Label Whores No Mores

I climbed trees, played sports, made mud pies and rode my bike with fervor. With as much joy, I donned a fancy frock, painted my nails, experimented with make-up and baked cookies. I liked dinosaurs and video games and matchbox cars, I chased boys down and kissed them. In my mind I brought to life countless scenarios in which I was the daring savior, the heroine, the boss. The rebel, the damsel, the leader. And they all fit like a glove. And still do.

I had two brothers closest to me in age, so "boy stuff" was available, but I didn't think of it that way. It was just stuff to explore. I never stopped to wonder what ramifications there would be if I didn't do one or the other set of activities, I just went for it. I employ the same gender-blindness with my own three daughters, they are as grubby and rough housing as they are emotional and delicate at any given moment. I want for their world to be as boundless and wide open as possible, so when I see people trying to place them in a gender place of stereotypes (and it happens often), it gets me formulating theories about how to lessen the importance of proving things, and how to focus more on being at ease with who they are and what they want.

Terminology gets in the way, most often. We are a society of classifiers, and that is backed up by the way we think and how we pre-determine things just at face value. Inside the box, I've noticed. As progressive as we are in this the year of the future, we are still quibbling. It has to be embraced from the get-go, that we are all a jumble of both genders and how cool that we are who we are, irregardless. Our unique perspective is where we really are.

As I got older, around my early twenties, I started classifying myself as a tomboy, as a shorthand way of saying I do things I like doing, and steer my own ship, no matter the gender normative. If I didn't define myself as such, people had a harder time understanding motivations I had to be independent or sans a steady boyfriend. Like, so much so that I deferred to a term to define myself, rather than just rolling with it despite what they had to say, turning a deaf ear to their pity or confusion. I was told it's rude to be rude, or something like that. It was oppressive at times but I didn't buckle, I just ignored it as much as I could, we're all equal in my eyes ultimately. A little packaging won't change that. Beyond gender or race or color or religion, we are people.

The ironic converse of the tomboy thing that I have encountered in my career as grown up tomboy, would be the feminist scene. It's a hot button issue now a days, which is weird, since it's been an ongoing struggle for a long time, home girl Gloria will tell you. Lately it seems like you have to shove in every one's face how proud you are being a girl/woman, else they take you for a pushover. Which usually means you are likened to a man, with all your damning of convention and your sharp tongue and demanding of things. Eff you men and your sexist malarkey! We are going to get ours because we are just as good as you, but you aren't that good! Kind of thing. I've never met someone that considers them self a Manist, though, for obvious reasons. So jokes on us.   

I'm not opposed to solidarity and feel it with a select group of strong women I've known, but many times the same that use power statements with the term "vagina" in them (for the last time we have VULVAS not just the vagina, or one part that facilitates sex and baby making, which are the sole functions we are trying to disassociate from in the first place, to level the playing field right?) and refuse chivalry of any kind and rail against wage gaps are the same doing the biggest injustice to any slighted group. And they tend toward using the term rather than living it.

In doing those things, one is still needing the all evil male gender to validate and bounce off of  for their argument to mean anything. And that puts the wall up between the two sides of a very human coin, pointing right back to the whole he/she situation that doesn't fix anything, just emphasizes it. And we are still needing a man to validate. As the galvanizing leaders who spoke for equality of all kinds, positive replacing the negative is so much closer to victory. 

Yes, there are invisible ceilings and horrendous sexist mentalities, and definitely injustice in ways of monetary appropriation, but if that's all we focus on, then that's all we'll ever be. No matter what is implemented outwardly, the change has to come from within for it to stick. No one can insult you unless you feel truth to their insults. That I do know. So if we carry on building armor around us, we close off to all that might help change that nastiness, for good. Our nurturing natures, serve us better than we ever thought.   

