Not Understanding My Skin

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In their newest article, The Well Written Woman discusses the issues brought forth by the events in Ferguson, MO. I will not be discussing that, not by a long shot. I am woefully uninformed and far from qualified to do so. However, their opening paragraphs struck me as something that I could easily say about my own self [applicable portions bolded]:

“I don’t even know where to start with the rat’s nest of social justice issues that need to be addressed in the midst of all that is happening in the aftermath of the shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown and the ensuing (justifiable) outrage of the people of Ferguson, MO.

I don’t know that I’m even remotely qualified to discuss it.

I don’t know the struggle people of color face in their every day lives, with the police, with the systemic racism that permeates our culture.

I’m white.

I don’t know a damn thing about what it’s like to be black in America.

I can observe what it’s like. I can recognize injustice when I see it. I can empathize with the pain of another human being, but I have no frame of reference to be able to sympathize.

I am blessed with the privilege of being surrounded by diverse people. That diversity has opened my heart and shattered it and rebuilt it over and over again.”

Yes, I am black. No, I have no idea of the hardships and struggles that seem to be synonymous in this country with that state of being. I personally don’t know a damn thing about what it means to be black in America. Though I have been back and forth to the States all my life, I grew up on an island in the Caribbean, amongst a family and community of all shapes and colors, a country composed of multiple ethnicities. Were there cases of racism? Oh, yes! I would be an innocent fool to think otherwise. But I have been fortunate enough in my life, both there and here in the States, to never have personally encountered injustice based solely on the color of my skin, or, if I have, it wasn’t anything that mattered enough for me to notice. But can I say something? I notice that other people notice that I am unbothered, or at least not enraged.

When I was in college, I took an American Literature class and, of course, we came upon African-American literature and the Harlem Renaissance. I was one of two black students in the class, me being an English Education major and him a theatre/directing major. He was very enthusiastic and passionate about this period of literature and the authors and elected to do his class lecture assignment during this segment of the semester. After my fellow student gave his lecture, which was fabulous, the professor stepped up to me as I pulled my things together to leave class and he asked if I was enjoying the class. I assured him that I very much was, and he seemed surprised by that. I asked him why and he explained to me that, frequently, when he had African-American students, they usually seemed to really enjoy the Harlem Renaissance portion of the class but I seemed rather blase about it. I admitted that, while I found some portions of Harlem Renaissance literature interesting, there will always be a part of it that is lost to me. I have not the sense of injustice or righteous anger that seems to pervade a great portion of the literature; I fail to understand or be able to sympathize with it. Therefore, some of the emotion and levels inherent in the writing were inaccessible to me then and still are now.

So in this situation with MO, I find that I am woefully ill-equipped to understand and discuss this situation, which is why I haven’t even brought it up in conversation or watched most of the news coverage or read the stories on it. All I know is that there is a great deal of heartbreak, anger, violence, and, grieving, broken people involved and no amount of talking on my part, particularly from my position in life, is going to do any good. All I can do is pray for everyone involved and that is what I am doing.

It brings to stark relief how good of a life I have had and still have. When I tell my husband that my daughter and I have gone out shopping or something during the day, sometimes he will ask if we saw anyone we knew or if anyone say hi to us or anything. The reason, he tells me, is that he wants us to feel comfortable where we live and to never feel like we need to worry or be afraid or nervous. Want the truth? I have never worried about anywhere that I have lived in my life. I have never feared for myself (or my daughter) because of the color of my skin. Maybe that is blissful ignorance and obliviousness on my part, but, regardless, it is something that I am continually grateful for.

Article Commentary: How Technology Affects the Way We Write

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Two years ago, I discovered my favorite sound. I was sitting at my desk in my eighth-grade Language Arts classroom, my students writing away at a timed assignment that I had given them. It had to be written BY HAND in class, and, in that moment, I discovered my favorite sound: the tap-tap-tap of a pencil or pen against a desk as it writes on a sheet of paper (or the scratch of a pencil against a notebook/notepad). The audible action of writing. I marveled at how beautiful it was to me and I just basked in it for the two more minutes that my students wrote.

In his article “How Technology Affects the Way We Write“, Dean Fetzer describes some of the huge changes in technological hardware over the centuries and millennia and how these have affected the writing process. One of the largest effects is the change in not only the way we write but in the way that we think about our writing. Handwriting and editing necessitate thought and contemplation, not only of the words that we write but the shape our writing is taking. This consideration is not something that spell/grammar-checker can do for you. Much like Fetzer, the irony that I am writing this post in WordPress on my laptop is not lost on me. No, not at all. But I simply cannot like this article enough. Fetzer is not calling for the destruction of all technology but is grateful for it. At the same time, however, he is honest about the shortcomings that result from being able to take what I would sometimes probably call “the short way” – in being able to pour whatever words we wish out into an electronic medium and then send it out into the world with nary another thought.

