Resolution

I have been struggling with this project as of late, and I have come to a resolution.  I have found that this is not what I was after.  I am having wonderful experiences hearing people's stories, but the bottom line is that this is beginning to feel forced.

I am cutting the story part out.  I feel like giving out balls that I make is great, but I do not think that asking for a story in return is working.

The best part of this has been leaving the balls in different places in Portland and now, in Reno, so I will continue to do that, but I will no longer ask for a story in return.

I am not sure I will have anything to blog about in the future, but if I do, I will do it here.

Thanks, and leave any comments here.

Going Up North

This entry came to me in the most covert of ways...in fact, I cannot even hint at how I know this person, as it would hurt too many innocent people.  I know it sounds like I live an exciting life, but unfortunately, it is only the reverberations of excitement, the hollow echo of a life I can only dream of.

It was so very good to see her, though she seemed quite exhausted, she was her ever-cheerful self, giggling at her story and the direction her life has taken.  I also cannot divulge what she does for a living; she truly serves humanity and gets very little thanks in return.  While describing her job to me, I of course sat in a puddle of shame, knowing I did not have the where-with-all to serve my fellow man as she does, day in and day out.  I live the life of a self-absorbed artist; an extravagance of which I am intensely aware.

The piece of paper she handed to me was a choice I had made; I could have listened to her specific story, or settled for a general story with the promise of more stories to come, from other people.  There are some things in life which come easily.  This decision was one of them; when a person offers you a story, a story which they think defines them, you accept.

"I like that she is collecting stories.  I guess that I see my first job in life as a collector of stories (ever since I was a child) and I empathize.  She wants them and I don't want them, ironic.  We both like ironic.

I guess this topic of fear and desire has given me an excuse for reflection.  Living in a house with one co-dependent and one self-absorbed parent gave me good and bad examples of both traits taken to the extreme. My main ideas of what these emotions are still resonate with their personalities.  I see desire as narcissistic, arrogant, analytical and goal driven.  My dad is a master of achieving his desires with very little fears allowed, looked at or talked about.  This has tempered over time as his marriages continued to blow up and he has realized that fame, riches, brilliance, and good looks do not stop one from facing their demons in the mirror at times.  Fear is exemplified by my mom now: people pleasing, stifling herself and being unfulfilled by promising too  much to too many and being ineffectual.  Fear has continued to grow in her mainly because she has re-married an anxious man and his pattern is in both of them now.

I used to live totally enmeshed with others and in fear when I was a young child.  I was so shy it paralyzed me.  After a few bad things happened I started to act out with hidden yet extreme deviance.  As a teenager, I hooked up with a young alcoholic who added more craziness, co-dependence and lots more fear.  As I decided this relationship was worth keeping, I had to face these fears, deal with them as true possibilities and started to learn how to let them go.  (Thanks, Al-anon)

The next stage (beginning when I was in my mid-twenties), started with baby steps of stopping my nihilism and focusing on my goals and desires as our relationship became solid.  I was trying to stay present and not go to extremes of my fears and desires but I also stopped taking care of my health with my career taking off.  After stopping cooking for a living, I threw myself into social service work and not taking breaks, eating, peeing or going home.  I just realized that I have been working with these conditions for almost 20 years and as a salaried employee for over 15.  This has been my stage of focusing on desire: too many pots in the fire, tunnel vision, goal driven, an endless workload and not enough self care.

When I hit my wall of disgust over obesity, I started back into mixing them together.  In the old days my pattern was to just eat or use other distractions to self-soothe the fears.  Then the adoption process went on and on and I would bounce back and forth in fear and desire.  I tried hard not to use my old coping skills, (which were not very good ideas).  Then I had the 3 bad years consisting of having surgery, moving teams and waiting for Myles.  I do not know when exactly after the adoption I realized that one day I did not feel anxious anymore.  It has snuck up so slowly I did not know that it had become my life.

Me and an even keel is not going to happen ever.  I am either up or down in my cycle.  Good is sleeping normal hours and having balance in my life.  Desire is goal driven and motivated on a fixed ending while being analytical, and methodical while ignoring my health and emotions.  Fear is monkey mind, getting defensive, ineffectual, generalized anxiety or hyper-focusing on one area in my life.  Now I am trying to notice the symptoms of too much either way; that is when I amp up the self-care and re-framing my thoughts.  It is really hard to do when there is so much to distract me now; working full time and having a young child.

I found the hard part is trying to keep the good parts of both fears and desires but to let go of the unhealthy patterns that sap my soul, body and psyche.  If I was single this would not be such a bad thing but now that I am a mom, I feel that I want to be a good example in healthy choices in all areas.  Dammit.

This leads into my next reflection: patterns of black and white thinking.  Is today nihilistic or is it goal-driven, try-too-hard-to-do-it-well?  It depends on the rest of the week and my mood....so much for healthy choices.  The pendulum just keeps swinging.

What We Got

This is from a woman who somewhat recently gave up her job as a stock trader, (I believe) to study Yoga and become a teacher.  I have not known her very well, but the glimpses I have gotten of her life, through my brother and now Facebook, have been fascinating.  I have known only a few women like her; a woman I would categorize as "fierce". In a certain way she kind of passed through my life very briefly, and for the time I spent getting to know her, she has had quite an impact on me.  She is one of those people who has grown into a more authentic version of herself.  Of course as one grows, it is impossible to bring loved ones with, and so there is the pain of separation and the sadness of the widening distance between.  She speaks of her wanting her loved ones to change, of her fear for them.  When she was young, she feared hell for them, and as she grew older, maybe a hell of a different sort.

