loss.

Dammit.

I did that thing again where I start a blog on my thoughts about the world and I let it sit for months and forget about it. I don't know what about having an actual blog makes me less inclined to write than having random pieces of paper and Word documents that I scribble down observations in any other time.

It's the rough times, though, that get me thinking, evaluating, pondering. And so, the theme of this post is loss.

A week ago, I received the very sad news that a woman I've known for over almost a decade lost her fight with breast cancer (the second one) and passed, leaving behind her parents, a niece, and an incredibly loving and devoted husband. This was the second time she fought breast cancer; the first time, she lost a breast and all of her hair. This time, she permanently lost her hair, and most tragically, her life.

It would be wrong of me to pretend that I knew her any better than as an acquaintance on the field, as a good-spirited competitor, but an intimidating and at times distant fellow ultimate player/role model in my early days of ultimate frisbee. But it is impossible to describe a person or value their impact on the world around them by the one relationship that I had with her. The smiles she generated, the many, many people who loved her and held her so close to her heart.

The loss of anyone, anything familiar is difficult and shocking. I felt like I had been slapped across the face, hard, or that my lungs stopped working for a moment when I read the news, in those sad, sad words that her husband affixed to his homepage: "Rest in peace, my love."

Why couldn't cry, reading those words?

No one knows why a disease might take one 36-year old woman and spare a woman in her 70s who thought she had stage III lung cancer after only 2 months of chemotherapy. No one. And perhaps that is why we cry. No one deserves this, no one, not the loved ones that are cast into years of grief following the departure of their beloved, not the victim, no one. And yet, we are subject to the wiles and inexplicable twists and turns of this strange malady that we have not yet been able to cure.

I cried really hard that day. And later that night. But it became apparent to me that I wasn't just grieving this young woman's death and the tragic end to her struggle, but the loss of others before her. My neighbor, a surrogate grandfather of sorts and a close friend of my parents; I still remember hugging him warmly, holding his weak, pale hand, saying "I'll see you when I'm home for Thanksgiving," knowing full well that I would not. I remember crying as I left him, hiding my tears from him, of course. I remember hearing that my high school friend was now an orphan, left with her younger sister and baby brother to be sent to their grandmother's house, having lost their father to his own decision to leave his children and having lost their mother to terminal breast cancer.

And I think of my friend. My high school friend who was not taken from this world by a disease or an accident, but by his own hand. I hate to be too graphic, but he cast his body off of the side of one of our magnificent man-made bridges after years of suffering in silence and darkness, though we were there, right next to him. I think that I think mostly of this friend, who always managed to save those around him, make them smile and laugh, make them feel good about themselves, but was unable to see all of the light and good in himself.

When I feel the sharp stab to the stomach, the catch of tears and a gasp in my throat, and the disbelief in my mind, translating to my face, it triggers all of it, all of the rush of confusion and fear and sadness and tears and anger and incomprehension that flooded into my mind when I first got the call that telling me from miles away that he was dead. Each loss triggers the memories of every other loss because they are all, each and every one of them, the same, in the end.

They are the same in that they bring immense heartbreak and inexplicable wounds to the soul.

But. They are also the same in that they come with the beautiful memories, the words, the sounds, the sights, the smells, the thoughts, the dreams, and the wishes that those beloved people left behind with us.

Losing a friend or someone you know is often a time to call Mom; lucky for me, I've got Mom for a long while still, but believe me, I don't take her or my own life for granted. She told me to remember that we don't just live for ourselves, but for those who have left us. They leave us with their lessons and stories so that we become a sort of cumulative being, absorbing and embodying those before us and later passing all of our stories on to another, whether that person be a daughter, father, sister, friend, neighbor...anyone.

So, I want to leave you with these words that these individuals left to us to remember. Do not forget.

From Linda:

"WHATEVER YOU CALL ME, DON'T YOU DARE CALL ME A QUITTER. 
I will fight. I celebrate life. I can not predict the course of my cancer. I will live each day for what it is and give thanks that I got to show up. And marvel at the beauty in it all. Live in the light, not in the fear. Breathe in. Breathe out. It truly is all good."

From David:

"I’ll leave you with this:
Do the things that will make you proud.
Struggle as hard as you can for whatever you believe in.
Corny and generic as they are, these are pretty much the only two rules I live by. I’ve found that in the face of uncertainty, when no one else is willing – or even able – to give me guidance, these two rules get me by. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I don’t regret them because I know I live by these two rules and always will.