By this time some might be incensed and wanting to leave an embittered word or two in the ol' comment box. How dare I, not want to join something that is finally gaining the momentum it deserves, being a woman and mother and professional in my own right? How can I not use a term to define myself, if it's powerful and enlisting myself with the masses of independent people that I am a part of? I feel you, skeptical people. I realize if the revolutionary scores before me had a similar mentality, the civil/gay/gender equality movements would have looked very different throughout history. 

The beating of a drum only creates more attention to the drum being beaten, not the tireless persistence to be heard though. It's the structure we live in, but that's what I'm talking about. In every instance, the breakthroughs came when it wasn't a fight anymore, but a persistent truth with calm clarity behind it.

Be the change you want to see, evolve past all of it and create your own world of equality. Invite others into that place, with your kindness and example and attention to that which works. Then those around you know who you are through your actions, no word needed. Step into your strong shoes and be the best you possible. Leaving all the real malarkey out of it.

There will be monsters and ridicule and barriers, yeah. You have to tune that out and stick to it. Pay dues, plant seeds, keep at it. As a person with goals or dreams or ideas. Ignore the clamor of insecurity, inside and out, or you will always be paying attention to it, and it will always contort into something else out of whack.

I watch my own little ladies get after the world with ease and flair and gusto, and I know that they have this idea at hand already, gratefully. They already know that us chicks are a dynamic bunch of beings, but not just because we're women. Because we're diverse and miraculous and powerful and deserve all we want, however we want it. And we shall attain it. If we'd just realize that and stop letting others tell us anything different.

Cheers, ladies. We got this.
   

   

  

      

The Single Again, Triple Mama Drama: Saga No More

I have learned a great many things on my path so far. That's the thing with knowledge, unless you are willing to apply it to daily life or share it with those who will benefit from it, it's useless. To that end, I have been shaping my life with that swollen cache. To that end, I write this now.

My last entry into this portion of my blog (The Single Mama Drama or SMD, then shifted to the Not So Single Double Mama Drama or the NSSDMD), spoke about our arriving as a family in a new city, all glittering and alive with possibility. That coupled with the accumulation of another kiddo, Maybel Dean, and getting a full handle on their dynamic under those circumstances. I go for broke, what can I say. My wisdom on those things has grown even more, being compounded by both the (semi recent) dissolving of my relationship and the arrival of a third kiddo. Alright, apparently I go for straight up bankrupt. But how glorious it has been, and continues to be. For I have come full circle in this saga, so much that I consider it not to be one at all anymore. 

Getting into He Said/She Said details of it all isn't where I'm at, so you won't be finding that here. I'm a private person yet an open book but one of the new skills applied is to truly root out the positive from the avalanche of negative it came in at times like these. Like, full on let it all go. The rest is just tail-chasingly draining and a waste of good emotional energy, to constantly be dwelling in "what went wrong". Ours is not a tragic tail of cheating and deceit and lies and fallen majesty . The basic truth to me breaking up with the father of my kids is due to an intrinsic difference on a few key levels. You can love someone all day long, but if you don't meet up in the partnership areas that matter the most, you are spinning your precious wheels on the road to domestic equilibrium. Spinning with such fury. 

I love this man (and always will), for he co-created with me two beautiful girls. As I have always known that the real kind doesn't just disappear one day, like a set of keys, the latest revision to that is how to exist with a former partner in a way that works. No matter how many cute stories or common interests you share, when you happen to make a living being with a significant other, that is the purest form of love. A far bigger commitment than a piece of paper and a party could ever be (or any tailored version there of). To disavow that with, "Sorry, I just fell OUT of love with you" means it wasn't what you thought it was all along. That doesn't mean it wasn't real or wasn't good or wasn't worth it. Every brave thrust into intimacy is worth it in my book, it helps you ferret out what you really want, less you meet the same type of person and engage in the same type of behavior. On an endless loop. Being honest enough to change it into what you want, is where it gets interesting. This all began happening for me as I started that scary trudge up the mountain of realization. I was going to be a mother in a triple dose.

