A Tale of Bags and Artistic Ownership

This is my bag.

The ratty glory!

I've had this purse since I turned sixteen.  It's been festooned with buttons for the past, oh, six years or so.*  The buttons have changed due to lost members of the fleet--a Watchman smiley face, several Andrew Bird pins, and most recently a gorgeously minimal B.P.R.D. button have been among the casualties.

One addition was from a month ago.  My dearest Mary had gone to see Yale Stewart, the creator of webcomic JL8, at a Brooklyn bookstore.  She picked up a couple button packs, and generously gave me a Batman one.  After all, it only makes sense.  I am the Batman girl.  I was delighted, and it immediately joined the clattering crew on my bag.  A couple weeks later, I ran into Yale at Boston Comic-Con and had a brief, awkward exchange about Superman. Life went on.

This morning, I read about Yale Stewart sending unsolicited "explicit photos" to female fans and women in the comics industry.**  It was disheartening, particularly hearing yet another story where comic fandom (that vast, faceless mass of apparently rampant testosterone) turned on the victims, doubting the already wounded.

Doubly so because of how much I enjoy JL8.  As much as I love Batman, I can't come out as a total DC fangirl.  For the most part I find the rest of the Justice League so painfully boring.  Ah, The Flash!  You run so fast!  How exciting!  Ah yes, Superman!  Such blue, so boy scout!  Ah, Wonder Woman!  The token chick!  Way to have those legs!  What wasted potential!

Image from here.

But JL8 handled that differently.  By showing these characters as children, all that purity and optimism made sense.  It resonated.  Superman became an admirable bastion of goodness, standing up for the bullied and protecting all classmates out of a sense of altruism, not obligation born of superior race.  Wonder Woman wasn't an empty figure head.  She became a feisty girl who could hold her own against her peers, and who knew it.  Suddenly, Diana became the girl every mother should want their daughter to be, imbued with confidence and assurance.  It was incredible what a slight change in setting and time did. The Justice League became an inspirational gang.

And then came this morning's news.  After reading several articles on the topic, including two apologies from Yale's own tumblr, I'm still not sure what to think.  Ii's a bit strange that this comes out right after artist Ulises Farinas issued some severe criticism about Yale's charity work.  But on the other hand, this behavior is reportedly common knowledge to those on the inside.  I'll leave it to the wiser, more connected people to comment on it.  For right now, I have to say that the dual apologies on his tumblr and the donation to RAINN, are about the best response you could hope for.  I mean, it would be better to not send the pictures in the first place, but at least the apology wasn't making him the wronged party.  It's the appropriate method of fessing up to wrongdoing and laying low.  Definitely the classiest way of dealing with a misdemeanor.

But I do condemn his actions, whether they are a misunderstandings like he claims, or if these behaviors are more widespread than the two women he acknowledges.  ~BARELY COHERENT RANT AHEAD~ OK, I understand that sexting or nude pics or whatever happens.  It's one of those things where I'm against it morally****, but not everyone abides by my own moral code, and I respect that.  There are those who feel powerful with exhibiting nudity, and who feel comfortable enough and have such ownership of their body that it isn't a big deal, and I respect the hell out of that.  But sending a picture in a sexting situation involves at least two people, and let's face it, the possible audience can be larger.  In my mind, it's something you have to be totally agreed upon.  There needs to be a level of trust between the two people, and I think that level is more difficult, nigh impossible, to reach in the courting stages of a relationship.  I think if there's any, and I mean any doubt as to how it will be received the photo shouldn't be sent.  Full stop.  No misunderstanding necessary.  ~RANT OVER~

While I was reading up on this scandal, I would periodically turn to Taylor and update him on the situation.  After reading through the apologies and sitting with it, Taylor had an interesting reaction.  He told me he felt a little guilty.  He felt guilty for hearing those apologies, and yet still strongly believing that this dude was a scumbag.  Taylor's read a bit of JL8.  He didn't love it like I did.  But he was so offended by the allegations that he immediately assumed that Yale was in the wrong.  Which shook Taylor up, because he felt like it was too quick for him to be so condemning of the harassment, and yet he was wholeheartedly anti-Yale.