"Hi Sara,

I've been thinking about fear lately and trying to come up with a story for you. The more I think about it though the more that I realize that fear has always been my main motivator. My earliest memories are of being afraid. Afraid that the kids in pre-school didn't like me, fear of not fitting in, fear that everyone that I cared for were going to hell except for myself and my great-grandmother.... I don't know where it came from but it is something that has always been inside me.

About 5 years ago I made the decision to quit a terrible job and career that I absolutely hated to pursue a dream. People were shocked that I would do something so risky and I kept hearing how brave I was. I never really saw it that way though. I was more afraid of waking up one day and still be sitting at my cubicle, doing something that I hated, working for greedy, morally bankrupt people who didn't really give a shit about me or the clients they were "helping". I was so afraid of waking up one day and realizing that I didn't do anything for myself, anything that I ever dreamed of that I HAD to do something. I believe that people (including myself) are sometimes more comfortable staying in an uncomfortable and/or horrible situation because it's familiar. And ultimately the familiar is more comfortable than taking a risk and trying something new. New is scary!!

These days I believe that I have conquered a lot of the fear that used to paralyze me. I don't worry about what other people think, if I fit in and I certainly don't worry about people going to Hell! I am very afraid of being old and alone though. I know that there are no guarantees, but I feel that if I had kids, that it would cut my chances for that. At least they would be obligated to spend a holiday a year with me. More than fear for myself though, I am afraid that my family will never be happy. I'm afraid that they will always struggle to be content and to find their self-worth. It breaks my heart to see the sadness and insecurities in the people that I love the most. I am also afraid that people are so desensitized and cruel that I won't know what to tell my nieces if they ever ask about the gross injustices that take place every single day. I don't see the world getting any better any time soon. Everything is driven by greed and selfishness and we are destroying the world because of this. I am afraid that there won't be much left for future generations and it's going to happen mostly because of others apathy and unwillingness to make a change (fear?).Oh, I could go on and on about this.....

This is probably not what you had in mind for a story, but, well this is what I got!!!"

Unconditional

It is strange how often I am surprised by people's stories.  I am not sure I should be at this point, I mean, I have heard many, but still, I find that my assumptions about people are often completely wrong.

I know a woman who is, well, strikingly beautiful I guess would be the best way to put it, incredibly confident, smart, and pretty funny.  When I first met her, I assumed she had it all together, and of course, there was my jealousy that came along with the observation of all of the characteristics she is imbued with.  Not too long ago, she told me she had been reading my blog and that she had a story for me.  I had not considered asking her, and when she offered, I was surprised.  I quite mistakenly saw her as someone who might not have a story to tell.

When she walked into the room, I could tell that she was carrying it with her, and as she went about picking her ball, I started to wonder if I was going to be able to handle it.  There are times when some of these stories knock me for a loop emotionally, and I have to work through the thoughts and feelings they bring up in me in order to write about them with some kind of clarity.  This was one of those.

She sat down and told me that when she was born, her mother was only seventeen and her father was twenty.  It had been an unplanned pregnancy, but as her mother was Catholic, she got married and had her child, hoping for the best.  While she was still very young, her parents divorced, and she already did not have a comfortable relationship with her father.  She vividly remembers being ignored while no one was around, but being the object of pride when people visited.  When her parents split, and her mother would arrange for her to see her father, she would beg her mother not to leave her alone with him.  She felt, quite acutely, that he had no use for her.

When she was about six, her father moved to Australia, married again, and had children with the woman he married.  She did not hear from him for a very long time.  When she was sixteen, he invited her to visit, and she went, though she had significant reservations about seeing him.  She thought it might give her an opportunity to let him know how his behavior had effected her life.  She was to go for a month.  During the time that she was there, she got to know his kids and his wife rather well, but unfortunately, spoke about three words to him during her stay, and in the end, got his wife to buy her an earlier flight out a week before her planned departure date.  That was the last time she saw him.

Due to the treatment she had endured from her father, she lives her life always doubting the affections of her friends, family, even her husband.  She wakes every day with the fear that she is not worthy of unconditional love.  She handles each relationship that she has tentatively, afraid that if she does or says the wrong thing, that person will abandon her.  She has gone through years of therapy attempting to overcome this fear.

Her desire to feel as if she is worthy of unconditional love, and to trust it when she has it, still seems to her a distant and rapidly shifting horizon.  As she spoke to me about her experience, I was impressed at her ability to remain fairly calm and focused.  She had obviously spoken about this topic many times before; she deftly articulated her pain and fear in a way that reflected her familiarity with the topography.  It was tough, however, for her to get over the idea that one of the people who should have been able to love her unconditionally, could not.

While I am still surprised at the stories I get, I am not ever surprised to meet people who aren't aware of the manner in which they consistently repeat early heartbreak throughout their lives and wonder why.  While this woman still struggles with this pain on a daily basis, the point is that she struggles; she is aware of how this fear has changed her behavior.  While I sat there listening, heartbroken for her and frankly, for me, I was also incredibly impressed.  And where jealousy had been, admiration now resided, and where differences had set, connection now claimed.  Her determination was riveting, and I absolutely saw in her a person that could be unconditionally loved.

Images of Fear

I received this story from a woman I know through my brother.  She is an exceptional artist and an articulate and outspoken individual.  There is a lot about her story I can relate to; early exposure to horrific images engendered long-standing fears in me which I still sometimes have nightmares about.  As with her, the exposure came through the good intentions of parents who might not have realized the long-term damage they might be doing to their children.


"I don’t consider myself a fearful person overall. But I realize that I was raised to fear…fear my parent’s punishment, fear God’s wrath, fear spiders, snakes, fear taking risks.

Fear Men. Fear unchecked power. (They go together.)