Winry Star debuted on September 25th, 2014. She is ten months as I write this (time, she flies), such a wonderful addition to the Rambunctious Twins (for not the seven years difference, they could have shared a womb, so similar those two). We all  fall in love with each other more and more each day though, so we are doing something right.

Strangely, I was convinced she was a boy until she proved me wrong, the pregnancy was just completely different from the other two (if you recall, I am a solitary fortress when it comes to child bearing and in such let nature do it's thing). I did consider a midwife briefly, for the comfort of those around me, took some vitamins here and there as my body indicated a use for them. Maybe my fixation and (turns out misleading) intuition of her being a him was what I needed to cling to, in order to deal with it and not run screaming into the rustic foothills of scenic San D.

This time around, I announced before hand that there we were multiplying again. It was odd and often nostalgic for the previous instances when I just dealt with it on my own, but much better for everyone around me so I just dealt with it the best I could. I did keep the "free birth" element like her two sissies, it was just me and her when it was show time. Resoundingly beautiful, in that moment and all else forgotten, that stayed the same. How amazing that mothers can forget all of the pain so quickly, and just focus on that which is joy and new and life affirmingly true. Little Winerz. Might be the pistol-est of all, but with a gentler slant and gentler way (and it's lovely to have a little variety). She is an asset to the team, I happily report.

So here I was with an great family in a beautiful city with everything wanted still on track to manifest and days filled with merriment. And I would still hit the wall emotionally and have mini meltdowns at will. I wanted to know why, I wanted for better than that, for those I love. Relationships really are a mirror reflecting that which you are back at you, it's totally true. Be it parental, platonic, or romantic. One informs the other, and with Winry came a clarity I hadn't been able to access ever before. Funny how that works. Have to trust the events are serving you, even as they kick you in the face.

So I decided to get really real with myself and what I had become. Take a nice long look in that mirror and figure out who was looking back. Not comparing myself to the Old Me, nor longing for the future, Well Adjusted Me. Just deciphering how I felt in that moment in comparison to how I want to feel on a daily basis, in hopes to merge the two and just be content and happy. Such a simple elusive goal if you're lost. Turns out my disquieted soul was due to me selling myself ridiculously short for the whole of my adult life. Sure I had unique, awesome experiences and had bonds with good people, and lead a mostly good life that I tried my hardest everyday to honor. Despite all those things that did work, on a the deepest inner levels, I felt the weight of unworthiness above all else. 

Sounds cliche and heavy, but that's what I unearthed. It dawned that I had railroaded myself into emotional/relationship situations that, had I just taken a second to consult my inner, truest self, I wouldn't have. I had been deferring to that ugly, impossible to please sneer in my head (the one that's disguised as my own) that belittled and betrayed who I really am. It kept telling me that this wasn't good enough, that I was doing it wrong somehow. And it was smothering the Lola out of me. Once I figured out where it came from or just that it was even there, I took action to dismiss it and shut it the fuck up. Once and for all. The main adjustment was to break all the old patterns of deferring to someone else or doing what they wanted of me instead of sticking to what I knew was my truth. That whatever I wanted or knew or felt was A-OK and even more so, essential to my success in whatever I did.

So I broke those patterns. Not seamlessly, mind you, but broken for good. For me. For my girls. A few relationships outside of the main one I'm speaking to also took a ditch for it, but hey, I guess they aren't meant to be if they blurred in importance through my new, clear vision. No way to turn back now. I knew it in my fibers, light bulb style. 

This familiar yet fresh vision beheld in the reflection that utterly kind, ever grounded, super intelligent, calmly confident, artist/rebel that had the balls and faith and resources of soul, to jump in a car and pursue what she wanted a thousand miles from comfort zone about a decade ago. And this time, she's stood ten times taller with all the life she's lived from then until now. So she tipped her hat and claimed the space to grow stronger evermore and I, at long last, deferred to her above all else. Man, it felt and feels good.

