The Real Reason I’m Obsessed with Reality Television—It’s All in the Details

My favorite book is Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt. It’s actually a young adult book I first read in sixth grade. It’s about four siblings ages 7-13 who are abandoned by their mentally ill mother in a broken-down station wagon parked at a mall. The family is dirt poor. Having written their great Aunt’s address on the paper bags holding their clothes, the eldest, Dicey, decides that they need to head toward her home where hopefully their lost mother will be waiting. The bulk of the book is about how the four siblings walk hundreds of miles up the Atlantic Coast, and how they find food, shelter, and hope in dire circumstances. As an adult I became aware that my own mother has a serious mental illness which often interfered with her caring for us properly and thus realized this was one part of the book I could relate to. However, the aspect of the plot that I most identify with is the theme of: how to use limited resources to meet your basic needs.
Growing up, I had to do just that. And it is that creativity and satisfaction of surviving hostile environments that I know intimately and which endlessly fascinates me in other people’s stories. And while Survivor is the quintessential survivor experience, I find all reality television shows to have essentially the same theme, whether taking place locked away in the Big Brother house or on the runway competing for a modeling contract. All of these contestants are trying to stay sane and to achieve a very difficult goal within the constraints of their unhealthy environments.
In my childhood, we rarely had meals cooked and served. There was usually food in the fridge, although it was sometimes out of date and spoiled. I had to forage in the kitchen, sometimes cutting up a green pepper and having it with a hunk of cheese for my dinner. There was a survival mentality in my house. I would hide clean towels in my room because my mother would feel free to take whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, and to avoid being left in a lurch (needing a clean towel to shower before school) I resorted to being sneaky and devious to get my basic needs met. When I watch contestants scouring the beach for food and going to extreme measures to get what they need, I recognize this behavior on a primitive emotional level. I rejoice with that person when he finally gets the coconut open and gets the liquid to his parched lips.
Homecoming is filled with delightful details with intricate descriptions of using limited resources to meet one’s basic needs:
They’d have to conserve money and food. Quickly she calculated a way to eat only half of the food tonight and the rest for their next dinner. No more Cokes, either; they’d cost sixty cents. No more small markets; they were more expensive. They could fish in Long Island Sound or the rivers (string and a hook, they’d have to buy those), and why didn’t she have a knife? Pg 30
Someone else might find these details mundane and boring. I find them thrilling.
This fascination with survival and making do is a theme that permeates my work and my art. My adult life has consisted of many hardships—physical, emotional, and mental. In every case, I was somehow able to transform that struggle into something affirming and sustaining. The main reason I’m a therapist is that I know in my core that it is possible to survive and even thrive in the throes of adversity. The art medium I engage in most has to do with found objects. I automatically look at everything as a potential art material. I take the plastic bits from the box my printer came in. I see the left-over nuts and bolts of my assembled table as salvageable. I guess I believe that almost everything is salvageable. And thus every piece of one’s life contains the possibility of being transformed into something better. It’s this possibility for transformation that stands at the heart of who I am and what I do.

Why Money Can Buy Happiness--Or at Least the Financial Security to Pursue It

"Money Can't Buy Happiness" has never been a favorite saying of mine. Probably because I've never had enough money to test this theory out. In fact, I'll admit that when I hear well-to-do folks say this, I kind of want to throw something at them.
The truth is, social class and access to resources is complex and not easily distilled down to a supposedly enlightened saying. To understand this relationship between money and happiness let's start at the top, which is really the bottom. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation. This theory proposes that there is a hierarchy to human needs such that, we cannot actualize higher functioning if our lower, most basic needs are not met.
The first, most basic needs include:
Physiological: breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion
When these needs are met, we seek
Safety: security of body, employment, resources, morality, the family, health, property
With these needs met, we seek
Love/Belonging:friendship, family, sexual intimacy
when these needs are met, we seek
Esteem: self-esteem, confidence, achievement,respect of others, respect by others.
When these needs are met, we seek
Self-Actualization: morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice acceptance of facts
One does not literally need to fully actualize one level before moving on to the next. for example, during times when I've been financially impoverished I continued to explore my creativity through writing poetry. But, the overall idea is that humans can't fully work on higher order needs--the very higher order needs that create happiness--if our basic needs for survival are not to some extent met. That's what I mean by money can buy happiness.
The most blaring example to me is the homeless men and women that I pass on the street. Lacking security of body, of belonging, and of food, water, and sleep, these people are unable to dream about what will make them happy or to strive to achieve this. This to me is tragic.
I believe it is our birthright to be happy. And our society should provide the circumstances that allow us to claim that birthright.

