We've Moved

We here at The Road to Self have moved onto greener pastures.

You might be looking for this: http://slarue85.wordpress.com/.

Irish Poetry!

Today in my Modern British Authors class, we discussed this poem by Eavan Boland - an Irish, female poet. I haven't enjoyed MANY of the works we've read for this class. But we recently forayed into the great world of post-modernism and contemporary literature. I was so struck by this poem that I had to share:

"Anorexic" by Eavan Boland
Flesh is heretic.
My body is a witch.
I am burning it.

Yes I am torching
ber curves and paps and wiles.
They scorch in my self denials.

How she meshed my head
in the half-truths
of her fevers

till I renounced
milk and honey
and the taste of lunch.

I vomited
her hungers.
Now the bitch is burning.

I am starved and curveless.
I am skin and bone.
She has learned her lesson.

Thin as a rib
I turn in sleep.
My dreams probe

a claustrophobia
a sensuous enclosure.
How warm it was and wide

once by a warm drum,
once by the song of his breath
and in his sleeping side.

Only a little more,
only a few more days
sinless, foodless,

I will slip
back into him again
as if I had never been away.

Caged so
I will grow
angular and holy

past pain,
keeping his heart
such company

as will make me forget
in a small space
the fall

into forked dark,
into python needs
heaving to hips and breasts
and lips and heat
and sweat and fat and greed

For those of you who might be lost and don't have the benefit of the foot notes that I had access to, the speaker of the poem is Eve, and she wishes she could go back into Adam as his rib rather than stay her own entity. What I love about this poem is how the problematic aspects of religion are being compared to, in essence, a disease: woman feels so much pressure to be perfect, the only logical thing to do is to return to man to be redeemed from the "sin" of Eve. I think what struck home to me about this work is the comparison to becoming thin and beautiful, more near to the "perfect idealized" woman in order to become more righteous. The woman who is curvy and luscious, well, that woman is sinful. I see this in many ways in my own religious culture - the idea that if one can be a close to an ideal size or figure as possible, the more god-like and worthy she is. Additionally, another critique I love is that, in the speaker's mind, for her to be perfect, she needs to be absorbed in patriarchy to become whole. It's poems like these that make me realize that how great God truly is, and how great my curvy, luscious, and sometimes sinful womanhood is. Without these types of glaring, blasphemous critiques, I think I would feel alone. Anyways, food for thought - any other takers? And I should mention, I normally don't dig on poetry.

Also, and not entirely randomly since I just broke out in my semi-annual cold sores induced by stress, I wanted to let you all know, according to GentialHerpes.com, you CAN spread oral herpes to genitals. http://www.herpes.com/genitalinfo.shtml. I was more curious than anything since I've heard many different sides to the story, so thank you google for educating me!  

Summer Time... and the Reading's Easy

I hope you all enjoyed my Sublime reference/pun. So, my geeky intellectual friends and I have risen to the challenge of a former professor/kick-ass mentor and made summer reading lists. Here are mine: I hope you feel inspired... especially to read banned books!

1. "Animal Farm" by George Orwell

2. "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
3. "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
4. "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
5. "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury
6. "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
7. "High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby
8. "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabakov
9. "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi
10. "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis
11. "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie
12. "The Country Girls" by Edna O'Brien
13. "The Green Hills of Africa" by Ernest Hemingway
14. "The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman" by Angela Carter
15. "Selected Poems" by Eavan Boland
16. "The Foreskin's Lament" by Shalom Auslander

I feel a little like a cheater by making a summer reading list, because, right now, my summer looks to be indefinite - no more school, at least for a few years, and no job offers. But, in the grand tradition of Cedar City summers, I'll pick a 16 week summer to work with so that I can get some quality reading in. Thanks Todd, Rae, Joe, and Grburbank for the great idea! I think we should, at some point, compare and see if we are making our goals.

