It’s usually during the weeks prior to my birthday that I put time aside for strategic life planning. I’ve been doing this, making a plan per quarter of what I’d like to do/achieve, along with concrete action items to get me there, since my 30th birthday.

I know, I know – it sounds over-the-top neurotic, but it’s actually not. Or at least I choose not to see it that way. In fact, I would argue it’s a tool for keeping neurosis at bay. If I write it all down – all those goals, dreams, visions, ideas etc – then I won’t go bananas trying to keep it in order. I can look at The Plan once in a while to keep myself on task, but not obsess. Get it?

It works for me. In fact, I think it’s fun(ny).

But this year, the weeks prior to my birthday were a little more trying than usual. During the first few weeks of February I was just distracted and the last two, well, I was swimming in the birthday doldrums … thinking about age and what I haven’t accomplished. Dumb, I know.

But today is my first full day of being 34.

I am no longer in my early 30s and I don’t know what that means (metaphorically a/o practically). Should I have done more with my life by now?  Should I have more material wealth to show for the work I have done? I mean, really, I am well past the age of thinking material security doesn’t matter.

Ugh. I don’t know.

In truth, I know people my age who have accomplished more than me and less than me. In different arenas. Inside themselves and out. And maybe when all is said I shouldn’t make this birthday into more than what it is – just a day when I turn another year older. But I’m not sold on that yet because February 28, my birthday, is also my anniversary with this planet. It’s a time to celebrate and also a time to look at how much I’ve evolved or grown or contributed or whatever one is supposed to do when they incarnate as a human being.

So as I take the next couple of weeks to assess and craft my annual plan (which by the way I PDF and  email to a few select friends), I’m also going to take an intentional break from this blog (as opposed to just flaking) and  look at how Small-Marvel figures into my upcoming year and what its evolution will look like.

In the meantime, if you have any ideas dear friends, I’d love to hear them. Right now I’m feeling pretty stumped and biding my time in hopes of divine inspiration. Lucky for me, though, that usually works out.

Yikes. The only thing worse than facing a blank page is facing a blank blog post after neglecting said blog for months. Actually, I guess this is only true if you’re a writer. If you’re not a writer, I’m sure you can imagine.

Anyway, I last left this lil’ blog of mine right around Dia de los Muertos and Halloween and the descent into the deepest, darkest part of the year when introspection is a given and, well, lethargy is a likelihood. Admittedly, Blogosphere, I started wondering: What is the point here? I am writing for like seven people including myself. Well, it’s true.

So, my uncertainty inspired a little bit of research. That’s what I do when I’m anxious, I research. Knowledge calms my nerves.

Did you know  it’s estimated that 175,000 new blogs are started each day? And the total number of dead, abandoned blogs out there has exceeded 200 million?

I didn’t. And in some ways those stats make me want to give up on this blog even more … but in others  … it provides some solid reasoning for the whole blogging phenomena: people want and need to be heard.

As someone who is pursuing expressive arts therapy as a profession, you’d think this would have come to me sooner – but nope – I guess I’ve been a little slow on the uptake. And really, until last year when a friend pushed me to start Small Marvel – I was completely resistant to the whole concept of blogging. As in, eye-rolling resistant.

But what I’m starting to realize is that while the Web is flooded with blogs, and it really, really is, the blogosphere serves as a communal story bank – a central place where people can share their experiences, stories and opinions. It is, for all intents and purposes, a window into the collective unconscious, and conscious too – I guess. It is pretty amazing.

So with all that said, I’m gearing back up to both write and read. I’ve got stuff on my mind. And more than ever I’m inspired to hear/read what other people are saying. Please, all seven readers of mine, send me your top recommendations for blogs that you love. Please start your own and thanks for taking the time to listen to what I have to say. For real.

Ancestor Altar

Just a few weeks ago I was writing about how the streets of my hood were lined with  altars due to gang violence, and now here I am again writing about altars, though admittedly, the circumstance is slightly different and the mood around these parts … very different.

It’s the eve of Dia de los Muertos and honestly, if you don’t believe in the mystical, the magical or in infinite possibility, you should take a stroll around the Mission … because it’s emanating all of the above.