Top Ten Things I Am Grateful For During My First Week in Glenwood Springs

1. I found my new hangout. It’s a coffee shop with fresh food, drinks, desserts and internet. After I befriend the owners I plan to propose starting an open mike night there.
2. I’m becoming a nicer person! I don’t know if it’s my good mood or knowing that the line is slow because there really is just one person working that counter, but I feel generous with my time and attitude in this slower paced life.
3. “Ryan” and “Bleedpro” are unknowingly giving me free internet until I can afford to purchase my own.
4. I feel inspired to explore. I’m hiking. I’m driving all over town and getting lost which is leading me to a lot of discoveries. I found the tiny library and checked out some DVDs and CDs. It’s just really fun that everything is new.
5. My new boss is an amazing woman. She is loaning me her air mattress so I don’t have to sleep on the floor and she took me out for the best Thai curry I’ve ever tasted.
6. The water I’ve been craving throughout my decade plus in Colorado is available in abundance here with two mighty rivers and the pretty much biggest natural hot springs pool in the world.
7. My studio apartment is wonderful. It’s actually as big as a one bedroom, just without the doors. Hard wood floors. A delightful mountain breeze. Four minute walk to the center of town.
8. My cat Chloe is acclimating. She’s still weary of the new digs, but is getting more comfortable each day.
9. My wonderful friends are still keeping me company through Facebook and phone calls.
10. Really, that I have the chutzpa to completely change my life by taking a leap of faith and believing in my instincts that are telling me this is a great place for me to be right now.

I am a U-Haul Lesbian! I fell in love with my new town on our second date!

First, for those who don’t know, there is a very tired, yet continuously used joke about the pace at which lesbians begin their relationships. The joke goes: What does a lesbian bring on the second date? Answer: A U-haul! This stems from the tendency for overwhelming emotional investment to exist when you have two women pursuing a relationship, as women stereotypically tend to quickly develop a strong emotional attachment to those they are physically intimate with.

This is exactly what is happening with me as I explore my new mountain town community of Glenwood Springs. Of course, I drove all my stuff here, including a very miserable cat, after visiting the town just once, at the time of my job interview. I took a leap of faith and it’s paying off.

I don’t believe I’ve ever been in love with a place before. I’ve been to interesting and beautiful locations, including Israel, Berkeley and New York City. But, I feel something very different right now that feels like love. I feel an urgent sense of possibilities. I feel that I want to rush to get to know this place so I don’t miss out on anything, yet, I feel I could live here forever and take my time getting to know each aspect of my new home intimately.

My gut and my heart are singing yes, but my mind is trying to be rational. I’m asking myself the same questions that anyone does when falling in love. Is this real? I have never felt this way before. Am I seeing what is true, both good and bad? Or am I seeing things through rose colored glasses? Will this feeling endure? Or will it fade with time? Can I truly be myself here and build a full life? Can I handle the drawbacks as well as the treasures? Only time will tell.

A few things I’ve discovered: Downtown is a four-minute walk from my apartment. There I find coffee shops, bookstores, restaurants, rivers, mountain views, and people who say hello when you pass them by. Two blocks away is Kaleidescoops where I plan to try every one of their forty-eight flavors of ice cream. I want to zip-line, river-raft, and rock-climb. This place makes me want to be a healthier, happier person. That’s love, right?

