Tonight, I had a really good conversation with my housemate, about privilege, and more specifically, my privilege as a rich person. I've thought alot about what being trans* and deaf has meant to me over the past two years, and thoughts about patriarchy, heterosexism, and white supremacy has meant - but very rarely, what class has meant. What it means to be rich, and add that along the laundry list of my identities of how I move through out the world that is full of classism - a world that I have not felt, just can rattle of numbers and theories and more, but not feel. And that's not enough to really show up and grow and transform: to transform myself, and to be a person that's really committed to transforming the world.
And it's not about making myself not a rich person, finding ways to escape and deny it; it's not about self-flaggelation and pity-me-I'm-privileged bullshit. If I do it, call me out. It's about trying to be authentic, as scary as that feels sometimes (like right now).
I am rich. I grew up in a really wealthy family, and have gone to private schools my entire life, leading to alot of educational privilege, and alot of thinking about the correct theory - rather than doing things and figuring them out as I go along. I have grown up always thinking, and believing, that I have options - and that things will work out, particularly financially - and they do, with the support of my parents. I've lived part my life as a crusty anarchist punk boy. I do organizing, and I'm funded by my parents. I get burnt out, but it's never for long, and I don't face any financial repercussions for it. I live my life with a sort of lightness, and maybe some of that is my youth, but I know of working class folk my age who are activists and organizers and they don't move the world in the same way that I do. I don't feel the weight of what it means, the same way I've felt the weight of ableism has felt in my life and what the weight of transphobia and cissexism have felt.
And since I'm really frustrated with the world and my friends for not getting it, for not feeling the weight of what ableism or transphobia means to me, and as many workshop facilitators have told me: it's time to get from the heady part of this to the heart. To try to feel what the reality of being rich means for me - and what's really important to me is to try to sit with the ways that class impacts the identities I'm figuring out how to navigate. I am figuring out how to live and honor these identities, build power within them, build community with similarly-identified folks.
And I know that I'm not in the same boat as alot of people I know and care about. I’m searching out finding the kind of trans* healthcare that I would most prefer, and knowing that I’ll get the funding for it from my parents and maybe their insurance. My question is not "How do I access this without insurance", its "What does my insurance cover?". It means that I’m not worried about employer healthcare, or finding other ways to figure out how to pay for it. It’s going to happen – because all of my other healthcare has been paid for by the wealth and insurance I have access to. I can explore deafness, but with the privilege of knowing that I can put my speech processors back on and hear – then pass as a hearing person: passable speech, hearing people when they talk to me for the most part, etc – and that is a direct result of the wealth I have, and have had, access to, the doctors, and the insurance. Being someone who walks and doesn't have MCS, it means I can enter and exist in inaccessible spaces. All of this is privilege within a context of oppression or marginalization or something. It means that I deal with some trans* issues, and some deaf/disabled ones – but often, it means that I’m not loaded down with the deep intersections between class and queerness and disability and whiteness and citizenship/settler privilege in my psyche and spirit, and that I’m not directly faced with the very many ways of violence, exclusion, isolation, that a lot of my friends and community members are experiencing in their lives.
And that’s a clear line of difference that defines me from many people that I am in community with; and that this notion of trans*/queer/crip solidarity is messier than it initially seemed – I grab at these identities because they make sense, they help define parts of my world, but my other identities define those as well, and I haven’t been as clear on that as I’d like to be, or as I want to be. Because I know what I personally need or want in terms of resources and support, but will that actually help out most queer/trans*/crip/deaf kids? Probably not. And I have to sit with that, I need to feel that when and if I speak. Those of us with privilege have to sit with that. Feel what it means to be who we are, in the world that we’re in; what our relationships are to the other identities that we inhabit.
I’m learning to be uncomfortable with the fact that I don’t have answers for all this stuff, but just sitting with what’s here in my life. I feel like I either try to fumble for answers for privilege or what it means, or be silent about it, not making moves either way. I am grateful for the ways that my friends and community push me to grow, push me to feel, for sharing their experiences and thoughts when they’re tired and have had long days, long years, long lives; because often its in these conversations that I learn.
I’m sure solidarity doesn’t work until the heart strings are involved, not just minds and bodies, but hearts. For privileged folks like me, I know it’s not the same feelings that people who aren’t privileged, who are oppressed and beaten down, feel. But I guess a call to myself, and to others, we gotta try to consistently move between our heads and our hearts; to not just have the right theories, or come up with the perfect options; but be able to grow the capacity of ourselves to sit with the tough parts of this fucked up system, with people who are our friends and in our families, who live in our communities or claim similar identities or parts of who we are. I know that’s often what I want when I deal with, or experience, the reality of when I feel oppressed, or beaten down, or tired from the world that feels inaccessible or that feels like I’m not supposed to be here. I gotta grow that too. Every day, with practice.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
The Weight of Access, The Isolation of Home
When I think about the title of this blogpost,"The Weight of Access, The Isolation of Home", I think of messiness. I think of a messy room, with books and papers strewn everywhere. Bits of truth here and there and overthere in that corner - crumpbled up piece of butcher paper, a reminder that I live in a world that for I, and so many for us, we were never supposed to make it this far.
Or that by the standards set, it should've been a given, it shouldn't even be a question - but things change, and shift, and warp in to worlds that carry seemingly oxymoronic meanings: wholeness and isolation; freedom and an increased fear for one's safety. It's complexities like this that seem the toughest to wrestle with, at least for me.