Side note - there are a lot of staples on here that I haven't had the time to read. I own many of the books on this list so rather than buy new ones, I shall peruse my own selection. Please don't judge me :)

There are some big names on here that I haven't read - which makes me kind of sad since I'm finishing my Master of Arts .... in LITERATURE. But, there's no time like the present to catch up!

Labels

I don't like them. At all.

I'm not going to be all "holier-than-thou" and say I never apply them, because I totally do. I'm working on it though.

One label I am constantly dodging, and admittedly omit until asked, is the fact that I'm Mormon. I don't like other Mormons to know I'm Mormon because frankly, they're disappointed when I don't meet their expectations of Mormon-ness. This is fine. Our church is about a personal relationship with God and I know that He loves me and my Mormon-ness.

I omit that I'm Mormon to those who are not because most of them have horror stories or super-creepy-all-too-personal questions that, frankly, are inappropriate and uncomfortable or loaded in nature. I'd rather people get to know me as the good person I'm trying to be and accept me for my values and how I practice those values as opposed to labeling me with a scarlet "M" that they are unwilling to see past. (And let me note, this is not everyone. My practice of omitting until asked began because of a choice few who were ass-hats.)

However, I have found peace in this practice, YEA, even joy :D No, really. I figure if someone really wants to know, they'll ask. And, it's usually the right kind of person, who already knows me, that asks and my Mormon-ness does not seem weird at that point. Allowing myself to live beyond a label - Mormon - has allowed me develop my life and path in a broader spectrum. I'm not confined to a certain attitude or word. I'm entitled to find useful purposes for doctrine and to think beyond the fact that "I'm Mormon so I can't." Doing this has also allowed me to question on a deeper and more meaningful level because in so many ways, Mormons can't or aren't allowed to question, but someone striving to live the doctrine of the L.D.S. church, or someone striving to live life to the fullest in any other context, can question and not be judged or condemned for doing so.

I felt the same relief from label-stress when I gave up on deciding to be Republican or Democrat.

That's one label I've been ditching.

However, in my particular case, I don't think labels would be completely useless. In light of a series of unfortunate incidents in the past six months, I think I SHOULD come with this label:

"Attention MOST men who are married or in serious/committed relationships and find themselves unhappy - you WlLL BE attracted to me. Don't worry, this is standard operating procedure. Just keep your thoughts and hands and phone numbers to yourselves. Single men who are looking for love - you WILL NOT be attracted to me. If you wish to be, get married or get serious and then wait to see if you find yourselves unhappy."

My Family Wins

No. Really. They do.

Let me explain why they win. I've been applying to jobs all over the country and my back-up plan has been returning to where I grew up in Southern California before we moved to Utah. My grandparents, some aunts and uncles and cousins, and very good friends still live in the same vicinity. While I've been hoping to get a good paying job and decided that I would move where I needed to move, I wasn't exactly excited about the prospect of having to start all over again - new friends, new church, new stores (it's so effing difficult to find items in new stores), new roads, etc., but no family. All the places I've been applying to will be far away and I'd most likely only get to see my family members once or twice a year. For some families, that's totally fine and perhaps even the preferred/necessary M.O. But, that's not my family: that's not me.

The more I thought about my back-up plan, the more I wanted it to be my real plan, even though there are very few positions open for faculty in SoCal right now. For my academically minded head, choosing to go there is irresponsible. What a waste, right? I've spent two years, thousands of dollars, and countless tears to put myself in the position to be a faculty member, not adjunct, not part-time, but full-time. This is what academia expects of me and this, without my realizing it, is the philosophy I've adopted for myself.

After two big conversations, Rae and Cynthia - thank you, I realized I needed to prioritize MY needs and after figuring them out, no one is going to convince me differently... except for that day I know will come in the future when my needs will actually change.

Many people will say I should use this time to pay off my student loans and get myself into a good school so I can get into a good Ph.D. program so I can be a good professor one day. Others will say I should be more independent or adventurous or less scared. And that's okay. They can say those things.

