Cruelty

The way people drive in Varna makes me upset. Most cars seem to drive too fast, cutting everyone off, not stopping for pedestrians, and generally driving in a jerky, intense way that raises my blood pressure. This comes from someone who is always the passenger. I can't imagine the headache I would get if I actually had to drive here.

For the most part, I am forgiving of this behavior. It annoys me, yes, but in the end I chalk it up to selfishness, not cruelty. People who live in cities live in little bubbles, from which they cannot stop to imagine other people have needs and desires that are equally important as theirs. Laws are meant to keep order in the city, and are obviously not meant for, "ME," the individual. It is a complete lack of awareness and a struggle to carve a free life out in a city where people are stacked, one on top of the other, ten stories high.

Then, there are moments when I see real, inexcusable cruelty. Today one of those assholes that has too much pride in his noisy car skidded up to the sidewalk, and hovered there for a moment. On the sidewalk stood a man who obviously did not have full reasoning capabilities. He stood, staring at the silver car, not moving. Finally, the driver of the car rev'd the engine, and lurched forward towards the man, turning at the last second and screeching his brakes. The sudden movement startled Nikola and I, still 50 feet down the street, and made the man on the sidewalk jump. The guy in the car laughed and backed into his spot.

Nikola and I passed the scene, disturbed by this guy's stupidity. Then, there was a loud bang. Being from the states, my first thought was that one of them had a gun. Nikola, being from Bulgaria, thought fire cracker. Either way, the guy who had been driving the car was shouting, gleefully, "It's coming!" and the guy from the sidewalk was shuffling off, looking uncomfortable.

It gave me a tight feeling in my chest. It made me feel, for the first time, unsafe in my neighborhood, and I do not think it was the idea of gunshots that made me nervous, but the blatant cruelty.

On the bus ride into the city I was pensive. I don't see blatant cruelty that often, and yet however much I do see it is still way too much.

It makes me wonder why/ how people can be so mean. Maybe people were mean to them when they were children, so they grew up thinking it was acceptable behavior. Or maybe it is just the opposite, no one was ever mean to them and so they have no ability to empathize with other people. Maybe, and most likely, they watch too many films where people relate to each other with drama and violence.

I wonder if he only does that to strangers. Is it a power thing? Is cruelty an extension of the selfishness I see everyday?

The questions had no answers, and as we got off the bus I immersed myself in enjoying the day with my son and husband. My husband, who has no cruelty in him and is kind to a fault, and my son who I hope to raise the same way. But the sickness in my stomach stayed. Oh, humanity, where are you going wrong? 

Without Fashion, Without Style

.... I say in my most "fashionable" outfit of two years. Yes, vests make me feel fashionable. 

The lip ring and slave collar might be gone, but that is only because I learned about the world of D/s that exists beyond fashion. 

 

A jean skirt used as a belt over a pair of jeans and a scarf as a belt? Yeah, that made sense to me... 

Another Burning Man is rapidly approaching, and about to just fly by without me. Strangely enough, I could probably do without the debauchery this year, and the really large scale art sounds nice but unnecessary. What I really miss are the costumes.

For those of you who knew me back in the day of festivals and camp outs, you might be a little shocked to hear me say that I miss the costumes. After all, I was the girl who packed less than a small backpack of costumes and ended up naked by the end of the first day, only to begrudgingly put my clothes back on during exodus. Well, except for the occasional belt that I claimed was a skirt, and the coat or robe. You gotta have a coat or robe.

But yeah, honestly, I would love a reason to dress up.

I have never been particularly fashionable. Jeans, long hippie skirts, and tiny tops covered by oversized button ups have been my thing since high school. Not much has changed in 10 years. Except, it has. Sometime over the past four years of living in Bulgaria I lost the idea that clothing is meant to be fun, which is strange, because those of you who have been here know that the girls love dressing up. Strolling down the street at 2pm in 2am club wear? No one bats an eye. How many times have I lamented leaving my blue jean Baby Phat jumpsuit in the states? And yet, would I wear it here?

In high school, college, and San Francisco, I had a certain style about me. I never cared about impressing people. I never cared about fitting in. I never checked my outfit against magazines and I never followed trends. However, I definitely cared how I looked. I used to take half an hour or an hour to get dressed before going out to a club or on a date. It wasn't to be attractive. I wasn't trying to attract. But I definitely wanted to fit a fun, symbolic, aesthetically pleasing image. I wanted to impress myself.

Which meant eyeliner but not coverup. Occasionally a third eye, and sometimes lipstick. Not everyday. Not as an expression of who I was, but for fun.

