And the Oscar goes to...

This is the year that the Oscars became truly diverse.  Not symbolically.  Not with tokenism.  But truly, authentically diverse.  So many actors and filmmakers of different colors - and a second female Best Director!  The tide is turning.

But there are battles still to come.  If everyone is going to get her fair share, some people are going to have to give up theirs, and they may not want to.  I may be one of those.  I want to be generous, support what I believe in and know is right; I want to make a difference.  But on my terms.  I don't want to risk anything big or important to me.  I'm not a Tubman.  I'm not proud to admit this, but it's true.  I hold the right ideals, but don't actually want to do very much about them.  Like most people of privilege, I enjoy what I have and don't want to give any of it up.  I just want the brownie point for right thinking, as though that were enough.

I know it's not considered progressive to think in terms of a zero sum game, but certainly for everyone to have enough, those with more than enough are going to have to let go of some of what we have, right?  Is that how the country will become more fair, more equitable, more just?  Is that how the old, old wounds of racism and inequity will heal?  Can they heal?  Surely these wounds were inflicted so long ago, they have scarred over.  Which may take excision to remove.  Which is a more violent process than  healing. 

I don't know.  Equity seems almost more out of reach than ever these days.  For one thing, there are so many of us, and so many are so angry, no doubt partly because of the changes happening all around us.  That anger is fear-based, people afraid of change, afraid of losing what we've got, and that fear makes us brittle and suspicious.  It's discouraging. 

Still, there was the Oscar telecast, which showed the whole world what a fairer world can look like, a world in which talent and skill are rewarded regardless of color and gender.  That's something.  That is something.  After all, with enough drops, the bucket will eventually fill.

To my friends and family, just in case

I can't help but think about what life will be like, what state I'll be in, should the worst happen and Sweet Hubby dies before me.  (He has promised I get to go first, but we both know a promise like that can't always be kept.)  I've been composing a message that I would want to send to the most important people in my life, should that happen.  I'm writing it now because I don't know if I will be capable of it then.

"Dear loved ones, I'm going to need help to survive this.  I need someone to make sure I eat once in a while, and drink lots of water, and take a shower now and then.  I need to know that Flow is taken care of.  If you are able, please come, for a few hours or a few days, whatever you can do without neglecting your own life.  I'll have the futon set up.

"But please only come if you can be with me as I go through this.  Don't try to make me feel better.  Just be with me.  It's probably going to be hard and scary.   I have to know that you will take care of yourself, too.  If for any reason you can't come, know that you will never have to apologize or explain.  I trust you to know what you are capable of, what you have to give.

"Someone please step up and coordinate with the others.  Thank you in advance for your love and company."

I'm fortunate to have people in my life I could send this to, people I trust, people who care and will show up if they can.  May there never be a need.

Big guns and small changes

I have just read an editorial describing Russia's military build-up along the Ukraine border.  The editorial claimed Russia's intentions are unclear.

In my experience, people who carry guns want to use them, find reasons to use them.  Russia's intentions are absolutely clear: to intimidate and threaten and prove they are ready and willing to carry out their threats.  They have the weapons and they have the will, and there's not much doubt they will use both.

I suppose if I were in charge of a country, I would understand the desire/need to take what I wanted from whomever else in order to grow/succeed/feel safe.  But since I'm not in charge of much of anything, I look at acts of aggression, such as Russia's toward Ukraine and China's toward Hong Kong and Taiwan, and wonder at what seem unnecessary and rather barbaric greed and shows of force.  I know there is always a complex dance going on between countries as each one tries to maintain and improve its standing in the world and the lives of its people - or at least of its leaders.  But will we as a species ever outgrow the need to aggress against others?  Because of course the national aggressions are only larger and more formidable examples of the smaller aggressions humans inflict on one another every day.  

