My Mom Wanted to Be Amish

Published on by Lisa Category: Uncategorized

Happy Birthday to my mother who birthed me cesarean.

Growing up, my mom wanted to become a nun. Then, when she emigrated to the States, she loved the Amish. She thought the women radiated natural beauty, sans foundation and blush. Thus led to my thinking that Witness was one of the greatest thrillers of the 80s.

After moving to Ohio when I was 8 years old, I had my first glimpse of the Amish. The horse and buggy, simple clothing, and quiet demeanor, I sometimes confused them with Target shopping Menonites. What I always noticed first was their cleanliness, glowing with innocence, happiness, and earnest attempt to be good in this often filthy world. I may not know everything about the Amish, but their simplicity spoke volumes of their culture. I felt this community was something rare and deserving of honor.

This latest tragedy of 11 young schoolgirls, who were first sifted through a classroom with boys and adults, and shot in the head by a tormented man has shaken me. But what has more moved me is the Amish response. They have requested privacy for funerals and have outreached to the surviving members of the murder’s family. Relying on faith, not vengeance, the Amish have reacted with the pain and confusion of their humanity, but have acted with the forgiveness and healing of their divinity. It’s beyond remarkable, beyond heartwrenching.

I’m sure that not every soul affected in the Amish community is as pure as the media has pegged. I’m sure that many struggled with unfathomable grief, fear, and outrage, but the bottom line of their lifestyle is that they live their lives for what they are. They do not try to make themselves more sophisticated or advanced. They don’t play the stupid games of showing off homes and cars; the latest technology and backseat entertainment has no place in their lives. The essential and natural course of life – family, faith, simplicity, and even unexplained tragedy – are embraced, lived, mourned, and forgiven.

Bush…err- all of us – take a seat and learn.

Love’s Way of Coping

Published on by Lisa Category: Uncategorized

Anytime I post about Adonis, I am revisited by two fears. One: By exuberantly exploding over how f*cking amazing he is, I am basically smearing my lovefest into the faces of people who may turn away in disgust and/or loneliness. I don’t want to contribute to that. or Two: By blatantly baring my love for this man of a man, inadvertently, I may contribute to heterosexism.

Let’s get something straight here.

Adonis, when I fell in love with him, was on his way to the seminary to become a catholic diocesan priest. Can I say from experience – you have MINIMAL to NO control over who you truly fall in love with. Luckily for us all, he looked into my chocolate eyes, ran his hand over my brown skin and thought, “There shall be no fracas! Who am I to resist this feminist sprite?”

And so the rest is herstory.

And so, if you read this and think to your gay self, “Oh, another straighter.” Know that some of the closest friends and family in my life are gay and lesbian and I’m about as uncomfortable with that as I am with a hot pot of steaming jasmine rice with fresh garlic adobo. (translation: there is nothing BUT familiarity and love)

And so, if you read this are are ready to throw yourself off a balcony, thinking luv has kept and treated you amiss – get over yourself and enjoy. Life is far too delicious to spend it lamenting something you have no control over. And while we’re at it – some advice: STOP TRYING TO CONTROL.

Anyhoo, last night I was in the puddle of sadness and anxiety. One of those nights were you swear nothing is actually wrong, but nothing feels completely right either. I HATE IT. It’s this horribly nebulous cloud that leaves me feeling like a blob of indecision and restlessness.
Adonis puts on his astronaut shoes (aka size 13 white sneakers) and whisks me away to downtown, where, for whatever reason, the big skyscrapers, bright lights, and people walking around relax me. One taco (for me) and one m&m mcflurry (for him) later, we head back to our apartment and my anxiety is gone. He ends the night whispering in my ear, “I will always be there for you.”

My dreams last night were soft, fluid, and utterly forgettable. No yelling, no nightmares. No kicked off blankets or disappointments known. I woke up, peacefully, wishing the world had a life partner like mine.

Gender/ace

Published on by Lisa Category: Some Better than Normal Writings

You know what’s kind of nuts about blogging? It’s like you’re a celebrity of some sort. People read you, want to know you, think your thoughts are outrageous or kind or ridiculous. Bloggers provide a snippet of their lives, think of the best way of how to tell it, and then broadcast it from Yugoslavia to the Badlands of the Dakota.

Whether my thoughts are read in a highrise or in a cyber cafe, there’s a uncontrollable feature of blogging that I must become accustomed: I cannot be responsible for how each word is taken. I can only write my truest thoughts and send them forth, hoping they implant themselves safely in an open noggin and jog around a bit.