I vividly remember going to the drive-in with my parents and younger sister; we did this often and saw all kinds of movies. But one time in particular, the film was in black and white, a format that, as a young child, I wasn’t fond of; it meant boring in my book! But I became caught up in the story of Barbara Graham, one of only 4 women executed in the state of California, in the film, I Want To Live!-1958

As a ten year old, it was my opinion that it was her boyfriend who had perpetrated the crime and then set her up. I remember thinking to myself, “I’m NEVER going to have a boyfriend, because I don’t want to die! They can’t be trusted!”

What a lesson for a Catholic elementary school girl to take in. (I wonder if this was on the Catholic Chronicle’s OK to view list? Probably, I don’t believe there was any explicit sex in it…just killing and state sanctioned murder.) I still remember the futility of all of Susan Hayward’s (she played Barbara) pleading that she was innocent. I had so much anxiety, although I didn’t know what to name it then. I saw the pellets lowered into whatever it was that made the poison gas. I watched her die on screen, but the emotions were real. I never mentioned any of this to my parents. What could I say? “You idiots!, why did you think it was a good idea to take a kid to this kind of movie!!!!!

(Later,as an adult, I had a friend that was arrested and convicted wrongly for murder. If there hadn't been a moritorium on the death penalty he would have been executed. His attorney, my boyfriend at the time, found the real killer and was instrumental in having our friend released from prison. )

I am still dubious of some men’s behavior and the judicial system to this day.

The other film that still haunts me is Path’s of Glory, 1957. It was about the French military executing innocent men to frighten others into fighting. Once again the people executed were innocent and chosen at random as a punishment for the faux pas of the whole group--- they were to be an example.

How arbitrary this selection was; that life and death were/are random and not under our control, or worse, under someone else’s control, frightens me. It frightens me that those in power have the ability to destroy an individual without having to offer any justification. The brute force and chaos of unchecked power----I didn’t have those words then but I was extremely upset as I watched the innocent soldiers die before a firing squad.

The only one outraged in the film, the only one with a conscious and shred of humanity was Kirk Douglas’ character. I identified with his outrage and developed a lifelong crush on him and believe the seeds of my anti-war stance started to take root, at least I always think about this film during the conflicts that our country has become involved in throughout the years. It makes me sad and fearful to know that some people in positions of authority will abuse this power for no other reason than that they can."


This experience speaks to a greater and probably more widely-held fear: That of the randomness of occurrences in one's environment.  This basic fear in many respects is what keeps Homo sapiens progressing; we continue to create devices and processes which assist in the control of our environment.  In both movies, the victims are being used as "examples" in order to keep others from imitating the behavior.  This treatment of the population might prove successful, but the unintended consequences and lessons this behavior teaches cannot be delineated.  Such is the case with this woman's parents taking her to the movie; I highly doubt their intentions of bringing her were for her to swear off boyfriends forever.  


The question becomes, how far will any individual go in order to control their environment, and how will this behavior effect those around them?  The benefit of history is that it teaches; several figures have chosen peaceful means to gain some control in their own environments, Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Dr. Martin Luther King, just off the top of my head.  There are also those who have chosen lesser means, to the great destruction and heartache of us all.  There are a million decisions we make every day, consciously or unconsciously, which bring us closer to or further away from control.  


My experience, being forced to watch Holocaust films at a very young age, impressed upon me the importance of never blindly hating any group of people for any reason.  While I believe this is a valuable perspective to hold, I know this differed greatly from my mother's, which was, "never trust a German".  My friend's anti-war stance could also be seen, from certain perspectives, to be beneficial.  I would never dream of being in a position to give answers on this topic, I am only asking the question: How far are we willing to go in order to obtain control? 

Entirely Different

My desperation in needing stories also led me to sending balls out through the mail to people I have known only through once-removed circumstance; people I respect and admire, but who I have known only through a relationship with a close friend or relative.  I received this story first, and was moved by its revelation.  The story was sent to me by a woman I have gotten to know through an old high school friend.  We have not been in close contact since I initially met and got to know her, but she has always seemed to me to be a very strong and confident woman, a woman who really seems to know herself.  Of course, after reading this story, her strength of character seems logical.  



"Fear for me is defined by my observation of it growing up with a mother who was phobic – afraid of a lot of things. For periods of time she couldn’t leave the house without my father. Agoraphobia is defined as an anxiety disorder today, but in my childhood it was thought to be the fear of open spaces. That meant malls, freeways, any public gatherings, grocery stores, etc. were mine fields for my mother. My definition: my mother was scared of everything  - much of it we couldn’t see.  She was weak.

As a teen, I started getting angry at her; our relationship was fraught with typical mother/daughter teen issues compounded by the fact that the things that can bond a twosome – shopping, lunches, outings with just the two of us- were impossible. I did do those things with my father and thinking back now the “daddy days” may really have been their way to give us time to explore and my mother safety. There were many constructs of my childhood and even today that I believe are set up to protect and support my mother. None of it was explained or rationalized so I was left with the idea that she was unwilling to engage and weak. This perception of her being weak made me specifically fearless. Well, I had fears, but I was not going to let them get me down. My decision and approach led me on some interesting adventures and I became specifically skilled at steeling myself up and jumping in. I made sure to always accept a challenge even if I was uncertain of success. I blustered right in and did it. This fearlessness or at least the squelching of fear led me to attempt things that were a little bit insane. I have been lucky, but my fearlessness has also given me a chance to take risks personally that led me in interesting directions and provided experiences that I never would have entered into if I had let fear of failure prevail.