I remember, that spring two years ago, when I discovered that I was moving on two separate paths; or maybe a more apt description would be floating or swimming down a river. That's more like it: being disabled/hard of hearing has existed as long as I can remember, and being queer and trans feels like I'm growing in an empowering, fierce, direction. And in a river or other bodies of water, you can feel clean, washed, relaxed - and you can feel like you're drowning, gasping for air, trying to hold on tight - and even more importantly, you need water to live.
That spring, I know there was a glimmer in my eye, and looking in the mirror, I knew it was a glimmer that included hurt, deep hurt, but a window in to experiencing another world, another home - ways of being in the world that wasn't just about our ideas or our theories, but body-based, tangible, real - in ways that match our ideas and dreams and frameworks.
But the thing I've been realizing about access, the thing that I've been learning about home, is that it's hard. That the foundation that I have is dreams, and sometimes that's just a net over the ground. Other days it feels rock solid. But it's what I have. And it adds just that bit of magic to keep me going.
But sometimes that isn't enough, and it's so much more tricky than that, I've found. I mean that's no suprise coming from someone who's white, class privileged, and used to be straight, male, and even quasi able-bodied identified. Learning how to work and know, and most importantly, love and cherish, the parts of me that the world creates barriers for, the queer, femme, trans, disabled parts of me have been, at the same time, had me feeling the most empowered I've ever felt in my life, as well as feeling curled up in a ball, sitting in bed most of the day, tired. So tired.
So going back to the title, I think of my friend, Mia Mingus'essay "Feeling the Weight, Some Beginning Notes on Disability, Access, and Love," in Make/shift magazine (issue 10, to be exact). That I've learned that it's not just access that I'm looking for, or perfect logistical situations: that there's an emotional weight to access. That it's hard to accept when it's there, sometimes, and the fact that it shouldn't be seen as something to celebrate - because it's what I need to be there. That it feels like repeated conversations about access needs, continually putting myself out there, and people nodding there heads, and responding in the moment: but usually putting their hands up in the air and not knowing what to do (or not wanting to do anything else) in the future, in the days, weeks, months, after those conversations. It feels like being tired of making requests. And a history of a lack of access, stretching beyond my relationship with any person, or group of people. That it's something more than just this one time.
So I go inside, I leave the waters. I go carve a space, alone. I figure out how to make things work for me, alone - that's the only way to manage it. But it's never really managing it. It's a way to control it, control my surroundings, to shut out the world, and hold on to dreams. Hurt filled dreams, because they feel so real, so needed, but knowing that I need others to make these dreams real. So now home is what I need to build, but it has begun to resemble a process of isolation, rather than community. It has looked like digging into books and finding the words that remind me to hold on, and that I'm not alone, not alone in this mental space, not alone in these dreams; freeing myself as I shut myself away from the world.
And I know that doesn't feel right. I know that I need to be in community and surrounded by friends and comrades and all kinds of family. Like I said earlier, one of the most powerful things about water is that we require it to live. I need something more than pieces of paper to hold on to sometimes. Because queer, trans, femme, and disabled positive spaces and community are something I'm finding that I require to fee whole. And I'm still holding on to the glimmer in my eye.
Or that by the standards set, it should've been a given, it shouldn't even be a question - but things change, and shift, and warp in to worlds that carry seemingly oxymoronic meanings: wholeness and isolation; freedom and an increased fear for one's safety. It's complexities like this that seem the toughest to wrestle with, at least for me.
I remember, that spring two years ago, when I discovered that I was moving on two separate paths; or maybe a more apt description would be floating or swimming down a river. That's more like it: being disabled/hard of hearing has existed as long as I can remember, and being queer and trans feels like I'm growing in an empowering, fierce, direction. And in a river or other bodies of water, you can feel clean, washed, relaxed - and you can feel like you're drowning, gasping for air, trying to hold on tight - and even more importantly, you need water to live.
That spring, I know there was a glimmer in my eye, and looking in the mirror, I knew it was a glimmer that included hurt, deep hurt, but a window in to experiencing another world, another home - ways of being in the world that wasn't just about our ideas or our theories, but body-based, tangible, real - in ways that match our ideas and dreams and frameworks.
But the thing I've been realizing about access, the thing that I've been learning about home, is that it's hard. That the foundation that I have is dreams, and sometimes that's just a net over the ground. Other days it feels rock solid. But it's what I have. And it adds just that bit of magic to keep me going.
But sometimes that isn't enough, and it's so much more tricky than that, I've found. I mean that's no suprise coming from someone who's white, class privileged, and used to be straight, male, and even quasi able-bodied identified. Learning how to work and know, and most importantly, love and cherish, the parts of me that the world creates barriers for, the queer, femme, trans, disabled parts of me have been, at the same time, had me feeling the most empowered I've ever felt in my life, as well as feeling curled up in a ball, sitting in bed most of the day, tired. So tired.
So going back to the title, I think of my friend, Mia Mingus'essay "Feeling the Weight, Some Beginning Notes on Disability, Access, and Love," in Make/shift magazine (issue 10, to be exact). That I've learned that it's not just access that I'm looking for, or perfect logistical situations: that there's an emotional weight to access. That it's hard to accept when it's there, sometimes, and the fact that it shouldn't be seen as something to celebrate - because it's what I need to be there. That it feels like repeated conversations about access needs, continually putting myself out there, and people nodding there heads, and responding in the moment: but usually putting their hands up in the air and not knowing what to do (or not wanting to do anything else) in the future, in the days, weeks, months, after those conversations. It feels like being tired of making requests. And a history of a lack of access, stretching beyond my relationship with any person, or group of people. That it's something more than just this one time.