It meant ripped jeans that were comfortable and 8 inch boots that weren't.

It meant chains and bullet belts. Peircings. Tattoos.

That exploration of appearance was fun. I loved using my body as a canvas.

Then I joined SCC and moved back to Tucson. I traded in my stilettos for work boots and my tank tops for t-shirts. But I kept a light, hippie fashion on my off days. I was one of the few girls that brought a skirt to wear every day after skirt, only because a skirt let me feel naked and free after a day of getting trail stuck to carhartts. I still kept my makeup for the occasional festival or trip to a night club, although nothing was as extravagant as my style in San Francisco. I also still kept my dreads even though I let my mohawk grow out.

Then I got my acceptance letter to the Peace Corps. With it came the warning about piercings, tattoos, and alternative hairstyles. Business casual. I had NEVER, in my life been business casual.

I made sure my tattoos were covered all of training.

I took business skirts and slacks and lived in a nine west wardrobe for three months. Of course, I had my little bits of rebellion:

Like the striped socks at our swearing in ceremony.

But as the years progressed, and I found myself working with older women and not around anyone I wanted to date, I found my sense of style fading. Comfort took over.

Yoga pants. Workout clothes. Sure, there were still jeans and vests occasionally, and a newfound adoration of scarves, but it was nothing like San Francisco. Make up faded completely.

My desire for style made a resurgence around our close of service, when I chopped off my hair and dyed it platinum blonde, followed by bits of blues and purple and green:

 Then, I got married. I got pregnant. I lived at my husband's parent's house on the outskirts of town, with little public transportation. I would go days, and even weeks without seeing anyone besides my extended family. As I got too big for my clothes I found it didn't matter. Naked. Comfortable. Anything that fit.

Now that clothes are starting to fit me again, I am finding it really difficult to get back into "style," let alone fashion. I find that I have no one to impress. My husband likes me in anything, and most of all likes me in nothing. Similarly, my son's only preference is clothing with quick access to the breasts. Beyond that, I find that I no longer have a social circle to bounce style off of.

I guess, as much as I thought I didn't care about how I looked, I did care what other people thought. I found style to be a creative outlet. I didn't want to talk to strangers, but I did want them to look at my flowing skirts and stompy boots. Now, having no one that cares what I wear, I find that I can't bring myself to care. And I strangely miss it.

I miss it because it used to be a way of defining myself. It used to be a way of creating boundaries. It used to be an exploration in symbolism. It used to be an art. (Okay, maybe that final one goes too far.) Now, it is a chore.

I need a jumpstart. A festival would be just the thing. Maybe I should ditch the every so slowly forming dreads and get a hair cut... maybe I need a fashion backwards friend to play with. Maybe I need to find somewhere to work or volunteer or play so I am seeing more than the two cuddly, naked-loving boys in my life every day... maybe I need to need fashion.

Or, you know, a costume party.

I turned 31 on Saturday. 31. It sounds a lot older than I feel.

The dress you see in the GIF above was my birthday present to myself. Look familiar? Let me refresh your memory:

That is me in the same dress the weekend before I left for Bulgaria.

It wasn't the dress itself that was the present. It was the fact that, 6 months after giving birth to my son, I can finally fit into one of my favorite outfits again. Sort of. The boobs still require quite a bit of adjusting and jiggling before they will get in there, and the dress definitely looks 'different' on me, but not bad. Woo hoo.

Or not.

There's seems to be a resurgence in the body positive movement hitting just in time to make me realize that I have never actually been body positive. I THOUGHT I was body positive, because I don't judge strangers (often) and I had come to accept my own body.

I struggled with liking my body in middle school and high school, when acne popped up all over my arms. Picking at it became a nervous/bored tick that I still have at the age of 31. I am no longer ashamed of my arms though. They are something that is a part of me, and while I do not like them, I refuse to cover them and I refuse to be ashamed of them. I thought that made me body positive. I also thought that since I was never "uber-thin"but liked the way I looked I was body positive. I was wrong.

You know how I know I was wrong? Because now, weighing 75 kg (165 for those of you back in the states) rocks my vanity.

I gained 28 kilos while I was pregnant. (My husband says 23, but it depends on when you consider the start of that pregnancy- the point is that at the end I was 28 kg heavier than when I had come to identify with.) I was a little upset by that, especially when the anesthesiologist chastised me during the placement of my epidural (really, you are going to choose the most painful time in my life to talk about my weight gain!?!), but I figured it wasn't too bad.

Then, I read up and was assured that the weight would melt off between the third and fourth month of breastfeeding, so I wasn't too worried.

Besides, my mother rebounded from her first two pregnancies to an 'acceptable' weight.

