(i just write)

We went roller skating on my thirtieth birthday, and since then I've been back to that night a dozen times in my mind.

I keep thinking about this man. He's an older black man wearing a creamy cable-knit sweater, slacks, and a pair of closely fitted black roller skates.  He moves around the skating rink floor with his arms loosely crossed behind his back. He slowly picks up one foot at a time, swings from side to side, around other skaters. His pace never varies.  It's not too fast, not too slow. There are no jerks or starts, only this unhurried, inexorable stride.

And he loops over the slick floor and is easy. And I want to loop and swirl and be easy. I can't help thinking that it's the calm he shows that's the thing. That if I can get the calm, the looping will come. But then I think it's his age and wisdom, and his practice in looping without a hitch, adjusting to changing circumstances with a smoothness that isn't no movement but is constant movement around, through, beyond, that gives him the calm. Maybe he wasn't always this way. Maybe he was once me, with my legs carefully bent and my slightly daring pushes and the hands that wobble when my skates take me farther or faster than expected. Maybe he used to wear rental skates, or forgot his socks and had to make do.  Maybe sometimes he had to relearn things he thought he knew. Maybe sometimes his muscles forgot. Maybe, maybe not.

But now, tonight, he is like the shadow of a bird on the ground. He is like a guardian angel. In his motion are all the secrets of the world, at least the ones about roller skating. He is inevitable.  I can't take my eyes off him.

* * *

I'm just writing with Heather of the EO today. Come play along?

how it went

I don't often make new year's resolutions. The last couple of years I've made lists of goals for myself that I come back to, add to, revise over the year.  Sometimes I meet these goals. Other times I forget the lists even exist, and that's ok too. I try to be generous with myself.  How can I know what a year will hold? How I'll change? How what I want will change too?

I made a list this year, though it's short. It's a reflection of how unsettled I feel, how much I'm willing to be unsure of at this stage. My goals are much harder to pin down, except for things like sell at least two fur coats. (Because how many vintage fur coats does one need in southern California? I suspect the answer is a  number that's very close to zero.) Outside of those very concrete things, I'm sort of floating when it comes to goals.

But something else happened to me this year around the turn of the year. I had the chance to visit dear Moxie Mandie in Albuquerque over the holiday weekend, a sweet day and night together sandwiched between about twelve hours of driving each way. Twenty-four hours across deserts and through mountains, under heavy gray clouds and sharp early morning skies and overwhelming numbers of stars.

Twelve hours through the night towards the new year, pressing up bright behind wide mountain ranges.

And then twelve hours home in the new year's infancy, full of thoughts as big as the tall trees and snowscapes that demanded to be noticed.

And that was it, really. Somewhere in those hours of driving it hit me, all those things demanding to be noticed. So I pulled over and made some resolutions right then and there, not for the year, but for the month, the day, the hour.  Here they are.

Be it resolved:

   I will drive with the windows down more.

 I will taste the wind.

     I will run up mountains.

I will dance more.

         I will keep my head up, look at the stars, take more deep breaths.

    I will sit up straight when I remember to, and not yell at myself when I don't.

 I will eat more cheeseburgers.

  I will eat less cheeseburgers.

I will fly.

             I will float.

I will not be afraid to drive into the night.

one

I sat across from her in the tidy but slightly worn living room. The sea-green carpet, the low blue couch with the flat, pleated pillows, the family photo-turned-oil-painting over the upright piano. It was a quiet, cool evening. Trees whispered to each other outside.


Why was I there? I don't remember now. Some business about our apartment. I don't remember how it came up either, only that in her soft, dry voice Barbara began to tell me about Steven, her handyman. He had been brought to the U.S. from Thailand as a child. He was told he would get a job in a fancy hotel but was kept as a prisoner instead, cleaning office buildings twelve hours a day and locked in a room with a dozen other kids the rest of the time.


He never talked much about those months, she said. All she knew was that one day he found a way to get away, and somehow he found her son Tim. Tim brought Steven home, and the family took him in as a fifth child. What else could they do? Her eyes looked steadily at me. Her small, time-creased hands rested in her lap. I shifted on the couch, re-crossed my legs. Wow, I said, inadequately.


Steven. The man who painted our back patio and snaked our drains. Someone who would never excite comment, who looks just like you and me and the thousands of others who drive down Tustin Avenue every day. Deceived. Enslaved. Rescued. 

* * *

Steven is one person. One is such a small fraction of the estimated 14,500 to 17,500 people who are trafficked into the U.S. every year, of the 27 million people enslaved in the world today. In such a giant wave, one feels like a water molecule. And yet.