It was a hard decision, mainly for the effect it would have on my girls. Don't get me wrong. This is how it had to be, though, for that very same reason. So I fully kicked off my It-takes-two-to-Tango dancing shoes (as sensitively and amicably as possible) and began my path again, refreshingly barefoot. Well, barefoot with three sets of little bare feet beside me. We are still good friends, he and I. It was mutual, in our understanding that we needed to be alone to reach our full potential, for the better of us all. I look at him with kindness as much as I ever did (minus the random frustrations that will always be), and we are doing this the best we can, that's all one can hope for. 

Co-parenting is a marathon and a break up amid that is a decathlon. You have to keep picking yourself up, talking yourself up and playing the drama down in as many ways as it is presented. If you take being a parent or a partner or friend to heart, that is. Those applied skills I mentioned before boil down to three major points. As I discovered each one, I committed to practicing not just preaching. Do with them what you will, I know they benefit anyone, not just someone in a similar situation. As much as possible, remember that:

1.) Your life is happening RIGHT NOW.  This, right here, is where all your power lies. It's all we truly have if you think about it. Past and future are concepts, and ultimately just serve as a distraction from this amazing moment. I spent so much of my life somewhere else, missing it. Where we live and breathe the best, is right here and now. Getting lost in it, we are our genuine selves and that yields the best outcomes.
        

2.) Love, Love Love. Replace the negative fiddle faddle with kindness to yourself and those around you as much as possible, be thankful for the simplest of things. If you don't love that all important reflection you see in your mirror, figure out what it will take to love that person and follow through. Hang in there, it's worth it. Your perspective is yours alone, and your responsibility. It comes with great privilege, don't worry.  

3.) Do what you say, say what you do.  Elements of a relationship change daily (we as humans, change daily) but if you communicate and follow through, the other stuff is able to shift to what it needs to be. In all ways imaginable. Don't be afraid of stating your heart's contents, be afraid to let them die unheard.

I know I could have saved some time and effort by just slapping those down and dropping the mic (too late), but that's what went down, sparing the nitty gritty. It's all in the past, we have been broken up officially for over a year now. We are still in constant contact as we have only each other really to get square on our own (funny how that works, too), and in many ways have a far better relational time of things than we ever did as a couple. It's challenging, it's messy it's wonderful it's poignant. We will be all the better for our accomplishing all of it. The girls included. They know they are loved unconditionally and that we have their backs. I would rather they see two people realigning toward the positive, separately, than form a warped negative template of how two people are, together. Call me crazy.  

I am so proud of my unit, no matter what formation it takes, we will always be a family. Can't ever forget that. I'm excited for the future but I keep it loose like a cloud morphing with changing winds. I am grateful for the past and it's hard won lessons, but don't let it shackle me anymore, certainly don't allow it to beat upon me and in turn, us.

As far as long chronicled epic tales go, I don't consider it as such now (how I detrimentally did at times before). We've expanded past that and are perseverance personified, living and breathing and loving each other, changing daily to accommodate who we choose to be. I am so thankful I finally know that isn't a tragic tale of woe, that's a melodic memoir. How great that it won't ever be finished.     

   

     

Remake: The Movie

I read an article about seven years ago that pops into my head more and more. The author outlined ways in which Hollywood studios are screwing themselves over financially and creatively. The remaking of film history, particularly the 80's and 90's, was among the offenses. Remaking films that have no real business being messed with, as they stayed on our radar the first time around. All that tactic does is reiterate to the audience that Hollywood at large focuses on procuring dollars with haphazard, pandering nostalgia more than earning our trust or respect with original thought or innovative presentation (I'm looking at you, Disney). This was almost a decade ago, and the message is louder and clearer today than it was at the time. I don't think we recognized what was happening, but it continues, this landslide to muddy repetitive oblivion.   

If these projects were Kickstarter funded, grass roots style manifestos of exciting artistic play, that would be one thing. If, say, the people involved truly loved the story lines so much that they decide to expand on it for the further joy and enjoyment of fans everywhere and the end result tapped into that important essence. Maybe. If the entire original cast (yeah, even the two line day players) signed on with the same director and writer. Maybe, maybe.