Now, I am 6 months in and I realize that this weight is not going anywhere. I've had an injured toe for the past couple of months that has prevented me from working out very much, and the breastfeeding doesn't do much on its own. The 9 month mark is only three months away and there is no way that I will be back down to 65 kilograms (143 lbs).

All of that is just fact. Here's the interesting part: I am not okay with that! 

This has been a very humbling couple of months, and every day is a learning struggle as I figure out how to feel about this. It is easy enough to logically know that my body will change in many different ways over the years and I need to love and appreciate it. Grokking that is a whole other game, though.

Suddenly, I am realizing that I am very vain, and that even though I do no hold my self worth or confidence in my appearance, I do have a whole lot of pride that used to be held through rock climbing, running, and looking more or less athletic.

I am hoping that I can work through this experience and get back to loving sports for their experience while leaving behind the pride and vanity. It seems like an impossible task though. 

Yoga, reloaded

We went to yoga again tonight. Honestly, I didn't expect yoga in a suburban chitalishte to be this good, but it is. By this good, I mean my body glistening with perspiration but not sweat, poses challenging mean but not beyond my reach, almost having to drop out but just making it, getting giddy laughter that I have to swallow because my body feels loose. I mean my mind floating, not away, but just suspended in my body, aware of my body. I mean flow. I mean really, really good.

The teacher is fantastic. She is very hands on, which helps, and her corrections feel solid and... well, more correct. She talks us through most of the class, rather than showing, which I think helps with my concentration. She is strict and firm in what she asks of us but also warm and gentle. It is a great balance. Today we were doing a candle series and she had me easing into poses that I didn't know I could do. I came out of that series absolutely buzzing. She also held Peatuk at the end of class so Nikola could do the relaxation with the rest of us. Total bonus points for appreciating a baby in the class instead of rejecting us because of him!

The students are awesome, too. Everyone seems very into the practice, which helps me concentrate and try more than I would if people were not interested. Everyone has been very accepting of us and friendly, which is nice when we are new in such a small class. (6 people).

Honestly, I have been selling myself short ever since giving birth. I thought that I would feel strong and confidant, but instead I have felt very weak and helpless. I feel heavy and slow. Sure, I used to do dance, yoga, running, and cycling on a daily basis, but deep down, a part of me thought that chapter in my life was over. I was settling into this version of relaxed, sloppy motherhood that felt comfortable and yet I actually was starting to hate myself for it. I recognized that feeling when I got a correction during class and my body lengthened and stretched and felt used. Used in the good way.

I have always felt comfortable in my body. I have always lived in the moment. I thought that pregnancy, birth,and parenting would be an awesome physical experience for me. Easy. While it has been awesome in so many ways, physically has not been one of them. Through my entire pregnancy I struggled to feel like myself. Now, almost 6 months after giving birth I am still wallowing in this limbo where I cannot recognize how I feel. I feel very disconnected from my body, and for a predominantly kinesthetic person, that is a bit upsetting.

The class wasn't a miracle, of course. What it was, was a flash. A glimpse. A possibility. That one day I can reconnect with the physical person that I use to recognize. One day, I will find flow and energy again. One day, I may even dance.

Late night pondering

I am in bed, next to my sleeping son. I can't sleep, but he is peaceful, smacking his lips the way he does when he is in a deep sleep. His leg is propped up under his hip, as if he might start crawling at any moment. Honestly, now that he has learned how to move on his own it is difficult to get him interested in sleep.

Today he kept working on his army crawl. He can turn around and scoot towards daddy, or the clothes drying rack, or the floor length curtains. Oh, why did I insist on floor length curtains!?! He is still slow enough that I can catch him before he gets into too much trouble, but I have a feeling that won't last much longer. Now I've got baby proofing as my main concern and project.

He just seems so determined to get where he wants to go. He has been frustrated for weeks, exhausting himself on the floor until he cries and falls asleep on my breast. I hope he keeps this desire. This passion. This joy. I think, with a father like Nikola, he has a pretty good shot at staying wide-eyed and filled with love. Oh, that man.

We spent the last two evenings on the beach. I thought Peatuk would love it, but the waves scare him and the sea foam seems unsettling. He is much happier tucked back in the shade, watching the leaves move and being adored by everyone around him. I am the opposite. I have never figured out how to get within ten feet of a beach without getting sand in every unmentionable crack so I find the water safer. Floating weightless, letting the tiny waves toss me about, and every now and then turning in a spiral to catch sight of my family waiting for me on the shore. It is perfect.