Steven found one person. Tim couldn't do much on his own, but he told one person. Barbara did what she could, and she told one person. And I'm telling you. 

Yes, Steven is one person. One less person in slavery today. Yes, Tim and Barbara and me and you--we are each of us, one person. One more person to add a voice, a dollar, a helping hand. 

I don't have to be more than one to do something. I just have to be willing to be one more, fighting in my own way so that every day or hour or moment there can be one less.

I'm running for their lives to raise money for Love146's child sex slavery aftercare, prevention, and research efforts around the world. You can join me in running and fundraising, donating, or spreading the word about the realities of modern day slavery.  And if you're writing for Human Trafficking Awareness Day, come link up at Run for their Lives.  

running for their lives

I'm in a place. You know I am. And it's tempting to hunker down with myself and my blankets and my fresh episodes of Downton Abbey and pretend there's no outside world for a while--oh, so tempting. But at the same time I've felt a longing in my heart to push off the blankets and step outside my room with my double-paned windows and take a clearer look at things. My need feels great, but I have a stirring in my heart that says there are greater needs to be met.  So often I feel like mine is the only plaintive little cry out there, that I'm all by myself in my pain, but I'm wrong.

So often I feel alone in this world, but I am not.

* * *

Sometimes the things in your heart and the things in someone else's align so perfectly that you know it's something special, something right.  That's how I felt when Jo at Mylestones emailed me last month about an idea she'd been kicking around, the possibility of using a shared love of running to help us and others focus on an issue bigger than ourselves.

It's an issue that should unsettle us and keep us walking up and down at night but too often doesn't: child sex slavery and exploitation. Boys and girls bought and sold, their bodies and memories and hearts marked with the evil done to them--not just in movies or special news reports about southeast Asia, but in our cities, our neighborhoods, at Disneyland. The places we think are safest.  We don't know. We walk around with our eyes closed. I walk around with my eyes closed. But we don't have to, and I don't want to any more.

That's where Jo comes in. This is her brainchild (and really, I can't take any credit for it). She's launched Run for their Lives in partnership with Love146.org, an organization that works for the abolition of child sex slavery and exploitation through prevention, aftercare, and research in Asia, North America, and Eastern Europe.  And she's invited me to join her as the West Coast team leader.

Our goal is not only fundraising, although that's important, but also education, which is perhaps more important. We want to have our own eyes opened, and then to open the eyes of others, because we believe that these small steps we take together can lead to much bigger strides.  So we will run--and you can too.

How you can help:

• Run. Sign up for a race--any race, any place, any distance, any speed--in the next ten to twelve weeks.  If you want, for example, you can join me and other West Coast team members at the Go Green St. Patrick's Day Run in Los Gatos, California, on March 17. (Jo has a good list of other racing resources here.) Then visit the Love146 Run for their Lives donation page to join a team (any team you like, regardless of which race you're running), create a personal donation page, and begin raising money.
• Train. Join the Run for their Lives Daily Mile challenge to run 146 miles for Love146.  As Jo puts it, this isn't a fundraising initiative but a way to help us train with the cause in mind and to encourage one another as we do.
• Read. Spend some time learning about the child sex slavery and exploitation. Become uncomfortable. Find out what you can do. Love146.org is a great place to start. More resources and information here and here.
• Donate. You can support an individual runner, a team, or the group effort.  No matter which option you choose, every penny will go directly to Love146 and their work to abolish child sex slavery.
• Share. Share the Run for their Lives Facebook group, Daily Mile challenge, and blog with your friends.  Forward the information to people who might be interested. Write a blog post or two. President Obama just proclaimed January to be National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and January 11 (two little days from now!) is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day in the United States. We'll be offering a link-up on the Run for their Lives blog, and we'd love you to join us in sharing your thoughts, ideas, and stories.

I hope that you'll all do at least one of these things. If you do nothing else, take some time to learn about the realities of child sex slavery. Allow your heart to be broken. Whatever you do, don't turn away.  Children's lives are at stake.

More info on Love146
The Run for their Lives website
The Run for their Lives donation page
Run for their Lives on Facebook
Daily Mile challenge

alis volat propriis

Image via Pinterest

My word for 2011 was feeling, and boy did I ever go through it on that one. I think I chose it because I could sense that feeling would run through 2011 like a rushing wind whether I wanted it to or not.