If you haven’t noticed, or been cued up to speed: I’m not of euro-descent. I’m not “White,” or Anglo-saxen, or Caucasian. Like it or not, this is part of my bloggy. It’s part of my blog because IT’S PART OF MY LIFE. Everything deemed normative behavior, normative advertising, normative vernacular, normative knowledge stems from white folks. Now, there’s knowing that fact is true and then there’s KNOWING that fact is true. If you can read that sentence without confusion and nod, read on. If you have to go back and read that sentence again, but get it eventually, read on. If you’re reading this part and are hoping you’ll eventually catch on, click off and go educate yourself.

I’m moving into a part of my life where race – the uncomfortable, “oh, i don’t know enough about history, but i’m still going to make a comment,” issue – is central. Gender and race and no longer two separate entities. They’ve merged. It’s Genderace. And when you wake your Genderace beast within, you’ve got a helluva lot to say.

People must learn that we are not all born equal. We should, but we’re not. We cannot create solidarity simply because we titled ourselves, “liberal,” and there are degrees of racism, so deeply embedded that even the most progressive thinkers find themselves uttering thin and narrow slivers of oppression in their speech. Listen closely. We are all shaped by racism. But even the deconstructing instructions for race has mostly been written and distributed by white people. But it takes more than dining at Ambar and Bankok Palace, reading up on the elections, and making friends with a black individual to call yourself enlightened.

The color of my skin changes. I’m most fair in November through Februrary. I’m darkest July and August. I have passed Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiian, Malaysian, Spanish, Filipina, Greek, Jewish, Korean, Thai, Nicaraguan, Salvadorean to name a few. I speak only one language fluently (English), but can understand Tagalog and can hold Spanish conversations. I’m many things.

Why do I write that? Because I’m sick and tired of people thinking that race is this one big deconstructing party where everyone’s invited to the White house to hear WOC speak. What needs to be said is not just WOC’s experiences, but this: DO your own work. Work out your OWN shit. READ up on yourself, your roots, and how your privilege comes at someone else’s expense. Stop thinking Peggy McIntosh’s Unpacking White Privilege is the answer to your own biased views. WOC are oppressed more than white women in insidious, invisible ways. There are degrees of violence, susceptibility, and privilege within genderace that you must be awakened to before you can truly call yourself an ally. In this age of relativism and my changing skin color, one thing is true to this day: you cannot, ever, for one day, stop fighting for equality. It’s just a moment’s slip away.

To Do List

Published on by Lisa Category: Uncategorized

1. Monday: Tell Mom that I don’t agree with her – at all.
2. Tuesday: Be as supportive as possible to R.J. despite her annoying misuse of the English language.
3. Wednesday: Buy more cheap toilet paper.
4. Thursday: Think of a non-political, non-gender objectifying Halloween costume.
5. Friday: Try not to blow up a building when I am met with resistance at yet another work meeting regarding sexual assault policy.
6. Saturday: Get a wedding gift for the Sheps.
7. Sunday: Live my life. My way.
You know what’s crazy? We do a thousand things everyday and yet we make lists that are really just a compilation of the least desirous things we need to accomplish. We never write TO DO: go out to eat with fab roomie or Treat myself to extra sexy thoughts about ****. Let me redo a list; and make it one that reflects what I WANT from my life. What I ache for, need, and truly HAVE to do…
1. See Superman Returns at the cheapies and order a buttload of buttered movie popcorn.
2. Eat that expensive organic mango that will rot in 2 days.
3. Make out in the kitchen with Adonis.
4. Complete a full session of yoga, no skippies.
5. Treat myself to a gorgeous haircut before I change my mind.
6. Spend more time writing by hand.
7. Dance.
8. Visit my bro in LA and my loves in NYC.
9. Memorize the lyrics to You Belong to Me.
10. Begin the book I’ve been putting off: Filipino Americans: Transformation and Identity
SERIOUSLY, WHY DO I FEEL BETTER?

Octoberwareness

Published on by Lisa Category: Uncategorized

Pink. Purple. Blue. Red.

Because living in the grey is what I actively and repeatedly choose, GREY is the color of the month and will be the color font for all October posts. Some say it’s Breast Cancer Awarness Month. Others say it’s Domestic Violence Awareness month. Some remember that October 18 is Love Your Body Day. My mother reminds me that October is not only her birthday month, but the month of the rosary.

I say, who cares? Seriously, is there ever a time when we shouldn’t be hypervigilant of cancer and other health problems plaguing our society, especially women of color who have limited access to healthcare and services? When should we NOT be stealing the blanket that covers the contributing factors of environment, farming, and food issues that contribute to the mystery of benign and malignant tumors?