As an adult I attributed my mother’s fears as a manifestation of the dependence that comes from marriage. My father is fantastic, I am certainly now and always have been a Daddy’s girl, but from the stories I heard from my mother about her younger carefree years, I just couldn’t put the pieces together any other way. Her breakdown was related to dependence on my father brought on by marriage. This misaligned understanding made my relationships with others particularly complicated. I took what I wanted and exited when things got too intense or I started to feel dependent. One day I was having lunch with an uncle and we were talking about my relationships and family and I finally said something to the effect of but look what it did to Mom. He started laughing and said, marriage and the relationship with your father is not what did this to her, she was always afraid and never the independent teen and young woman she describes. A weight dropped off my shoulders because I had been struggling for years with how to put things into perspective and rationalize the picture my mother described and the reality I saw.  Now, I don't go as deep as to think it was denial, but more wishful thinking that made my mother describe her past.

Fear can do funny things – it can make one unable to act or it can force action. The phobias that my mother lives with dramatically impacted her family, but not necessarily all in negative ways."




What in us chooses the path we take?  I believe that my friend could just as easily have chosen to be as fearful as her mother had been, but she chose differently.  She has her mother's blood running through her veins, but what else inside of her prompted this response?  It is interesting to note that she is married, happily, with two young boys.  While informed by it, she did move past her mother's behavior, and stories; and has become something entirely different.

A Father's Shoulders

A very good friend of mine told me this story; this happy, wonderful story.  The telling of it engendered a glow in her; one so palpable, that I felt her joy and have carried it with me to this very moment.

When my friend was very young, she lived on the coast of California with her family, and every morning that her father was able, he would take her and her siblings down to the beach to swim.  My friend believed her father to be such a man that the sun rose and set upon his shoulders every dawn and dusk, and it thrilled her to no end to spend time with him.  Unfortunately for her, she was not completely confident in the water.

Her father was an immense man, an incredibly strong swimmer, and very patient with his young daughter each morning when she told him that she was too afraid to go out into the deep water with him to catch a wave back in to shore.  She would watch him  from the shallow ocean water, playing with her brother and sisters, wanting very much to be riding on top of his shoulders every time he caught the waves.

One morning, she overcame her fear and swam out with her father.  They swam very far out, and her father told her that as soon as a wave came, she was to swim hard toward the shore, and when he said the word, grab on to his shoulders and body surf in with him.  Soon enough a wave came and they both started swimming.  He said the word, she grabbed on, and held as tight as she could.  For a few breathtaking seconds, exhilarated and gripping his shoulders, she was riding with him towards the beach and her waiting brother and sisters.  But the wave got ahead of them, crashed over him, and broke her grip. The next thing she knew, she was under water, and felt her father's giant hand grab her and pull her up and into his arms.  The smile on her father's face communicated the pride he felt, and from that day on, she did not let her fear keep her from swimming out with him.

I feel like this is such a universal experience...at one point or another we all overcome our fears, (of rejection, or awkwardness, etc.), and reach out to one or the other of our parents, hoping that they will reach back and take hold; we are the lucky ones who have experienced the catch.

Not Such a Stranger

In the depths of my desperation, I began placing balls around Northwest Portland, hoping that maybe people might not be so intimidated and feel the inclination to participate in this experiment.  Several days passed, and I had still not received a story- until yesterday.  The woman who ended up giving me this story had written that she had walked around the block, finding and exchanging different balls until she settled on the one she kept.  She sent me the story below, and though quite short, the canon it describes reverberates in me, as I am the daughter of a deceased woman, and often catch myself using her milestones as ways to measure my progress.

"I feel like my entire adulthood has been seasoned by fear and desire.  I desire recognition, success, the turning point.  I fear I won't be around long enough to reach these things.  My mother passed away at 49.  I turn 42 in a few days.  My whole life has revolved around performance of some sort or another- dance, modeling, clothing design, now music.  Through all endeavors, I reached small goals, but switched fields before anything concrete could come of it...Music stuck.  Music has somewhat released me from having an immature philosophy of success.  In a business-sense, everything is changing in the music industry, and I don't have the ability or desire to chase pop-stardom, so the thing I desire is the freedom to pursue.  I started late.  My first tour is this spring, and my heart and soul hold no jaded sentiments, so I suppose the fear lies in ageing, losing my voice, losing hope.  I'm currently working a part-time job and on foodstamps.  I also have a 14-year old daughter, who hopefully will take from me this desire to pursue what you believe- she knows the risks and the benefits.  Desire wins out over fear, almost every time."


I guess there is not much to add, though I must mention that I am in awe of anyone who continues to stretch herself in this manner in order to grow.  A fine example for anyone's daughter to follow. 

Good Advice

Every few weeks, we have a sleep over.  My friend, who I have known for what seems like such a short amount of time, is someone I have come to depend on.  She has, in the few seconds that I have known her, helped me remember the skin I so long ago grew into, and encouraged me to feel comfortable in it again.  Just being in her home, eating the wonderful dinners she cooks and speaking with her and her husband brings me comfort I have not known for many years.  I hold these friends very close to my heart.

The other night, I was speaking to them about my project, wondering what glimpse of insight I might glean from the two of them regarding my failure to get strangers to speak to me.  I summarized what my note said, and detailed a few of my experiences with rejection.  Right away, they both had answers, though of course, they were very different answers.  For the record, they are not one of those couples who speaks at you at the same time, not stopping to wonder who it is you are listening to.  They take turns, and, I have noticed, they are both quite good at letting the other speak first.

Her husband offered that my first blog project, 20 Dates in 20 Weekends, was an easier thing to entice participants into, as there was the possibility of a blow job.  "This experiment", he observed, very deadpan, "offers no blowjob."  Fair enough.  

She had a slightly different take.  I had started to speak of the spark of energy in everyone, the innate ability every one holds deep within them to be exceptional, when she cut me off to enlighten me to the fact that my belief, while touching, was naive.  "Some people have no story, or, if they do, they are not aware that they have one to tell."  She added, cynically, "some people are just boring."

I am sure you can see now why I love these people. 