To be honest, I was proud of Taylor.  My husband is the best feminist.  Thanks be for a career that forces acknowledgement and concern for the victims!  Taylor rocks.

My gut reaction was more muddled.  This might be shallow (my gut is telling me that it is, but my gut also wants cake, so whatever), but my first response was: "Can I still wear this guy's button on my bag?  How can I basically advertise the work of someone who doesn't respect women?"

Earlier this week, I was discussing Kanye with my pal Ricky.  To quote white girls everywhere, I truly cannot with Kanye.  Ricky thinks the man is a genius.  He's totally wrong, but that's not the point right now.  In defending Yeezy, he said "I don't expect my pop figures to be likable. I just want the art I love."

It was an interesting idea.  I often struggle with untangling the persona of the artist with the art produced.  Kanye's terrible image leaves me with too much distaste to ever objectively judge his music.  Same with a whole slew of musicians.  Taylor Swift, Bono.  My personal dislike keeps me from enjoying their output.

But on the other hand, I know that I would loathe Ernest Hemingway if I ever met him, and yet I find his novels and short stories among the more beautiful writings on this earth.  Most authors of weight require a severe disconnect between personal life and creative works.  If personal life required my approval, I could hardly read anything, and what a sad existence that would be.

But this isn't a dead author.  It's a man who is still present and active in the comics community.*****  And the role of women is already so tenuous and fraught in that world, that it's harder to permit any slight.

Which is all to say, tonight I'm left with a button and with a quandary.

*As a teenager, I was very ... clean cut is the word for it, I suppose.  I didn't put posters on the wall because I was nervous that they wouldn't look orderly enough, or that attempts at manufactured chaos would be a few inches away from true visual appeal.  I didn't color on my binders, and while I loved other people doodling on my arm, I wouldn't do it myself.  I had a difficult time ruining pristine things, and little confidence in my own artistic eye, so I refrained from any typical method of teenage expression.  This also reflected in my wardrobe, which until my senior year of high school comprised solely of flared jeans, pastel button-up shirts (to conceal the fat), and brown leather shoes.  And I wonder why I was an unhappy teen.

**Yes, this story is a couple days old, but I'm behind, OK?  You don't want to know how many old tabs are open on my computer and phone.  I mean, I heard something about a Batman vs. Superman movie?***  What up with that? 

***Note: joke.  Of course I know about and am already majorly conflicted, pitting my love of Batman against my hatred of Zack Snyder.  Who will triumph?

****The whole chaste, not-outside-of-marriage thing.  Within a marriage, I say knock yourself out!  But still not my bag.

*****Announced hiatus of JL8 aside.

One Year

Yesterday marked a year since I pointed my beat-up red Dodge Stratus eastward and left Seattle for Boston.

The last time I saw the
Space Needle

Taylor and I shipped out on a Monday morning.  It was overcast, and a haze accompanied us as we drove down Aurora, passing by the Space Needle, the Market, and my terrible nemesis of a Ferris Wheel before getting on the 90.  We wound through rain and mountains.  After a couple of hours, green gave way to desert and sunshine.  It was supposed to be an omen.  It was supposed to signal a similar turning point in my life, a symbolic gesture of leaving behind the cobwebs and clouds of our prior life and bursting into the bright hope of an adult future.  Real life, as it were.

Little did we know that those were the good times.  The salad days.

Boston might have seemed a warmer climate from afar, but up close it's soul felt chilled to the bone.

And yet, after a year of pain and misery, it has thawed.

Yesterday the sun shone.  It glinted off trees, leaves shimmering gold and green, sparkling in the light.  I walked down roads I knew.  Haunted areas that felt, if not like home, at least familiar.  I had my bearings.  I had my place.