Best of luck."

in memory

June 20.

I missed his birthday this year; I was out of town, traveling. He would have been 23.

I'm a little bit less sad this year, but only because time has passed, I think, and the shock and sadness less recent and acute. I don't think he'll ever know how many people he affected both during his life and with his sudden and tragic departure. Thinking of him, his unknown pain and the darkness that only he knew well enough to recognize, I can't help but want to retreat into a shell and wallow in tears and some inexplicable self-hatred for not having known to do anything, for what seems to be the absolute nothing that I have done to help humanity compared to the grand, generous, beautiful picture of selflessness that he painted in all of our minds before he left.

Sometimes, I fear that the holes he left in some of us are too large and too deep to be filled.

But then I remember that I can still see his smile, the way his eyes crinkled when he was truly happy. I can still hear his subtle but joyous laugh in the back of my mind. I still remember the slight hunch of his shoulders and the open, kind tone of his voice. I remember his constant messages of perseverance, hope, vision, and kindness.
I am certain that we will always remember him. And whether he knows it or not, wherever he is, watching us, he will continue to live through in this world in all of the ways he has moved our consciences, affected our actions, and inspired us to be and do good with our own lives.

Happy Birthday, Dbacks. We still and always will miss you.

top ten videos

While I often feel saddened by the attachment that our society has developed to our electronics, media, and various portable technological accessories, I have to say that I also feel grateful for the increased awareness (though sometimes misguided and misinformed) of all things that open and increased access to information has enabled.

I spend an embarrassingly large amount of time each day reading articles, watching YouTube videos, following memes, etc., but I like to think that it has been productive on most days, by making me laugh, making me cry, making me smile, making me angry, or making me scratch my head.

For this reason, I've decided to compile a list of my top ten favorite videos, found on the internet:

1. This marriage equality advocacy piece from GetUp in Australia.

2. This parody of the big honchos reactions and behavior following the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico on GOOD's blog.

3. Dancing Matt's "Where the Hell is Matt?" videos. Particularly the one from 2008 because I love the song.

4. This amazing beatboxing performance.

5. My college friend Sam Haynor's short film "The Janitor."

6. Secretary Hillary Clinton's speech at the 2011 Human Rights Convention in Geneva.

7. This incredible and moving speech from Severn Suzuki, a 12-year old girl from Canada, the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.

8. This video history (documentary) of the gay rights movement in the United States, by Ryan James Yezak.

9. An "African" version of Paradise or "Peponi" by Coldplay, performed by the Piano Guys and Alex Boye.

10. Rha Goddess' "Advocates Anthem"

drum circle

This afternoon, I visited Meridian Hill Park in NW Washington, DC for the first time and witnessed the famous Sunday afternoon drum circle. IT. WAS. BEAUTIFUL.

I sat out in the park, watching a wonderfully diverse group of something like 15-20 people with West African drums, Asian drums, drums taken off of rock drum kits, all moving and following the same group cadence that swelled and died down like one unit. With the light breeze, 70-degree weather, and bright Spring sunshine cutting through the budding trees, it felt like a perfect afternoon.

I had one particularly strange experience, though. Nothing overt, offensive, or scary, though. Just tears. While listening to the drums and looking at the group drumming, moving, swaying, an elderly couple, an old man in tattered clothes pushing a simple wheelchair carrying an old woman in worn clothes, came to the circle. The old woman's face lit up as she listened to the drums, and the old man took his seat in the circle, borrowing another person's drum to join the rhythm. For some reason, the sight of them brought to life by the sounds and the sun, the thought of this old woman relying on her old male companion to live each day made me think of all the difficulties that people fight each day and night, and I started crying. I have no idea what made my mind wander that way. Perhaps a product of my work.

I spend 40-45 hours a week thinking, reading, writing, and analyzing data about those who are barely hanging onto their dignity and their lives, forced to cash in their retirement funds to pay to keep the lights on at night; driven to live in anonymity and silence for fear of being sent away from their children, their families, their homes; waking to the expectation that each day will bring a torrent of verbal, physical, and mental abuse from hateful peers and classmates; and so many other tragedies.

I always thought that studying these things would lead me to a greater appreciation of things that I do have. I think that is the case, but it's also bestowed me with the constant awareness of the pain, the difficulty, and suffering that is experienced by another person at the same time that I get to sit in the sun, feeling the comforting warmth on my face, listening to the beating of a circle of drums at the park.

international women's day eve

Tomorrow is International Women's Day. I don't really know what that means, because to tell you the truth, being a steadfast progressive feminist whose job it is to be a feminist researcher, every day is women's day for me. But I'm glad that the world has decided to use this day to think about women, the progress made towards gender equity and civil rights for all sexes, the failures, and the work that there is left to be done.

