Hope A 10/20/15 Hope A 10/20/15

I Still Belive Anita Hill

This is the story that I meant to write for Where You From number 4 but I am glad I waited. The day I finally wrote this I also found the following news headline. . Anita Hill's Testimony Could Resurface If Biden Runs Maybe a whole new generation will know her name.

Attending a large state university in my 30’s as an undergraduate, I was disillusioned by the conservatism of my school. I knew this college town and state capitol was more conservative than the city I came from only 80 miles away,but I thought the youth were with me. I thought they were looking ahead, and behind, with a perspective. But this college town is also a state capitol, in the south, still heavily segregated and largely denying it. At a diner downtown, the all-black kitchen staff made grits and eggs and pork chops and slid them through a small window to the all-white serving staff to be delivered to the tables of politicians and lawyers as the owner looked at the tattoos on my arms and shook her head “no”. I thought it was hilarious, somehow not getting a job in a diner in 2009 because of tattoos like I had somehow never escaped my small hometown.

The night of the 2008 presidential election, I walked across campus with a classmate, eager to get home to hear the results. A boy from our class waved to us and asked us who we voted for. “ I know you voted for McCain…” he said to my friend and i laughed. Oh the humor! But she had. She told me she would have voted for Bush if she had been old enough. I know this is over simplifying, to assume assume all college students, art students at least, refused the lies of the Bush era. They were lies, right? Can we agree on that? She told me that he did the best he could, considering they had Weapons of Mass Destruction. I tactfully reminded her that “they” actually did not. She shrugged.

This was my first semester of school. I had a roommate, a friend of a friend. She met me at the house after Obama's acceptance speech, in gleeful tears as she recounted that he referenced gay people being a part of the national fabric. I remember Reagan and the AIDS quilt. Now I was grateful for a friend, for someone who was as equally disheartened by politics in general but not so hardened as to not feel the electricity and promise of our first black president who acknowledged queer people as, well, people. I assumed that my classmates would feel the same, the excitement, the future! But old conservatives were once young conservatives and I was in school with them.

My roommate graduated and moved to the city. I listened to NPR alone in the house often as I cooked and cleaned and procrastinated my school work. I often yelled back at the news, threw my hands in the air. I was most surprised by the phrase “supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.” I had been away from media for a few years and hadn’t thought of him. He wasn’t doing anything newsworthy, but he was there, voting on things and occasionally his name would flicker across the room and I would get angry again.

I tried to explain to classmates. “I still can't believe he is still a justice. That his nomination was confirmed and here he is…” but they always looked blankly at me.

“Why?”

“You remember, Anita Hill?” More blank stares.

Oh no. I had been a freshman in high school at the time of the Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearing. Most of my classmates would have been 1 or 2 years old, maybe 6 for the grad students. They don’t remember nightly news images of Anita Hill, seated a table opposite the committee investigating the allegartions of sexaul harassment , how she stated her story as evidence against the character of a potential supreme court justice and was herself seeming on trial . The commitee questioned her, having her spell out for them why a pubic hair on a coke can is unwelcome from a co-worker and might make someone feel uncomfortable at their job. They questioned her and doubted her as if she would make that shit up. News crews and senators, including Joe Biden, questions the existence of sexual harassment in the workplace. I remember the jokes, the disbelief, the refusal to believe this woman state things that many women already knew, and lived in their lives. I am sure that women at work had to explain to their male colleges: this shit is real and it is happening and trying to discredit her does not erase the existence of this behavior. Actually we still have to do that today. Except that today we have laws to protect against it, even though it is difficult to prosecute, even though some people still think it is a joke, an overreaction, a lie. Anita Hill told the whole country what was and still is perpetrated often men to women, queer and trans colleagues yet the harassers still become supreme court justices and the harasees... well in this case Anita Hill is a lawyer and professor of law and women’s studies at Brandeis. But my classmates didn't know her name. You might not know her name. But you probably understand the basics of what constitutes sexual harassment and that there are laws against it. After Hill’s testimony, despite all the backlash and doubting, President GHW Bush dropped his opposition to a bill that allowed people to sue for damages in sexual harassment cases. The bill passed. To be fair, I don’t think all my classmates knew the name Clarence Thomas either, unless they listened to NPR talk about his reticence on the court. I wonder if she’s glad he doesn't say much, if she is happy to never hear his arguments voiced by NIna Totenberg, or if, as I suspect she might be, is a better person than that, too busy teaching justice to future lawyers and maybe a future supreme ct justice. And maybe she can already see that her legacy is already deeper and more influential than his. Even if you didn't know her name.