It is so true that technology has resulted in a proliferation of writing that…might not be all that good. I try to put thought into what I write, blog, etc., but I think that this huge surge in writing/publishing has intimidated me a bit. If I do ever write a book or a novel, I want it to be something of quality and substance, not just something I put out there because I can (that’s what my blog is for; it’s my Pensieve). I have known some authors, whose work I greatly respect and admire, who have self-published or even started their own publishing companies and I marvel at that all the time. It is an accomplishment beyond measure but one that takes a bravery that I do not ascribe to myself. I don’t know if I ever dreamt of being a world-famous author or of being able to make a living from my writing. I just…wanted to write stories. Ever since I was old enough to draw and speak-story as I did. I learned to read and write early on, so I could filter those stories in my brain out onto paper, some of which I still have.

I, for one, still very much believe in by-hand writing. I keep journals by hand, pen to paper, and have done so ever since I left for college fourteen years ago. I stock up on journals for the future, as a matter of fact. There are times when it only feels right to put pen to paper and write, before I ever even open my laptop. I still type up and then print out drafts of my work (academic, fictional, and even blog draft sometimes) to edit by hand; I enjoy making the paper “bleed”. The process just doesn’t feel complete to me if I don’t. I do not want to lose the ability to or the practice of thinking about what I write, considering the shape and size and form of what I am writing and the audience that will be consuming it, not just the words that flow from my pen or my fingers. I want what I write to not just be there; I want it to be good. 

A Lady’s Pretend Time

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My newest article posted on The Well Written Woman today:

In my bio blurb below, it notes that I am a wife, mother, writer, and reader, and this is all true. However, I am also a cosplayer, a belly dancer, and a LARPer. Yep, you read that correctly: I LARP. Though it has been more in the news and mainstream culture in recent years, there may still be some of you who are not aware of this hobbiest/gamer phenomenon. So allow me: LARP stands for “live action role play.”  What this means, in short, is character acting and improvisational storytelling.

As the annual GenCon gaming convention (Indianapolis) draws upon us, so too do I draw near to one of my few times of escape during the year. But this year’s GenCon convention will be slightly different. This GenCon weekend, for the first time in about three years, I will walk into a brand new (to me) LARP game, full of people I do not know, with a system unfamiliar to me. And that is a simultaneously exciting, sobering, and terrifying thought. In 2005, when I started LARPing, I found myself shaking with nervousness at interacting with people I did not know, in an activity that I had never engaged in before. But it ended up being one of the most enjoyable times I had ever had. I am an introvert with a love for drama and theater, but I didn’t get the chance to participate in it much during grade school and only a little bit in college. So LARP has afforded me the wonderful opportunity to indulge in the thespian part of my personality.

I adore what my mother-in-law calls our “pretend time.”

I enjoy letting myself fall away and occupying the skin and life of someone else for a while, someone who may be similar to or vastly different from me. There is a sense of freedom to inhabiting the mind of another person, however made-up they may be, to letting their confidences or fears wrap around me and acting accordingly. I once played a character that had been in an accident and the fear center of her brain destroyed because of it. Now that was fun as well as challenging. I think like my characters, move like they do, speak like they do. Oh, Mel is still here, of course, but she is sitting back and enjoying “pretend time.” And pretend time is lots of fun when you can do it with other people. My mother-in-law teases my husband and me that we apparently didn’t get enough pretend time as children. We assure her that we most certainly did but we enjoy it so why give it up?

As a woman, I can only speak to LARP from my perspective. I would assume that my experience is different from that of most of my male fellow LARPers, but only they can tell you that for certain. For me, being a woman in LARP, there weren’t any ground-breaking revelations or anything of the like. When I started LARPing, half of the game was female (some of whom would become some of my closest friends) and it has never felt out of place to me. Women like *Ellora and *Iris have commanding presences and immense creativity – in character and out – that I have always admired, as well as having very warm hearts that were welcoming, kind, caring, and encouraging, something I dearly needed at that time in my life.

I understand that, for a long time, gaming, comics, fantasy, etc., were considered to be the domain of males, with the odd woman here and there as an aberration. If you have ever seen the show “The Big Bang Theory”, one of my favorite episodes is when Penny, Amy, and Bernadette venture to the local comic shop to find out why their boyfriends are so into comics. Every male in the shop turns around and stares as they enter, the owner eventually telling them,“They are just girls, nothing you haven’t seen before in movies or drawings,” and then later threatens, “I swear I will turn a hose on you!” when they cease to stare.