I would try to be more positive...but, holy crap, is there work left to be done.

Yesterday, I went to a panel discussion at the beautiful Sewall-Belmont House on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, where a few researchers debated single-sex public education. At some point, Christina Hoff Sommers, a well-known (and in my opinion, ridiculously offensive) critic of 20th-century feminism, said something suggesting that there are few women in fields such as engineering, computer science, and construction because they just don't want to be, that women just happen to like journalism, teaching, and nursing. Sure. I'm certain that there are women out there that like journalism, teaching, and nursing. But I'm appalled that she failed to acknowledge that known barriers that exist to women entering traditionally male sectors of work and areas of study.

Our offices still get prank calls from idiotic men who think it's funny to harass junior staff and interns with requests for blow jobs and sandwiches.

And let's just say "GOP" and leave it at that. I think it's pretty self-explanatory as to how that shows how much work is left to be done. Ugh.

Anyways, a big raspberry to all of those backwards-minded misogynist, sexist, anti-feminist, pro-patriarchy turds, and a big "HELL YEAH" to all of the many out there who stand up against sexual harassment, pay discrimination, racism (yes. race and ethnicity are factors here), disenfranchisement, fear-mongering, stereotyping, and the various and creative ways in which societies have decided to keep women bound. Here's to women and all the amazing contributions they have made and will make in the world.

nightmare

I had an incredibly difficult time falling asleep last night. Seeing as I exercised two days in a row for the first time in three weeks (due to my ridiculous cold) and that my arms were still sore from climbin on Saturday, I thought that this would be a non-issue, as I assumed I would be exhausted. But alas, no.

What was I thinking about that kept me up late at night?

Virginia.

Yes, that's right. The state of Virginia kept me up last night. I wish it were that these thoughts of Virginia were a result of me having recently visited Colonial Williamsburg, remembering a really beautiful hike, or visiting Christina in Reston, but no, that was not the case.

What kept me up at night was the news I had read recently about the "transvaginal ultrasounds" that the Virginia legislature just passed as being required of any woman that is considering getting an abortion. Oh, that, and the fact that Virginia was also going to allow its policemen and policewomen to serve as immigration agents and check for immigration status when stopping anyone for anything. Oh, and that dumb personhood law that they passed, too.

The idea of being forced to subject myself to a transvaginal ultrasound after having battled with myself to make a painfully difficult, mature, very private decision about my body and my life makes me feel physically ill.

The idea that someone can be pulled over a speeding ticket and then subject to an immigration status check, and even deported, just because of the color of their skin, their appearance, or some stereotype makes me want to cry.

The state of Virginia, hell, the state of the United States of America is that it/they is/are ridiculous.

like looking into a mirror

Someone posted this great article from The Washington Post this morning, titled "A Love Note to the Workaholic." I've been called a workaholic at times, and I've pushed it aside, not agreeing with the tag. "Workaholic," after all, means "one who loves work," does it not? And I don't think it's a LOVE of work that keeps me thinking about my to-do list and checking calculations and phrases in my mind when my head hits the pillow at night - it's a desire to make sure I did it all right.

I didn't think this article applied to me, but after reading the following passage, I realized it did:

"We start to manage situations and micromanage the people around us, not just at work but in the rest of our lives as well. We make what is uncertain certain, no matter what the cost. We basically stay so busy that the truth of our lives can never catch up. We look confident on the outside and feel scared on the inside."

I don't know if I've ever read or heard of such a perfect summary of the way that my mind works. In fact, I don't think I even knew this about myself until I read this explanation. Order, control, organization, planning, and a sense of preparedness are all things that I've learned that I value. There was a time when I thought that I was more of a risk-taker, more spontaneous, a little more reckless...but that must have just been me in my teens when being reckless still meant that I came home to my parents' home each night!

Now, I think I'd like to give myself a bit more credit than this - I'm not terrified all the time, but I do think of all the possibilities, assess all the potentials losses, outcomes, and risks, and it is for this reason that I make detailed packing lists and write events into a planner, try to tie up loose ends before I leave the office, and do my best not to leave things to chance.