My current path

Today that comfort was compounded by a beach trip, something that is interpreted quite differently on the East Coast.  This beach was no Seattle shore, made of small rocks and mud.  Instead, I welcomed warm white sand and blue waters.  Salt-smelling grass and rocky monoliths perfect for scrambling over. It was beautiful.  I talked with people.  I interacted with the world, this once-cold Boston world, and felt at peace.


When the time comes I will not be sad to leave this place.  But now, I can say I will miss it. At least I've got that.

Desperate Times

My last semester of grad school starts two weeks from today.

Image by Jillian Fleck, found here

This is terrifying.

I had a month-long break between my last two semesters, a blissful December-January hybrid where it was too cold to live, so I coped by roadtripping to DC, where the temperature was slightly less punishing.  The time in Boston during the break was spent wrapped in a several-blanket burrito, watching movies and trying to move as little as possible, curled on the couch while cold air seeped through the might-as-well-not-exist-for-all-the-good-they-do-protecting-against-the-elements windows.  

One thing notably missing from that list of activities?  Writing.

When I returned to school after a month-long hiatus, muscles that could churn out interviews and articles in one day had atrophied.  The thought of pitching story ideas made me freeze.  During the night, I would fitfully toss and stare at the ceiling, mentally listing all my assignments and all the reasons I was completely incapable of doing them.  Eventually the typing fingers stretched out a little, but it was still a tumultuous adjustment from my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed first semester, where I was so eager to write and read and think and do something that wasn't teaching.

At the start of this summer break, I had grand plans for all the writing I would do, the projects that would be completed and the headway that would be made with my writerly aspirations.  And where did this lead to, at this moment, two weeks before I head back into the abyss?

Yep.  I've written nothing.  

Just look at that selection!

In my defense, Amazon Prime has both Orphan Black and a new partnership with HBO, so prestige TV is at my fingertips.

I need to shock my system into writing again.  So I'm making this blog my two week boot camp.  Every day. Some writing. Maybe I'll dig through all those drafts that never got published.  Maybe I'll finally reveal the anxiously-awaited list of my spirit animals (spoiler--most if not all are cartoons of humans). Maybe it will get all surreal with stream of consciousness up in here.  And hopefully in two weeks I'll remember how this stuff gets done.

The D Word

No, not that D word.

Or that one either.  Geez.

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that in my last post, I never used the "depression" word.  I alluded to feeling depressed, but in all my bluster and openness I shied away from actually labeling myself as a person who suffers from depression.

Isn't that sort of silly?

The strangest thing is that I didn't avoid it out of any fear of stigma.  I'm not ashamed to have depression.  It gets a little more complicated than that.

Part the First:

I don't have the right to say I have depression.  Or at least that's what my brain keeps telling me.

In my life I've been privileged to have a lot of friends that are, to put it simply, better than me.  They are smarter, prettier, more talented.  It's as if I subconsciously decided to only befriend people that inspire me, maybe out of some hope that their wondrous abilities would rub off.  Among the raw geniuses I get to call friends are some of the best artists, musicians, writers and philosophers a person could find.  They are individuals who are constantly driven by their work.  While I have many interests and some skills, I don't have the near-compulsive productivity of these people.

But often, talent comes hand in hand with depression and anxiety.  And these people, many of whom have been my boon companions over the years, have struggled with these issues.  I've had a ringside seat to the ravages of these disorders, as I've witnessed people stronger than myself live with depression that has been longer and fiercer than my own paltry experiences.  When faced against those comparisons, it feels wrong to say I have depression.  It almost seems cheap.

It feels like I haven't earned the right to say I'm depressed.

Which is a load of malarkey.  Depression isn't a merit badge.  There's no quota.  It's not like you put in so many hours of lying on the couch feeling like human garbage before you can say you have depression.  It's a condition, with certain markers, not some test of endurance.

Would you like to buy some cookies?  They're baked with the proper level of tears, I swear!

This traces back to a bigger problem in society, this inability to give proper credence to our emotions.  Perhaps it's just my personal baggage, but at least to me there was always this sense of denying my emotions.  I had to be positive.  Or even if I was sad, there was someone who had it worse, so might as well just abandon that sadness and carry on.  Because clearly that's pretty easy and should totally happen.