While their observations were a bit divergent, their suggestions were strikingly similar.  They both came up with going to a local old folks home where she used to teach cooking classes to get stories, which, I had to admit, was brilliant, or standing outside the public library and offering passersby the opportunity to trade a story for a ball, so that there was no "hang time" between ball reception and story delivery.  Both of these I deemed most worthy of my energies, and as my friend reminded me, "the people who go to libraries are going there because they like stories."  Her husband then added, referring to the homeless population which frequent the elegant old building, "well, either that, or showers."  

Old People Disappoint Me

I am wondering if anyone besides me has noticed; not a lot of activity on the old blog as of late.  "Why?" you may ask, well, I will tell you...it goes a little something like this:

I leave my studio apartment in NW Portland and start to walk.  It is a brisk but beautiful winter day, the rain is sparse, the sky is grey, and people are out on the streets, looking in windows, talking on their cells, and listening to their iPods.  I am carrying a very well crafted shoulder bag full of ceramic balls and invitations for participation in my experiment.  As I walk, the balls knock together, making a muted but pleasing sound which keeps me company on my journey.  I start to size up the people on the street, wondering to myself, "who might be open to taking a ceramic ball I have made, who might not be afraid of a stranger walking up to them on the street in order to initiate a conversation?"  Historically speaking, I choose wrong.  I am not sure what it is about me that frightens people so; I am a small, blonde, bookish looking woman with a big blue bag around my shoulder.  I generally smile as I approach.  But it is funny, because though the people I approach are initially smiling back at me, this smile fades rapidly with each step I take towards them.  Now I admit, I, too, am the owner of one hell of a leave-me-alone-and-stay-out-of-my-space-bubble walk when I do not want to be bothered.  But the responses I get from most of the people I approach are pretty baffling.

 Just today, I walked up to a slight, pale, and somewhat grungy looking gentleman who was literally inching along the sidewalk, coffee cup in hand, and as he flatly rejected my ball, he gave the excuse that he was trying to catch up to six people ahead of him.  Hopefully they were on crutches and in wheel chairs, as that is the only way this albino turtle would ever overtake them.  Then there was the pretty, middle aged, red hat-wearing lady on the bridge, who shouted at me as she walked away, "I'm going to a funeral!"  Of course she was; I always wear red hats to all the funerals I attend, because it is so respectful.  Ah, yes, karma.  How many times have I used the old, "my parents died" excuse to get out of some social event or obligation I felt I had no other way of getting out of?  Evidently too many not to have that thrown back in my face at the least opportune time.  I have tried to choose people who look like they might have a story to tell, like they have lived a bit of a life from which to mine some valuable tidbit or information I might find enlightening, or at the very least, interesting.  Evidently, these people have learned, through their experiences, not to speak to small blonde women bearing gifts.

Walking up to younger people is an entirely different matter.  Usually, they seem quite pleased that they are receiving something, and genuinely enthusiastic at the prospect of taking part in the project.  Of course, I have, as of today, handed out 40 balls, and yet, zilch, nada, nothing.  So something happens between the time I hand them this ball and the invitation with my contact information on it and the time they decide to throw that piece of paper right into the recycle bin, (hopefully).   Each day, I come home from work, open my iGoogle mail box to find nothing but the ordinary run of the mill stuff; no messages about stories of daring and sorrow and glory and pain.  No excited messages about longing, suffering, or triumph.  Nothing but advertisements for J. Crew and messages from Obama asking once again for help with whatever nation building exercise he and his politician friends are partaking in this week.

So, it is with shame that I must admit to you what I have begun to do...out of sheer desperation, mind you, but nonetheless, I have begun to....leave balls at bus stops, on newspaper machines, and small sidewalk ledges with my invitation underneath, in order to hopefully garner some type of different response.  I know what you are thinking, because I am thinking it too...I am a coward, I am lazy, I am avoiding a big part of what this experiment is trying to address...interaction.  But as I said, I am becoming desperate.  Now my biggest concern is that someone from the Portland Police will contact me and fine me for littering.  While unfortunate, it might be a great opportunity for me to get some interesting stories.

The other issue staring me in the face is that I, much like those older people I approach, am avoiding interaction.  I too, have started to close down, play it safe, button up, and go the easy route.  The reality is, even if I get a "no" from the people I approach, this is still some form of interaction and in the end teaches me something about myself and others.  But I have opted to avoid it, for now.  I still have held out hope for first and last Thursdays, but honestly, I am not expecting much.

The irony that this project is about Fear and Desire does not elude me.  I am very obviously letting my fear of rejection get in the way of my desire to do this project.  I have come to the horrible realization that while I can point the finger at old people for not being open to this type of activity, the person I am most disappointed in is myself.

Fear of Desire

Very recently, a friend of mine at work told me a moving story of fear and desire.   

My friend traveled alone through Europe when she was 22 or 23.  She had decided to do the bohemian thing and travel around via train with a backpack, going where her adventures and the wind might blow her.  Fortuitously, she was kicked off the train she was traveling on in a small seaside town just south of Barcelona because she had decided not to buy a supplemental pass to what she considered to be an already expensive Eurail pass.  She would have to buy her supplemental ticket and wait for the next train to come, which would be five hours later that evening.  As she sat on the small beauty of a beach with all of her worldly possessions next to her in her backpack, figuring out what to do for the next five hours, she noticed out of the corner of her eye, a small vibrant blue tent.  There were many other people on the beach that day, all partially clothed, blissfully enjoying the smoldering Spanish sun.  As she sat there, she noticed a very tall slender man come out from this blue tent, sit halfway between herself and the tent, and begin to give himself, from her limited perspective, an incredibly vigorous upper thigh massage. 

