pulp

Im currently writing a paper about lesbian pulp fiction in the 50's. and I've grown quite obsessed with and amused by the covers. There's some real winners out there. (and look! only 95 cents! what a thrill)

Looks like I'll have a new reading hobby this summer.

..And then I found Hope

jubilee in the park

Today my heart walks

Outside the confines of a chest

and into the world.

reckless

I didn't realize I was scared until someone called me courageous.

I hadn't even considered fear- i plowed a head, confident and with an unyielding sense of optimism. I assumed my vision and my passions were legit simply because i felt it-- i breathed it-- i knew it as it pulsated through my veins.

I knew my vision because it was my heart.

I saw no reason to fear it. To question it. to hide from it. It made sense to me, so I assumed it' make sense to everyone. I assumed that because it mattered to me, it'd matter to others. I shared my vision with the anti-capitalists, the Queer feminists, the anarchists, the jewish reconstructionists, the nuns, the homeless, the suburbans, the students, the intellects, the abused, the misused, the vegans, the freegans, the musicians, the hoarders, the artists, the farmers, the addicts, the neo-monastics, the Jesus Freaks and the atheists. I told them my vision. I invited them out. I showed them my heart and I waited. Waited for the afternoon where they'dall come together. All these contradicting identities in one space at one time-- for one reason-- a hunger for social change.
I did not see this act of sharing or invitation as a daring act of bravery, nor did I see it as a risk.

But then he said it.

he told me I was courageous.
He told me he didn't have the guts to dream what I dreamt and plan what i was planning.
and then it happened,
I felt fear for the first time throughout this whole thing. I felt a fear so deep and so real that it paralyzed me. it stompt on my breath until exhales became brief and painful. It swarmed through my mind, like venom, poisoning my thoughts and words. It found the home of my optimism and pillaged it. leaving me empty and without much hope or ambition. This fear became a heavy and oversized stifling jacket, I unwillingly wore in the hottest of weather.
Suddenly I began to question everything: my dreams, my politics, my voice-- this entire afternoon.
Suddenly I saw the cracks in my vision and from these cracks emerged a creeping darkness. A darkness that told me to give up/ To side with apathy. That I wasn't strong enough. A voice that reminded me daily that no one really gave a shit and that i was a fool for thinking they ever did. And that''s when the shame leaked through-when I thought of all the people I had opened up to, invited, craved to collide with, it occurred to me that not all of them shared my vision--would ever share my vision. or even cared about it.
I realized that my dreams had likely offended, angered and irritated many.
This daunting threat of judgment turned a simple act of dreaming into a dangerous act of vulnerability and risk.
I felt that risk and then I felt for the first time a need , a desperate need, to be brave.
A need to dream fearlessly and speak recklessly with passion untainted.
I never knew what courage was until I felt my own fears take hold.
I didn't realize I was scared, until my entire body and spirit ached to own the courage he said he saw in me.

time capsule

Beneath the soil

this soil

is us.
A vision,

a passion

a heart

a life.

Lives.

ten lives in one box.

Beneath the soil

is a story

many that bleed into memory

memories

bound by laughter and heart-ache

prayers, both spoken and silent

Beneath this soil is a box

is you, is me, is us.

Here

both connected yet unfinished

here in the earth

for another ten years.

Butler

"In other words, acts, gestures, and desire produce the effect of an internal core or substance, but produce this on the surface of the body, through the play of signifying absences that suggest, but never reveal, the organizing principle of identity as a cause. Such acts, gestures, enactment, generally construed, are performative in the sense that the essence or identity that they otherwise purport to express are fabrications manufactured and sustained through corporeal signs and other discursive means" --Judith Butler, from "Gender Trouble".

After five years, it's all starting to finally make sense.