A Writer's Dilemma

It never occured to me to keep a diary growing up, but when I went to Israel for a ten-month adventure, I decided to record my experiences. Later, I noticed that I was filling my book with drawings, rather than written entries. I didn't use a journal again until 1998 when I began therapy. My therapist suggested that at the end of each day I make note of ten things I felt grateful for. And thus began my long-winded self-improvement project of journaling.

I discovered that processing my emotions and thoughts through writing provided me with self-understanding, an outlet for intensity, and some solace. Today, I have about 70 filled journals, non of which I have ever gone back to read. This was a conscious decision based on the fact that my decade-plus relationship with journals was mostly filled by fearfulness, depression, anxiousness, and sadness. I lived for about a decade dealing with severe clinical depression and anxiety, poverty, and lonliness. Since I am always in the process of recovering from depression, I have never felt so far beyond it that I could revisit these painful words without being, well, depressed. I decided that my health was more important than my curiousity of reading the journals and risking more pain.

I have always thought that I would write a memoir someday and that I would use these journals to remember endless details and interpretations of events to do so. However, I am making a big move soon and have been streamlining my belongings. I am only taking what I can fit in the car. And those journals would take up a lot of prime real estate in the back seat. This move has already entailed throwing objects and papers away that I feel are no longer necessary for me to carry around. And getting rid of these has lightened my load mentally, as well.

The question is: Will I regret throwing away my journals in another five years when I am ready to read them and use them in my writings? I don't know what the answer is, but I'm taking a leap of faith. I am trusting my mind and heart that the parts of my life that I need to remember later will be right inside of me. I'm letting the journals go. It's time.

Hatefulness Lacks Skillfulness

Today I sat in my favorite lesbian coffeeshop, sipping Tazo Calm tea, and talking with one of my favorite Baristas when the woman sitting next to me began to rant and rave. She barked about how the foreigners are taking over our country and using all of our resources. She identified everyone in the country who doesn't agree with her as being a jackass, and put forth that she had all the answers to everything (while she complained endlessly and offered no constructive solutions). Needless to say, I spoke up. I try to always confront racism. But, putting aside the content of her beliefs, it was the delivery that I found so toxic.

Her tone, mannerisms, expressions, and words were hateful. I'm not going to pretend I'm so much better than her, because I too have used hatred as a way to communicate my ideas. At 21, I was a walking ball of rage. At 36, my ideas are still similar in that I abhor oppression and speak out about it. However, my delivery is entirely different. And my certainty that I am always right has been replaced by a more humble belief that another person may have valuable information about the topic at hand and I could benefit from listening.

A big part of the shift is from psychological growth. Maturity leads to less black and white and more complex thinking (although this doesn't always coincide with chronilogical age). But a whole lot of it is Buddhist. One of my favorite lessons is: "Hate doesn't lead to love" "Hate leads to hate" and "Love leads to love" Quite literally, if you try to solve problems through hatred, hatred will prevail. If you try to solve problems with love and compassion, those will prevail. Heeding these ideas is not always easy. It takes a lot of skill and practice.

As I write this I am actually thankful that my experience today reminds me of where I came from regarding my relationship of hatred toward others, as well as where I am and where I want to be.

To Shave or Not to Shave: That has Always been the Question!

Of all the feminist issues I have dealt with over my thirty-six years, the decision to have hair on my legs or to get rid of it has been one of the most contentious and publicly debated. I would say that for the past fifteen years I have shaved only 10% as much as my female contemporaries. This has led to arguments, harassment, self doubt and finally acceptance. And now I am turning a corner in this journey and want to tell everyone about it.

It started back in high school where, like every teenage girl, I shaved my legs because it was the right, and only, thing to do. One day my junior year, I was walking around the neighborhood with a casual friend. I happened to glance down below her shorts’ hem and saw something dark on her legs. I gasped internally and spent the rest of our walk trying to sneak a peek and understand what I was seeing. This friend was already a crusader for human rights and I concluded that the two must be linked: only a woman cool enough to take political action at the age of seventeen could get away with hairy legs.