As she sat watching him, wondering what he was doing, a wave came in and washed her backpack and all of her worldly possessions out to sea.  She jumped up and ran out into the surf, furiously collecting all that she could as quickly as she could.  She managed to get everything stuffed back into her pack to drag back up to shore, and as she turned to walk back towards the rocks she had been sitting on, noticed that the man was just finishing his leg massage in a very satisfying manner.

Two days later, while sitting in a cafe in another small Spanish town with a German woman she had met on the train, a Vespa drove by.  Several minutes later, the same Vespa buzzed by again.  Less than a minute later, it went by again, only to slow down, turn around, come back and park across the street.  Its driver, a tall but obviously fit and youthful male dismounted, pulled down his pants and began to masturbate.  He finished in short order, got back on his Vespa, and drove away.

These experiences, which occurred within two days of each other, left her to wondering about the cultural differences between those of us in the states and those of us in the European Union. The irony of the situation was that the men who had masturbated publicly might have gotten more out of it if they had undertaken the endeavor in a place, like the states, where it is considered taboo.

The obvious question is, does the fear of desire make it intrinsically more gratifying?  Are there those of us who face our fears because of the greater benefit with the attainment?  Are there those of us who, by default, do not desire goals more easily achieved, because there is no taboo or strange obstacle keeping us from getting what we want?  What mechanism do we use to put a value on what we desire, and what invisible line is either serving to entice or deter us from attaining our goal?

Zero hour

It is coming down to it; soon, I will be handing ceramic balls out to strangers on the street, with a note attached, inviting them to participate in my experiment.  So far, I have included only people I know in my experiment, and it has been quite inspiring, especially since almost all of the participants have volunteered before I could tell them I was not yet ready to begin.

One thing I have realized is that "cranking out" balls to give to people leaves you with a bunch of balls which look as if they have been "cranked out".  They really are not as good as I need them to be in order to be worthy of the trust that people will be extending in the telling of their stories.  So, though I have not yet finished the number of balls I initially thought I needed, I will slow down.  I will slow way down in order to create pieces worthy of the stories I hope to get, and maybe these more beautiful and cared for orbs will end up opening doors.

Long-Lost

I met a woman a very, very long time ago while working at a ridiculous restaurant in a meaningless strip mall suburb just outside of Chicago.  She made an impression on me because she was outspoken; to the point that one evening she had the tenacity to follow a group of people out to the parking lot of the restaurant and throw the handful of change they had left as a tip at their feet.  Through the magic of Facebook, we became reacquainted and realized through our interactions that we have quite a bit in common.  Recently, she and a friend of hers, who I am proud to now call mine, visited, and I gave them each a ball and told them to write me a story about fear and desire.  This is her story, I have not edited much, it is all her.

I often wonder if there are people out there who just act on their desires without any fear at all…..just jump headlong into things without the slightest thought.  Without this certain paralyzing feeling that takes me by the throat anytime I need or want to pursue anything of value.  I am sure this is your question as well.  I know that they are both necessary in life, just as you can’t have light without darkness, beauty without ugliness, filth without wisdom…still, it is a nuisance and it just seems like it should be easier.  And I just know it is easier for some than others.  Maybe that’s what I fear most, not living up to those who it is easier for.

I have many stories of fear and desire dating back to when I was just a little one, but there is one that I know lives and breathes in me far stronger than all the rest.  One that puts a stronghold on something I desire the most….love.  Now, I’m not going to pretend that I was not already skittish and afraid of real love before this for, oh, so many reasons, but it really has surpassed and reinforced any experience to a point where I’m sure it is growing its own limbs deep in the bowels of my being.

As I said before, I’ve always been skittish and afraid of love.  I was taught this at a very young age.  I was taught that men were evil and that any time you give your heart to anyone, they are sure to rip it out, smear it in your face, eat it, and then leave you abandoned and hollow.  This person even proved it to me by getting sick and doing that very thing to me.  Of course, this made me a cautious and guarded person.  I didn’t really date in high school until my sophomore year, and then I ended it because I got too “scared”…uh, surprise.  I finally gave in and surrendered in my senior year to probably the worst and best guy for me at the time.  The worst because he added things to my fear list that I hadn’t been taught yet, and the best because I really do think we fell in love and I’m sure that if he didn’t break down the door, no one would have for a very long time.  I wouldn’t have let them.

When it finally ended after years of me trying to throw him off a cliff, my love life became more or less a string of meeting guys and throwing them away.  No one interested me, no one that is, except for completely emotionally unavailable ones, and they were the ones I wanted to unload my whole bag of desire on.  It makes sense now. It was safer for me to mourn and yearn for someone I couldn’t really have rather than someone I could really have and then possibly lose later.  That would make me far more vulnerable, far more powerless.  During the time of a particularly one-sided love affair, (so significant it lasted eight years), a pretty awesome available type shyly made it known that he was into me.  I was too scared.  I needed someone to break down the door again.  I kept him at a safe distance and continued my pathetic and futile attempts at “Unavailable”.

“Unavailable” threw me bones, made out with me and even cheated on his girlfriend with me, but of course never really wanted me (until I was unavailable- that’s another story).  “Available” became my friend over the years….I saw him often because he worked at an establishment I frequented.  He became involved with an abusive and evil girl, (the worst girl for him?).  After some time of really realizing how much I cared for him and regretting letting him go, they broke up.  One impossible night, I happened to be working at said establishment, and after deliberately pouting in front of him because he was flirting with another girl, was taken by surprise and got my door broken down.  I remember it like it was yesterday; it was like magic.  I was standing a few feet away from him, and we began walking toward each other like some magnetic force was between us.  We held an unbreakable gaze, he reached his arms out for me, and I fell into them.  Instead of just a usual hug, (he gave the best), he met my lips.  It was the perfect kiss.  The kind in movies, the kind you feel in your knees…and through every cell of your body.  We kissed like that all night, and it never got old or lost that magic.  We told each other how we both had feelings for each other for a long time.  He told me in an accusing voice that he tried to get me to be with him 4 years ago.  I told him I was stupid.  The night ended.  I went home…as happy as I have ever been.  I was finally going to let the right person in and it felt like it was the most right thing in the world.  On top of a mountain, giddy with delight, I slept with many happy dreams of him.  When I woke to call my best friend and talk to her about it…she told me that…he had killed himself a couple of hours before.  There are no more words.  Just fear.