And maybe that's the point I'm trying to make to myself.  I can't do much about Russia militarizing its border with Ukraine, but I can certainly become more aware of my own acts of aggression, hostility, threat.  When I'm at my most sensitive, I understand that even speaking sharply to someone, or being sarcastic, or gossiping, all are ways I assert my power, or try to.  So I guess if I do those, I oughtn't to be surprised that the leaders of countries do the same sorts of things on a much grander and more dangerous scale. 

Will it really make a difference if I finally rid myself of my own hostility and unkindness?  I suppose if everyone on the planet were able to, there might be a chance we could all settle down and create a finer and more equitable life for all.  But I am just one, so could my own healing actual help heal the entire planet?  It doesn't seem likely.  It's also all there is for me to do, because if I can't, how can I expect anyone else to?  

"Oh Lord, thy sea is so big and my boat is so small."

The luxury of my feelings

Lately I find I'm terribly sensitive and feel fragile.  A recent minor and quickly corrected miscommunication with a friend left me weeping for an hour.  I get inordinately angry at inanimate objects, overly frustrated when something I'm cooking doesn't turn out, and I sometimes become rebellious against Sweet Hubby so quickly and unexpectedly that it takes us both by surprise.

As lovely a marriage as we have, as splendid a husband as he is, SH and I most definitely butt heads now and then, and when I'm as emotionally thin-skinned as I am these days, I usually end up fighting harder than I need to.  I'm up against a lot when we disagree.  He is highly educated with, as I like to joke, "more degrees than a thermometer", while I'm a college drop out.  He is an only child who never had to learn to share and is used to being in charge of his life and not having to compromise, while I grew up with siblings.  I often come to him for help (usually with the tech which dominates our lives), while he almost never turns to me unless he is sick.  And he is a man.  All of this places him in a position of invisible power, power he would never consciously wield, but which is understood in a native way, the way dogs understand who is alpha and who needs to show her belly.  The trouble is, I'm used to being the alpha in my own life too.  I'm not educated, but I'm terrifically smart and strong.  But because of the advantages I'm aware he has, I too often feel powerless.  When he and I are toe to toe, all I've got is guts and instinct.  Fortunately for me, he is man who can be reasoned with, who can listen and explain or amend.  But that's only when I come at him with reason.  When I lead with the heat emotions, as I seem to be doing more of lately, then he also fights from a place of defense and survival.

I understand this emotional fragility I'm feeling.  Four years of the ignorance, hypocrisy, corruption, and mendacity from the Trump administration, and this last year + of COVID anxiety, as well as the social and racial divide that has come noisily to the surface rightly demanding to be dealt with, along with the continuing and growing threat climate change poses, these circumstances have worked on all of us, grinding away at our sense of safety, our hope for the future, our trust in our leaders.  I'm surprised any of us are still standing.

Yet even as I give way to tears, self-pity, and lashing out, I'm aware that the ability and right to have and express these feelings are privileges not afforded to many people.  I don't imagine the people in Yemen, in Syria, in Palestine, in COVID-ravaged households have the luxury of pouting because their avocadoes have brown spots, or of throwing temper tantrums because their marriage partner said something that hurt their feelings.  I don't imagine the people living in the ever-growing number of tent communities around the city have the luxury of saying "I'm bored, I kind of don't feel like doing anything today, I'm slightly depressed and think I'll just pull the covers over my head."  I don't imagine someone who is working full time from home as well as educating and entertaining four children has the luxury of saying "I'm so sensitive, I should just take a day off."

We feel what we feel, we think what we think.  I know that.  But I also know that it behooves me (isn't that a great word?) to stay as aware as possible of how fortunate I am, not to take it for granted, and always to keep in mind that indulging my feelings is a luxury I have not earned but have been given by the good fortunate of whatever mighty forces come together to make up my life.

Naked I stand - and stand and stand and stand

In my rather unstructured life, I've had many, many jobs: bank teller, ticket seller at a porno theater, guinea pig contestant for game shows in development, Paddington Bear in children's cancer wards, carpenter on a crew building sets for fashion shows, imagination tutor to a 10-year-old, Amtrak reservation clerk, hogie-maker, vehicle maintenance clerk for Coca-Cola, office manager for a Beverly Hills real estate company.  

