Author: Liljumper

This is a list of the few things that made me remember why I like living in Germany when I got back.

1. Steaks cooked on a hot stone. It’s a favorite, and cheap, meal of mine that is absolutely scrumptious.
2. Things being closer. Germany is much smaller than the US so things are actually just closer.
3. Fresh produce that tells me where it comes from.
4. Having a space I have made mine. I enjoy the process of expanding within a space and I’ve done that here. It feels good to be back with the space I know and have called mine. It’s a different feeling than home. But equally precious.
5. More meal choices in my direct vicinity. The world is my oyster!

I think that’s pretty good for the first few days! It’s good to be reminding that I have made a little space for myself here. I need some time to miss it here.

So sorry to have to postpone the normal emails, but I ran into problems last week when I was trying to send out the emails. It was a garbled bit of code and it should be fixed now. Hopefully this works and from now on you can get new emails!

Since the last post I’ve just been reading books to get caught up for the Month of April Book Reviews, unpacking, and conquering my jetlag.

See you Weds for the real posts!

Dear readers,

I have been gone a while, and I know you all have noticed. A while ago I sent you all an email with the newest posts, in February because my mail server was not working. I was so busy and stressed with my internship that until the problem was fixed, I didn’t write any more because I was worried no one would see it. Then I went to the US to visit and I had a lot less time, plus the problem wasn’t fixed. Long story short, the problem is now fixed, as of last week, and starting today, but more of a proper post Monday, will be back to our regularly scheduled content of MWF. I hope you have all been well during the unexpected hiatus and I’m back now!

Love,

Liljumper

This is a very good question. I don’t have a great answer.

I am a workaholic, single minded to a fault, impatient, and quick to anger. How do I even live with myself would be a better question I think.

Some things I have tried to keep me sane, and you know, become a better person.

1. Yoga
2. Meditation
3. Reading
4. Music
5. Dancing
6. Friends

That is basically it. Trust me, it doesn’t work all of the time. I need rhythm and order. So I need to build these into my routine to almost schedule them into my day, so they get done. You may ask well doesn’t that take the fun out of it? No, it ensures the fun gets done. Oh along with the normal things, like brushing my teeth, taking my vitamins, drinking water.

I got a lot of normal things on my plate too.

I am my own best boss. I am also my own worst boss.

You know how people, preparing for interviews, have to come up with their ‘flaw’? And they try to say things like I am too kind, I work too hard.

But I do. I actually work myself to the bone. I work and work and it is even worse if I am motivated or if it is my own product. I cannot seem to stop and it takes me over until I do not even know I am doing it.

It is like I start jogging one direction, into a tunnel, and I need help to get out. I absolutely work too hard.

And it absolutely is one of my flaws.

Now how do I make an employer believe that?

My job right now is feel pretty frustrating. There is a lack of direction, structure, and purpose. I feel sometimes like going is sapping my soul. To work so tirelessly for change, to want to make things better, and be sabotaged. You can’t make people want to change, but when you want things to change for the better what do you do?

It is so frustrating and sapping. I am always tired. It takes a lot of energy to push against the tide, to try to keep going, be enthusiastic. It is not like me to let it go, under perform, or do less. But maybe that is the only thing that will save me?

It is frustrating because sometimes it seems that it’s all I ever do. To fight against injustice, sexism, always this upward fight. Against forces that are not only passively, but actively opposing change and good. Surrounded by people who are content to let it pass. My voice being drowned out, my efforts unnoticed, my work being devalued because I am given stupid work, purpose-less work.

It is hard and depressing. So I throw myself into my creative work in all my free time because that is the work that heals me. The work I feel I can be productive and purposeful. But even then, it is not enough to fight this pull.

I feel myself being more upset, more tired, more frustrated. I wonder if there’s a limit to it, or if it will just swallow me up whole. And I wonder how do I get to where I want to be?

I do not have enough time to do the work I want to do, the work that makes me happy. I do not have enough time to scrape by with the minimum work and to look for new work. I do not have enough energy to fight this rising tide, this undertow that will sap my creative energy. And at the moment I have no answers.