In anticipation of tomorrow’s big day – a day in which the veil between the living and dead thins and ancestors come back to pay a visit – people around here have done everything but put up big signs in their window encouraging their deceased loved ones to stop by. Shop windows (mainly Latino-owned) display elaborate altars created to welcome spirits, and tomorrow evening thousands of people – of varied backgrounds – will gather at a small neighborhood park where community members will erect life-sized altar installations paying homage to those lost.  There will also be music and entertainment and drinking and eating and general celebrating everywhere you look. My neighborhood will be partying with the dead, and there is nothing morose or maudlin about it.

My neighbor Alfonso, who is building a real-deal altar of his own, recently gave me the full rundown on Dia de los Muertos and all the traditional altar items.

For instance,  you should include both food and liquor on you altar — unless of course, the altar is for kid spirits — then it’s candy. Marigolds, calderas (or sugar skulls), pictures of loved ones, etc are required. (More contemporary altars deviate from tradition some and often pay reverence to not only personal loss, but collective loss – victims of war, mother nature and so on.)

Anyone that knows me well, knows that I have a history of  borrowing/adopting traditions from other cultures and religions on the regular,especially if I have friends from said cultures. I do so respectfully and  am the the first to admit that it’s because I was raised in a family that lacks anything resembling tradition – unless you count brunch at Bloomingdales followed by shopping.

Over the years I have picked up Jamaican traditions, Northern Indian, pre-Christian, Meso-American, Buddhist and so on.

The first time I made an ancestor altar it was out of necessity – when my Mom died, eight years ago. There was no formal funeral or memorial (per her request) and so I made a simple altar in my bedroom – with roses, a glass of wine, and two white candles … to honor my mom’s passing and commemorate the shedding of a physical body that no longer served her. That ritual of altar making made sense to me and has stuck with me through the years. Granted some year’s these altars are better planned than others, but there is always an altar – for my mom and for my brother, grandmother, and two aunts.

As I write this blog post I look up now and again at the candles that  flicker across the room. They shine to guide those spirits to my small apartment in the Mission District for a visit. I invite them hoping that they’ll share what they’ve learned and maybe laugh a little too. In truth, I have no idea if they’ll show … they might be tired or grumpy or at some other happening party, but it’s fun to wait, to hope, to keep an eye out. Because really, you just never know. Especially this time of year.

For the past week or so I’ve been haunted by the words of my 11th grade English teacher. These words of his keep looping in my head, as words tend to do, and I keep seeing  flashes of myself as an insecure 16-year-old ready to give up writing F-O-R-E-V-E-R. Yes, that’s right, F-O-R-E-V-E-R.

“Jessika,” he said. “Happiness is a cheap emotion.”

I can’t recall the details of the writing assignment I turned in, nor is it really the point. What is the point: These days, I have good reason to wonder if the editors I’ve been working with also had the misfortune of receiving the tutelage of Mr. Vogel because for the first time in my adult life I am receiving feedback that my work is too positive.

Too positive?  Save Mr. Vogel’s incongruous feedback, I have never even heard of such a thing.

I am not, as I pointed out in my very first blog post, glass-half-full by nature. In fact, I have always been thought of as the opposite. The other day I was visiting with my friend Jeff. We hadn’t talked in a good while and he was listening carefully as I ranted about my experience. After a while I paused and he smiled: It’s funny, I don’t remember you being into happy,” he said.

And he was right. I have always been the girl who concentrates on just the shadow instead of the interplay between darkness and light, and no surprise, my writing has always reflected that.

Since college I have been writing essays and articles most often about environmental or social justice issues. When I had my first job as a newspaper reporter my colleagues used to joke that I had the “oppressed peoples beat”  — and yeah, they weren’t too far off the mark. In recent years, I’ve written about the gentrification in my neighborhood, early puberty due to toxic exposure and our completely wack health care system – and pissed off Blue Cross/Blue Shield in the process. But as of late, more specifically within the last year, I’ve noticed my interest has been shifting – both in fiction and nonfiction writing, both in what I read and what I write.

These days, I’m interested in stories that inspire. I’m interested in transformation, and the beauty and growth that comes from working through the circumstances we’re given – a direct result of therapy, I’m sure. And more so, I’m not at all interested in pointing fingers or perpetuating conflict – though, admittedly, there is an important place for writers who are.