Now, I’ve been there, walked into a game store before and heard all conversation cease, as I was the only female in the establishment at the time. I didn’t understand it then and I don’t really now, but I didn’t let it bother me. I knew exactly what I wanted, found it on the shelf, bought it, and then hurried home to read my new treasure (for those who want to know, it was White Wolf’s Invictus sourcebook for their Vampire: The Requiem game). In all seriousness, though, I’ve never considered myself to be making forays into a males-only domain.

Again, when I began LARPing almost ten years ago (yes, my dears, it’s been that long), there were almost more females than males in the troupe game where I started and that continues today. More and more we are hearing of the harassment issues that women are facing in geek culture, particularly in cosplay (costume play), but I don’t want those negatives to completely overshadow the large positives that I have experienced in activities like cosplay and, especially, LARP.

Through this hobby, I have gained confidence, broadened my creativity, had stories published, challenged myself to meet some personality goals, and had the wonderful opportunity to meet score upon score of amazing, talented people.

I like to make friends. It’s fun to meet new people, laugh with them, and get to know them. I find that I’m very enthusiastic about new friends as, often, they are the people who reach out to me. For someone who is largely introverted, this is a huge gesture to me and I am grateful for it. Eventually, folks find my deeper sides and often seem pleasantly surprised by them. At least I hope they are. But I have made some of my best friends in recent years through gaming and LARP, found some of the most powerful sides of myself – courage, wrath, passion, etc. – and found the means to be able to express all of these sides, all of these characters, safely. And, really, all I can do is thank all of those who have made it possible for me over the past nine years.

Thank you for encouraging me. Thank you for interacting with me. Thank you for the compliments. Thank you for helping me to shore and build up a shaky self-esteem over the years. Thank you for listening when I need an ear. Thank you for kicking my butt when I need it. Thank you for the inspiration and shared creativity. Thank you for the guidance. Thank you for answering my myriads of questions. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your community.

Thank you for welcoming me.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy.

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Changeling Ladies

Photo by Tyson Cook

Photo by Tyson Cook

 

The Daeva Meeting

On Down the Road (or The Road Goes Ever On and On…)

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Fourteen years ago this month, I packed up my life and headed off to college at the tender age of seventeen. I was excited. I was ready! I had visited the campus over the summer and had instantly felt at home and now I was here on a permanent basis (except summers) for the next four years. I was so ready! Ready for a new environment, new challenges, new friends, new life.  As the fall progressed, I was met with an entirely different style of learning than I had grown up with, challenges in the literature that I was reading, and the task of creating a whole new life and existence for myself.

I fell in love with the English department at my university, spending what free time I could spare between classes, homework, activities, and friends in the little lobby or in the office of my favorite professor, seeking his sage wisdom on a myriad of subjects or just having wonderful discussions. Dr. Larry Caldwell encouraged my discovery of Oscar Wilde and my love of Tolkien, we spoke in Elvish, sang in Rohirric, and honestly just enjoyed each other’s company. He was my Maiar in tweed and I still think he is just a wonderful person altogether.

I also embarked on the journey of making friends with complete strangers. During freshman Welcome Week ice breaker activities, we were told to find someone we didn’t know and hug them. I turned and hugged a young woman named Sarah, whom we would come to call Kietzie, who would become part of my integral circle of friends, composed mainly of a group of girls also in the class of 2004. We soon became known as the Freshman Gaggle or Catastrophe, depending on who you asked. Several of us were education majors, some Biblical Studies, and other areas of service, so we would see each other in class, in between, at meals, or just pop over to say hi and hang out. I loved that! Our doors and hearts were always open to each other in my large circle of friends, a hospitality that I have never forgotten and, I hope, learned from. There spontaneous trips to the movies, midnight shows to see Lord of the Rings before we all parted for Christmas break, snowfall ultimate frisbee, silly string pranks, shooting action movies around campus, and rewritten Christmas Carols.

In Student Christian Fellowship, I found a home for my faith and for my heart.  The servant family there took me in to their hearts and arms and became some of my dearest friends. The time that I spent on Focus Planning Committee was some of the best of my life, growing and laughing and serving with my friends. We spent Mondays planning and early evenings on Fridays setting up for services and then eating dinner together before everything got started. These people became my mentors, companions, my fellowship. And I have never forgotten them. Several of them and I are still in pretty frequent touch and see each other every few years. Life has taken us on our own paths, of course, but that doesn’t mean that we forget.

