us, and every time someone judged our family without seeing what binds us together. We were a family always splintering apart, but we held together on the strength of our will and our love.

We are still a family and we are still splintering. The pressure and the blows come from different sources now, but the threat is always the same. Oblivion. And I've written about it all, knowing that my anger could either destroy us all or else help me find the materials with which to build.

I've written and written. I've burned and burned. Writing meant that I had to remember. Writing also meant that I could disappear enough to see the other perspective. I was angry. For the way things could have been or should have been. For the hurt that I wasn't sure would ever heal. For the adult sized problems we faced as children. Writing connected my anger to so much fuel, I'm surprised my skin didn't glow with it's fire. But that anger also kept hope alive and in a way kept me sane which is to say, safe.

I've gotten good at it. Writing, burning, refining. The goal is always "if I can help this person understand only one thing, what will the one thing be?" Writing, burning, refining. Remembering and reliving until what is left is trustworthy enough to build with. I didn't want to be a fire, the blaze that people shrink back from. I wanted to be a bridge. I wanted to make the adults in our lives understand each other. I wanted us all to meet in the middle even if the middle had to be carried on my shoulders, even if the whole family had to be carried on my back. That was when I thought people needed saving and I could save them.

I still want to be a bridge. But I am still, and perhaps only, a fire. Try as I might, I still burn. I've burned through 5 letters trying to see through my selfishness into what is true, trying to see through my hopeful gluttony into what is necessary and useful. And I think it's ironic that the fire you're afraid of is the only tool I have to build a road home.

When I write to you next and the page smells like smoke and the embers singe your finger tips, remember that it consumed me no less than 5 times. Five times, I went up in flames trying to find what was worth saving from the blaze. Five times, I sat raw, uncomfortable, vulnerable. Again and again, I was forced to admit that I was not done yet. I was still angry which meant that I hadn't let all of the hurt in yet, hadn't greeted it by its proper name. The bones were still obscured. If I tried to build a bridge with what I had then, we would drown in the river after the bridge broke.

It's tempting to make the mighty, tragic phoenix my metaphor. That's glamorous but that isn't honest. Instead of the triumphant phoenix, my heart is a beloved house that I burn to find the hidden treasure. Five times, I've burned my own house down. It doesn't get any easier with practice. What I'm trying to say is that our family has always meant more to me than the heart I lose and the blisters I gain when I ask my anger to teach me what is important. So I burn and burn through five letters, hopefully through your silence and into a future that we can build together.

This is the sixth letter and the epilogue. I know this because the fire has finally left and only my bones are left.

This summer has felt like a lifetime. I have grown old, turned a corner, and grown young again--only to repeat the process. It feels like being sifted. Shaken and shaken until things sit in their best places. It's been uncomfortable but full of purpose. I have felt so many things. Too often there were too many things to feel and I couldn't choose or focus so I just had to let the anger, sadness, happiness, relief, and whatever else rock my insides until wariness saved me from continuing on like that. It was a season with many seasons packed in, leaking from the corners, and yet giving meaning to and resolution to so much from the past.

I am trying to find my path.

I walk trying my best to place one foot down in a safe and solid place and then another. There is no path yet. But I walk because the future is out there somewhere, forward. My family comes into view, tells me who they thought I was and what they expect from me; but they don't agree with each other and I know that I can't please them all. Moreover, I sacrificed my whole childhood trying to keep what little happiness we all had safe. But it didn't matter because they all in their own way chose to forget and alter the memories of the past. The conflicts that could have made us stronger now keep us apart. We've joked that I am the memory keeper, but never before has that made me feel so alone and left me with such a sense of despair. The path is forward though and I am trying to remember that the past is over. Whatever tools or memories we have left behind, we can only carry the strength that surviving the past gives us forward.

My coworkers come into view next. This is the longest I have worked anywhere and these are the people who see my exhaustion, impatience, and my struggle with the daily routine. I give them more than I realize and am surprised when they respond by giving also of themselves. This is the greatest diversity of people I interact with. So many of them are "not like me". I am not like most of them. We are not like each other. And yet we argue and resolve and do the work it takes to keep moving forward even though this job has always been nothing more than an emergency raft which I would abandon the second I saw the shore. I am only here because the vessel I was sailing shipwrecked and the storm hasn't abated in years. Some days I am so angry I could cry. Today, I am grateful I didn't drown in the sea and so confusedly thankful for the opportunity to struggle to build a community among a group of people with tremendously little in common besides our time.

And then my faith group. It's become more and more difficult to find the vocabulary to describe my spiritual and religious views. I feel like the words I used to rely on have changed meaning in this political climate in at least the same severity as I've changed. I still believe in Jesus, in his sacrifice, love and justice, but I don't meet very many people asking the kinds of questions that keep me up at night. My living situation last year really damaged my faith in the community of believers at a time when I was already wrestling with so much. I've never felt so judged or unworthy in my life except perhaps in dealing with my family on issues of forgiveness, mental health, and gender roles. The only reason I am still a person of faith is a promise not to let go until I have been made certain that God himself has let go of me--regardless of what the body of believers does, how it succeeds or fails.

It's been a season of emotions. Of letting go of people you love and respect so that they can do whatever it is that they need to. Of being loosely anchored by tremendous friends who happen to live too far away, but who resonate with the part of me that I am desperately trying to encourage to hold on and grow, the part of me that believes in... anything. Because hope and faith and love are hard to find but so necessary if you are ever to learn who you are and what you can contribute to this world. I am so grateful for my "loose anchors", M & T; so thankful that they can handle my rage and hurt with equal grace and help me find my way home. I think I'm getting close.