My first year at the University of Michigan brought me into contact with Leslie. Leslie was the hairiest and most beautiful woman I had ever met; she was also Italian and the hair on her upper lip, legs, and underarms was very dark. My second year I moved into a co-op (with a bunch of hippies, myself included) and met more beautiful, hairy women. The most interesting part to me was that their boyfriends found them to be sexy and gorgeous. This was a powerful lesson to me about the difference between societal standards of beauty and the reality of what average men and women find to be attractive. I stopped shaving my legs and felt free from the waste of time, energy, and product costs.

Then, I headed across the world to live in Israel for ten months. I was nervous about how my choice to not shave would be received in a macho culture. It turns out I was one of three women who didn’t shave on my program. I became best friends with Annie and I remember sitting on the tour bus, heading into the desert with our dangling legs bumping into each other and her saying, “Doesn’t it feel nice—hair against hair.” And I thought, yeah, it does feel nice—soft and no prickles.

My internal acceptance of the naturalness of having hair on my legs was growing, but the external reactions were still harsh. I had an encounter with an Israeli taxi driver who’s native language was Arabic. However, when he shouted at me in broken Hebrew that I looked gross and needed to shave my legs, I yelled back in my broken Hebrew, Ha goof sheli! This is my body! When back in the States, a homeless man yelled at me as I walked by that I looked like a man.

Over the years I have become more curious about why it is so offensive to others that I have hair on my body. Usually, I don’t shave all winter and then shave once or twice in the summer. I try to see what I can get away with, but I’m also very self-conscious and selective about how I dress.

And now, the twist! A few days ago I removed my leg hair with that removal cream because it was really hot, I wanted to wear shorts, and I didn’t want to be hassled. When the weather cooled temporarily, I wore pants and noticed that I really liked the feel of the fabric on my smooth legs. I realized that I was enjoying my smooth legs, not because society was telling me I had to, but because it was just a pure, personal feeling. I want to do it a whole lot more often, but still stand in solidarity with my female contemporaries who choose to rock their natural leg hair.

What am I getting myself out of?

I once heard Maya Angelou give Oprah a splendid piece of advice. Ms. Angelou said, "When someone shows you who they are the first time, believe them." And I have diligently exercised that wisdom while dating. It's not that I won't give someone a second, or even third, chance. I have! But, when I see something glaringly awful--like the person spends the entire date talking only about herself and never asks me who I am--I accept that this person is not who I'm looking for. Likewise for lifestyles. Wanting children or being an Olympic-like athlete are deal-breakers. There's not anything wrong with those choices, but they are not compatible with mine.

When it comes to jobs, though, I am not nearly as vigilant. I think I just need the money so badly that I ignore the reality of a bad fit. On my first day of work I sat in a meeting and listened to one co-worker confront another about being racist towards her. The group's response was to focus on the woman who was confronting to figure out what her problems were. I was stunned. My heart sank and I thought, "Oh my god. What am I getting myself in to?" Next it was the head of the organization calling me "stupid" and telling me I was "an idiot for believing anything the kids say." I was told to take this with a grain of salt. The organization offered up the idea that the director had brilliant gems wrapped in difficult packages and that I should ignore how it is delivered and just accept what is on the inside. I think that is insane. I also find it shocking that an organization that is dedicated to helping children recover from abuse allows the director to abuse the staff. And then there was the instance of neglect. I let it all go at that point, knowing that I would rather work at King Sooper's bagging groceries than not stand up for a kid who can't stand up for himself. Pretty soon after that, I quit.

By the time I leave a job that isn't for me I'm usually miserable, depressed, and very agitated. This time I saw the red flags again and again and I kept trying to make it work. I was afraid of being destitute, of failing at my dream job, and derailing my plan to work the two years necessary to get a professional social work license. These fears kept me at my current agency.

But, as I said in one of my facebook posts, I finally reached the point where the fear of change was eclipsed by the fear of staying the same.

What job next? A ramble.

Yesterday I remembered that in 1997 I got an astrology reading by a world-renowned Hindu astrologer (and my best friend at the time's husband) in which I was told I would have five children and they would all be boys. I got the reading because I was very ill and alone and was grasping for any sense of security and meaning I could find. Actually, most of the reading was eerily accurate. I went on to practice astrology professionally for many years and I still do an occasional reading. But the part about having five boys sounded ridiculous to a woman who never wanted children.