Except it's not.  And the best way to sort through emotions is to identify them, and to not give them some dark, Voldemort-esque power by refusing to acknowledge their existence.  Emotional honesty is the only way to completely move forward, and sometimes saying you have depression is a part of that process.

But in this case, I'm going to continue to not use the term depression.  Mostly because...

Part the Second:

I don't think its accurate to say I have depression.

I know.  Psych!

Sorry, I don't have any pineapple for you.

In our sessions, my therapist—actually my psychiatrist, but I'm going to say therapist because that's the service I'm getting and because the medication side of things makes me nervous in this specific case—well, he doesn't use the term depression.  He calls my situation "tension," brought on by my over-extension of work/school projects and the ridiculous expectations I place on myself.  And when I think of the headaches, gut aches, and heartaches I've experienced these past few months, tension fits the bill.  It's a good descriptor for me right now.

Which isn't to say all that rambling about depression was a misdirect.  Everything I said I believe in wholeheartedly.  I want to stop giving into the negative connotations, or the comparisons, that keep me from being honest.  Depression has no statue of limitations, or whatever the opposite of that term is.   It doesn't have to age into a fine wine of pain.  It starts somewhere, and whether it's lasted three months or three decades it's alright to use the proper name.  Depression.  It's here.  It's an actual thing.  So just say it.

And as for everyone else?  Well, you know what they can do.

Bird Watching

Hi.

My name's Cat, and I've been pretty depressed lately.

I know.  SHOCKER!  It's not like it's been pretty easy to decipher that fact if you've been following my blog, or are friends with me on Facebook, or if you're one of those near-mythical "real life friends" (seriously, do such things exist anymore, or are they just relegated to icons between ads on Facebook?) (I kid, I kid, you know I love you, people I have actually interacted with in the physical world).

But I've been alluding to it as if it's over, or close to over.  You know, I'm "coming out of a funk."  Or, "the last few months have been hard, but it's getting better," or even the more cynical but no less silver lining-ed "it's tough now, but I still have so much good in my life."

Well, I lied.

I'm not coming out of it.  It's not getting better.  And yeah, there's good in my life, but that just makes this pervasive darkness even more oppressive.  Of course there's good in my life, so where do I get off feeling so crummy?  Seriously.  What an ungrateful little turd I am.  Man, I suck.

My life, as depicted by http://thankyoucorndog.tumblr.com/.

This comic describes my feelings.  When I talk to people about my sorrow, it turns into a laundry list of why I shouldn't be so sad.

"But Cat, you're so smart!"

"But Cat, look at all you're doing!  You're owning grad school!"

"But Cat, look at the opportunities you're getting!"

"But Cat, you have a loving husband and a really good life!"

"But Cat, there are so many people that love you!"

"But Cat, you are really so blessed!  Look at all you have!"

But, dear friends and family. But, while that is all true and well and good, but.  But that doesn't automatically make me happier.

If anything, it makes me worse.

Because those reminders and encouragements only add to the mental tally, and yes it is a constant tally, of things I'm doing wrong.  It becomes another failure.  That Cat, having all these lovely things and yet somehow, selfishly, brokenly, remaining depressed.

I'm trying to pull myself out of this mire.  I'm chasing that freaking bluebird of happiness with a titanium butterfly net, tricked out with rocket launchers and an army of drones in the handle.  And there are times when that lovely little creature will circle around my head, nearly landing on my shoulder but not quite there yet.  It's there on a sunny afternoon when I sit by the Charles and feel my skin tingle under the sun.  It's there when I dance to The Ballad of Mr. Steak with wild abandon during a Kishi Bashi concert, arms flailing underneath colored lights and layered sounds.  It's there while watching Veronica Mars and having good conversation with fine folk that give me hope in humanity and my place therein.