Hope A 9/28/15 Hope A 9/28/15

Leaving Some Space

my side of the table and the empty desk area left by my missing tablemate

Boy howdy, I am starting off the season busy! Though there are tabling events all year, including three I signed up for and then missed, September is really the start for me. First the SF Zine Fest, then SFCB Roadworks, I start tabling just about every other week until, well, Christmas. I am not trying to get you all anxious about the holidays, and I still only have one holiday card design , but mid-November though late December becomes a blur of weekly events where crafty people and giant megastores alike, offer up their goods under the heading of holiday season. I don't participate in the big business gift frenzy, I usually make something for my family and friends. And I don't make anything especially holiday-like, (see that one card design above) but I do like making things and I like that people want to buy them. People are a little more into buying things in the fall and early winter. Last year I said yes to every tabling opportunity I was offered, and by the last show, I was tired, unable to see straight. I put away my stuff for a few months and focused on the postcard subscription and becoming a yoga teacher. In June, I thought I was ready for more. I wasn't. So this season I am being a little more choosy about which events I table, and am trying, like every year, to be a little more prepared. Andy G. is employed this season, which means more coffee and chocolates for me but more tabling by myself.

The thing is, I kind of like tabling. It is exhausting but also fun. You put all the stuff you love making on a table and see if the people are interested. It can be rough when it feels like no one is interested or it is loud or raining coal dust but I have been lucky that I still have another part-time job, that I am mostly going to events where I have been before, and I have good company.

That said, it is also a lot of work. No matter how I prepare, I always remember I need more labels last minute or I forgot to assemble zines or I bind just two more books. Or I have to print next month's postcard even though I won't be selling the cards. Because that is how it goes. I cleared off my work table two weeks ago only to be buried again before I left yesterday morning for SFCB Roadworks. I was leaving behind piles of zines and future books but I couldn't leave them on the floor since there seems to be some kind of superflea in our house feasting on my ankles and Andy kindly took care of it while I was out in the sun selling postcards.

We arrived fashionably on time, with time to get coffee and time to feel a little rushed as I had a new set-up thanks to a postcard rack I found on Market Street a few days ago. With a little spray paint and magnets,it changed my display but allowed me a little more room on my half table. I stacked, arranged, crowded, moved and was ready. I only reserve a half table and make do, which usually works out for me at this event. At eleven o'clock my table was craftily stacked, my coffee and donut were in my belly and I was almost forming full sentences without sounding crabby (my sleep schedule is changing which at the moment means Not Enough Sleep Ever. this is temporary. But unfun). The other half of my table remained empty.

11:30. Usually if one has not arrived 30 minutes after an event opens, it is acceptable to take over their space. However, the table was so blissfully bare, blonde pine shining in the sun. And I realized what is missing in my life.

Space.

So I kept my side stacked and organized, the cozy clutter I like in my life, my desk, my shelves of books and jars and photos and mementos and notes. It is not an unworkable aesthetic. But I kept the other half of the table clear, propped a chair behind it and opened my notebook. I took out three pens (three colors!) and without a plan, drew. It was as delicious as reading a book, something else I haven't done much of lately. I sat, and doodled, talked to strangers and postcard subscribers and a lady from Vermont who holds a grudge against New York State ( I am from NH and can relate a similar grudge against Massachusetts.) It was lovely. I drank more coffee, sold postcards and was home by five. I am not sure what I did until 9 but when I closed my eyes I slept and slept and slept. The piles are still on my desk this morning but I am ready.

Hope A 9/15/15 Hope A 9/15/15

Now There Are Only Words Left

http://www.beacon.org/New-and-Selected-Poems-Volume-One-P1082.aspx Mary Oliver reads her poem, "The Summer Day," Copyright 1990. "The Summer Day" first appeared in House of Light (Beacon Press, 1990), and has been reprinted in New and Selected Poems, Volume 1 (Beacon Press, 1992) and The Truro Bear and Other Adventures (Beacon Press, 2008).

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? ---Mary Oliver, The Summer Day

I know you've heard this one, I know you have heard this and maybe one other Mary Oliver poem, maybe a dozen times (depending on how many yoga classes and self-care workshops you've taken). But listen again. It is shared often for a reason.

There are cliches about death. About it making you reevaluate your life. It is a cliche because a death shakes up your life, your order. We don't talk about it enough, it is not a part of our cultural fabric, though it is so obviously the end of the cycle, the inescapable release from our bodies. Yet, the denial is strong, along with the anger and the other stages I am still working on.

In her the advice column Dear Sugar, Sugar tells a grieving man that her six year old son once told her: “We don’t know how many years we have for our lives. People die at all ages.” Meaning, we only have so many years. And then there are no more.