There are moments on the campus that were wholly unto myself. Like napping on the benches on the circle in between classes in the middle of the day (the bells would ring and wake me up in time, PLUS, I got to see Trent Tormehlon). Sitting on a blanket in the sunshine on the lawn behind Morton and Brentano, weaving a crown out of silk flowers and green pipe cleaner for the end-of-year costume party. Hurrying through campus on the first day of finals, the fog still on the flagstones and grass, dropping off bundles off cookies, still warm from baking, here and there for professors, friends, ministers, and mentors. Heading outside during the first snowfall my freshman year and just walking in the quiet night. Buying flowers to be delivered in secret on Valentine’s Day, sneaking into dorms to leave presents, or hurrying to the campus mail box that I knew was picked up first in the morning so I could send out notes of encouragement, cards, funny letters or what have you. These were moments I didn’t often talk about (though I’m sure I did once or twice) but they were precious to me and have stuck with me through everything. I smile just thinking about them.

Those four years in Evansville were some of the best of my life – the learning, the growth, the adventures, the challenges, the joys. I remember those years fondly and enjoy going back to U-of-E whenever I can. I can only pray that, when my daughter is grown and should she choose to attend college, that she will have as wonderful an experience as I did.

Maryandhercorrupters

Back in 2004. Some of my awesome friends, who are still very awesome today! ^_^

It All Started With a Shoe

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They are the sexiest pair of shoes I have ever owned, and when I say sexy, I mean it in the classiest way possible. The softest burgundy suede, criss-crossing over the tops of my feet, my black polished toes peeping out the front, which reveals a touch of the leopard print on the inside of the shoe. The heels make me four inches taller, lengthen my legs, and give me the stride of a starlet. Encouraging short skirts and form-fitting dresses, these pumps are the bold stroke on the canvas that is my fashion.

= =

It is the shoe you spy first upon entering the small, ambient-lit martini bar, her small foot shod in the burgundy confection, peeking around the corner of the soft leather couch. The shoe is classic and cunning, trapping you even before you know you are so. It leads you up from a dainty foot to a well-turned ankle, which flexes and points in rhythm with the soft jazz that plays. Your gaze is drawn up an elegant pillar of a leg, over tender, toned calf, grazing over her knee like a touch in and of itself. Her thigh disappears under the hem of her dress, which hugs shapely hips and waist, creating a lovely S-curve silhouette as she leans against the arm of the couch. Her eyes are downcast into her glass, the gold and red of her amaretto sour and pomegranate simultaneously mingling and sitting suspended in her hand. Her expression is serene, drawing you to wonder just what is on her mind. And it all started with a shoe.

Fiction: A Made-For Voice

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Her voice was made for lullabies. For those soft, murmured sounds that come in the darkness of goodnight. Her voice was not made for opera halls or concert stages, to ring in peals of rapturous sound. It was fashioned from warm honey, comforting cream, and candlelight, designed for the dark spaces, to make the soft shadows sweet and the scary ones safe. It hummed in her chest and whispered on her lips. It kissed childish eyes and chased away all-too-grown-up fears. Her voice was made for lullabies, to be the heart’s guardian in the dark.

The Woman in the Red Shoes

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She walks with stars in her eyes.

The heartbeat of the earth in her hips.

Her smile is painted in sweet red, dipped and soaked to shod her feet.

Her steps are cunning, her labors secret.

She will ply and think and speak and scheme.

Be wary and aware!

The woman in the red shoes has her claws in you.

The Commiseration of the Hidden

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When Ben and I first met, one of the things we bonded over was the truth of masks. What I mean by ‘the truth’ is that we both wore them and we knew it. And, for once, we were able to be honest with someone about it. I don’t meant that I hadn’t talked to close friends about it before but Ben’s understanding of what I meant seemed to go to a deeper level than anyone I had spoken to of it before.

The masks I wore, I had worn for years. They were old companions. The heaviest and most painful one of all was Perfection, seconded only by Expectation. I remember the crippling fear that I felt upon the thought that people whom I had known all my life would find out that I wasn’t perfect, that I wasn’t everything they thought I was, who they expected me to be. That I was flawed. It made me cry and despair that, if it were ever known, I would lose everything and everyone. I had to be perfect. I had to be what everyone expected. Perfect daughter, perfect student, perfect Christian, perfect girl. So I tied the mask on tighter,so tightly that it cut into my soul. When I met Ben, as we talked and got to know each other, I recognized the mask he wore and we found that we could help each other take it off, with a person who was so intimately familiar with the mask that they knew how to remove it without hurting us, without flinching, and without rejecting the person beneath it. No judgement, no condemnation, just understanding, acceptance, care, and love.