So I go inside, I leave the waters. I go carve a space, alone. I figure out how to make things work for me, alone - that's the only way to manage it. But it's never really managing it. It's a way to control it, control my surroundings, to shut out the world, and hold on to dreams. Hurt filled dreams, because they feel so real, so needed, but knowing that I need others to make these dreams real. So now home is what I need to build, but it has begun to resemble a process of isolation, rather than community. It has looked like digging into books and finding the words that remind me to hold on, and that I'm not alone, not alone in this mental space, not alone in these dreams; freeing myself as I shut myself away from the world.
And I know that doesn't feel right. I know that I need to be in community and surrounded by friends and comrades and all kinds of family. Like I said earlier, one of the most powerful things about water is that we require it to live. I need something more than pieces of paper to hold on to sometimes. Because queer, trans, femme, and disabled positive spaces and community are something I'm finding that I require to fee whole. And I'm still holding on to the glimmer in my eye.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Puzzle Pieces (Still a Work in Progress)
The first poem I've written in years.
Trigger warning: some thoughts of death
Today is a good day to live
Today is a good day to breathe, to love, to remember.
To love + remember the fact that I’m still breathing.
With the pieces of my body
My history
Scattered around me
Like a baby surrounded by puzzle pieces
I don’t even know where to begin.
With my birth? My first word?
Or the hugs + kisses + books that got me here
And I’ll ride the wings
Of sparrows and bluejays to the dreams of my future
Our futures—grrl, the ones we’ve created and dreamed of in this nest
Are worlds where these pieces don’t fit
But neatly form something entirely our own, a home—
And I think it’s in that tree right there.
Or maybe I can throw all these pieces across these rooms
Dancing with joy for just a minute
Crying at this destruction
Knowing each piece of me is smothered in love and pain and heartbreak and hope
And I’m ready to move on; but find these pieces of my history on a rainy day
And they’ll each tell me their stories over and over again, these bits of evidence
Keep roping me in, and carry me to bed telling me
“I’ve been here before.”
whispering my struggle
to name
to honor
to embrace
to love
to let go and break the shame, like a lover telling me
“I love you when you’re hard-of-hearing and when you’re deaf.
when you’re here, all of you.”
And sometimes, just sometimes,
I want to disappear into the horizon
Into those gorgeous sunsets
At the coast
At the river
Smack dab in the middle of these cities because I don’t think I can make it this time.
Because I think I’m weak
Too imperfect that I’m not worth lovingly learning
The ropes of survival
Those times remind me; if today is a good day to live
Then today might be a good day to die
Because in those moments I don’t know which way is closer to home;
To these places that are still unknown and I’m so tired of feeling alone.
So here’s a kiss to survival,
To these bones
To the pieces of this puzzle where with which I’m still making a home for myself.
Here’s a kiss to ease the pain,
Here’s a kiss to my body;
These pieces I’m still figuring out,
These worlds I’m building,
The bruises from stranger’s words that feel like surgeon’s knives that have not yet come;
And while that’s not okay,
I’m learning that no place is completely safe.
I leave a kiss for when I wake in the morning,
As my body + history will never be completely stolen.
Maybe some bits are lost in unwritten diaries and
A photo book filled with pictures never taken
I’ll find them and put together
Piece by piece,
A home.
Trigger warning: some thoughts of death
Today is a good day to live
Today is a good day to breathe, to love, to remember.
To love + remember the fact that I’m still breathing.
With the pieces of my body
My history
Scattered around me
Like a baby surrounded by puzzle pieces
I don’t even know where to begin.
With my birth? My first word?
Or the hugs + kisses + books that got me here
And I’ll ride the wings
Of sparrows and bluejays to the dreams of my future
Our futures—grrl, the ones we’ve created and dreamed of in this nest
Are worlds where these pieces don’t fit
But neatly form something entirely our own, a home—
And I think it’s in that tree right there.
Or maybe I can throw all these pieces across these rooms
Dancing with joy for just a minute
Crying at this destruction
Knowing each piece of me is smothered in love and pain and heartbreak and hope
And I’m ready to move on; but find these pieces of my history on a rainy day
And they’ll each tell me their stories over and over again, these bits of evidence
Keep roping me in, and carry me to bed telling me
“I’ve been here before.”
whispering my struggle
to name
to honor
to embrace
to love
to let go and break the shame, like a lover telling me
“I love you when you’re hard-of-hearing and when you’re deaf.
when you’re here, all of you.”
And sometimes, just sometimes,
I want to disappear into the horizon
Into those gorgeous sunsets
At the coast
At the river
Smack dab in the middle of these cities because I don’t think I can make it this time.
Because I think I’m weak
Too imperfect that I’m not worth lovingly learning
The ropes of survival
Those times remind me; if today is a good day to live
Then today might be a good day to die
Because in those moments I don’t know which way is closer to home;
To these places that are still unknown and I’m so tired of feeling alone.
So here’s a kiss to survival,
To these bones
To the pieces of this puzzle where with which I’m still making a home for myself.
Here’s a kiss to ease the pain,
Here’s a kiss to my body;
These pieces I’m still figuring out,
These worlds I’m building,
The bruises from stranger’s words that feel like surgeon’s knives that have not yet come;
And while that’s not okay,
I’m learning that no place is completely safe.
I leave a kiss for when I wake in the morning,
As my body + history will never be completely stolen.
Maybe some bits are lost in unwritten diaries and
A photo book filled with pictures never taken
I’ll find them and put together
Piece by piece,
A home.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Embracing Change, Embracing Healing.