Today, I have my five boys. Six to be exact. They are the teenagers that I work with as a therapist at a residential treatment center. I also thought about how I have Uranus in the sixth house and how this is interpreted as having a daily work experience that is erratic, unpredictable, cutting-edge and strongly dynamic. This accurately reflects my experience of work over my lifetime. And I am reminded that my crazy patchwork quilt of job experience is valid for me. I will probably never hold a job position for ten or even five years. I need to constantly grow and shift and enact previously unexplored parts of my career self. With this need for freedom and change comes a whole lot of uncertainty.

Right now I am at yet another juncture of change. I have worked in my current job for six months pouring passion, love, thoughtfulness, and joy into it. I have also experienced a steadily increasing feeling of uncertainty about my abilities. I have suffered verbal abuse disguised as teaching. I believe the organizational culture I am working within is toxic and disempowering. The last straw happened this week when my superiors made a decision about a child that I felt was neglectful and wrong. While I can decide to take the abuse myself, it is impossible for me to ignore what I perceive to be endangerment to a child. I made my peace before emailing HR; I decided that holding on to this position is less important than standing up for a child who has no voice. I expect to be labeled as a trouble maker and I expect that my managers will close rank to protect themselves and get rid of me. In any case, I have decided to move on. So, I am sitting with the uncertainty of what job position I will have next and where my next paycheck will come from. And I am trying to believe that I will find another position soon that I will enjoy and feel good about. This is where I am.

Today was one of the best days of my life

Here's what happened.
I work as a therapist in a residential treatment facility for adjudicated youths. One of my clients is an 18 year old boy I'll call Steve. Working with Steve has been incredibly difficult. He has a chronic illness that is going to significantly reduce his lifespan. He has an adoptive mother that abused and then abandoned him. Steve has never felt loved or wanted. He has had no hope about his life and therefore has taken out his misery on everyone around him. On Tuesday, I told him this was his last chance to change his hurtful ways or he would have to leave the facility (a tough decision, but in line with looking out for the community as a whole).

Today, I was part of a conversation with Steve in which he learned that his birth mother was found and that she very much wanted to be in touch with him. The smile and laughter that ran across his face as he was told the news was one of the most joyous and beautiful things I have ever seen.

He found out that he had been taken from his mother when she was jailed for drug offenses. He learned that she hadn't given him up and had looked for him several years ago, but was told that he had died. Birth mom has already written him a letter. He has softened and melted in just a few hours, saying, "I want my birth mom in my life." Steve feels like he has something to live for, something to do well because of. He feels, for probably the first time in his life, that there might be someone for him to love and be loved by. We'll see how this unfolds. It will be a slow, protected process to reunite him with his birth mother.

I've helped a lot of people in a lot of ways over my lifetime, but this was like witnessing a miracle. It was like witnessing someone being reborn. No matter what else I do in my career, I feel that all the heartache, stress, and struggle was worth being able to witness that moment.

Babymania!

I've got babies on the brain. It seems like every friend and her mother are having babies or raising babies or putting cute pictures of babies on Facebook. I never wanted to be a mom. It did not occur to me as a child, teen, or young adult that I could be a mother. And while lesbians certainly have children, it is less common in my community and therefore the reminders to me to even consider the idea are mostly absent. This probably sounds weird but I'm thirty-six and had never really held a baby before. I didn't babysit as a child or have nieces and nephews to bond with. And then along came this baby. I asked to hold her, just to see what would happen, and when she was safely perched on my lap, I felt a warm, fuzzy aching inside. I felt a special kind of happiness that I have never felt before. And the feeling continued as I watched her crawl and play with her bright, plastic toys. And in my head I thought, "Oh, Shit!" "My entire sense of my life plan is being called into question by this strange feeling! Maybe I do want to be a mom! And there's no time to waste." And then, a couple hours later, I forgot about the whole thing. I am looking forward to being an aunt to my best friend's baby-in-the-making. And, I don't want to be a mom. I don't want to raise a child. I don't want to center my life around a child. Basically, I've struggled within my own life for so many decades, that I just want to be happy. I want to be responsible for myself and to my life partner (if she ever shows up). I want freedom and flexibility. I want to channel my energies into being an adolescent and family therapist, an artist, an activist, a great friend, and a great partner. So, why am I being driven crazy by babies right now? I'm going to blame it on Facebook. Without Facebook, I wouldn't see the photos and hear the awesome mommy stories. But, just like I want to hear a story of your trek through Nepal, I don't want to actually do it, I really don't want to have a baby of my own. But, keep posting those photos on Facebook! I'll be looking for them.