Sometimes when things were tough, and I didn't want to talk about the tough things anymore, I would write my friend a list of the good things, small things to appreciate that do not eliminate the difficult but make the hard times worthwhile.

So here is the good things list:

Responses to Keep Writing number 77, how to deal with sadness, how to stay useful. I designed this and printed this before Travis died, before i had received the letter that said he was having a hard time. This is a coincidence. The great part has been the extra comfort from friends and strangers, hearing more about all our struggles and how we cope.
Phone calls. I said I wanted to keep in touch with friend better since this happened. Sometimes I call. Not as frequent as I like, but there is at least one friend who I talk to more often and our conversations have been immensely comforting.
NY I have been wanting to return to New England in October, my favorite and when home felt more like home. I have friends in Philly and Boston and Maine I'd like to see. Instead I have 4 days in NY but I am grateful to grieve with friends, to walk streets with changing leaves and smell crisp air.
Poetry I haven't been reading as much poetry as I used to but I have been copying poems I like, with a typewriter and by hand, and collecting them, a small binder clip of words that speak to me. I like poetry because you have to slow down to read it, pay attention.
Slowing Down As in reading poetry too i have been paring down my life, slowing down. It might not look that way, I am still very active, but I try not to waste time, to take more walks, to work hard at the things I love.

That's it for now. The hard part about lists is the tendency to oversimplify. And though some of these things are a result of something tragic and difficult, I still grieve, I still wish my friend could write back. I am still not ready to know he will never write back.

Keep Writing number 78, text by Travis Fristoe

Hope A 8/17/15 Hope A 8/17/15

Ten Years...

This month's Keep Writing postcard was inspired equally by something Louis CK said in an interview with Terry Gross, and by the month of sudden sadness I feel every summer. Though I love my birthday, it often leads to deep introspection, and the discoveries are often subtle and heavy at the same time.

The most lasting effect of the hurricane was the feeling of isolation and disconnect from my friends. I was traveling with a few of them, but the days where I could not contact others, how they could not contact us, that we left town without one friend who later told me how he got out (it involved sleeping in an abandoned car and riding a child size bicycle on the empty highway), and the following months of distrust towards strangers, the damaged feeling, the suspicion and hurt.

I've written about this, about how those of us already involved in the bike shop started spending all the daylight hours there. How we were happy to do something with our hands. How the movement calmed our minds, focused the energy.

It is difficult to be of use to sometime and also to find the time to wallow, which is not the same as mourning. Sadness isn't always also helplessness. There are things to be sad about . But we can't let it paralyze us. We have to be able to keep moving, making small circles with our fingers and toes, waking ourselves from slumber.

Small movements might not save you. Distractions might not save you. I have found that keeping busy in a useful way will help keep perspective for me. But sometimes you need more than that. Sometimes you need some one else to offer perspective. Talk to your friends and family. If you are feeling that you are without options it might be difficult to realize that you are not. I lost one friend after the hurricane to suicide and now recently another. The best we can do now is to help each other heal. Its a long month and I am grateful, so grateful, for friends who like late night talks, and don't mind a sudden change of plans and are ok sitting in the grass letting the feelings come. The point is to do what you need to to survive. And when you are no longer in crisis, you can start to see the way out, to make the healthy choices to sustain. This was a long hard lesson to learn, that I am still learning. Take care, y'all.

Hope A 8/12/15 Hope A 8/12/15

The Paths We Choose, part 2

When I designed last month's postcard about sadness and trying to stay useful, I had no idea a friend was going through such a difficult time. When I wrote about ways to deal with sadness, to feel useful and engaged, I did not know my friend was in rehab. A short letter came at the end of the month, and then, two days later, a small pile of book and a birthday note. They were brief, hopeful and yet still a surprise to me.

A week later he took his own life.

There are a lot of "what ifs" after a suicide. What if I had called? Did I tell him I love him in the last letter? Did he know? Did he even receive it? Unexpected deaths always carry the weight of a path severed, a plan altered. Here are the choices we make, here are the choices made for us, by others.

It is difficult to convey the weight of this loss. We had not seen each other in years but wrote frequently. The ripples of his kindness, generosity, willingness to listen, and sincerity affected many people I know all over the country. It has been comforting to see the social media outreach of people who knew him, the ever-growing circle of friends, acquaintances, pen pals, fans of his writing and music. It is too late to tell him one more time how much he meant to us, though whatever darkness he faced was clearly all engulfing. His struggle was fierce, he was full of love and sometimes that is not enough.

Reading through his letters and zines, I find references to difficulty and darkness, but always, always there is a strength, a determination to rise above. He fought a good fight and hopefully his words will continue to inspire others, encourage love and criticism as a form of love. If there must be a lesson let it be this: stay smart, alert, questioning and open, friends. Please don't stuff down the sadness, it is all a part of this. Bring it into the light. Love love love.

