Of Peacocks and Chameleons and Life and Stuff
It's that Interview Meme again! You know, the one where you comment to a post, and get seven topics to discuss, and then you talk about them? And then you offer topics to people who comment to your post and ask to join in? Yeah, that meme.
The lovely karelia gave me some lovely topics to discuss, so I'm going to do that now. And if you'd like some topics of your own to discuss, just comment and let me know!
Now then... if you for some unfathomable reason missed those posts where I ramble on and on about things, you're in luck. Because this is one of those posts. Not sure if that's a warning or an enticement. ;-)
1. Peacock! - I always loved peacocks, both the birds themselves and the type of personality it's come to represent: theatrical, dramatic, proud, flamboyant, unapologetically expressive and celebratory of their own weirdness. For as long as I can remember, I've idolized peacocks. But it wasn't until just a few years ago that I realized that I myself was a peacock, and adopted it as my own personal symbol. In retrospect, the signs were obvious; when I was seven years old and the teacher asked us to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up, I said that I wanted to be famous, and I drew a picture of myself draped in feather boas, surrounded by photographers. (Ten years later, there were pictures of me all over my high school yearbook--mostly in feather boas.) I do feel like recognizing my essential peacockness was a turning point in my life, in that I finally had a firm sense of who I was and could proudly embrace it.
For me, a peacock is who I am, but peacocking itself is about more than fitting one narrow and personalized definition of the word. Peacocking isn't really about glitter jumpsuits and feather boas; underneath the glitz, it's about self-expression--about knowing who you are, and being proud of that, and embracing it, and showing it to the world, and not apologizing for who and how you are. It's about caring for and nurturing yourself, and not diminishing the importance of that self-love and enrichment. (True story: if you cultivate and embrace the weirdness in yourself, it's much easier to offer that kind of love and acceptance and support to others.) Insecure people abound, and those insecure people have a way of trying to punish people who dare to be confident and believe in themselves; learning to be a peacock means learning to recognize the judgments of insecure people for what they are--jealousy and fear--and not letting that get in the way of what you know to be of value in yourself. Not everybody wants to wear a dress made of peacock feathers, but we all have something about us that deserves to shine in a way that's true to ourselves, and I love seeing people find that self-confidence--and find themselves, in the process.
2. Life - I love life. I'm very happy to be alive. I try to live very fully, to make the most of the time I have, and I'm drawn to people with similar philosophies. That's "living fully" in the sense of being positive and being open to the universe and its strange, capricious ways--being open to new experiences, new ideas, new people, new places, new points of view. It's also about being mindful of life as you're living it, and not taking it (or all the expressions of it) for granted. It's not always easy, but I try to remind myself to live in the moment--to take note of all the beautiful and sweet moments that help us get through the less kind and beautiful ones--and to remember that I'm connected to something much larger and more meaningful than myself. For some people that means religion, and for other people that means humanity, but what it really means to me is that life is everywhere, all around, pulsing and vital--in animals and bugs and plants and trees and people who stand for everything I think is wrong and people who make the lives of others immeasurably better simply by existing. The older I get, the clearer it seems to me that we are all connected to each other, in one way or another, and I try to keep that in mind every day, and to live accordingly.
3. Writing - Like the peacocking, I think I was always a writer, and just didn't realize it until I was an adult. Or rather, I didn't realize that there was much value in my writing, outside of an academic context. I still boggle a bit at the thought that there are people who have any interest in hearing me write about anything else, but I couldn't stop doing it if I tried. Long before I starting putting the words down, I was putting them together in my head, building stories and exploring concepts and recording all the things I saw and noticed and putting them in my mental Writing Box for possible future use--an image, a turn of phrase, a concept, a constellation of character traits. I didn't know what I was saving them for, but I knew that I had to save them. I was always narrating things in my head, immersing myself in stories and then picking them apart, wondering what if and speculating about how they might be different IF. I saw narrative arcs in almost everything, and to be perfectly honest, I still do. If you know me, you know that I'm an insufferable chatterbox, and writing for me is the purest expression of that trait. I can't not think about things, and when I think about things, I write about them, sooner or later. I couldn't stop up the words, not if I tried. I think I would explode into a million shards, and every one of them would be written over with words and words and words.