But for each time the bluebird almost lands, there are tenfold moments where it flies into a thorny hedge and refuses to budge.  These are the times where I stare into the void of a growing inbox of requests and freeze.  When my hands linger over a chapter to be edited, or a writer to be researched, or a TV show that I've watched and taken notes on and elucidated my thoughts in outline format, or even just the thought of moving that dang ol' dishrag off the counter and hanging it on the rack, and yet the next step halts.  

It's times like today, where I lie on the couch watching Party of Five* and eating Cheetos Puffs.  The cheese-spun cylinders make me feel marginally better, right before making me feel exponentially and inevitably worse.  You know how it is.  Curse you, sweet sweet snacks!

Today is extreme.  Usually it's just this heart-squeezing, gut-tearing feeling of misery and loneliness and failure that never really goes away.  

I keep telling myself that fessing up to it is better than gulping it down and pretending it's not there.  You know, saying outright that yep, I'm basically a champ at the whole self-loathing thing.  I recognize this and want to change, and like any good addict admitting I have a problem is the first step to recovery.

And blast it all, I'm trying to recover.  I'm doing the exercises, eating the healthy foods**, seeing the therapist, making the happy lists.  Pushing myself to get out and socialize.  Forcing myself out of the solitary comfort zone my jerkbrain prescribes.  Doing all the maddening suggestions that well-meaning people give me when they try to help.  I mean, I still find myself crumpling on the ground almost every day, but I'm giving it the college try!  Happy face!  Attempts!

I'm still chasing the bird, but I'm running through quicksand, and for all the leverage I get I still am sliding down, sucked into the depths.

So what, right?  What now?  Why write this?  Why talk about this?

Because somehow, it's making me feel better.  Writing is a great way to figure things out.  It's why English teachers assign essays.  Well that, and the feeling of enjoyment we get from hearing the groans.  Sweet music to the ears! 

"The shortest distance between a human being and the truth is a story."  Anthony de Mello.

Right now, my story is sadness.  And anxiety.  And defeat.  And by writing about it, I hope to see the truth in this experience.  I want to be able to figure out what this means, to see patterns in my malaise.  If all goes well, these words will form a ladder to tug me out of the sand.  They will shape into wings where I can catch that damn bluebird in his own turf.

*What a truly terrible TV show, by the by.  Full House on steroids and with an over-inflated sense of importance.  And yet, there's something about Matthew Fox's hair on this show.  I can't look away.  I want to, believe me I want to, but every time I try stupid Jack is there with his stupid 90's mane waving in the non-existent breeze and whispering Caaaat.....loooook at meeee.....Caaaaat....

**Most of the time, all Cheetos cheats aside.

The Fickle Edge of Female Friendships

MacKenzie grabbed my arm and dragged me to her parent’s bathroom, where she began vigorously digging through her mother’s makeup bag. I was seven, a worldly few months older than Kenzie’s six-year-old self. We were having a carefully-arranged playdate, a regular occurrence set up by loving mothers. Kenzie’s younger neighbor was there. I immediately took her as a friend, full of the blind assumption of childhood.

Kenzie held up a tube of lipstick in victory. Solemnly, she turned to us and laid down the new law. We had to wear the lipstick. Otherwise we wouldn’t be in the club.

This was my nightmare.

I had already banned my mother from using any beauty products on me—no hairsprays, nothing. They felt gross, with their slimy stickiness and nasty smells. And yet here was a friend, telling me I couldn’t be included unless I played by her rules. I took the lipstick and tried, inexpertly smearing bright red across my top lip. I hated it. It wasn’t me. It felt wrong. I wiped it off on her mother’s towel, leaving a bright gash across the cottony surface. Kenzie and the neighborhood girl skipped away. Their fluorescent mouths widened with laughter. I walked home. The walk was long and uphill, as these things are.

***

It was my first experience with female exclusion, and definitely not my last. Soon the world of female friendships revealed itself as a treacherous battlefield, a shifting sea of changing alliances and unspoken rules I was always breaking.