Three Graces

I sat in my office and listened as a young woman told me a story.  As she spoke, her husband sat next to her chuckling.  She had arrived at a new house her family had just purchased when she was very young and recognized the house as a place she had lived before with her dog, "puppy".  This of course was impossible, as her family had never before lived in the house, and she had never had a dog.  It turned out that the family who had originally lived in the house had a daughter who had fallen into a well and died when she was four, exactly a year before the young woman was born, and had a dog named "puppy".  Though the event had occurred over twenty years ago, she was clearly still moved by it.  After she finished, her husband told her that the story did not address the point of my question, and her exact response was, "It's a good story, douche."

She told a second story.  He sat and chuckled as she relayed her horror of watching her father's skin burn off of his body after he had thoughtlessly unscrewed the radiator cap immediately after having driven his car.   Again came the inevitable, "douche."

And then, finally, a third.  As a teenager, she had been a life guard at a theme park and somehow the management had gotten a hold of a tape of a real life drowning and decided to show it to the lifeguard trainees in order to motivate them to take the job seriously.  Part of the motivation was telling them to imagine the individual who had drowned as a relative.  This had clearly be traumatic for her, but again, did not seem to satisfy her husband's idea of what my question was addressing.

After she had finished, I asked her husband if he wanted to take a ball in exchange for a story.  He replied that he did not.

When I set out to do this project, I had very specific, some might even say rigid, goals in mind, and I too might have thought that these stories were not fear/desire applicable.  But in this interaction I witnessed a woman intent on telling her story, even as her husband sat and laughed, maybe even knowing he would laugh, but being brave enough to reveal herself anyway.  I then witnessed her husband's fear of telling the story he might want to share but could not bring himself to tell.

Maybe it comes down to what we have the courage to reveal about ourselves, who we are able to be in front of the people we love, and whether or not we choose to contort ourselves in order to be comfortable with the skin we wear in the world.

My Fear and Desire

My parents divorced when I was eight.  Three years later, they were both busy pleasing their new partners, often at the expense of their children; my brother Josh and I.  My mother, for her part, had seen to it that we could only see our father for two hours on Tuesday nights, when we would play games and hurriedly eat dinner in the large, warehouse-like apartment above his antique store.  His new wife, Gloria, had at one time been a patient of our mom’s, and had also been a family friend, eating dinner at our house occasionally and even going camping with our family a few times.  At home, our mom was never around, which was a relief as she was quite unpredictable in terms of the things she would randomly fly into a rage about.  She had a private practice as a Social Worker and worked most nights, leaving us to be cared for by our older step brother or the neighbors on various weekends so she could spend the time with her partner, Marg, a woman who had also been her patient at one time.  I would not know it until later, but it was at this time that Marg had told my mom that she wanted to adopt a child.  The way my mother tells it, she agreed to adopt so that Marg would not leave her.

Josh and I were told we would be getting a new brother when we got home from a trip to summer camp our mother had forced upon us.  We both felt it futile to express our thoughts or feelings on the matter, because, as recent events had demonstrated, we were not in a position to affect the outcome of anything going on in or around our lives.  We both knew we would be the cheap labor; babysitting the new kid whenever Marg and Mom needed, which would most probably be every day after school and some weekends.

When the baby, Nathan, arrived it dawned on me that this was a person whom I could love and who would love me back.  As this was something I had been longing for ever since my parents’ divorce, I poured a lot of time and energy into him, playing with him, feeding him, reading to him, bathing him, and often protecting him from mom’s anger.  If he walked into a room and I was one of many in it, including his mothers, he would come to me.  At one point, my brother Josh asked me why I spent so much time with him, and I told him that I thought that he needed us to love him, that it was up to us to provide him with a real and dependable source of love, as I saw my mother and Marg as incapable.  Of course, they eventually split, and as Marg had adopted Nathan alone, and the state would give no rights to gay parents at that time, I saw him much less, except, of course, when Marg needed me to babysit a couple days a week.  It was still nice, I got to see him and spend time with him, but Marg would occasionally use him to manipulate me into doing things I did not want to do and sporadicly threatened to not let us see Nathan at all in order to force my mother to go back to her, (ironically, she had left my mom for one of her patients; Marg, too, was a Social Worker).  Eventually, my mom made it clear that she would not be going back to Marg, so she stopped letting Nathan see us, and I felt as though my heart had been ripped out of my chest.

Though I did not know it then, this would be the event which would lead me to the decision to never have children. I felt at the time as though I had lost my own child, and I was heartbroken.  Of course, as I see it now, I understand very well that it might be the best thing for me to have a child, to face the fear that this loss created, but unfortunately, at this point, I have no awareness of that desire in me, and I feel that this heartbreak, born out of a need for love, will also keep me from opening myself up to it ever again.

