I went to Joshua Tree for spring break. It was great to see my parents and most of my brothers. Today was the first day of astonishingly pleasant weather of the year in Eugene, and it reminded me of how astonishingly pleasant it is in Joshua Tree almost every day this time of year. The first wave of spring wildflowers are carpeting the open desert–yellow ones called desert dandelion. Unfortunately my camera is broken and these photos are a bit blown out, but they are better than nothing. In the first one you can see that the elm is budding. The building is our sauna. The hammock is one of my favorite spots to chill. The object in the foreground is a solar water heater. In the back on the right is Grandpa Bob’s workshop and my dad’s venerable motor home, Inertia.
Elm, Wildflowers, Hammock, Water Heater
Larrea tridentata, Malocothryx glabrata
Ouch. The color is off. Imagine the sand much less pink and the flowers more yellow. The bush is a creosote, which have 70 foot taproots, and one of which is 11,700 years old, out near Lucerne Valley.
Compared to me at my peak, in junior high school, I am not homophobic. I wasn’t even that homophobic then, on the full scale of the trait, but “gay” was definitely a put-down and though I didn’t know that I knew any LGBTQ folks at the time, I had the sense that they were lower on the hierarchy of normalcy than I was.
I’ve come a long way. Last fall, for example, a young woman leaned her upper body out of the passenger window of a passing car to shout “fag!” at me, and I was merely amused. (Tilke told me later it was probably because I was wearing red pants. Heterosexuals are allowed to wear blue, black, khaki, and camouflage pants.) It’s impossible to measure, of course, but if you forced me to say, I’d guess I have about 1% of the homophobia I had then. I don’t mean to make that sound like that’s a big deal—it’s just growing up. One of the main things I think “growing up” means is coming to not feel threatened by things that aren’t threatening.
But getting rid of what co-counselors call ‘oppressor patterns’ like homophobia is kind of like learning to tune a guitar; the further you get, the harder it is to do. Tiny increments that used to be inaudible to me, now sound teeth-grindlingly out of tune. It’s like my mom always says, “Whatever you focus on expands.”
I’m thinking about this because I’ve started taking a ballet class—two, actually, four hours a week—and we started right out with a move that poked me right in the homophobia, a ballet leap called grande jete. It’s a beautiful motion, but I get a little uncomfortable watching men do it. And there’s something about doing it myself that makes me squirm. And being seen doing it e,specially by strangers, set my emotional alarms off. I haven’t been able to deconstruct it much, yet. My body just shouted “wrong!”
I’m looking forward to whatever insights come from this. My first guess is that it’s fear of ridicule. Whatever it is, facing it could really help my dancing. I’m from the punk rock generation. We’re not allowed to be passionately graceful. It has to look accidentally or clumsily graceful. That is holding me back.
Here’s some amazing leaping (though I don’t think any of these are grande jetes):
Jeannie Lee, my blog advisory council, says that people generally don’t explore blog sidebars since it’s not obvious when that stuff gets updated. Here’s what I’ve got going on so far.
“In” is for my input: I’ve got a list of most of the blogs I’m currently reading, with short reviews, and, under ‘learning,’ a list of the classes, lessons, workshops, and lectures taken or listened to. “Listening” is for music. Under ‘reading’ I have a list of what I’ve read this year, and at the bottom a link to what I read last year. “Viewing” is a list of movies and TV I’ve watched. “Websites” is a list of my most heavily used sites, with little descriptions.
The “Nathen Online” section is self explanatory.
“Out” is for output: Under ‘driving’ is my driving log since my birthday and a little essay about my truck and driving. Under ‘landfill’ is a trash project I started in January, documenting my landfill contribution. ‘Photographs’ has links to some Flickr slideshows I’ve put up. I’m almost a year behind on that project, but what’s up is good. ‘Writing’ is where I post my academic writing. I intend to put up everything I’ve written for school in the last two years but so far I just have my fall term up.
“Categories” is just that–how I’ve categorized my posts here. Having that list up is a straight rip off Ethan Mitchell’s blog. I thought it was a cool idea.
I have a cell phone for the first time in years. I like being able to talk to my family for ‘free’ (that is, for the cost of the monthly service) since we are on the same monopoly. When I travel, I like being able to update people who are trying to pick me up at the airport and who would otherwise be inconvenienced. I like how it reduces the psychological barrier to calling my friends, especially those who are spread around the country. If I’m thinking about Danielle, I can call and tell her I miss her while I’m walking between classes. Or if I have a Pro Tools meltdown in a recording session, I can call John to bail me out. It’s great! I think it strengthens my relationships and community.
On the other hand, it’s embarrassing to have my phone ring during a ‘live’ conversation. Sometimes I forget to turn the ringer off and even the vibrate function is audible. I wish it wasn’t. I want to be fully present with anyone I’m talking to. I know I can just keep it turned all the way off, but I do want to be available for my friends and family calling much of the time, and it’s been too much to keep track of so far. If I’m expecting an important call, I try to remember to tell anyone I’m in a conversation with that I may need to answer a call and that I’m sorry in advance. I don’t expect anyone else to behave like that, but I do sometimes wish that people didn’t just automatically answer their phones—that there was some commonly held etiquette to consider.