Ever since the new year came in, I’ve been thinking about a lot of changes. In about a week, I will be moving to West Oakland, and the San Fransisco Bay Area for five months to participate in the Anne Braden Anti-Racist Organizing Program that has been put together and led by the Catalyst Project, leaving the Southeast US where I have grown up and spent so many years (and to which I will be returning).
I will also not be in school during these months, making it the longest time I’ve spent not in school, which excites me, and scares me. Because that means I should get a job; the class privilege I have stares me in the eyes, knowing that if I don’t find or get a job that I’ll still be fine with parental support—as I’ll spend most of my time supporting radical activist work going on in San Francisco, Oakland and the rest of the Bay Area. But that will be good; I feel like I will become more mature, more grounded, and that I will change in ways that I can’t even foresee.
I’ve also been thinking about how I experience my gender and being genderqueer—I’ve let my parents know what’s up, which, thankfully, went over pretty well. My best friend got me my first dress and another close friend made me a wonderful pair of earrings, and I’ve had a really really supportive community of chosen family and friends; and that’s made this whole process be amazing, where I can present as I choose. Through this process, I’ve been finding a pride and self-care within me that is growing; knowing when to take care of myself, when to fight, when to just embrace and sit with things, and when to celebrate and be excited about the idea of changing identities.
But that pride and self-care can be so easily taken away. A little bit over a month ago, I was having a discussion with my parents that turned into a yelling match. After opening myself up and telling my parents that I had felt that I felt like we got cochlear implants because it was the only way to be a part of the family and that even still, I’m not a hearing person; my parents became defensive. My dad then told me that, I was, in fact, a hearing person. After telling them a story in which I felt that they had recognized my choosing to be deaf as “isolating myself from them” rather than choosing to be whole; my mom said that I had, in fact misheard her words (which I had not) and therefore was not credible.
At that moment, I felt overwhelmed; my body felt weak. After opening up so much I felt like I was wounded. As I started to yell and cry, I realized I was being triggered and had to leave, bawling, while my parents and my big brother gave me a look as if nothing had happened. Later I was sitting in my room; at that point it hit me; that I was dealing with the pain and the trauma of the contradiction of the demand to view myself as hearing, but could be dismissed and invalid due to the fact that I am not a hearing person by the same people that make that demand. That I held so much pain; that no matter which way I identified I felt wrong; that I was so alone. The very fact that the truth of my body was either something to be ignored or used against me felt like the idea of being whole not even an option to be created, built or recognized.
As a dear friend, Mia Mingus recently wrote: “oh, the intimate cruelty of ableism: robbing us from ourselves and our hearts. libratory access work is not just about access, it's heart work.” Reading this over and over again, I was reminded that part of liberation work for me is about healing, and not just healing relationships and connections that are fraught with ableism. It is about healing myself, healing the wounds I haven taken in, that have internalized, the violence I’ve done to myself. And not erase the memories and the words that have hurt; but know that they are a part of me, and letting these memories and words heal.
And it feels really hard to name it. I can tell my friends and chosen family that I was triggered and how it felt. I can’t imagine telling my parents that I was triggered, the pain I hold inside, the anger I feel, how I feel tired of explaining what’s fucked up, how I really don’t want to have this conversation with them, and how maybe we can’t have conversations around disability and ableism right now, just because that feels too wrought with pain for me right now. If I was to say what I meant by a trigger; I feel like all that I just mentioned would all come out. And that leaves me too open.
And I know this doesn’t really seem to connect with the idea of change, and future changes, other than things being able to change rapidly, for better or for worse. I hope to on use these next five months to change in a way that helps me heal; that embraces the pain I’ve felt, the insecurities ideal with; and uses them to build power and cultures of self-care and love. I will try to come back to the places of friends, chosen family, and blood family with more self-care, love, pride, and maybe a few more tools for healing, for liberation, for wholeness.
I will also not be in school during these months, making it the longest time I’ve spent not in school, which excites me, and scares me. Because that means I should get a job; the class privilege I have stares me in the eyes, knowing that if I don’t find or get a job that I’ll still be fine with parental support—as I’ll spend most of my time supporting radical activist work going on in San Francisco, Oakland and the rest of the Bay Area. But that will be good; I feel like I will become more mature, more grounded, and that I will change in ways that I can’t even foresee.
I’ve also been thinking about how I experience my gender and being genderqueer—I’ve let my parents know what’s up, which, thankfully, went over pretty well. My best friend got me my first dress and another close friend made me a wonderful pair of earrings, and I’ve had a really really supportive community of chosen family and friends; and that’s made this whole process be amazing, where I can present as I choose. Through this process, I’ve been finding a pride and self-care within me that is growing; knowing when to take care of myself, when to fight, when to just embrace and sit with things, and when to celebrate and be excited about the idea of changing identities.
But that pride and self-care can be so easily taken away. A little bit over a month ago, I was having a discussion with my parents that turned into a yelling match. After opening myself up and telling my parents that I had felt that I felt like we got cochlear implants because it was the only way to be a part of the family and that even still, I’m not a hearing person; my parents became defensive. My dad then told me that, I was, in fact, a hearing person. After telling them a story in which I felt that they had recognized my choosing to be deaf as “isolating myself from them” rather than choosing to be whole; my mom said that I had, in fact misheard her words (which I had not) and therefore was not credible.