My Forever Home

It was around eighth grade when I had the envious realization that some people had forever homes. Some of my friends lived in the same house that they had been brought from the hospital to live in at birth. When I was in high school my father retired and we moved to a small, non-military city in northern Arizona. There, I learned that entire cities stayed in one place. I went to a high school were popularity was more or less a joke, because how popular can you really be when everyone remembers the way you ate paste and cried for your mommy during preschool. Well, everyone except me.

Four years later, when I started making adult decisions of my own, I found myself drawn to my father's nomadic lifestyle. For the most part, it was great. Colorado, Arizona, California, Guam... My young adult life was filled with plenty of adventure and mishaps. However, there was one nagging question that haunted me: What is your permanent address?

First, my schools asked this. Then the US government joined in. It echoed in my anchor-free heart. Where do you belong, girl?

Recently, two friends of mine purchased a house. (Congrats, Holly and Charlie). These aren't like the friends in the bay area that have slowly been acquiring property for the past ten years. These were wanderers like myself. They were seasonal workers, blowing through states and jobs data rate similar to me. Then, suddenly, they have a house and a puppy. Canning and gardening and living in their forever home is now one of their things.

And me? I find myself floating in Varna, with a husband and baby, and yet feeling more rootless than ever.

In my spare time I click through various online home advertisements. Did you know you can buy a piece of property in Bulgaria for about 4000 USD? Or a house that is livable but needs a bit of repairs for 15000 USD? Seriously. Of course, these properties are usually in villages that I have to look up on Google maps and then calculate the distance to... anything.

A few months ago I thought I wanted my forever home, and I thought I k we what that was. It was a small home, preferably a dome, that we built, in a little village. Now, I am not so sure. In a village, where would Peatuk go to school? Would Nikola really drive an hour every day, each way, to run his business in Varna.

So, it looks like we are tied to Varna for the next... 18 years? Or at least some big city.

I love our apartment right now. I love the walks our neighborhood offers. The kindergarten looks okay. I don't have the time or desire to garden. We don't have the money or time for horses or hawks. It's fine. Honestly, I don't know where else I would want to be right now.

But still, there is a little ache, begging me to find my forever home. Someplace that I can rest. A permanent address. A place where I will return when I am 80. And that same ache is telling me that Varna is not it.

What would a world without competition be like?

I often say that I don't like competition. I don't like what it does to other people, and I don't like the way I feel when I am a part of it. I don't enjoy winning when other people feel bad for losing, and I don't like losing, no matter how gracious I may act about it.

However, now that I have a son, my awareness and distaste for competition is growing.

A few months ago I was listening to some speech (state of the union, perhaps?) in which President Obama stated that our schools, and our children, need to be able to compete with China. (I can't find the exact speech, but apparently the theme is common enough in his rhetoric that a simple search showed several other examples).

Immediately, that word dug under my skin and what little faith I had in the American government crumbled. Why do our children need to focus on competing with the students in China? Why shouldn't our students focus on cooperating with those students? Why shouldn't we invest all of that 'better-than-you' energy in understanding each other and building cultural bridges? Why the hell is the president advocating the creation and fear of the other?

Because that is what competition is; fear. Competition is based on the theory of scarcity. There are only enough resources for the stronger, smarter, or quicker person. There can only be one winner. It is hierarchy and scarcity. There are other ways to view the world though. To approach it from a theory of abundance and try to figure out how to share and create more rather than hoarding what there is.

They say that competition, especially academic competition, increases development, creates new ideas, and generally improves the world. Maybe it does. But do you know what else does the same thing without depending on fear and scarcity? Cooperation. Curiosity. An emphasis on creativity.

The world has become trapped in the competition of capitalism, and people actually believe that it is fair and good. Competition doe not inspire any sort of fairness, though. It is a system in which someone always has to lose in order for other people to win.

I feel this often when I am ghostwriting articles. I know that my writing is being used to, ultimately, sell a product. The businesses that have 'helpful' blogs out there don't care about their customers. They care about the sell. The money. They care about surviving, and conquering, and I have become a cog that is helping them compete.

My sweet baby boy had a rough night. He is lying on a pillow in the middle of the living room, completely asleep. He looks so angelic and innocent. I know that when he wakes up he will be all smiles and love. He is filled with joy. He doesn't care that others can do more than him. It doesn't make his world any smaller. Yet.

I hate to think about sending him to school, where he will learn that to survive he needs to compete. I hate to think about those first games he will play, whether he wins or loses, and how they will slowly eat away at that internal flame of joy. I hate that he will eventually have to regard people with suspicion, and realize that competition is not about games but how our messed up world actually works.

I wish I could change the world for him. I just don't know how.