Anyways. It was just nice to see someone make sense of what I know about myself :)

sick

I took a sick day today; thinking that the ill feeling I had this morning was just a result of grogginess, I went to work anyway, and then promptly left the office and got home to climb back into bed before 10:30 am. I then slept for 5 hours straight before waking up and still feeling kind of poopy.

Part of the reason that I feel so run-down is that I've been working my butt off on a major report on social and demographic trends and the gender pay gap over time, and the deadline was on Friday...meaning last week and the week before, as well as the last few weeks before then have been really REALLY intense days at work. I've been learning an awful lot, however, and I was able to write a full chapter of the report (on low-wage work and the gender pay gap).

After months of data analysis, outlines, drafting, more data analysis, tables and figures in Excel, and writing and editing...we finally submitted a draft to the Women's Bureau!*

*the draft is confidential until published by the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor, but should anything final come out of it, I will let you know!

adventures in the kitchen

One of the Christmas gifts I got this year was a wonderful cookbook called Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. When I was studying abroad and I had regular access to fresh and local food from the weekly farmer's market, and I had the time to experiment with new ingredients and recipes, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the kitchen learning about new flavors and combinations of food items. It was there that I learned how to make a vinegar reduction, how to eat preserved lemon, and what to do with a jerusalem artichoke.

Since then, I've had the chance to continue working on my cooking and kitchen savvy, both as something fun to do during my free time here in DC as a working adult, and also in order to survive. One simply cannot subsist on take-out pizza and things from the convenience store...especially when one lives without a car or bike in such a food dessert as the Bloomingdale neighborhood of NW DC.

And so, this combination of factors has motivated me to have much more fun with food, grocery shopping, and my three meals a day, leading me to create all sorts of delicious things, that I'd like to share with you!

Mushroom risotto

ingredients: arborio rice, vegetable stock, scallions, yellow onion, parsley, white mushrooms, lemon zest

Polenta cakes w/tomato sauce and salad

ingredients: pre-cooked polenta, eggs, bread crumbs, tomato sauce, oregano, garlic powder, sugar, salt, pepper, spinach, garlic, lemon juice, mixed greens, green goddess dressing

Kale chips

ingredients: kale, olive oil, salt

Portuguese kale soup

ingredients: kale, white potatoes, cannelini beans, vegan chorizo, vegetable broth, white onion, crushed red pepper, salt, pepper, lemon juice, rosemary, garlic

In other words...YUM :)

Happy New Year! 2012!

It's hard to believe that I've already been in Washington, DC for a year and four months. I can't decide if it's that time flies when you're having fun, that time flies as you get older, or if time flies when you find yourself living your life day to day and have lost some sight of the bigger picture. But that's the great thing about the New Year. In the end, it's just a construct, some way that we've tried to make order and sense of the various actions that we go through during a lifetime, and when it rolls around and shocks us as we realize how much time has passed, it gives us a chance to either speed up or slow down, as we feel is needed.

This year, I have more resolutions than I can list, but I can tell you that it covers a wide range of tasks, a number of different areas of my life, and I think I'm in for a year of exciting new developments and progress. Here is a sampling of the resolutions that I've made, some that you may find boring or bizarre:

1. Floss every day.

2. Apply for graduate school; PhD programs in social policy, economics, or sociology.

3. Begin saving for retirement.

4. Write more letters. Not emails. Letters.

5. Try not to burn bridges.

6. Host more dinner parties and game nights.

In a strange way that may not be decipherable, all of the many resolutions that I've set for this year come together to help me accomplish one major personal goal: to stop being afraid. Fear of decisions, fear of loss, fear of pain, fear of fatigue, fear of repercussions, fear of stress...it's all combined to cripple me in one way or another over the past year and a half that I've been out of college, and it's about time for me to get over it all. I guess what I've learned about adulthood is that life as an adult has an immeasurable number of challenges and hurdles that no one ever tells you about, but growing up isn't about anticipating them or being prepared, because there's no way you can. Growing up is about learning how to meet the challenges and hurdles while keeping sight of life and living at the same time.

To ring in the New Year, Christina and I hosted a New Year's Eve dinner and game night at my house in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, DC:

I got to try out my brand new cookbook and made risotto w/lemon, scallions, and parsley, and braised fennel, and Christina made roasted brussels sprouts, strawberry shortcake, and her incredibly popular fiery sweet mashed potatoes. Everyone else contributed, as well, with delicious corn muffins, cupcakes, broccoli w/sundried tomatoes and balsamic vinegar, champagne, and sparkling cider to top off the meal!

Best wishes to all for a happy, healthy, and productive 2012!