4. Michigan - I do love Michigan. It's a complicated sort of love, because there is also a very long list of things that I dislike about living here (mayflies, stubborn resistance to change, ridiculous humidity, the even more ridiculous and incompetent Republicans in our state house at the moment), but the good things outweigh the bad, and although I have traveled to a number of places, I have spent more of my life here than I have anyplace else. It's a deep bond. There are lots of things I love about Michigan: cherries and apples and fudge and coney dogs and pasties and Detroit-style pizza and paczki, Red Wings hockey and Tigers baseball, the sound of Ernie Harwell's voice, the ability to pop over to Canada for lunch, the funky and artsy character of Midtown, the spectacle of Greektown, the historic churches that are as aesthetically beautiful as they are profoundly weird, the awe-inspiring rush of Tahquamenon Falls, the dense, dark fortress of pines and hemlocks in the Upper Peninsula, the frothy and frilly beauty of the lilacs on Mackinac Island, the thrill of being suspended above all that deep blue water as you're trapped between two peninsulas, the glittering rosy-gold sunset on the lake that I grew up near, the riot of flowers that lines Frankenmuth in the summer, the defiant and unpretentious character of the people here, the "fuck you, I don't need your rules" punk rock attitude that nurtured a music scene and reverberates here still, the offbeat funkiness of places like East Lansing and Ann Arbor and Royal Oak and Ferndale.
I love all of that, and more, about Michigan. It's not a perfect place. But that doesn't make me love it less.
5. Music - I love music. I need music. I crave music. Music while I drive, music while I'm writing, music while I'm exercising, music playing in my head when I wake up in the morning and when I go to sleep at night. When I cook things, I sing. When I fold laundry, I sing. When I clean the house, I sing. When I go out in public places, I judge how pleasant I find them based on the quality of the music that they're playing. I will pick out the wispiest, tinniest thread of music over the public address system, and if it's good, my body will start dancing and moving to the beat just a little bit, without my having given it permission, so that I'll be standing in the grocery store and swaying my hips just a little bit in time with the Rolling Stones.
I have no ability to play a musical instrument myself, and this might well have something to do with my total stupidity when it comes to math and math-related pursuits, including music theory, but I do like to sing and dance and strut and lose myself in the music, and I can't imagine a life without it.
6. Gay bushes - When I say that I have a pair of gay holly bushes, I actually mean exactly that: holly bushes usually come in pairs, and mine just happen to be gay. By that, I mean that, while landscapers usually plant holly bushes in male/female pairings, so that they can produce berries, I happen to have two male bushes in my garden. So although they do their best every year and bloom up a storm and love each other very much, they're not going to produce any berries of their own that way. They are both beautiful bushes, however, and they do very well together, and I could never, ever dream of splitting them up. Perhaps one day, when they're ready, they might consider adopting a small, red-berried bush of their own. But they certainly don't have to. And they are both looking extra-fine just lately, because Geography Teacher and I gave them summer haircuts yesterday, so they're no longer shaggy and overgrown.
7. David Bowie - If you've known me for a day or so, then you probably know that I love David Bowie. Probably because I've mentioned it. Repeatedly. *g*
I admire Bowie for a lot of reason. Obviously, I adore his music, and his fashion sense, and his stagecraft, and his embrace of spectacle and weirdness and things that challenge your perception (of self and identity, of gender, of sexuality, of happiness, of consciousness, of music, of the future). But I also love him for being unapologetically intelligent, for sandwiching terrifying sci-fi short stories and fantasy ballads and philosophical ponderings in between the kind of irresistibly catchy anthems that get everybody dancing and singing along, even if they haven't quite picked up on all the nuances of the lyrics. (Sneaky, Bowie, very sneaky! Philosophy by stealth! Don't think I don't see all that Nietzsche in The Man Who Sold the World.) I love that he was able to put together an album like Ziggy Stardust, which is, despite the dystopian future it paints and the themes of alienation and space, a profoundly humane album that has love all in between the cracks--in the bright-eyed optimism of Starman, and the achingly fond tribute of Lady Stardust, and the world-embracing, oddly life-affirming anthem that closes it out, Rock 'n' Roll Suicide. ("You're not alone!" Bowie assures all the world-weary souls. "Give me your hands, 'cause you're wonderful!" It was inspired by Jacques Brel's Jef, but I find Bowie's take to be the more inspiring for being directed to humanity, and not only to one man.)
One of the things I love best about Bowie, and that I find most inspiring about him, is his refusal to be easily defined--that restless, chameleonic creativity that is always exploring, always reinventing, always redefining, always trying out look after look and sound after sound, while still retaining his essential distinctive Bowie-ness. (It's all spelled right out there in "Changes," a song that always resonated with me and has come to be one of my personal anthems.) There are people who dismiss that sort of reinvention as the mark of the shallow dilettante, but I couldn't disagree more. I like people who are constantly challenging themselves and evolving and adapting and growing. Why be limited to one thing? I'd rather be like Bowie and try on a million looks, taking the bits and the pieces along the way that make me who I am.