The job I had longest is one of the least conventional. For 30 years, I was an art model.  This is the job that was both easiest (no training necessary, no special skills needed besides the willingness to be naked in front of strangers and the ability to hold still) and the hardest (it can be very, very boring and sometimes painful).

When Sweet Hubby and I flew to Tennessee early in our marriage so that I could meet his (devoutly Baptist) mother, the subject came up of what I do for a living.  I was concerned about losing her approval, but certainly didn't want to pretend to be other than I am, so I said "I'm a model for art classes", hoping the art in the classes would redeem me.  She gave it a moment's thought, then asked, in her thick accent, "With or without clothes?"  "Sometimes with but usually without."  She thought for another moment, then said kindly "Well, you just keep warm."  And I knew we would be all right.  Which we were.  

For some reason, I have always been unself-conscious about my body.  In the first class I was hired for, I had a moment of queasiness in the second before I took off my robe, but once I'd passed that marker, I was at ease for the remainder of my career.  I was always treated respectfully, usually as an object (this is one arena in what objectification is appropriate), although in some of the classes I modeled for frequently, the teachers and I, and sometimes the students, dealt with one another as people with personalities and lives outside of class.

I was much in demand (my ego loved that) because I enjoyed taking eccentric poses, with twists and bends and off-kilter balance.  My favorite classes were the ones in which I did mostly short poses, one minute, five minutes, ten minutes.  My least favorite were the sculpting and painting classes, which called for one pose for the three hours of class for a series of up to ten classes.  Those were awful,  Even a reclining pose is painful after a while; something always hurts or goes numb.

Fortunately for me, art classes need every sort of body, so I continued to do this work even as I aged, gained weight, became less strong and less limber.  At one institute, there was a teacher who gave anatomy classes; for the class on skeletons, he hired a thin model; for the class on muscles - you get the idea.  I was hired for the session on fat and aging.  Which didn't bother me at all.  I know how old I am, and I know what I look like.  I was happy to be someone who could cheerfully fill that need, as older models are harder to find.

I don't know why I'm so comfortable naked. There's something about bodies which intrigues and enchants me.  They are so fragile and so resilient.  So beautiful and so odd looking.  They betray us in so many ways, and also are able to heal themselves almost miraculously.  We identify and are identified with them and by them, and yet they are are not who we are; they are merely the meat package which allows our Selves to experience the world.  What a gift that is, to be able to smell baking bread, and hear a Scott Joplin rag, and see the intricate mosaic tiling of a mosque, and taste a perfectly ripe peach, and feel the velvety fur of little girl cat Stachie.  To be able to hold another person's body in an embrace.  (Oh my lord, do I miss hugging.  How have single people survived this era of distancing?)  I think we should all stand naked in front of a mirror now and then and celebrate what we see, with no judgment nor condemnation, but just to glory for a moment in the gift of our corporeality. 

Looking back, looking forward

Friends and I were Zooming recently, and one of them was talking about how, now that the time of lockdown may be coming to an end, he regrets he didn't read more last year.  But I think we should all be very gentle and kind to ourselves, instead of judging or criticizing.  For one thing, of course, if you want to read more, or do anything you haven't done, start now.  But more than that is the recognition that this has been an incredibly stressful year, politically, socially, physically, emotionally, and mentally.  It's an accomplishment to have gotten through it with our spirits intact.  It's not nothing to still be able to be cheerful and to greet the longer, warmer days with expectation and eagerness.

Also, Sweet Hubby and I have agreed we are going to carry masks with us from now on.  It was great to go through an entire year without a cold, so any time we are in a restaurant or theater or plane, if someone is coughing and sniffling, we can protect ourselves.  I wish I'd had a mask on the tour through Spain my sister and I took a couple of years ago.  One of our fellow tourists got on the bus with a bad cough, and within a week, almost everyone was sick, some of us direly enough to need a trip to the hospital for x-rays and medication.  Now that would have been a good time for a mask.