The role of fear in travel

I'm back in India! Visiting Pune for the first time after first stepping foot in Delhi in 2012. (You can read more about that visit here). Honestly, I am thrilled and rattled. Having divorced, drifted from Mormonism, and come out of the proverbial "closet" since 2012, the circumstances of the two trips have proved dramatically different.

I admit, I feel less confident than expected.

Personal ads in the Pune Times

Instead, I find myself more cautious and aware of what can go wrong. In that way, I'm reminded of Cheryl Stayed in Wild: balking at a second encounter with snow along the Pacific Crest Trail; painstakingly aware of how one miscalculation could send me off the side of the mountain.

Occupying space in India as a queer womyn of color similarly carries unique challenges pertaining to survival. In Boston, I learned to challenge the legitimacy of my fears: accepting them as the result of internal barriers. Mere products of my failure to thoroughly "decolonize."

Yet, in India, the fear is primal. Not only that, but it is upheld by legislature and cultural norms.

You may recall, for instance, the 23 year old student raped and killed in Munirka in 2012 (in spite of her male companion - reminding us all that is it absolute rubbish to teach womyn not to be raped). To those new to the blog, Munirka is the neighborhood where I taught an English language class to a local women's group in 2012.

Wall Art at Mineority Cafe and Restaurant

You may similarly be aware that gay activity in India was decriminalized in 2009 by the Delhi High Court (YAY!) and then almost immediately re-criminalized in 2013 by the Supreme Court (BOO!)

To be clear, womyn and queers are not physically safe in America either. The mass shooting of Latinx bodies at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando last year reminded us of this, and Americans should similarly expect backward movement from a Trump presidency (our one and only Assaulter-in-Chief - term coined by @heavenrants).

Having said that, it's important to note the history of violence toward womyn and queers in India. I don't say this to sensationalize, as is often done with the pain of marginalized communities, but with hope that shedding light on these experiences will spark the dialogue from which we are currently starved.

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Okay, y'all. That's it for my first post back after the hiatus. Do let me know your thoughts in the comment section below or write me directly. Thank you!

Rotting sugar cane

My voice pushes against
the air within my lungs, and
I'm reminded that 21%
of oxygen simply isn't
enough to sustain breath.

Paying no mind to how others
might misconstrue - dig and
analyze the stolen artifacts before
them, theft of my truth,
I allow the fire from my
steps to fuel the swaying
of my hips and occupy the space
I stand in, a luxury womyn
of sabor will recognize.

A lioness, I loosen my dark
mane - my heroine's cape
cascading down my back. I spin
around, flex muscular thighs, and
remove the shawl shielding
my shoulders and my neck:
my jugular exposed.

He offered me a drink and
I linger, intrigued with
the pintas on his shoulders, his
skin cor de café, and his
scent of figs and lilies. An
enchanting bi-product of
intense miscegenation.

When he later draped an arm 

around my waist, I ignored

the pinching of my shoulder
blades and distractedly
inhaled the scent of

water lilies. 

On the dance floor, we bobbed.
Always in sync, and still I cringed
when he called me beautiful,
an accusation I'd grown both
tired of and accustomed
to, but on we swooned.

He wrapped his arm around
my waist pulling with enough
force to make me stumble into
him, the space between our
bodies gone. Instead of
flowers, I smelled the rotting
fermentation of sugar cane.

I'd forgotten how easily
men physically overpower
me. One grip tight around my
wrist, pulling my stiff arm around
his neck, he pinned against a
wall, and I looked on for rescue
that never came. Detaching

from my body as fingertips clumsily

pressed down my sides: over my
hip, lingering at the seem of
my underwear, pulling up my dress.

Embarrassed and weak, I pried
insistent claws away as he

shouted drunkenly about the
quality of the Brazilian ass,
as if to describe the quality of
meat, and I'm reminded
that to be a Latinx is to have
your skin defiled, and
still be expected to dance.

At war with myself

"When we observe a woman who seems hostile and fiercely independent some of the time but passive, dependent and feminine on other occasions, our reducing valve usually makes us choose between the two syndromes. We decide that one pattern is in service of the other, or that both are in the service of a third motive. 

She must be a really castrating lady with a facade of passivity—or perhaps she is a warm, passive-dependent woman with a surface defense of aggressiveness.