That's kind of the sense I have about this year's word too. I've chosen the word release, not just because it's something that I want, but because it's something I can feel happening, a movement in my spirit that I don't think I can stop. Huge, monumental change is in store for me in the next eighteen months. Divorce, dissertation, graduation. Maybe relocation, career change. I don't know. I don't know any of it, but I know that these things will take time and energy, maybe all I have. So I don't want to waste any on unnecessary things.

I'm feeling the need to be unencumbered. That this will be a year of shedding, a year of letting go. Of my marriage, obviously. That may be the most visible thing. Of possessions, yes. I have too much stuff, and I need to carefully consider what it's for. But also of dreams, plans, expectations. I need to reevaluate, reconfigure. I need to open my hands so I can see whether the things I've been clutching are worth holding on to. Instead of agitating, I might need to stand very, very still in order to see what moves around me.  It might be a year of slowing down, freeing myself of the deadlines I've imposed, taking time to exhale, so that when the right moment comes I can run fast.

But it will also be a year of stepping out, naked maybe. Of doing the things my heart says to do, even if I'm terrified. Running a half-marathon, as a tangible thing. Fighting for what I believe in. Learning where to say yes and where to say no. Having the courage to listen to and be very, very patient with myself.  Letting go of fear, of the shoulds of other people and that I put on myself.

In all of this, there will be opportunities to let go of maybe the hardest things. Of disappointment, bitterness, anger, and offense. Guilt and shame, too. Of things that keep me moving in circles or craning my neck backwards or just pinned to the ground with their weight.

In 2012, I want to release all the things that keep me in any way from moving forward--because forward I am going.

I can feel it.

* * *

The OneWord movement is growing! Learn more about it, meet the founder, Alece, and other community members, or join in, on the website or in the comments here.

oh, feeling

Did I know what I was in for when I chose feeling as my one word in January? Part of me thinks I did. Not knew in a seeing the future sense, but knew that it was going to be a difficult year, and that I needed to embrace it instead of fighting it or trying to wish it away. If I couldn't embrace it, I at least needed to be able to acknowledge it, live with it.

I've cried a king's ransom of tears. In public, in private. Outside a movie theater in San Jose. At my house, probably at yours. In front of people, which is big, but by myself too, which is almost bigger because it turns out this year has been about learning to face myself. In the past, I have been my own biggest rejecter, my own biggest denier. I have held myself to ridiculous standards and punished myself when I didn't meet them. I have refused to take myself for what I am, refused to acknowledge pain and sorrow, written myself and my feelings off. What this comes down to, this way I've treated myself, is that I have hated and despised who I am--and if this year has taught me anything, it's that I deserve better. And so do the people around me. If I can't accept my own messes and failures, how can I love others and meet them in their places of need? In order to be better to others, I must be better to myself first.

I look back at where I started, and where I was six months in, and I can marvel at the change in me, how much I've learned from giving myself the space and freedom to feel. I'm learning how to recognize my feelings and deal with them without dismissing them--that gratefulness is the key to heart-peace, that sometimes it takes a good long run or a long drive or a hot bath to sort things out. I'm learning that being open about what I'm feeling creates space for genuine relationships to grow, allows people to respond to me in love and teaches me to respond in kind.  Maybe all of this sounds obvious to you, but these have been hard-taught lessons for me.  And they're lessons I'll keep learning for a long time.


The year was more eventful than I would have liked. (Understatement champion: me.) I walked--am walking--a hard road.  But I feel more at peace with myself than I ever thought I would, more at home with myself.  At home with both joy and pain, sometimes at the same time. The struggles are loud, and want to be louder than the victories. But sometimes I think the quiet victories are the best ones.

* * *

This post is my OneWord 2011 wrap-up. Read more on my One Word.  Meet Alece and learn about the OneWord2011 project. Catch up with the community.

wish list

What I have wished for this holiday season, in no particular order:

a cat named Bill
dental insurance
a Star Trek transporter for birthday photos (does not have to work)
one million dollars to iTunes
a Star Trek transporter for personal use (must work)
the ability to Get Things Done and sleep at the same time
for Turkish Delight to taste as good as it sounds
someone to read me bedtime stories
a cat named Fitzpatrick (just now)
a bean and cheese burrito (earlier this week, but also just now. My taste buds are highly suggestible.)
a new wrist. maybe two new wrists. #unthumb
Harry Potter knitting needles
two more weeks in between my last day of work before Christmas and the day I had to go back
Sonja Henie-like skating ability
a less active imagination
a more active imagination
the time to write all the words in my heart
three cats named after my three favorite Jewish Neils (Diamond, Simon, Young)
a time machine
more books (rather insanely)
the library to be open on Christmas night
a cat