I've stopped to catch my breath and appreciate that suddenly the storm of emotions is providing clarity and highlighting what's important to me and in me. Something like a path is beginning to form which has been my prayer for a long, long time. I have tried to be patient but still busy. I don't know if I am ready, but if the last 5 years are not enough then I am lost and probably won't be found. I grieve what this process has cost me, but I also accept it now. And now, my toes tingle as I sense the path I have been asking for.

This spring, I purchased a plot in the community garden a mile from my apartment. It's my experiment, my teacher, and my mirror. It's a microcosm that is still so much larger than me.

Go to the garden.
I have been to the vegetable patch
and have been nourished in turn.
The fruits of this earth will keep you alive,
but it is the flowers that will heal you.

Go to the garden.
There is so much to learn
from beautiful things whose pragmatism is hidden.
We all have a purpose
and none of us are here just for looks.

Go to the garden.
Watch as nature give thanks
for the pollen and bloom that feeds a neighbor.
The things that do not nourish us
can still keep our communities alive.

Independent People

Dear HDHK,

You still have a book of mine. And every time I think of it, the irony puts salt into my blood. There’s a bitter taste in my mouth but I smile and let it linger because it’s real and honest and will probably be funny the further away from today that I get.

Do you remember which book it is? 

Independent People. The book that I didn’t understand but in which you were able to see the humor. I couldn’t finish it and you took it up. I realized too late that passing that book was a prophecy in its own way. This book based on the struggle for the protagonist to be independent, to make his family independent. This belief that being independent is more important than every other human quality. I didn’t find it funny because the author relied upon miscommunication between the characters for all of his jokes. 

Do you see it? The echo of us in the book, the book reflecting us. You trying so hard to be the independent people. Us talking and talking but never communicating successfully, never understanding. Maybe if I could have seen the larger picture, our miscommunication would have been less painful. Maybe if I valued being independent more, I would have had a chance at a happy ending. I don’t know how the book ended. Part of me wants to read it to see if there’s a solution I could use in a vague hope of bringing the metaphor home to rest. Maybe you can tell me how it went.

We are all a secret world unto ourselves.

The trails and canyons carved by blood make no sense to me. Sometimes you grow up with someone for years or decades only to turn a corner and fail to recognize them.

And yet there are times when all of the obstacles like time and distance and chance seemed stacked against you from the start but you find each other anyway. There's a pause and you stare into eyes full of the same surprise and say "You are like me, I am like you. We belong and are bound together."

I do not know how the blood that we share with others determines when it will betray or forget you and when it will break your fall. I am trying to let the mystery comfort me. I know how to anticipate disappointment but somehow the blessing always surpasses surprise.

my anxiety has been in control more often than not lately

i couldn't tell you why with precision but i can show you a thousand paper cuts on my lungs and the an equal number of compact weights hanging from my heart. all of the things i care about beat like butterflies with sharpened wings. it hurts to breathe. it hurts to care.

and i am so mortal, so human, so at the mercy of metaphor just to understand what i feel or think or am.

am i more than the sum of my weaknesses?

Life is speeding up. I don't know the exact cause but I am certain that the trees beside the road don't stay in view for as long as they used to.

If my brain had a mouth, it would be full. I have so many undigested thoughts. Today, the mouth of my brain is chewing on anger.

I'm learning to accept that I have so much anger even though no one wants me to be angry. When people ask me how I am, I want to say "roiling"--which is a word that for a long time I thought I had made up. But I didn't; it's real and it describes the river inside of me better than my own name.

I don't tell hardly anyone about my anger because I don't know what to do with it. And even though I don't know what to do with my anger, I already know that too few other people are trustworthy enough to share it with. I am not supposed to be angry. I will be told about forgiveness. I will be told about peace. But there is no peace and forgiveness comes later. Right now, I have the pain and the pain produces anger.

I don't want to be angry forever. But I want to be angry long enough to understand what is happening inside of me and why. I have met too many humans who tried to suffocate their anger rather than live with it. None of them are happy or whole. And I, greedy thing that I am, want to be both even if it means that today and tomorrow I am angry.

There are stories that I tell that make my listener feel uncomfortable. It doesn't matter how progressive they think they are, everyone has taboos. If not taboos, then boundaries. If not boundaries, then places inside themselves where they would rather not look. My stories often resonate with such places.

I am a person who has always talked too much about my own trauma. I feel compelled to with a force like blood pumping. That is to say, unconsciously, rhythmically, reliably. I have catalogued the critiques and wondered if they might be true. I can't let go. I'm bitter. I can't move on. People don't know how to respond. People will worry. It makes your family look bad. It isn't respectful. And so on.

But I tell these stories for one reason: they are mine. In all of the confusion that I have lived through, I have had to fight for the right to speak with honesty about what I have experienced. And I know that it makes people uncomfortable. Living through it was uncomfortable. But it happened and I'm still here.

I know it makes people I love look bad. It might even make me look bad for loving people with such great flaws, for holding onto them so long. But if they were worried about the stories I would tell, they could have chosen differently. They could have chosen better. I didn't write the story, I am only reading it off of the page. And I will continue reading because it reminds me that those things happened, finished, and yet I remain. In many cases, the relationship with the person remains. I was a victim and now I am more.

Love marches over the bombed out spaces of my heart and teaches me that resurrection is possible. Renewal is all but inevitable. Remaking yourself is a skill you can learn.

I know no one who has escaped trauma. When I think of that, I am made sober. Trauma is everywhere but the silence around it is thick. Vulnerability is not valued. I am trying to give an example of how you make it through without losing yourself, without compromising, and without apologizing for surviving. I haven't finished learning, but this is not something you can master without practice which is to say without some failure.