The lovely karelia gave me some lovely topics to discuss, so I'm going to do that now. And if you'd like some topics of your own to discuss, just comment and let me know!
Now then... if you for some unfathomable reason missed those posts where I ramble on and on about things, you're in luck. Because this is one of those posts. Not sure if that's a warning or an enticement. ;-)
1. Peacock! - I always loved peacocks, both the birds themselves and the type of personality it's come to represent: theatrical, dramatic, proud, flamboyant, unapologetically expressive and celebratory of their own weirdness. For as long as I can remember, I've idolized peacocks. But it wasn't until just a few years ago that I realized that I myself was a peacock, and adopted it as my own personal symbol. In retrospect, the signs were obvious; when I was seven years old and the teacher asked us to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up, I said that I wanted to be famous, and I drew a picture of myself draped in feather boas, surrounded by photographers. (Ten years later, there were pictures of me all over my high school yearbook--mostly in feather boas.) I do feel like recognizing my essential peacockness was a turning point in my life, in that I finally had a firm sense of who I was and could proudly embrace it.
For me, a peacock is who I am, but peacocking itself is about more than fitting one narrow and personalized definition of the word. Peacocking isn't really about glitter jumpsuits and feather boas; underneath the glitz, it's about self-expression--about knowing who you are, and being proud of that, and embracing it, and showing it to the world, and not apologizing for who and how you are. It's about caring for and nurturing yourself, and not diminishing the importance of that self-love and enrichment. (True story: if you cultivate and embrace the weirdness in yourself, it's much easier to offer that kind of love and acceptance and support to others.) Insecure people abound, and those insecure people have a way of trying to punish people who dare to be confident and believe in themselves; learning to be a peacock means learning to recognize the judgments of insecure people for what they are--jealousy and fear--and not letting that get in the way of what you know to be of value in yourself. Not everybody wants to wear a dress made of peacock feathers, but we all have something about us that deserves to shine in a way that's true to ourselves, and I love seeing people find that self-confidence--and find themselves, in the process.
2. Life - I love life. I'm very happy to be alive. I try to live very fully, to make the most of the time I have, and I'm drawn to people with similar philosophies. That's "living fully" in the sense of being positive and being open to the universe and its strange, capricious ways--being open to new experiences, new ideas, new people, new places, new points of view. It's also about being mindful of life as you're living it, and not taking it (or all the expressions of it) for granted. It's not always easy, but I try to remind myself to live in the moment--to take note of all the beautiful and sweet moments that help us get through the less kind and beautiful ones--and to remember that I'm connected to something much larger and more meaningful than myself. For some people that means religion, and for other people that means humanity, but what it really means to me is that life is everywhere, all around, pulsing and vital--in animals and bugs and plants and trees and people who stand for everything I think is wrong and people who make the lives of others immeasurably better simply by existing. The older I get, the clearer it seems to me that we are all connected to each other, in one way or another, and I try to keep that in mind every day, and to live accordingly.
3. Writing - Like the peacocking, I think I was always a writer, and just didn't realize it until I was an adult. Or rather, I didn't realize that there was much value in my writing, outside of an academic context. I still boggle a bit at the thought that there are people who have any interest in hearing me write about anything else, but I couldn't stop doing it if I tried. Long before I starting putting the words down, I was putting them together in my head, building stories and exploring concepts and recording all the things I saw and noticed and putting them in my mental Writing Box for possible future use--an image, a turn of phrase, a concept, a constellation of character traits. I didn't know what I was saving them for, but I knew that I had to save them. I was always narrating things in my head, immersing myself in stories and then picking them apart, wondering what if and speculating about how they might be different IF. I saw narrative arcs in almost everything, and to be perfectly honest, I still do. If you know me, you know that I'm an insufferable chatterbox, and writing for me is the purest expression of that trait. I can't not think about things, and when I think about things, I write about them, sooner or later. I couldn't stop up the words, not if I tried. I think I would explode into a million shards, and every one of them would be written over with words and words and words.