My friend Anna Fritz pays a lot of attention to social and environmental issues and has decided against having a cell phone because they use this substance called coltan, which is mostly mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the economics of which is perpetuating violent conflict there and displacing people. The mining process is also infringing on gorilla habitat. I haven’t looked into it much, but Wikipedia supports her claims. Ah, the moral ambiguity of leading a modern human life! It may be that if I witnessed what was going on in the DRC first hand, I would be so ashamed to be part of it that I would throw my phone away. It seems like that would just be a waste of this dearly-come-by resource, so I’ll keep it until I find out otherwise. Maybe there’s a business opportunity there—cell phones made with recycled coltan for the ethically sensitive.
It is our pleasure to inform you that the Couples and Family Therapy admissions committee has recommended to the Graduate School that you be admitted to the Fall, 2009 class. Your credentials, letters of recommendation and response to our interview questions suggest to us that you can excel in the CFT program.
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Once again, congratulations on your acceptance into our program.I am happy to talk with you at any time prior to your enrollment next fall. We look forward to working with you!
Just in case any of you have tried to click through ‘my band’s website’ on the right in the last couple months and were frustrated, that site is now back online. It’s worth checking out, too, I think, just to see the websmanship; it was created by our friend Zen Zenith, incorporating artwork by Tilke Elkins, so it’s very cool.
I had my interview for the University of Oregon’s Couples and Family Therapy masters program today. I think it went really well, despite sleeping through my alarm and waking up three minutes before I was supposed to be there. I was interviewed by two of the heads of the program, one of whom went out of his way to tell me that I’d done well on two separate occasions during the day. He had asked three questions: What does diversity mean to you? What does it mean to be sensitive to diversity? What is cultural competancy?
I see that my last post was about a dance event, which makes it look like all I’m doing is dancing. I am doing a fair amount of dancing, but what I’m mostly doing is school-related: my internship at Stepping Stone, statistics for my honors thesis, and studying trigonometry. It’s the last week of my term, and I’m busy. I’ve got some more thoughtful posts in the works, but only short and hopefully sweet ones for now.
I just got back from the Portland Lindy Exchange–at 3 am this morning. Three nights of dancing. I had so much fun. I don’t think I can effectively express what is so fun about it right now but I can tell you about another couple compliments that I really liked.
There was a lot of fast music–northwest dancers like fast music. I do, too. I’ve been doing a lot of Balboa, which works well for fast music, and I’ve gotten comfortable with fast tempos, and able to lead musical dances. At the last dance, about 24 hours ago now, I was dancing with a great Portland dancer named Desha, and in the middle of the dance, she said, “Nathen, I love how relaxed you are! So many leads start to feel rushed when the music gets fast, like they are struggling to keep up.” I really liked to hear that. I feel relaxed! Woohoo!
On Friday, a young woman I didn’t recognize asked me to dance. She was good and we had a fun time. Afterwards she thanked me and said that last year she had come to this exchange after having been dancing for only a month, barely knowing how to do it, and her favorite dance had been with me–that I was the guy who had made her feel like she was doing a good job and that she was fun to dance with. I liked that, too. It reminded me a little of when someone I taught to swim joined the swim team, partly because of my enthusiasm for her talent, and a few years later was an all-star swimmer.
Last weekend I spent three days dancing all day and night in Seattle. I had so much fun. I didn’t want to leave. Balboa is my favorite kind of dance right now. It’s from southern California in the 1920s. Here’s a clip of one of the contests, so you can see what it looks like. The 3rd, 4th, and 6th couples are friends of mine.
Dancers come from all over for these events. This photo is of me with my host, Paul, who lives in Seattle, and Sanna, from Finland.
I got my favorite complement of the year tonight. I was at my weekly swing dance in Eugene, dancing with one of the newer follows and she said, “You are my favorite to watch. I like how you look like you could be dancing in the street, you’re just so relaxed and such a natural!”
I love to think that I look like a natural when I’m dancing, partly because I was so not a natural. I could refer you to any number of people to confirm that, especially a couple of high school girlfriends who were dancers. I was hanging out with one of them last winter and she saw me dance and could not get over it. She tripped out for about an hour and even got a little angry, like it wasn’t fair that now I could dance. It wasn’t that I didn’t dance, I was just very self conscious and stiff. I wasn’t very fun, and it wasn’t that fun for me either.
When I came back to dancing a several years ago, it still wasn’t very fun. I was still self conscious and stiff. I had to get pretty good before I could have fun. Now I always have fun, unless I’m dancing with someone who really intimidates me or who’s obviously having a bad time. I feel like a natural now, but I had to put in way too much work to qualify. (In fact, the only things I can think of that I have always been able to do are being interested and staying focused. Everything else has been work.) Or maybe I was a natural all along and just had to work hard to uncover that ability. That’s how it feels.
Nathen's Miraculous Escape 