At that moment, I felt overwhelmed; my body felt weak. After opening up so much I felt like I was wounded. As I started to yell and cry, I realized I was being triggered and had to leave, bawling, while my parents and my big brother gave me a look as if nothing had happened. Later I was sitting in my room; at that point it hit me; that I was dealing with the pain and the trauma of the contradiction of the demand to view myself as hearing, but could be dismissed and invalid due to the fact that I am not a hearing person by the same people that make that demand. That I held so much pain; that no matter which way I identified I felt wrong; that I was so alone. The very fact that the truth of my body was either something to be ignored or used against me felt like the idea of being whole not even an option to be created, built or recognized.
As a dear friend, Mia Mingus recently wrote: “oh, the intimate cruelty of ableism: robbing us from ourselves and our hearts. libratory access work is not just about access, it's heart work.” Reading this over and over again, I was reminded that part of liberation work for me is about healing, and not just healing relationships and connections that are fraught with ableism. It is about healing myself, healing the wounds I haven taken in, that have internalized, the violence I’ve done to myself. And not erase the memories and the words that have hurt; but know that they are a part of me, and letting these memories and words heal.
And it feels really hard to name it. I can tell my friends and chosen family that I was triggered and how it felt. I can’t imagine telling my parents that I was triggered, the pain I hold inside, the anger I feel, how I feel tired of explaining what’s fucked up, how I really don’t want to have this conversation with them, and how maybe we can’t have conversations around disability and ableism right now, just because that feels too wrought with pain for me right now. If I was to say what I meant by a trigger; I feel like all that I just mentioned would all come out. And that leaves me too open.
And I know this doesn’t really seem to connect with the idea of change, and future changes, other than things being able to change rapidly, for better or for worse. I hope to on use these next five months to change in a way that helps me heal; that embraces the pain I’ve felt, the insecurities ideal with; and uses them to build power and cultures of self-care and love. I will try to come back to the places of friends, chosen family, and blood family with more self-care, love, pride, and maybe a few more tools for healing, for liberation, for wholeness.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Ideas of "Family", Ideas of A Place That Resembles A Home.
I am realizing how I have or haven't experienced family and caretaking and with whom. And discussions around blood/given family vs. chosen families recently have made me recognize how much of a gulf I have between my blood family, my chosen families and myself.
Because, let’s be real. The reasons why cochlear implants (CI's) are/were important is because I couldn’t be a part of my blood/given family with out them; we had no space for truly incorporating a deaf/hard of hearing kid within our family. Even with this, the CI’s help, but its like an anti-biotic, and it makes struggling with lost connections a bit easier. But the gulf is still there; the infection is still there. So I can not be a whole person with my family, if I wanted to be in the rain while we’re walking I have to be sheltered from the rain, instead of experiencing it while deaf. It prioritizes hearing, in the name of including me. They wonder why I’m excluding them or isolating myself; when instead I’m opening myself up to the world. I can choose whether I want to hear or don’t; and neither decision should mean isolation or access. So I have this incredible sense of estrangement and isolation, although, at the moment, everyone in the family struggles with addressing my hearing impairment and deafness in the family, attempting to create space for me as a whole person in the family.
In trying to navigate a world where I felt isolated and estranged from my parents, the people who tried to mother and father me, as well as two brothers who I fought with as well as tried to support; I searched and formed relationships with people who talked in alternatives, or at least said something that struck a chord in me. Radical-identifying folks, folks who experience/experienced oppression and marginalization, the people who tell/told stories of resilience and resistance, and recently, other disabled people. And, maybe the most important, the friends who lived, loved, laughed, played music, danced by my side and worked to help me get where I am today. Some of these people are alive, some are dead, some are people who I know closely, and others are people I’ve never ever met. But their words, their stories, articles, songs, laughs, hugs, and smiles have taken care of me in a way and helped me survive a world as a more whole person than my parent’s care-taking has done.
What frustrates me is that I know that my parents, deep down, want to do that for me. They wanted and continue to want to be some of the people, if not the people, that help me through hard times, like the depression I currently am feeling and dealing with. But I can’t seem to do it. I feel like if I reach out, I’ll enter the gulf and just fall deeper. I’m scared. I want to cradle them in their complexities. But that means they have to cradle me in mine, and I know this truth will hurt them. It will hurt to hear that I feel that I have been displaced from my family. That I feel displaced from my body from a world that is ableist; a connection with my body that is not just connected to being hard of hearing/deaf, but having cochlear implants and growing up being perceived/attempting to perceive myself as hearing. That other people and communities have built relationships to me in a way that create a space for me to be a more whole person, that seem to me to be more like family.
It won’t just hurt them. It hurts to say. It hurts to name, acknowledge the pain. It seems unfathomable that I’ll ever experience blood/given family the way that I have seen and heard my friends name, a connection with these people who they came from that is unbreakable. And I want to, and I know my parents and brothers want to. But here’s the gulf. Some of the tools and materials to make a breakthrough are here, I just feel that there’s something that there’s always going to be something missing, an emptiness that will keep on gnawing at me, within me. And that emptiness is wearing me down.
There’s another gulf I am realizing exists, that I’ve been too scared to acknowledge. And it’s a gulf between the people that I have considered to be chosen family throughout the years and myself. I struggle with feeling like a burden. But, I think it comes from knowing that my friends, especially people that feel like chosen family, can’t always provide the caretaking or support I may need or want at any given moment, in any given crisis I’m feeling. And that doesn’t mean I’m a burden; it means that they have needs and desires as well; and may as well be in crisis, and I need to recognize and support them.