4. Michigan - I do love Michigan. It's a complicated sort of love, because there is also a very long list of things that I dislike about living here (mayflies, stubborn resistance to change, ridiculous humidity, the even more ridiculous and incompetent Republicans in our state house at the moment), but the good things outweigh the bad, and although I have traveled to a number of places, I have spent more of my life here than I have anyplace else. It's a deep bond. There are lots of things I love about Michigan: cherries and apples and fudge and coney dogs and pasties and Detroit-style pizza and paczki, Red Wings hockey and Tigers baseball, the sound of Ernie Harwell's voice, the ability to pop over to Canada for lunch, the funky and artsy character of Midtown, the spectacle of Greektown, the historic churches that are as aesthetically beautiful as they are profoundly weird, the awe-inspiring rush of Tahquamenon Falls, the dense, dark fortress of pines and hemlocks in the Upper Peninsula, the frothy and frilly beauty of the lilacs on Mackinac Island, the thrill of being suspended above all that deep blue water as you're trapped between two peninsulas, the glittering rosy-gold sunset on the lake that I grew up near, the riot of flowers that lines Frankenmuth in the summer, the defiant and unpretentious character of the people here, the "fuck you, I don't need your rules" punk rock attitude that nurtured a music scene and reverberates here still, the offbeat funkiness of places like East Lansing and Ann Arbor and Royal Oak and Ferndale.
I love all of that, and more, about Michigan. It's not a perfect place. But that doesn't make me love it less.
5. Music - I love music. I need music. I crave music. Music while I drive, music while I'm writing, music while I'm exercising, music playing in my head when I wake up in the morning and when I go to sleep at night. When I cook things, I sing. When I fold laundry, I sing. When I clean the house, I sing. When I go out in public places, I judge how pleasant I find them based on the quality of the music that they're playing. I will pick out the wispiest, tinniest thread of music over the public address system, and if it's good, my body will start dancing and moving to the beat just a little bit, without my having given it permission, so that I'll be standing in the grocery store and swaying my hips just a little bit in time with the Rolling Stones.
I have no ability to play a musical instrument myself, and this might well have something to do with my total stupidity when it comes to math and math-related pursuits, including music theory, but I do like to sing and dance and strut and lose myself in the music, and I can't imagine a life without it.
6. Gay bushes - When I say that I have a pair of gay holly bushes, I actually mean exactly that: holly bushes usually come in pairs, and mine just happen to be gay. By that, I mean that, while landscapers usually plant holly bushes in male/female pairings, so that they can produce berries, I happen to have two male bushes in my garden. So although they do their best every year and bloom up a storm and love each other very much, they're not going to produce any berries of their own that way. They are both beautiful bushes, however, and they do very well together, and I could never, ever dream of splitting them up. Perhaps one day, when they're ready, they might consider adopting a small, red-berried bush of their own. But they certainly don't have to. And they are both looking extra-fine just lately, because Geography Teacher and I gave them summer haircuts yesterday, so they're no longer shaggy and overgrown.
7. David Bowie - If you've known me for a day or so, then you probably know that I love David Bowie. Probably because I've mentioned it. Repeatedly. *g*
I admire Bowie for a lot of reason. Obviously, I adore his music, and his fashion sense, and his stagecraft, and his embrace of spectacle and weirdness and things that challenge your perception (of self and identity, of gender, of sexuality, of happiness, of consciousness, of music, of the future). But I also love him for being unapologetically intelligent, for sandwiching terrifying sci-fi short stories and fantasy ballads and philosophical ponderings in between the kind of irresistibly catchy anthems that get everybody dancing and singing along, even if they haven't quite picked up on all the nuances of the lyrics. (Sneaky, Bowie, very sneaky! Philosophy by stealth! Don't think I don't see all that Nietzsche in The Man Who Sold the World.) I love that he was able to put together an album like Ziggy Stardust, which is, despite the dystopian future it paints and the themes of alienation and space, a profoundly humane album that has love all in between the cracks--in the bright-eyed optimism of Starman, and the achingly fond tribute of Lady Stardust, and the world-embracing, oddly life-affirming anthem that closes it out, Rock 'n' Roll Suicide. ("You're not alone!" Bowie assures all the world-weary souls. "Give me your hands, 'cause you're wonderful!" It was inspired by Jacques Brel's Jef, but I find Bowie's take to be the more inspiring for being directed to humanity, and not only to one man.)
One of the things I love best about Bowie, and that I find most inspiring about him, is his refusal to be easily defined--that restless, chameleonic creativity that is always exploring, always reinventing, always redefining, always trying out look after look and sound after sound, while still retaining his essential distinctive Bowie-ness. (It's all spelled right out there in "Changes," a song that always resonated with me and has come to be one of my personal anthems.) There are people who dismiss that sort of reinvention as the mark of the shallow dilettante, but I couldn't disagree more. I like people who are constantly challenging themselves and evolving and adapting and growing. Why be limited to one thing? I'd rather be like Bowie and try on a million looks, taking the bits and the pieces along the way that make me who I am.