But perhaps nature is bigger than our concepts and it is possible for the lady to be a hostile, fiercely independent, passive, dependent, feminine, aggressive, warm, castrating person all-in-one.

Of course which of these she is at any particular moment would not be random or capricious—it would depend on who she is with, when, how, and much, much more. But each of these aspects of her self may be a quite genuine and real aspect of her total being."

Walter Mischel, psychologist, as quoted in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point (emphasis added) 

I don't want to change the world

I used to hold the earth between the palms of my hands and squint. The corner of my nostril curling upwards in disgust, reacting to a foul smell in the air - pollution emitting from the gruesome thing before me.

What a senseless place, I thought then, and scrutinized it between my fingers...poking and prodding, shaking my head from side to side and dripping with condescending arrogance. If only they could see what I see. That would be enough.

Ah, but I was childish and naive.

No, I don't want to change the world.

I used to call them to follow me. Just listen, I cried impatiently... 

Just see the way I see. I thought, if only they would understand my infallible command.

But no, not anymore. I don't want to change the world.

No, not anymore.

I bounced the thing up and down, tossed it aside, picked it back, placed gently on a mantlepiece...and screamed, what are these blemishes I see?

Tired and confused, forgotten... the thought occurred to me:

No, no more.

I don't want to change the world.

A response to Kate Kelly's excommunication

Disclaimer: I have not chosen a side in this ideological debate... yet - perhaps I never will. I have so many emotional ties to both sides of the case of Kate Kelly's excommunication, and I feel like a whole person being asked to tear herself in half when I'm pressured to choose one. I haven't been able to. I can neither condemn the leaders of the LDS church and the institution as a whole, nor can I condemn Kate Kelly's Ordain Women and advocacy for women's issues.

When I think of the General Authorities, I think of men who are generally kind. You might think me naive, but I remember the first time my searching eyes met with Pres. Eyring's when I was 18 years old and choosing between attending a church-affiliated university over an ivy league offering me a full ride scholarship. I wanted so desperately to just make the right decision.

On a college-visit sponsored by local clergy,a small group of us had a private visit from Eyring, a present-day prophet of the Mormon faith. I could tell from our short communication that he sincerely cared for me (a complete stranger).

In a hardened world, before me stood a man with a soft heart (a difficult task for men growing up in a society that tells them it is desirable to be unfeeling and powerful). He was willing to give of his time and love to total strangers. I do not know any of the leaders of the Mormon faith personally beyond that encounter, but I cannot imagine them as men who willfully harm or choose to bring about suffering. Though some of their decisions may lead to such, I cannot believe their intention is ever to do so. And in spite of the popular claim that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions," I happen to believe that the road to heaven is not built much differently.

And so, in regards to Kate Kelly...I must testify that I know what it is like to be a woman that does not fit a particular stereotype in this day and age. I KNOW what it is like to wish that it were possible for you to shed your flesh in shame as a result of the regret some would bestow on us for having been born a woman. I know the opportunities that are missed, the pressures that are experiences, the harassment and embarrassment that are possible, and the precautions one must develop as a sixth sense.

I also know what it is like to be a woman in the gospel - a woman who does not fit a certain mold and whose ideas sometimes seem contrary to popular opinion...but not the gospel doctrine in and of itself...to be a woman who wishes to follow Christ and live his gospel as is interpreted by the LDS faith, while simultaneously living a life that is authentic and honorable to you.

Do I personally align myself with OW? No...not quite. I can't...because I actually don't feel equipped to make that decision yet.

However, it would not rock my world or shatter my religious foundation to admit that I do not feel at peace with the current practices we have surrounding the treatment of women in the LDS Church. It would not rock my world were it to be revealed that women too may hold the priesthood. I cannot truthfully state that I would be disappointed or devastated with such an outcome.

I found it hear-wrenching to learn of Kelly's excommunication yesterday (not necessarily because I have an incredibly strong conviction of whether or not her punishment was warranted, but because of the subsequent ideological warfare that ensued).

And I will not stand behind either condemnation. I cannot. I know better.

 So my heart goes out to you and to us...it goes out to my dear friend Ruby, with whom I mourned when I heard the news and whose grief has been so real she felt inclined to ask me to try to make sense of these feelings we are having because we cannot do it alone.

Maybe that's the mark we're missing?