I have been doing the Yoga with Adriene Challenges again. I cannot believe it has already been a year since I did them last year. But it has. How time flies. One of the mantras has stuck with me for a few days.

Honor where you are at.

Honor who you are today, how you get there. Honor your thoughts in that moment. Honor your plans and your past. Honor the moment, your intention for the day. Honor your commitment and your flexibility.

Take the moment to look at where you are at, and honor that moment.

Maybe it will resonate with some of you as well!

I marched last week against the immigration ban. It was more a demonstration, not as a march because there was no real movement. Last time we walked around the city with a police escort on the street. This time we just gathered around the consulate and demonstrated, chanted, and spoke.

It always feel so good and affirming to be at these events. They are super peaceful and nothing happens that makes me feel unsafe. It is soul healing to be around so many people who are angry, but also doing something about it. To not be stuck in the internet hole of anger or sadness, but to get on the streets and do something.

I am so happy I have gone to two of these. They give me hope and make me feel not so alone.

Why is it that becoming emotional becomes becoming irrational? Why are emotions tied with over reacting, with unreasonable, with needing to quiet down?

Don’t they see we’ve lived our lives being told to quiet down? That we cannot be emotional. When emotions are the base reaction we have to let us know that it is not okay. When our gut instinct is crying to be heard.

Why is raising our voice considered losing control? And if it is, then what is control? We raise our voices to put a stop to something, to say no. We lose our control on what is considered normal, on what we shouldn’t say, on the things we cannot afford to say. We say with our voices raised: enough is enough.

If we are told we are emotional, or emotion-less we are constantly reduced to our emotions. Why does it have to be around this?

Why are our emotions, our anger, our pain the reason we cannot talk? Why is talking considered clinical and angerless, painless? When by definition pain involves change? How can we become clinical about our injustice, our suffering, our inequality?

Why is each small incident, each argument, not seen as just a part of this bigger whole? This large movement to silence our emotions. To tell us, in another way, that yet again we are not accepted as we are. That yet again we have to tell it in words our oppressors, others can understand. Why is the burden on us? The pained, the hurt, the frustrated, the angry. Isn’t our anger at being hurt, not being listened to, silenced again and again worth hearing?

Why must we silence the beatings of our heart? The movements that tell us we are alive and hurting, alive and being oppressed? Why can we not yell, can not shout, when it feels as if we are being pushed back into our box?

Told again we need to moderate ourselves, when our whole life is about moderation. Moderating our behavior, our dress, our words, our actions. If every single thing demands us to evaluate our behaviors, how they are perceived, how we can make ourselves more palatable, why can we just be allowed to be?

Why must we always be for someone else?

Why is being never enough?

 

For a while I convinced myself it would be okay. That the world would not get so overwhelming and full of hate. But not today. Today I woke up and it all just cracked.

I have had enough. I have seen enough of what the world is possible of. I can’t even. The hateful speech and the way people twist the law, their words. The feelings that fill me is more than rage, it is disillusionment, disappointment, frustration, and anger: a fierce blinding rage. Rage that I have to rage. I got so burned out during college doing my anti-sweatshop work because I was so tired of being angry, when no one else was. When I was met with apathy and my rage burned a hole in me. It has taken years to bounce back.

But things are a changing. My self-care tells me I need to give myself a break. But my heart tells me that while I do that, others livelihoods are being threated. I do not have the luxury of being on the sidelines. I belong out there. I do and so does everyone else. Because this is wrong. I can feel it in my bones, in my fingers.

This instinct, has been brewing. I felt it when I was young and convinced it would be easier to try to fit in than embrace who I was. I felt it when I was raped and every day after when I convinced myself it would go away. I felt it when I saw the workers in Latin America and comforted myself with what I was doing. My body is revolting. It is telling me this is wrong. My stomach lurches and my head buzzes with the injustice.

It is not easier to be silent, to be on the sidelines, to observe – it is complicity. When we are on the sidelines, we have the privilege of not engaging. Not everyone has that. We need to stand up, if not for someone else, our neighbor, if not for our future children, then for ourselves, for our sense of dignity and our sense of humanity.