[Curly Ripe Meat] Looking Away
My dance teacher, Christopher Dolder, when I was at UC Berkeley, was an
amazing dancer, teacher and mentor. He stood up for me in all of my
youthful freakiness, backed up my artistic integrity, and kicked my ass
7.5hrs/wk (minimum).
Here's one of the most amazing things he taught me:
I was struggling with the concept of my mother's choice to be reborn in
Christ. Not because of Jesus; that part I understood. I understand my
mother's desire to be loved unconditionally, and to be led by something
higher than ourselves. And I understood why she wanted to be part of a
religious community. What I didn't understand was why she was giving up
so many things; meat, movies, music, jewelry, books.
At the time (I was 20), I could only see this abstention as boxing
oneself in; hiding from reality. And the things I was most proud of my
mother for, in an avatar/hero/mythological way, were her
accomplishments of bravery.
For example; my mother went to El Salvador in the late 60's/early 70's,
where the government soldiers pointed machine guns at her, and some
authoritarian tried to keep her from leaving the country with her new
husband and an abscessed tooth. She was there with the Peace Corps,
educating women about birth control in a time when IUDs were still
piercing through women's uteruses, and that was deemed worth the risk,
often.
My mother worked in the first Free Clinic in the Haight, holding young
women's hands as they went through abortions, back then.
As a child, I saw my mother could walk into a household where the
families were screaming and hitting, and she could calm everyone down
and get them to speak to one another and make up.
As a school psychologist, my mother took four times as many cases per
year than any of her colleagues. In the 1990's, she constantly went on
home visits to field workers' families with dirt floors, and worked her
calming magic - in a second language, no less. She took me with her to
see happy families of different classes (not that we had much money,
but it was tons in comparison), and made sure that I understood that
beauty and kindness were to be found in places unfamiliar to my own
white upbringing.
So, why then, I asked my mentor, would my mother be shutting her eyes
to reality now??
Christopher then told me something that I pondered for weeks, at first
as totally foreign, and then as amazingly intimately honest about true
human experience. Being a self-proclaimed "hard-ass woman," at first, I
thought, "that's silly! don't be such a baby!" But now I see the glory
of it's subtle wisdom.
Christopher told me that, sometimes, after seeing enough pain and
suffering, people just don't want to see it anymore, and they decide to
protect themselves from being upset by the harsher things in life.
And, you know what? That is okay.
amazing dancer, teacher and mentor. He stood up for me in all of my
youthful freakiness, backed up my artistic integrity, and kicked my ass
7.5hrs/wk (minimum).
Here's one of the most amazing things he taught me:
I was struggling with the concept of my mother's choice to be reborn in
Christ. Not because of Jesus; that part I understood. I understand my
mother's desire to be loved unconditionally, and to be led by something
higher than ourselves. And I understood why she wanted to be part of a
religious community. What I didn't understand was why she was giving up
so many things; meat, movies, music, jewelry, books.
At the time (I was 20), I could only see this abstention as boxing
oneself in; hiding from reality. And the things I was most proud of my
mother for, in an avatar/hero/mythological way, were her
accomplishments of bravery.
For example; my mother went to El Salvador in the late 60's/early 70's,
where the government soldiers pointed machine guns at her, and some
authoritarian tried to keep her from leaving the country with her new
husband and an abscessed tooth. She was there with the Peace Corps,
educating women about birth control in a time when IUDs were still
piercing through women's uteruses, and that was deemed worth the risk,
often.
My mother worked in the first Free Clinic in the Haight, holding young
women's hands as they went through abortions, back then.
As a child, I saw my mother could walk into a household where the
families were screaming and hitting, and she could calm everyone down
and get them to speak to one another and make up.
As a school psychologist, my mother took four times as many cases per
year than any of her colleagues. In the 1990's, she constantly went on
home visits to field workers' families with dirt floors, and worked her
calming magic - in a second language, no less. She took me with her to
see happy families of different classes (not that we had much money,
but it was tons in comparison), and made sure that I understood that
beauty and kindness were to be found in places unfamiliar to my own
white upbringing.
So, why then, I asked my mentor, would my mother be shutting her eyes
to reality now??
Christopher then told me something that I pondered for weeks, at first
as totally foreign, and then as amazingly intimately honest about true
human experience. Being a self-proclaimed "hard-ass woman," at first, I
thought, "that's silly! don't be such a baby!" But now I see the glory
of it's subtle wisdom.
Christopher told me that, sometimes, after seeing enough pain and
suffering, people just don't want to see it anymore, and they decide to
protect themselves from being upset by the harsher things in life.
And, you know what? That is okay.