Even before I met Ben, I had realized that I had come to know the masks better than my own face. I had lost myself beneath the layers and I wanted to — needed to — learn ME. I wanted to claw myself away, strip the skin, the identity of years and years, down to the tender flesh beneath and start again. Not that I regretted my life, no. I was loved and blessed. But I wanted to be ME and ME alone, not a me that I had to hide beneath a mask because I feared rejection. So I started, and I am not done. I am still in the process of learning and becoming who I am, even at 31 years of age. It is not an easy process by any means. It is painful, it is vulnerable, it is a risk. It is not easy to confront myself, to learn things about myself, to be unapologetic for being myself. But it is worth it, if I allow it to be so.

I do not approach life like anyone else does; I am unique in my particular combination of ways. I want to be understood, like anyone else, but I must accept and deal when I am not. I am learning to give grace to myself as well as to others when it is needed, when I could indeed be much harsher. I want my reactions to be conscious decisions, not emotional outbursts because that is not helpful to the betterment of the situation.

I have personas, yes – wife, mom, teacher, etc. – but I am still Mel within them and, right now, the struggle is keeping Mel here and not falling once more into the trap of defining myself by what are, really, just parts of me. I want to be me. I want to be Mel – what I love, what I believe, how I am, who I am. And I want the rest to be detail.

Lyric Lines

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These are some of my old poems that I found the other day as my husband was tidying his den. I honestly don’t remember writing the second one but I like it. Poetry is not my strong suit; it stems from emotion and not from skill for me, but sometimes it’s all that will do to express, I’ve found.

= = =

Empty Holes

I wish there was a hole where my heart is.

A hole, big and empty.

Empty holes don’t hurt.

They don’t grow sad and despair.

Empty holes don’t make mistakes.

They don’t hurt others.

They just sit there, open to receive.

Whether someone stumbles in

Or jumps in.

Either way, it’s there.

Empty holes can’t feel the exquisiteness of joy.

Only to have it infringed upon and destroyed.

Empty holes can’t have strings broken, torn away.

Empty holes can’t lash out,

Even without meaning to.

In short,

Empty holes don’t feel.

But I do.

= = = =

A Child’s World

My world is one

Of dreams and wonders;

A world of fairy-tale games

And endless summers.

In my world, there is no voice

To say something isn’t real.

Whatever you imagine lives;

Reality has no seal.

My world is one where horses fly,

Girls can fight and win.

Where creatures talk, trees can dance,

And childhood needs never end.

Fantastic though my world can be,

It indeed has its limits few.

Things like true love, friendship, and trust

Can only come from me or you.

(Hoof)Beats of a Heart

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She had missed this. The warm scent filled her nostrils as she entered the stables, the soft whickering of its inhabitants ruffling over her skin. The early morning white-light left the stables still partially dark but there was enough light at the far end where the crossties were hitched. She stepped over to his stall, praying that he remembered her. As she approached, she clucked her tongue in the old familiar way and, within, she could hear a rustling in the straw.

The handsome Kiger mustang lifted his head over the door of his stall, ears pricked forward and alert to the sound. His nostrils flared as his brown eye found his visitor, and he turned his face to her, tossing that majestic head in welcome.

He remembered; and it made her want to cry for joy.

“Hey, there, handsome,” she crooned, reaching out a hand for him to wuff over before sliding it up his nose.

The horse whickered gently as he nosed her hand, arching his head and neck under her touch. She could feel his strength, the roll of his muscles under her touch, the flicker of his skin. She had missed this. Leading the gelding out of the stall, she reveled in the clip-clop of his shod hooves on the stable floor as she hitched him into the cross-ties. Whispering to him, she worked gently and efficiently, picking each hoof and testing him for lameness. That done, she then fetched the curry comb and dandy brush and began on his coat. First she combed through it with the curry comb to rid it of loose hairs before then moving on the to dandy brush. Patting the horse’s neck and murmuring softly to him, she then proceeded to brush his coat, first with quick strokes to rid it of dirt and dust and then longer strokes to silken and shine it. Setting down the dandy brush, she stepped into the curve of the horse’s neck, leaning her cheek against it as she ran her hands over his neck and over his whithers. Many a day they had stood just like this, only the sound of his huffing and breathing breaking the silence of understanding between them.

After a long moment, he turned his head in her direction, nuzzling his nose along her shoulder and giving her his own kind of hug. He remembered and was glad she did, too.