I should say also that I pitched these editors with my story ideas and past samples of my writing ahead of time. They were interested.  I’ve worked with one of these editors several times before and he’s never changed a word of my writing. It just turns out my take on these pieces were not tumultuous enough for them. In turn I’ve been told things like: “You’ve got some good stuff here, but … I think you’ve still got to work harder to earn that happy ending.” (For God’s sake, the essay was about coming to terms with my mom’s prolonged and agonizing death.) (And shouldn’t happy endings be a birthright?)

Anyway, it seems my writing is no longer a good fit for these publications, so I’ve politely withdrawn my submissions rather than revise them in a way that doesn’t feel true.

That may or may not have been a huge mistake in terms of my not-yet-developed writing career, but then again, this may just be the trade off to being more healed and whole (and all that) then I ever have been before.

In the meantime, I’m putting out the feelers and will wait to see what else surfaces. Somewhere out there someone must want to hear about the good, about the interplay between light and dark and all the beauty that unfolds. I believe in that. I have to.

24th and Potrero

24th and Treat

Street Art - 24th Street

24th and Florida

There are several things I know to be true when it comes to my emotional life:

1. I am over-the-top sensitive. Not in the way that people hurt my feelings easily, but more in the way I pick up and am easily impacted by the vibe in a room.

2. Not everyone feels the way that I feel, and not everyone gets it. Actually, most people don’t.

and

3. It is my responsibility to manage my sensitivity and my reaction to it.

The other night I was having dinner with a good friend who is as sensitive, if not more so, than I am. We ate Indian food and talked and laughed. It helps to have someone who experiences the same type of emotional overload. It’s like some weird sisterhood – oh yes, the ties that bind.

Anyway, most recently, I’ve been really impacted by the shootings in my neighborhood and the number of kids that have been killed. The pictures above are of makeshift altars erected on 24th Street to honor lives lost in the last two weeks due to shootings. There are cops on almost every street corner these days and tensions are running high. My reaction is not  rooted in fear or anger, it’s mostly sadness. The kind of sadness you would feel if you actually knew the people who died, which I didn’t. The kind that weighs down on you and is hard to shake.

I should say here that I do not live in a desolate, crime-ridden neighborhood. This week will mark four years I’ve lived here, the most at home I’ve ever felt. In my neighborhood people throw block parties in the streets to get to know their neighbors. They decorate trees with paper flowers for no reason in particular. They paint brightly colored murals to tells stories of the Latino immigrant experience. There are hipsters, activists, families, poor people and rich people all living right next to each other. It is also true that in my neighborhood kids shoot each other in the name of gang affiliation and defending turf.

I imagine somewhere in the Mission District there are other people who are as upset by the violence as I am, but I can’t seem to find any of them. The people I talk to are:

1. Scared for their own safety – which is largely unrealistic because this type of gang violence, rooted in protecting territory, is personal crime. They are killing other gang members.

2. Numb to the violence – which is hard for me to understand. No matter how many times you see or hear about it, kids are still shooting each other.

3. Misinformed and think that gang activity can be curbed simply be increasing police enforcement- which blows my mind. Yes, gang activity is a big problem, but more so it is a symptom of social and economic inequity. You can’t curb gang activity without addressing the root issues.

In the past four years I’ve seen waves of violence hit over and over again – sometimes in front of my own building. In that time I’ve been part of neighborhood associations that have turned into polarazing neighborhood watch groups – the watchers and the watchees (my involvement didn’t last long). I’ve also heard a number of friends and neighbors speak of how much they love the Mission and then they move on to “nicer” neighborhoods where “people actually care about their neighborhood.”

Obviously, I can’t control what others think or feel or do, but I can (per no. 3 in the first list above) own my feelings and take appropriate steps to address them. And so I’ve decided to seek out opportunities to support long term solutions to the violence in my hood – solutions that do not displace families and further polarization, but instead promote integration and level the playing field by providing alternatives to gang affiliation and crime – ie youth programs, economic development initiatives etc. I’m not sure what all of this will look like when it comes together, but I’m in research mode now. There’s a lot of positive amidst the negative, just sometimes it needs to be sought out.