I sometimes expect friendships with people (with whom who I may not consider to be chosen family, and who may not feel the same way) to exist in a way that resembles close friendships or chosen family, relationships based on caretaking, honesty, vulnerability, and enjoying each other’s company. The other person doesn’t carry with them the same notions of friendship or chosen family; or the notions of accountability that I attach to such relationships. So, folks may not want such relationships, and that’s totally legitimate; and I should be responsive to these needs and desires too. Consent should exist in all types of relationships, so I need to stop expecting these relationships to occur and embrace them the way that works for everyone. This doesn’t mean I need to let go of desiring and creating relationships that create chosen families, it just means, that they don’t work for everyone.
I need to create the space for myself to become vulnerable within myself, be honest with myself, and support myself. Because I’ve been so scared to. The sense of displacement with my blood family is connected with a sense of isolation from my own body: that it wasn’t enough for them; is it enough for me? The senses of a connection that feels like family from friends and people I am not related to, reclaiming that sense that I am deserving of such relationships, is connected the idea that I can and deserve a loving relationship with my body and my deafness, even if its complicated with the use of cochlear implants. Building liberating, loving, fun connections within myself supports and is supported by building liberating, loving, fun connections with other people; whether they be emotionally intimate or not.
There is still this gulf; I am scared to experience it: can I really do this? Can I build this not just with friends and people I identify as chosen family, but my blood/given family? More importantly maybe, can I build this within myself? It feels like I am entering an unknown. I am moving along a path that is my own, but is illuminated by the words, experiences, and existence of those who have gone into themselves and the world at the same time, by people who are alive and those who have died. The evidence that we have left and are leaving for each other and ourselves to find; to know that we are alone and together at the same time in our different but connected struggles and journeys.
All of these realities and experiences leave me with so many questions and almost all of them feel unanswerable. Can I be a whole person with myself and with other people in all of these ways, and ways that I haven’t mentioned such as strangers, classmates and people I will work with? But with these notions of family first and foremost: can I participate in building loving relationships with myself as well as with my families. If so, how would I go about doing that?
It feels like all of this is a part of navigating between how the world is, the way I want it or need it to be, taking care of myself and the people I love and care about along the way (and being taken care of); all the way to our respective and collective notions of home, liberation, and community. And at least for me, the ideas of places where I do not feel the emptiness that eats me away that I sometimes feel.
It scares me how vulnerable I am, how vulnerable I feel; especially in relationships that feel like family, and how much I want that notion of family. The relationships that feel like a site of home, of safety in vulnerability, of resilience and resistance, of visibility and conversations behind closed doors. The hugs, kisses, smiles, waves, text messages, phone calls, letters, all the things we give each other to know that we can find our way together, that we are there for each other even if we can’t be there or offer words or presence to support each other when we need or desire it most. All of it silently, softly, loudly saying: we care about each other and ourselves in the entirety of who we are and desire to be simultaneously.
Because, let’s be real. The reasons why cochlear implants (CI's) are/were important is because I couldn’t be a part of my blood/given family with out them; we had no space for truly incorporating a deaf/hard of hearing kid within our family. Even with this, the CI’s help, but its like an anti-biotic, and it makes struggling with lost connections a bit easier. But the gulf is still there; the infection is still there. So I can not be a whole person with my family, if I wanted to be in the rain while we’re walking I have to be sheltered from the rain, instead of experiencing it while deaf. It prioritizes hearing, in the name of including me. They wonder why I’m excluding them or isolating myself; when instead I’m opening myself up to the world. I can choose whether I want to hear or don’t; and neither decision should mean isolation or access. So I have this incredible sense of estrangement and isolation, although, at the moment, everyone in the family struggles with addressing my hearing impairment and deafness in the family, attempting to create space for me as a whole person in the family.
In trying to navigate a world where I felt isolated and estranged from my parents, the people who tried to mother and father me, as well as two brothers who I fought with as well as tried to support; I searched and formed relationships with people who talked in alternatives, or at least said something that struck a chord in me. Radical-identifying folks, folks who experience/experienced oppression and marginalization, the people who tell/told stories of resilience and resistance, and recently, other disabled people. And, maybe the most important, the friends who lived, loved, laughed, played music, danced by my side and worked to help me get where I am today. Some of these people are alive, some are dead, some are people who I know closely, and others are people I’ve never ever met. But their words, their stories, articles, songs, laughs, hugs, and smiles have taken care of me in a way and helped me survive a world as a more whole person than my parent’s care-taking has done.
What frustrates me is that I know that my parents, deep down, want to do that for me. They wanted and continue to want to be some of the people, if not the people, that help me through hard times, like the depression I currently am feeling and dealing with. But I can’t seem to do it. I feel like if I reach out, I’ll enter the gulf and just fall deeper. I’m scared. I want to cradle them in their complexities. But that means they have to cradle me in mine, and I know this truth will hurt them. It will hurt to hear that I feel that I have been displaced from my family. That I feel displaced from my body from a world that is ableist; a connection with my body that is not just connected to being hard of hearing/deaf, but having cochlear implants and growing up being perceived/attempting to perceive myself as hearing. That other people and communities have built relationships to me in a way that create a space for me to be a more whole person, that seem to me to be more like family.
It won’t just hurt them. It hurts to say. It hurts to name, acknowledge the pain. It seems unfathomable that I’ll ever experience blood/given family the way that I have seen and heard my friends name, a connection with these people who they came from that is unbreakable. And I want to, and I know my parents and brothers want to. But here’s the gulf. Some of the tools and materials to make a breakthrough are here, I just feel that there’s something that there’s always going to be something missing, an emptiness that will keep on gnawing at me, within me. And that emptiness is wearing me down.
