Power and Pedestals

Growing often sucks doesn’t it, at least while you are in process.

At the protest, it felt great, disappearing some of the sludge, some of the not believing in myself felt great. Good, fabulous, wonderful.

I am more free, more capable in all aspects of my life than before I left, I am reclaimed like the swamp-land of N.O., hopefully I am on more solid ground.

There was the more common kind of growth waiting for me back home though.

The Bastard Nation slams. As, I wrote in my previous post, I had them on a pedestal, they got knocked off, which sucks for me. I like to believe. Putting people on pedestals however is not really fair, they have nowhere to go but down.

I went for a 6.5 mile hike today, listening to the Smiths, for some reason have felt the need to listen to the music of my youth as of late.

I listened to “Paint a Vulgar Picture” About a rockstar far afield, “but you could have said no couldn’t you? you could have walked away couldn’t you?” Which of course reminded me of Marley and her lame link to the bash on the protest. It is song from the point of view of a fawner, like I was. “but to you I was faceless, I was fawning, a child from those ugly new houses” Yup, that was me.

When I was 13 and listening to the Smiths on a more regular basis, my adad was the center of my life, he was the center of all our lives. The star, the powerful one, the heavy. I had these really 80’s ideas about fashion, I had orange blush on one day, like two states of Colorado on either side of my face, okay, not really, I was never that lame, but some ladies in the 80’s were, and I always wondered, why Colorado, why not Florida or Massachusettes, some more interesting shaped state?

He explained to me that my make up with its weird coloring was not acceptable, because well, society has certain rules of conformity to make it all function and if we veer from those set ups, we will all fall apart.

I looked at him calmly and said, “Dad, if no one ever breaks set, there will be no progress”

He looked at me stumped. There was a shift in power and it made me hella uncomfortable.

The first artshow I was ever involved with , I made this piece about abortion. Pro-choice of course. Blah, blah, blah. One of the attendees was an artist who was busy making pro-life sculptures, he approached me and told me that my work had made him realize that abortion was a woman’s choice.

I got two more letters with the same idea, I had changed people’s minds.

“What makes most people feel happy leads us headlong into harm“

I cried.

I cried into my husband at the time’s arms.

I don’t know what I am doing, I don’t have the right or knowledge to influence people, THIS IS AWFUL.

I am not good enough.

I am just a person, just a cricket or a star, a nothing in God’s universe, part of the many.

So, growing up, on my hike, realizing I have no one to look up to, that it is not fair to place people on pedestals, that my trust has been broken, and I am moving past that to find who there to take their place?

Me.

Which sucks ass, as I hate activism and think it is loud, fat, and lame.

I want to be decadent, not activist.

Who else do I have to look up to?

A young woman nearly 10 years my junior. Gershom.

Lots of others too.

And me.

I have to learn not to look to others, to look to myself, to not do others the harm of thinking they will be there for me, because they are just people too. They are subject to all the dust and junk that joined onto their bones and made them feel that their egos were paramount, just like me.

I have to look forward, not with the idea of who can teach me, not with the idea of who I can worship, but with the idea of how can I help.

Wish me luck.