But who to blame? Myself—which I did often? The other girls—which I also did, with bitterness and hatred? Or is there something else, something more nefarious and far-reaching?

I propose that conditioning is to blame. Girls are bombarded from birth with messages about not only our body, but how we are supposed to act. Cartoons transmit messages of women as ditzy blonds and comic-relief characters, the commercial breaks saturate us with images of popularity in the form of material possessions over personality, and even childhood movies depict untouchable princesses that only exist within the sphere of romantic relationships. Is it any wonder girls don’t know how to navigate friendships? All their cultural ingestion, from programming to advertising campaigns, is poisoning the waters of female camaraderie.

This is what Jean Kilbourne, creator of the lecture series “Killing us Softly,” calls a “‘toxic cultural environment’—an environment that surrounds us with unhealthy images and sacrifices our health and our sense of well-being for the sake of profit.” In her presentation, she presents images of the female in advertising, noting that the form promotes unrealistic standards of beauty. When those bodes are all a young girl sees in advertising, she can interpret them as the correct appearance, and the correctly subservient and objectified behavior. Kilbourne continues to describe this method of advertising, saying that “women learn from a very early age that we must spend enormous amounts of time, energy, and above all money striving to achieve this look, and feeling ashamed and guilty when we fail. And failure is inevitable because the ideal is based on absolute flawlessness.”

So we have this precedence and predilection for self-dissatisfaction. The shame and guilt Kilbourne discusses is a key proponent of the problem. We are taught to immediately shift blame to ourselves. Things are never the fault of the ad creators, or of the bullies who demand more from our appearance. Their criticisms are completely internalized, consumed and morphed into a mantra of “never good enough,” dragging women further down towards despair and depression. Even the greatest accomplishments are brushed aside because every aspect in life is not radiant perfection.

With the individual demanding such an unattainable reality for themselves, the natural progression is to take that need for perfection and scrutinize it outwards. In that sense, other women become a means of comparison, rather than a potential source of friendship and support. Possible friends are held to the same unflinching standard we hold ourselves to. They must also be beautiful, talented, and poised. But here comes the double edged sword—they are not allowed to be more so than we are. Their achievements prompt reflection about our own flaws and weaknesses, contributing to the cycle of self-hatred.

This results in a nasty competition with other women. Girls are trained to see what should be friends as enemies, constantly measuring themselves against this girl’s perfect nose, or that girl’s flat abs, or the fact that Suzie got first place in the Spelling Bee.

The media has accepted this phenomenon as fact. The cattiness of women is so universal that advertising makes it a basis for campaigns. The hamburger joint Wendy’s introduced their new salads by having two women fight over one, with one stealing the salad because its high quality suited her better than her co-worker. The latest ad campaign for Cascade dishwasher detergent is completely built around the idea that women resort to passive aggressive digs at each other, even within friendships. It features two women standing at a dishwasher. One loads, and the other says (with an overly practiced false grin), “Marjorie, I can’t stand you! You’re too perfect. Even the inside of your dishwasher sparkles.” This dissolves into petty sniping that requires a Kitchen Counselor to step in and fix their “dirty fighting” with the cleansing power of Cascade.

In-fighting and comparisons happen so early that as girls mature, their ability to form social relationships with other women through adulthood is stunted. There is now a pervasive mistrust of others. It’s immediately assumed that women judge each other from first encounter. Forming friendships becomes too much of a risk to personal health and safety.

One method many women form to cope with this is through quickly and brutally rejecting other women. This serves as protection from vulnerability. It can also be used in adolescence to impress another group of girls, as it shows an exertion of power and confidence that may or may not exist.  Psychological scientist Joyce F. Benenson calls this “preemptive social exclusion.” In her study “Mean Girls and Queen Bees,” Benenson says that “preemptive social exclusion appears to be a valuable strategy for women because it allows them to protect their relationships by keeping an outsider at bay.” In such a way, women protect their social standing with pre-existing friends, they protect their romantic relationships from potential threats, and they keep themselves at the top of a precarious tower of worth, a tower built on comparison to others rather than self-satisfaction.