But I'll say, "This is what I'm choosing and it's making me happy." One day I will get into a good Ph.D. program and become a kick-ass professor. One day, my student loans will be paid off. Right now, my adventure is for once, listening to my heart and not my head. My adventure is returning to a place I said I'd never live again and finding peace in that decision. My adventure is trading probably monetary security for the likelihood of less money and being okay with that decision.

And this is why my family is awesome:

I called my mom last night and instead of talking me out of it, because she's one of the very rational voices in my head when I'm emotional, she said she knew I was making the right decision for myself.

I called my dad this morning. He said, "Follow your heart. You'll be successful wherever you go. If this is what your heart is telling you, it's right."

I told a couple of my cousins my plan and I immediately had two offerings for housing and genuine excitement at my return. They said they'd look for jobs and pray for me.

And this is why my family wins. We're a family that no matter what the circumstances are always there for each other. A laugh, some food, a good cry, or emotional support in the face of a life changing decision. I know not everyone is as lucky as me.

My decision to go to SoCal didn't even take 24 hours to be affirmed as a right decision because my family is kick-ass. I'm so thankful that my heart told me quality of life.

The Size of My Pants

I guess I can't play the "I never date" card or the "Opportunities never present themselves" card. I do have a fair amount of opportunities, but I really haven't had anyone I'd consider my boyfriend in over three years. There was one dude last April, but he turned out not to be so nice and even after a month of seeing each other almost everyday, I still did not give him the title of boyfriend - a very wise and empowering decision in retrospect since he turned out to be such a douchebag.

Last semester, there was one foray into dating and ended as badly as any could. It's taken me months to internalize and process one comment he said to me in October, so two nights ago, I think I was dealing with all the crap I haven't cried for.

This boy was actually a dear friend and one of my closest here in Flagstaff. We had awesome conversations about life and the Church, films, comic books, and Dexter. I could be myself with him. I trusted him. I thought he saw through the same social constructs I did, especially when it came to social Mormon ideologies. I thought, If this is not the man I'm meant to be with, I'm glad I know one can exist in the Church. So, most of all, he gave me an exponential amount of hope that if one day I do get married, I will not have to give up my creativity or my educational pursuits, that balancing motherhood, wifehood, and self would be a real possibility.

When I returned to Flag in August, we spent a lot of time together. I soon realized that the friend I had no feelings for and had always wanted to like.... well, I was beginning to deeply like him. After two months of trying to read between the lines, I was straight-up and honest - something he said he completely respected me for. He said he needed time to think.

After about a week, he came back and we had a lengthy conversation. There were many complications that I do not wish to discuss, but when it came to me, he said he had very much been entertaining the thought of being with me because he recognized the value or our type of friendship being the basis for a relationship. However, and I'm going to directly quote as far as my memory is reliable, he looked me in the eye and said, "You know, whenever I think about dating someone, she's a supermodel. And well, you're not a Size 2."

He said he ultimately didn't think he could date me for a few other reasons, but, I have dated someone who was emotionally abusive, and I think this may be one of the most hurtful things anybody has ever said to me. Ever.

Right then and there, I knew I had no more feelings for him, and upon further reflection, I no longer want to be friends with him. Because you know what buddy? Damn straight I'm not a size 2 (paradoxically, neither is he... surprising, I know). I will NEVER be a size 2 and how dare you place the value of my love and abilities to be an amazing partner in a relationship on the size of my pants.

That process took milliseconds to work out in my head - thankfully. But what I have struggled to regain is my faith. This person that I thought more highly of than many others, trusted, confided in, and appreciated for a year in one sentence undid everything I did have faith in. (This probably explains my recent foray into dating/being interested in only non-members.)

I lost my faith because, while yes, perhaps I should have not been so trusting or put all of my faith eggs in one big, unworthy basket, in my ways, I feel like I've lost the opportunity to find someone who will do for me the things I know I am deserving of. If it takes a whole year to find out the true heart of a person, specifically a person I'm interested in, then how can I have faith?

And that... that is something I am still working on reconciling.