The poor black student and the educated White Savior

Today the kids were watching Blindside. I haven't seen it, myself, but upon hearing about the plot concluded that it falls in to one of my least favorite movie categories: the white educated person saves/teaches/mentors the poor black uneducated student. Now, I know this film is based on a true story, as many of them are. But, I believe these films are inherently racist because they are built upon a dynamic that white movie-goers get off on. Stories where black educated people save/teach/mentor their own communities are rarely made in Hollywood because they deprive the white movie-goer of the voyeuristic experience of being a powerful and benevolent white savior doing their part to be a force of good in the world. My guess is that black movie goers have a very different experience of these films and it's not the experience of "feel good movie of the year." It's probably more like, "what the fuck??" "Why are we portrayed as needing the whites to save us, AGAIN????" I want to see films about all sorts of leaders working within their communities to help themselves. There are plenty of these kinds of stories where there is no rescuing, but instead real empowerment. And if Hollywood won't make these movies because they're not as exciting to white movie goers, than Indie films are going to have to take up the slack.

Girls and Boys

My friends know that one of my biggest pet peeves (besides "The Secret"--which I'll write about later--and drivers who turn on one way streets without checking for pedestrians) is the idea that boys and girls are born with very different personality qualities--boys are aggressive, girls are nurturing. From the moment of birth, or even learning the baby's sex, parents start preparing their children to follow gender stereotypes. Boys are given trucks and puzzles and toys that are less emotional and more practical. Girls get the reverse--dolls and stuffed animals and things that tap into the very real quality of human nurturing. Gender essentialism--the idea that gender traits are inborn--makes me crazy angry. It basically negates all the people who defy these stereotypes: the gentle, nurturing father, the adventurous and tough woman. And so many more. And if you have a study that proves I'm wrong, I'll find a study that proves I'm right. As an artist, I find the gendering of color to be ridiculous. Pink is not inherently female and blue is not inherently male. So why does our culture perpetuate these notions? There must be some investment in keeping males and females in separate and different categories. Someone benefits from this. I'll get back with you on some of the reasons in a future post.

Lately, I am fascinated by contradiction. I believe that the ability to hold two seemingly exclusive ideas within one person is a sign of psychological health. When you grow up without the proper parenting, you can get stuck in different stages of development. One of them is black and white thinking. When young, one must have black and white thinking to understand the world: hitting your baby sister with a toy is bad, giving her a hug is good; eating vegetables for dinner is good, eating cake for dinner is bad. However, as you mature, your outlook on the world becomes more complex and nuanced. You leave the black and white behind. I spent many years stuck in the black and white. Most notably was my pure disdain for meat eaters when I was a vegetarian. I was a very hostile vegetarian and if you ate meat, even if you were my best friend, I judged you as bad. Thankfully, I have moved past the black and white thinking. Now, I am a sea of contradictions. I am the radical feminist obsessed with rap music. I am the former environmentalist who loves nature, but chooses not to recycle in my apartment. I am a Buddhist who rejects hierarchy and lineages--hence the name of this blog, Rebel Buddhist.

A few summers ago I advertised on Craig's List to form a group of people who practice Buddhism, but don't want anyone to tell them how. We met for a few months in Cheeseman Park, sharing ideas with each other and feeling a sort of community. Eventually, the group died out. The concept did not. Being a Rebel Buddhist means both following my own truth and being open to the wisdom of others. And being able to hold and assimilate both, and still be me.