With such a wealth of pre-conditioning teaching women to mistrust other women and to base self-worth on material goods and outward appearance, moving beyond that to make genuine friendships can be a daunting task. In a 2011 article for Examiner.com, author Micah Tutay encourages personal responsibility as the perfect weapon to strike against insidious messages in advertising. She states, “even if we don't believe we can have an impact in changing society as a whole, we can be sure that we do have the ability to change how much we let it influence our relationships, our sexuality, our spending habits, and so on. It is up to each of us to take back our dignity and self respect."

Taking back that dignity is difficult. It requires a conscious over-riding of basic instincts that have built up over time, layer over protective layer hardening into a tense shell of deflection and wariness. But how sweet are the rewards! Fighting against the system will send a message to the agencies responsible for the conditioning ads. It will show that women can demand respect, and will not accept their down-sizing of the strength of female relationships. But more importantly, it can create a thriving community where the first instinct is love, not evaluation.

Quarter of a Century Man*

I am, I am.

This is me, being 25.

At 25, I woke up early.  At 6:30 AM, when I was technically still 24, with only a few precious minutes before entering the 25th anniversary of my time here on earth.  Sun squirmed its way between a gap in the window and the Batman blanket I've been using as a heavy duty curtain, touching my face with the illusion of a warm day.  For a moment I was still, nestled in bed and squinting at a mix of sky and branches and houses.

At 25, I decided to treat myself to a bagel for breakfast.  Apparently, food is just as important to me as when I was 24, or 16, or 5.  Indeed, the desire and appreciation for food runs much of my daily life.  At 25, there is rarely a moment when I don't have a niggling yen for one (or both) of two things: guacamole, with the rich avocado punctuated with sharp garlic and juicy ripe tomatoes; or the Lucknow Special from Pronti Bistro.  Chunks of lamb with mushroom and feta, slathered in tamarind and mint yogurt sauce, gently couched in warm flatbread.  It's the type of meal that makes the entire world OK, opening windows of peace and harmony and happiness (only to prompt feelings of crushing loss when it is eaten and gone).

At 25, I carefully selected the first song of my new year.  I was torn between old favorites, songs that dominated this past year, or something peppy and delightful.  I ended up with "The Wind" by Cat Stevens.  A perfect choice.



At 25, I'm coming out of a season of penetrating sadness.  But the weather is slowly warming, and is nursing my heart along with it.  One thing people don't tell you when you finally chase your dreams is that the chasing action does not instantaneously eradicate all the fears and insecurities that kept you from the dream in the first place.  Oh, it can assuage them for a bit.  For a time, your confidence will be boosted by the pure adrenaline rush of finally doing it.  And then the novelty wears off and you are left with a dream that has become mundane reality, but with an added pressure layer of hopes and expectations crusting the top of it.  And wrestling with a dream made actual can leave you staring at the void, feet dangling off the edge of the cliff as you grasp for a trail.  For somewhere safe and sure to place your footfalls.  And sometimes, you'll have to off-road it for a while, forging your own path until a trail is made.  And it's difficult.  But somehow it can be done.  Or so I repeat to myself in the malaise-worthy mornings and headache-inducing nights.

At 25, I'm hopeful.  Hopeful that the best is still ahead.  That there's a bright, comfortable future in front of me, full of books and armchairs and sunlight.  The meals will be catered and the television will always be set to the best channels (what CBS? No such thing).  There will be rooms and people and a home full of light.  There will be deeply satisfying work, and even more deeply satisfying love.  This is the richness I see for myself, and as for 25?  It's just the beginning.

*That phrase always makes me think of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.  Specifically, the scene before this song.  I tried to find the actual point where Mr. Twimble discusses his 25-year status in the company, but alas it is not to be.  Yes, we have a grand overarching technological network that spies on us and has billions of cat videos, but it can't be bothered to include a thirty second clip of a Pulitzer prize-winning production.  This is the world we live in.