What month should we NOT be turning our attention to domestic violence? When will we fully realize that we need not to look further than into the homes of own communities to see women being beaten, raped, and sacrificed at the hands of their domestic partners? When will we include precipitating factors that contribute to the oppression of women – harassment, stalking, emotional and verbal abuse, and daily relationship control?

And then there’s LYB Day. I’ve got a love/hate relationship with this – do we seriously need another day when we are more focused on our bodies? Of course I agree that we need to be more accepting…blah, blah, blah…But let’s get real here. It’s like the world’s going to hell in a handbasket and we’re wondering how asses and thighs will be able to fit in the casket. Here’s a novel thought: turn your critical eye to media and the psychology of consumerism rather than your belly. Accept, love yourself. AND THEN MOVE ON. Dammit…there’s so much more to this world than just yourself.

My mother would say to pray your way into salvation. If we’ve got so much to be “aware” of in October, I’d say that it’s fitting to find a way to cope and think of others. If it’s the rosary, rock on. I prefer to pray my own way. In the mornings, I wake up, write for about 15-20 minutes, warm myself into vinyasa yoga, and then face the exploding purple and orange bursts in the sky. I talk to the sunrise about what I hope for the world that day. And because I, and the world, need it, I close my eyes and send a blessing out into the world from my deck.

I pray it reaches my friends in their apartments, flats, and huts, to the women bloggers in Iraq, the street orphans in the Ukraine, and to the surviving family of the 2yr. old little boy who died from eating a smoothie mixed with baby Spinach.

Be aware. Focus on something else beside yourself this month.

I’m Not Well-Behaved

Published on by Lisa Category: Uncategorized

Well-behaved women rarely make history. – Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

I love that.

A bumper sticker with these words is tacked on to my bulletin board at work. It keeps me going when complicated questions are asked and when the seeker isn’t willing to talk about living in the grey. If there’s one thing I wish for the world is a larger capacity to sit with the grey. Things are not black and white. Life is far from neat. Stop going for straight and accept the dashed, crooked, incomplete, and faded lines that we must live with.

This week, my goal was to be able to deal with not being liked. My words are misquoted, colleagues are miffed by my answers, and I refuse to form alliances simply based on gender. Equality must first begin as a wake-up call.

We’re still waking people up.

Pending Motherhood

Published on by Lisa Category: pregnancy

A reoccuring thought enters my mind at least twice a week: What kind of mother will I be?

I would like a biological child, yes, but I am very open to adopting or being a foster care mother. The abandoned children of this world, unfortunately, cannot afford to wait much longer to be loved.

When I view the squirming and screaming little ones, my breathing becomes erratic. Could I really handle that? One of the things I cannot live without is my sense of self, my free time. While I know scores of that will vanish once the blue line turns pink, I cannot cannot cannot be one of those babbling fools who incessantly talks about how they do not have one minute to themselves. How does one survive without one minute to themselves?

Much like getting over my monolithic anxiety of a permanent relationship, aka marriage, Adonis often remarked during our engagement, “We’ll make it our own.” That was our mantra and behind the scenes vow when tying the knot. It’s worked thus far. I find no other model for partnership other than the one I wake up in each morning. Committed togetherness is fraught with unforeseen challenge, unexpected twists of dreams and desires, and shaped by the limitations, frailty, and whimsical nature of the human psyche. Psst! Here’s a secret: that’s what make it so great.

I hope, in about two years, I will be posting that the same holds true for motherhood.

You Down with the Brown?

Published on by Lisa Category: Some Better than Normal Writings

Let this post serve as my occasional need to emotionally vomit, a syndrome of living in the modern world…Being a woman is messy. Let me rephrase, being an caring, passionate observer is messy. There is nothing clean and linear about life, Period. What I have found in dinner parties, blogging, social justice work, marriage – LIFE – is messiness, misunderstanding…why do I feel the need to fucking explain myself over and over again to people who do not know me, nor ever will?

Should I declare this?
Hey – I’m not pro-choice! Hey – I’m not pro-life either! I’m more worried about the results and indications of these titles and propoganda than I am concerned with how I identify.

Hey! I waited until I was married to have sex. Hey! I am not convinced pre-marital sex is a sin!

Know what else? I voted for George Bush in 2000! Then I voted for John Kerry in 2004! I’m not a flip-flopper, I’m now more aware that neither really knows the plight of what women face everyday. Why? Because they’re both absurdly wealthy white men who have never known sacrifice a day of their political lives. And I don’t mean sacrifice like, I went to war and thrice won medals or I flew to Ohio seven times in two weeks to have rallies in Dayton to get the vote. I mean sacrifice like, “We can’t buy that medicine, the car needs repairs.”