The Process

I have been going to the ceramics studio for a week now, diligently leaving work at 5, riding my bike across town to arrive at PNCA in time to eat a modest meal and begin working on my balls by 6.  I begin each evening by exchanging my wet bike clothes for my clay-caked studio garb: an old pair of cut-offs and a black long-sleeve skating shirt a high school friend gave me.  I slip on my rubber clogs and begin checking on the balls I had made during my previous session to see if any of them need the bottoms trimmed off, then I begin to wedge the clay to throw on the wheel.  I spend the next few hours making and trimming balls, and as the time passes, I lose myself in the process.  I remember this meditation, and my body responds to the rhythm of the wheel turning the clay; I am in sync.  When all of the leather hard balls have been trimmed and my new balls have been made, I decorate by carving or painting colored slip onto the balls, more decoration for the less spherical ones, less for the more perfect orbs.   I have already noticed that I am getting better at it, as I have needed less and less decoration to compensate for my rusty throwing technique.

After having been away from the studio and making for so long, I feel as though I have just sprouted wings and learned to fly, as if a piece of myself I had lost  and forgotten long ago has come back to me.  I have gone through a wide-spanning range of emotions in the last few years, but this feeling, that of elation and absolute abandon, is one I have not felt in a very long time, and the other day in the studio, I realized I was so happy, that I began to cry.  I know well the feeling of being raw, where your emotions are on the surface of your skin and any little annoyance brings about a flare up of anger and hostility.  I believe that I am now experiencing a converse situation where any little wonder brings about a giggle; it tickles at the joy that resides on my skin.

Surprising First

I was recently getting treated for injuries due to a bike accident at the Western States Chiropractic College Clinic when an intern asked me about my project. After I explained it to him, he sat quietly pensive for a few minutes staring at the floor, and then looked up and began to tell me about his first experience dealing with fear and desire.  I was surprised at how easily he began relating the incident; I had not even had the chance to ask him if he wanted to participate, much less let him know I had not made any balls yet.  But, it seemed as though he wanted to get it off his chest, and I had no intention of stopping him.  He started by telling me that he had a story for me, and said simply,
"It was my first":
He was five, he said, when he got his first crush on a girl in his class. He wrote her a love note, gave it to his best friend to give to her, and waited. After school a few days later, she approached him and began talking to him about the note he had written to her. He told me that the moment she started talking, he freaked out, ran into the street and got hit by a car. The experience, he said, had set the tone for all of his relationships since.  The pain and resignation behind this man's eyes reflected his confidence that the event was a forshadowing one, but I couldn't help but wonder if the event itself is what has held him back, or the fear he faced when confronted by the girl which had chased him into the street and in front of that car.


As we have aged, modes of communication have evolved, but are we any different?  Do we still let our fears and anxieties get in the way of the things or people we most long for?  How do we get past the heart break of our failed attempts at happiness?  It was clear by the way the intern told his story that he was still there, horrified by the girl's attentions and too scared to know if she liked him or not, but that was not the point of his story, because, he never told me if she did or not.  What he emphasized was his reaction and his tendency to duplicate this event for the rest of his life.  It left me feeling hollow, and thinking that the injuries I had sustained in the bike accident were not really all that bad.

Either way, I think I owe that man a ball.

Another Layer

I have come to the realization that I cannot move out of the void until my lease runs out. This is hard, but giving my landlords an extra $800 for breaking my lease would be much harder. This means I have some very long rides ahead of me during this next three months, but it also means I will have more time to think as I ride the long (and most probably wet), road home.

I have also decided, with the help of some close personal friends, to hand out balls on the street with a piece of paper with my email address on it and a question about fear and desire, so it is their option to contact me in order to have a conversation.

I will also be adding another layer to my project; in addition to giving out balls with "invitations" to strangers, I will give balls to people I know each week and have a (hopefully) deeper conversation with them about fear and desire. With this added layer I am hoping to contrast the levels of intimacy between friends and strangers, and maybe uncover more about the people I am close to and therefor, more about myself.

I have planned to start making balls in October, so I will have a solid three months to make all of the balls I will need, which is turning out to be roughly fifty more than I thought, or, 400 balls.

I am feeling less and less like this might suck and more and more like this is heavy metal.

It Might Suck

This project has come about with the completion of my first project/blog, 20 Dates in 20 Weekends; A Craigslist Social Experiment, in which I went out on 20 dates in just less than 20 weekends with almost 20 different men (I had one second date). My experiences with my first blog led me to the realization that meeting new people and forcing myself open to their perspectives was quite valuable in understanding myself.

The dating element of the original experiment was quite arduous and led me down some treacherous and painful paths, which I am sure I will be discussing in therapy for a long time to come.

This project is more about the general, rather than the specific, matter of the value of human connection. That is, how we cultivate our friendships, work relationships, and intimate relationships. How we are measured, as Desmond Tutu once said, by the quality of our interactions.

My project is a simple barter, an exchange of ideas for a hand-made object. Of course, this satisfies two great needs of my own: one to create things, and the other to connect with people, and therefore, with myself.

My process will be to give a person unknown to me before the exchange a ceramic ball for which they will give me conversation. The project's theme is desire and fear, how they effect relationships and each other.

The first stage of the project is to procure space in which to make these ceramic spheres, which I have just gotten word that I have done; PNCA will be providing me with studio space in which to create these objects for a very reasonable monthly fee. The second stage is to do a bit of experimenting by handing out preliminary balls in exchange for preliminary conversations. I intend for this project to span a year, and as a good friend of mine said, "...it would be a horrible realization to come to after making 350 balls to find out that this project sucks."

There are other arrangements to be made; I must leave The Void and move closer to the city and therefor the studio, and begin the work of making the balls. I must arrange to have pictures of each ball I make in order to post them in my blog alongside the stories. I must come up with a very good conversation opener, one that will help people feel comfortable enough to open up regarding this highly personal issue. I think that last bit will be the challenge.

It is always scary to start such a large project, because as my friend stated, it might suck, but as with my last social experiment, its success relies almost solely on people, and as I have learned, the one thing you can rely on people to be is human, which in my opinion, is always interesting.