' Control Lost' by Sam Flores

Fine. I’m willing to accept that maybe I was overly ambitious when it came to planning my trip “home” after all these years – 7 years to be exact. Maybe I was too confident, but I really did think the timing was right. And I really did think I was ready, over the course of four days, to:

a) meet my dad’s new wife’s kids and grandkids

b) see my 97-year-old grandmother who still, after all these years, manages to bring out every insecurity I have

c) visit with my dead mom’s best friend – who was always like a second mom and her daughter – my fake sister

and

d) face a bunch of  childhood ghosts whom I’ve been playing hide and seek with for years now

Evidently, I was incorrect in my assumption I was ready and I canceled my flight to NY 12 hours before the plane was to take off from SFO. It was dramatic. There were tears and possibly a panic attack involved. It wouldn’t be out of character for me to blame this emotional outburst on the full moon, but really, the bottom line is that I flailed in the face of potential discomfort. Ah, yes, there’s nothing like a healthy dose of humility to remind you you still have much work to do.

So I’ve been trying since that fateful day to reconcile what happened and also put the demons that I had in check, back in check. It’s not going so smoothly.

Demons, by the way, are not some scary mythical concept - not for me anyway. Everyone’s got them. Some people are better at keeping them at bay and some people be-friend them. Some people, I guess, too, get swallowed.

In the Budhist pracitce of  Chöd, which I’ve been reading about lately, you’re asked to not only be-friend your demons but actually sit them down and ask them what’s up. What do you want? What can I do for you?

The practice was originated by the eleventh-century Tibetan yogini Machig Lapdrön, and has been made popular in the contemporary West by Tsultrim Allione. There are actually five steps in the contemporary practice of Chöd, but once you find out what these demons really want and give it to them, they transform into guides or allies instead of big, scary weirdos that lurk in the corners reminding you how much you suck — that’s what mine do. I can’t speak for anyone else.

That being said, I have not yet put this practice to the test. My first step is to stop viewing this aborted journey home as a major setback in my personal evolution. That’s number 1. Instead I hope to see it as for what it really was: a change in plans.

After I  accomplish this, I think I’ll invite these demons to the table and see what’s up. It’s long overdue. In the meantime though,  I’m working on being compassionate and patient with myself. Last I checked compassion and patience are not things that are readily valued in our culture, so this in itself is a big challenge. Still, I think it’s do-able.

Ah, I’ve been remiss in updating my blog, which in the blogosphere, is bad, bad form. So here I am, entering my second week of this new chapter and I’m finally sitting still long enough to download.

These days, in between job hunting and play time and dog sitting my ex-boyfriend’s 180-pound dog, I find myself chatting with the universe quite a bit. Mind you these conversations don’t happen aloud – that would just be crazy. But they do happen. And okay, sometimes they happen aloud – on my end anyway. Sometimes my questions are vague – like: Okay, show me what’s up. Or, Okay, please guide me to where I need to be so I can serve the planet and pay my rent. I ask these types of questions before I go to sleep and hope that I’ll get some clarity when I’m dreaming. Sometimes it comes when I’m dreaming and sometimes it comes when I’m walking down the street a few days later. You never know.

It’s important to note that as flakey as this all sounds, this type of inner dialogue has always served me well. And it’s true, I’ve been having these conversations long before this new chapter began.  It seems every time I’m in transition and things seem completely out of control, which you know, is pretty regularly, I call for backup and guidance.

This time last year, for example, I was in the midst of a pretty serious healing cycle. I was knee deep in therapy, sorting out things I should have dealt with years ago. The pain, honestly, was almost too much to take at times. One night I was lying in bed and I clearly remember asking: WTF? Wasn’t therapy supposed to help, not hurt? That night I dreamed that I had open wounds on my arms – they looked like sores with teeth (I know, imagine how I felt). Instead of being afraid of them and panicking, I took a closer look, and when I did, when I pressed my face right up to them, I saw that I could see inside myself – literally. Those wounds were an entry way to knowing myself from the inside out.

And this insight, led to other insights and so on.

So, these days, I’m not quite at the point where I’m asking: WTF? But I am asking, respectfully, what’s next for me? I am doing everything I can to set things straight in the material world, lay the foundation and infrastructure of what I’d like my adult life to look like. I am also networking, keeping myself “out there”, and have my eyes wide open, scanning for opportunity …  but I am also not above asking for help.

Last night I was snuggled up in a rather uncomfortable sofa bed, thinking a little too much about all of this, and finally when my brain exhausted my spirit, I gave in and  mumbled something like: Ok, I trust the universe, let it go.

Shortly thereafter as I was drifting off to sleep, and was in that in between space – the one that’s warm and glowey and the color of twilight – the universe said back to me (not aloud, mind you): That’s cool, but trust yourself.

You probably think I’m kidding, but I’m not.