Sadly though, even under those conditions, the versions received along those lines just fail to recapture in spirit and resonance, especially so far past the relevance marker. I submit for example, Dumb and Dumber To. I choose not to watch that one, I prefer to keep the first inspired, weird, hilarious one alive in my mind. All previews I've seen are kind of a mockery. It's a great example, because that was one of the break outs of the time, we added it to the lexicon of quoted and re-watched (I had the soundtrack, that's when you know it's real). The only reason it was, however, was that it had no intention of being so. It just ended up there, by way of telling an unfamiliar off-the -wall story with apt casting and raunch and utter silliness that worked. All the off center things were what made it memorable. I bristle when things get all contrive-y twenty years later. Polite pass, guys.        

I'm not saying that the artists involved with these projects are crap for being involved. Bills to pay and dreams to realize, haven't we all. From a business stand point major markets are hard to keep because there remains that second-to-second refreshed page of newer and shinier things to be distracted by (top tier execs not heeding the internet is the fore runner as to how this all started, if you ask me), and it ain't getting any easier.

Youth obsession coupled with instant gratification and it's a wonder we aren't just splicing together ten second mash-ups of "cool movie stuff" and calling it good: a sad event in the past, then a big explosion, a fight sequence, a romantic embrace, a secret revealed that thickens the plot and/or justifies all the drama. Then everyone smiles and laughs and carries on toward a beautiful sunset. Save ourselves time and-ahem-money.

We deserve better, and know for a fact we are capable of better.

I look around at the complex, wondrous, amazing lives of those around me and see nothing but a plot line or a jumping off point to fill numerous pages with. Everyone on planet earth has a thought that no one else has thought of before, not unlike our fingerprints, we are no two alike. Despite the unifying commonalities that will always be utilized to tie it all together, how odd it is we are lining up to accept what's being thrown at us. I know I'm not the only one out here on the farthest fringe of popular demand that feels this way.

Let's head toward the lusher, greener fields of entertainment then, those that have grown out of fertile imaginative soils, not well-worn tracts fertilized over yet again with slick business acumen and marketing degrees in (full Oscar winning) costume, masquerading as inspired installations of moving human condition. All just to grab us by the wallet and purse strings, not tug at our heart strings organically. Complete with action figure and DVD/Blue Ray combo pack on standby. We have whiffed if all before a few times. Ignoring that is an insult to the intelligence and integrity that we admired about those movies way back when. Is it not?  

Might I suggest...a familiar face, style or imagery that might be reminiscent of something else beloved, but rather than trying to recreate the entire experience, creating an entirely new one? Using the same crew, cast and vibe (if we must, after all Mel Brooks did it for years and never lost his cred), but doing something that is a complete departure from: Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, The X-Men, Middle Earth, formulaic romantic cliches, Cinderella, Snow White, the 80's hits, the 90's hits (early Millennial while we're at it), Star Wars, cult classics from any era, prequels/sequels that come from a think tank built to make money, not the originator and their personal touch. I have nothing against the themes above, or the movies they have spawned...I just don't really care enough about the characters anymore to remember or invest in any of it. I know I'm not the only one.

There are silver linings to the dreary deja vu clouds that hang above us. For every Rocky Horror Picture Show remake (the thought of that one still stings like a jellyfish), there are gems like Mr. Nobody and Gone Girl. Even if you didn't particularly like the movie (I did, both were against the grain and stylized enough to stick), it got you thinking in new directions, it dazzled you in some way even for just a minute. That minute is worth more than all hours of the other rehashes combined. It's why we buy tickets, in hopes to have that.

I hold sacred the forging of new horizons. I see no point in life itself with out it. That includes the decline to buy into all the reused just to have something to watch, and just so they have something to make money with. We are in the directors seat on that one.

So here's to those fresh perspectives, may they grow stronger and fresher each day. Eventually we will bust out of the rut. Art imitates life, after all.

I eagerly await the aisle for those stories.