Travis Fristoe died August 7, 2015. There have been more than a few writings about how he affected those around him, and I especially appreciate this from Nate Powell. He is survived by a baby daughter, Astrid, his wife Avery and his stepdaughter. A fund was started to help this family, including baby Astrid, through this time and beyond. Contribute if you like at http://www.gofundme.com/4vrg8jw4 .

I doubt this will be the last I write of this. Maybe next time, there will be more stories. Like that time I was his houseguest for maybe too many weeks. I was homeless, traveling, dealing with a difficult break-up. I didn't sleep at night. More than one night I climbed the tree in front of his house as the sun came up, listening to tapes on a walkman, until his neighbors came out and left for work, kindly ignoring the girl in the tree. Travis never said I was a bad houseguest and let me visit a bunch more times after that. Rest in peace and power.

Hope A 8/1/15 Hope A 8/1/15

The Paths We Choose

It's funny to live so close to water and not see it often.

Nineteen years ago I was stuck on I-80, heading from Berkeley to San Fransisco, during my second visit to the Bay Area. I was amazed that even with the shitty traffic, the water was so close, shimmering. When I moved here, I discovered I could ride on a path between that traffic and the water, following the bay to work and then home. It is a greatly beautiful distant view of the city, of the hills of Marin, and of the expanse of water.

Some one offered to take me sailing the other day. it didn't work out but it reminded me how close I am to the water. I am terrible at taking a day off, even though I have been tired, my mind sluggish, my energy low. But I made sure to ride to the water, with an hour of nothing. I lay on my back, the same shitty traffic tucked out of view, just the bay and the waves and the waves and the clouds like looked like water.

Hope A 7/27/15 Hope A 7/27/15

To Get A Letter...

Table for writing, chair for reading and smiling

A few examples of past postcards. "Framed"

Thank you thank you everyone who helped with this show: Misha who helped with the set-up, Andy who attempted to alleviate many worries and bought me dinner and created a soundtrack fro writing letters, , Alyssa who offered to help with the dismantling so I don't have to walk the folding tables home 20 blocks. And especially Justin Carder, owner of EM Wolfman's, who not only curates an incredibly good small bookstore, but also supports local writers, poets and artists, makes connections and retains enthusiasm. Saturdays here were lovely, writing letters, showing around the people who had come from the city (San Francisco) because they read about it in the paper, listening to readers as part of the BEAST crawl, eating cupcakes. It was a good month.

If you are still waiting for a reason to subscribe, do it now and save $5 until August 3rd, the sad day the show comes down.

Hope A 7/26/15 Hope A 7/26/15

38 (Thirty- Grateful)

I talk a lot about the weather here. After almost 3 years in Oakland, the endlessly dry, sunny days, never-hot-enough summers, the lack of seasons, the numerous perfectly temperate days still make me uneasy. There were a few days this week, finally warm enough to think of swimming, to feel the heat enveloping me even as a breeze brushed by. I say I miss sweating, swimming, staying inside because of a rainstorm, the dramatic skies that accompany a change in weather, but I also miss my friends in other places. The amenities of my Bay Area life are plentiful, but I would trade a dozen vegan doughnuts for lunch in Philadelphia once or twice a month. You can have a bay view sunset for a autumn evening in NH. In exchange for 2 days access to the print shop, could I spend one weekend a month in New Orleans? What would it take to be able to ride to a friends house in Portland, NY, Seattle, Tucson? But there is no such barter system. The down-side to a wonderfully adventurous and mobile 20's and a more stationary late 30's is that I you can't live in the same place as all the people you love. Or even half. Luckily, many people are charmed by the Bay Area and I had a few old friends here when I arrived. And I have met a few great people and I am grateful to have them as a part of my life now. It is a slow process, nothing like the instant friendships of late night adventures after a show, while on tour, or a penal turned date turned penal again. But it comes.

I complain a lot about California, about Bay Area drivers (if you are going to cede the right of way when it was yours, you don't have to feel smug about it). But slowly, a circle of friends and acquaintances build, layers, and I find myself talking about sequencing yoga classes and discoveries on our personal practice with other teachers. I meeting other printers for coffee and discuss business plans. I have friends who want to talk about art, and music, and even a few who will hear the stories I don't think they'd understudy because we are from different places, yet realizing our troubles--and our joys-- are more universal than that. And you are willing to come to my place on a Saturday night, meet my other friends from seemingly disparate places and situations and find some common ground. And eat cake. Thank's y'all for a very sweet birthday.

This was also published at Keep Breathing, a blog about yoga-related writing. Not just poses but living life too.