There’s another gulf I am realizing exists, that I’ve been too scared to acknowledge. And it’s a gulf between the people that I have considered to be chosen family throughout the years and myself. I struggle with feeling like a burden. But, I think it comes from knowing that my friends, especially people that feel like chosen family, can’t always provide the caretaking or support I may need or want at any given moment, in any given crisis I’m feeling. And that doesn’t mean I’m a burden; it means that they have needs and desires as well; and may as well be in crisis, and I need to recognize and support them.
I sometimes expect friendships with people (with whom who I may not consider to be chosen family, and who may not feel the same way) to exist in a way that resembles close friendships or chosen family, relationships based on caretaking, honesty, vulnerability, and enjoying each other’s company. The other person doesn’t carry with them the same notions of friendship or chosen family; or the notions of accountability that I attach to such relationships. So, folks may not want such relationships, and that’s totally legitimate; and I should be responsive to these needs and desires too. Consent should exist in all types of relationships, so I need to stop expecting these relationships to occur and embrace them the way that works for everyone. This doesn’t mean I need to let go of desiring and creating relationships that create chosen families, it just means, that they don’t work for everyone.
I need to create the space for myself to become vulnerable within myself, be honest with myself, and support myself. Because I’ve been so scared to. The sense of displacement with my blood family is connected with a sense of isolation from my own body: that it wasn’t enough for them; is it enough for me? The senses of a connection that feels like family from friends and people I am not related to, reclaiming that sense that I am deserving of such relationships, is connected the idea that I can and deserve a loving relationship with my body and my deafness, even if its complicated with the use of cochlear implants. Building liberating, loving, fun connections within myself supports and is supported by building liberating, loving, fun connections with other people; whether they be emotionally intimate or not.
There is still this gulf; I am scared to experience it: can I really do this? Can I build this not just with friends and people I identify as chosen family, but my blood/given family? More importantly maybe, can I build this within myself? It feels like I am entering an unknown. I am moving along a path that is my own, but is illuminated by the words, experiences, and existence of those who have gone into themselves and the world at the same time, by people who are alive and those who have died. The evidence that we have left and are leaving for each other and ourselves to find; to know that we are alone and together at the same time in our different but connected struggles and journeys.
All of these realities and experiences leave me with so many questions and almost all of them feel unanswerable. Can I be a whole person with myself and with other people in all of these ways, and ways that I haven’t mentioned such as strangers, classmates and people I will work with? But with these notions of family first and foremost: can I participate in building loving relationships with myself as well as with my families. If so, how would I go about doing that?
It feels like all of this is a part of navigating between how the world is, the way I want it or need it to be, taking care of myself and the people I love and care about along the way (and being taken care of); all the way to our respective and collective notions of home, liberation, and community. And at least for me, the ideas of places where I do not feel the emptiness that eats me away that I sometimes feel.
It scares me how vulnerable I am, how vulnerable I feel; especially in relationships that feel like family, and how much I want that notion of family. The relationships that feel like a site of home, of safety in vulnerability, of resilience and resistance, of visibility and conversations behind closed doors. The hugs, kisses, smiles, waves, text messages, phone calls, letters, all the things we give each other to know that we can find our way together, that we are there for each other even if we can’t be there or offer words or presence to support each other when we need or desire it most. All of it silently, softly, loudly saying: we care about each other and ourselves in the entirety of who we are and desire to be simultaneously.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
I Don't Think This is Home: Privilege, Isolation, and Resistance
This past weekend I was at an anti-racism workshop at the college I go to. This blogpost comes from a weekend of reflecting on whiteness and disability; struggling to figure out and name the ways that intertwining systems of privilege and oppression function in my life.
I realized that I have internalized the notion that the straight white non-disabled (cis)male-bodied experience is comfort and safety within their own bodies. Sometimes that is how some people (esp. white, able-bodied people) treat me, when they either don't recognize or choose not to recognize the fact that I am hard of hearing/deaf. I feel like I've internalized from white supremacy and patriarchy and heterosexism and ableism the idea that if my deafness/hard of hearing-ness could be eliminated, I'd be "normal", and finding "home" would be no problem. Within that context, that ideology, the solution seems to be to fight for access for me, and every other oppressed person, to live in the same ways that those with multiple privileges do; and I feel like that is how I've generally imagined what "home" would look and feel like.
But there's something that is nagging at me; that says no, it wouldn't feel like that at all. Because when I am treated as if I am a hearing person; I feel isolated. I have never felt like that space is a home; just that it is what I've been told that it should be. And when I engage that isolation, I feel lost, like I'm stumbling around trying to figure out where I am and where I'm going. Because the compass I've been given points towards the spaces where I and my friends who experience similar and/or different oppressions have been denied access and experience violence, isolation and invisibility. But I know and feel that going isn't the direction where "home" is; for me, and I'm not sure it is for any of us.
Because when I tap into what feels like home within my body, the spaces I inhabit, and the relationships I have-what feels like home is within active resistance to oppression and isolation. Home and liberation begin to feel like possibilities when I don't follow the compass pointing towards a life of living within bodies and spaces of privilege and domination alone, moving instead with my friends and communities toward a shared destinations that shift and change as we need them to.
In order to inhabit those spaces, resisting white and male-bodied supremacy is just as important as resisting internalized ableist oppression. Re-imagining what home and liberation means involves reinventing the ways I relate to people and spaces that I inhabit that reinforce isolation and oppression. Because if I don't do that, I begin to recreate the space that isolates me. In creating the spaces where I become vulnerable, I feel that a tension creates space for growth and movement towards a world where liberation and home becomes possible; imaginable, and maybe even real, even for just a moment.