What’s more…I’m a Spanish Filipina! Hey! I married a white guy- he’s German, French, and Irish! ’nuff said.

Also, I’m a devout Catholic! I truly believe in doctrines and the symbolism of the C-Church. But, guess what the pisser is? I actually take time to read and understand the role of oral tradition, religious history, and Scripture. You won’t believe this, but for as much error and misunderstanding as there is in the practice and education of the church, there is much life-giving Truth is you are willing to invest in finding it…similiar to the investment you make in your family. Change and growth is necessary for survival. And! I’m a feminist of color! I listen to eminem, country, and the 80s. I’m the youngest of 4 with an achievement complex. Spanish is more comfortable than Tagalog.

Can my narcissism continue for another paragraph? Of couse! I’m a closet perfectionist and outright fierce competitor. Losing is never an option and if I do, I pout like a little bitch. I’m spiritual, forgiving, and compassionate and love doing nothing and losing myself in my own world. I’d never join the army or the PTO. Once a cheerleader, I now hate cheerleading and cheerleaders, but still admit, I loved the performance element of it. I could do without the lust, sexism, and stereotype reinforcement, though. Knitting and crocheting are hobbied proofs that I might be ADHD. Pill-popping is not my thing, nor have I ever done drugs, but still have a secret fantasy of doing heroin. As a member of standonline.org, I campaign for a smoke-free world and love an occasional cigarette or brandied cigar.

Hey! If you have something negative to say: get the f! off my blog.

A Letter to My Broken Friend

Published on by Lisa Category: Moments Poetic

Dear Bennie,
Read this slowly.
There is no shame in mistakes, no shame in the past.
There is only a path to liberation – to shout
your learned truth from the rooftops
for all the nations to hear.
Every tongue will understand you, every wind will carry your words.
No tree will shade you from the terror of criticism,
but you shall not live, you shall not pass
one more day in this life, in fear.
Go already!
How many commands must you hear
before you give yourself permission
to live your life in color?
Command yourself and allow yourself
to bathe in the freedom of self-acceptance.
Discipline and border your life with instruction
to create breathable screens of intimacy and sensuality.
Build your life, build your harmony.
Go, my friend.
Life is too short to waste wondering.
No one fits in, can’t you see?
There is no and has been no pre-set mold
to shape success and joy.
You must create your own.
You must.
With your own swollen fingers and chatty teeth.
And, you must break the strings of sameness
and boringness
and shallow conversation.
Leave your fear on your pillow
and whisper to yourself tonight, “I am good. I am rare.”
-Sudy Verr

Wellness is Over

Published on by Lisa Category: Some Better than Normal Writings

So I just planned, conducted, executed an entire week of programming called Women’s Wellness Week. I feel a lightness in my step, a relaxation of arms, jaw, and vagina. I feel wonderful.

The week ended with a workshop on the psychology of women and eating, a deeper look (for undergraduate women anyway) at body image and disordered eating. The university’s dance team was there with matching red ribbons in their high set bouncing ponytails. I listened in the back of the room while I munched on the chocolate covered strawberries I ordered as snack food. Yes! I completely agree, I thought with my full of berry and chocolate, restriction gets you nowhere!

As it ended and everyone applauded, different young women came to me with their stories about their bodies. These innocent and lovely creatures telling me they are too intimidated to wear two piece bathing suits, too afraid how their butts will look if they attempt to climb the rock wall in the gym, and their highschool trauma stories…I thought about their words during my commute.

Talking about how you feel about your body is similar to talking intimately about your family. Y, No one can truly identify to what degree you feel. It’s trembling and personal, almost sacred, to share how you see your body. And sharing that with others is a tentative, brave step for many. I could see the expectent eyes of so many, asking me to share my thoughts, my experiences of body image and my experiences of weight loss, gain, and maintenance. I kept my thoughts to myself, and this blog.

The thing about weighing 130lbs is that it comes with privileges and responsibility. The thing about weighing 201 lbs is that it comes with discrimination and fear. I can write about both and every pound in between. Weight, for some, is not just a topic about health. Weight is an excrutiatingly important topic for all the wrong reasons and I fear to share my story sometimes. I choose not to share NOT out of fear of being judged, I choose not to share because I have a fear about being misunderstood. My body is the only thing I’ve had with me my whole life and its story of growth, loss, operation, healing, and treatment is my own. It’s mine. Perhaps one blog, I will reveal more. To reveal this much, today, is a triumph.