I realized that I have internalized the notion that the straight white non-disabled (cis)male-bodied experience is comfort and safety within their own bodies. Sometimes that is how some people (esp. white, able-bodied people) treat me, when they either don't recognize or choose not to recognize the fact that I am hard of hearing/deaf. I feel like I've internalized from white supremacy and patriarchy and heterosexism and ableism the idea that if my deafness/hard of hearing-ness could be eliminated, I'd be "normal", and finding "home" would be no problem. Within that context, that ideology, the solution seems to be to fight for access for me, and every other oppressed person, to live in the same ways that those with multiple privileges do; and I feel like that is how I've generally imagined what "home" would look and feel like.
But there's something that is nagging at me; that says no, it wouldn't feel like that at all. Because when I am treated as if I am a hearing person; I feel isolated. I have never felt like that space is a home; just that it is what I've been told that it should be. And when I engage that isolation, I feel lost, like I'm stumbling around trying to figure out where I am and where I'm going. Because the compass I've been given points towards the spaces where I and my friends who experience similar and/or different oppressions have been denied access and experience violence, isolation and invisibility. But I know and feel that going isn't the direction where "home" is; for me, and I'm not sure it is for any of us.
Because when I tap into what feels like home within my body, the spaces I inhabit, and the relationships I have-what feels like home is within active resistance to oppression and isolation. Home and liberation begin to feel like possibilities when I don't follow the compass pointing towards a life of living within bodies and spaces of privilege and domination alone, moving instead with my friends and communities toward a shared destinations that shift and change as we need them to.
In order to inhabit those spaces, resisting white and male-bodied supremacy is just as important as resisting internalized ableist oppression. Re-imagining what home and liberation means involves reinventing the ways I relate to people and spaces that I inhabit that reinforce isolation and oppression. Because if I don't do that, I begin to recreate the space that isolates me. In creating the spaces where I become vulnerable, I feel that a tension creates space for growth and movement towards a world where liberation and home becomes possible; imaginable, and maybe even real, even for just a moment.
Third World women, lesbians, feminists, and feminist-oriented men of all colors are banding and bonding together to right that balance. Only together can we be a force. I see us as a network of kindred spirits, a kind of family. We are the queer groups, the people that don't belong anywhere, not in the dominant world nor completely within our own respective cultures. Combined we cover so many oppressions. But the overwhelming oppression is the collective fact that we do not fit, and because we do not fit we are a threat. - Gloria Anzaldúa "La Prieta"
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Resisting Isolation, Building Home.
For most of my life it has been easier to perform a survival able-bodied-friendly version of myself, rather than nurturing the harder to live disabled-self-loving version of who I ache, desire and need to be. Because it has often meant the difference between a-little-bit-more-connection and a-little-less-isolation. But what is the point of connection, if you still feel isolated and alienated from your self? And what is that connection built upon and from? How do I want to be connected? - Mia Mingus, "Wherever You Are Is Where I Want to Be: Crip Solidarity"
Ever since I read these words written my friend Mia on her blog, Leaving Evidence, a few months ago; I found that these words make me wrestle with myself, wrestle with internalized ableism. Way too often, I brush away the the part of my body, my being hard-of-hearing that demands my friends and family change their ways for me to be fully present with them. When I do this, the connection I have with them feels like it is built and contingent upon my internalized ableism and their able-bodied privilege. And I hate that. Because I want to be able to be whole with my friends, disabled and able-bodied, while at the same time being whole and connected to myself.
And I felt like I couldn't: that if I wanted to control the space so it was accessible to me, I had to be alone; and if I wanted to be with friends, then I had to just deal with the fact that the space is inaccessible. I felt like I would just have to hold all the ableism, internal and external, inside until I was forced to leave. And I would rarely mention a word about ableism; only say that there were too many people. Saying ableism or lack of access, or not being able to be whole or fully present was too hard. And it still is so fucking hard.
Keeping my lack of access in apolitical terms that don't imply power or privilege has been a way of mentioning there's an issue, but not telling the full truth. Because telling the full truth would mean telling them the ways that I struggle when I'm with them and the truth that I need them to help create access with me. So I tell them that it's too loud or that I need to take a walk or that I'm not feeling like being there and leaving without telling them why. Because I've told my parents what my needs are, repeatedly, and nothing has changed, so by the time I'm dealing with this with friends, I leave, feeling defeated before we begin struggling to create access together.
Last night, I was chatting with my friend Ryan Alley, and we were talking about the idea of creating our bodies and hearts as a home. He said:
"home happens in moments. there are moments when my body is home, moments when i feel home/belonging with other people. but it is a constant struggle, impossible to maintain that feeling of home. it is always moving, shifting."
So I need you to join me in struggling to find ways of interacting and connection that help us resist isolation, to find ways that dismantle the notion that any of our bodies are wrong, inferior, or broken. It is creating the space in which we can talk about what it feels like to be isolated, the pain of not having our access needs met, and defining what our access needs are in the situations we are in. It is holding each other and ourselves accountable for participating in systems of oppression. It is allowing each other to be the complex people we are and giving all of us space for self-care. It is dancing, story-telling, laughing, cooking and traveling with each other. It is being with each other in these ways that can help us create our bodies as home, even if only for a moment. In these moments, we can create relationships that begin to feel like home, like family, like liberation. And recapture it again and again as it shifts.
Check out Mia's blog, Leaving Evidence: www.leavingevidence.wordpress.com
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