Girlaction5

Send the prisoners home! CURB action, Sept 17, 09

2009-10-17T04:55:00.001+07:00

on reading james baldwin this afternoon

2009-10-10T06:33:00.015+07:00

There is the theory of anti-racism: folks on the margins of any society must always (are forced to) understand and predict the behaviours of those at centre and not the other way around. In fact, those in power can remain completely ignorant of those at the margins, with no harm to themselves or their families (so they think). Check, got it, thanks bell hooks.

Then there is how it feels to connect to this: when i realized today how vastly I have under-appreciated the extent to which people of colour are experts on white folks, i found myself feeling...exposed and embarrassed at my ignorance. I should know this.

But I didn't know--and now this seems incredibly, laughably naive. Did I imagine that my whiteness (and only mine) was imbued with some kind of special neutrality whereby it went unnoticed?

White lady, we have known you along.

Then this memory: I'm standing in a Toronto grocery store checkout at 22, watching a middle class white woman out of the corner of my eye, trying to memorize the exact way that she imperiously flicks her auburn hair and pulls off her burgundy leather gloves, the patronizingly gracious tone she uses when the checkout girl messes up her purchase. I record her movements, language and clothing, knowing that I need to be able to reproduce them if i am going to ensure that I am never on the other side of this checkout line. The side that wears a nametag.

I remember this moment in particular because it is one of the first times I felt cunning and angry, not ashamed at the distance between myself and white middle class ladies. I got the difference between wanting the power she wielded and wanting to be her. I didn't want to be her, I didn't want her fake politeness, the cloud of haughtiness that swirled around her.

But hell, I too have been clocked.

It's 3 am, somehow I hadn't noticed. Tomorrow is "family history" day where we examine our family's relationship to white supremacy and genocide. Looking at that sentence, I think not many white folks would be excited at that prospect but maybe I'm wrong. White people wanna know where we came from, what our families gave up in order to become "white" and reap the benefits of white supremacy. Ok, enough. time for bed.

G'night dears.

p.s. my friends in the Anne Braden Program here in San Fran have been writing some great stuff on what we actually do, if'n you're interested.
http://lynnejpurvis.blogspot.com/
www.skinnedkneeswingsblueprints.wordpress.com
http://rootlessnes.blogspot.com/

Anti-racism and the yogurt cup of despair: hello from SF, California

2009-08-20T12:58:00.011+07:00

On day two of anti-racism school, I opened my eyes after listening to this poem and saw that my tears had created little dew drops on my name tag.

"Catalysts for change are everywhere." (Guest presenter, chicana organizer Betita Martinez)

But before I get to that, let's dispense with the recent past: I went home to Toronto, and it felt like home and I felt loved and grounded and happy with intermittent deep stress about moving stuff around so much. The comfort I felt was so sweet, it was almost excruciating. I hadn't felt that in 18 months.

Perhaps because it was so nice to be home, I know I am not going back too soon. My connections, my history, my safety net have not disappeared, though yes, my relationships have changed. I feel blessed with this incredibly supportive network around me, one that I relied on to love and nourish me—to a degree that sometimes felt smothering—and now that I have it, I can leave the nest.

I may be back in Toronto next year or in five years. The point is that I'm giving myself license to go where my passions and curiosity take me. Plus, I learned early on that there will always be ways for me to make a living and support myself. I'm not, it turns out, dependent on Toronto or Canada (who said I had to stay Canadian?). Why wait to find out what else there is to learn? “Do it now!” as my pa says.

What I Did On My Summer Gaycation
While I've been overseas, I had this nagging guilt that I wasn't really doing anything. I was just livin' the dream, seeing the world and accumulating some gorgeous and heart wrenching lessons along the way. Somehow, I genuinely hadn't noticed that in the past year and a half I'd published two magazine articles, an anthology essay, organized an anti-racism training, a Dec 17 event, performed 4 or 5 times (in three different towns), volunteered and networked with sex workers in two countries, attended conferences, demos, lectures and festivals, completed a painful 10 day meditation retreat and started a daily practice. Plus, lived the dream and accumulated some gorgeous heartwrenching lessons along the way. (boy did I learn some exciting things about the anti-trafficking “rescue industry”, anarchism, squatting, indigenous issues in majority-white organizing, how to bake with coconut flour and ride side saddle on a tippy motorbike. Oh, and nearly throw up from homesickness.)

I think this “doing-ness” is because I've internalized capitalist ethics around productivity. Do! make! produce! more! now! What if I'd just been sitting on a beach for 18 months? And that is one my lessons: yes, if I wanted to, I could “produce” sweet nothing and still be a valuable, deserving person. What I want to do though, is to continue to agitate. Specifically, with sex workers.

Anti-Racism for the crusty of heart
And that's how I find myself sitting in a very little room in San Francisco, reading about indigenous women's resistance, making plans to go into the Critical Resistance office this week and learn how to write responses to prisoner mail. I came to SF for the four month long Anne Braden Anti-racism training for white social justice activists and I am so in the right place.

Going more deeply into understanding racism and white supremacist history has been like peeling the lid off a yogurt cup. The lid is all the bitterness and cynicism that just sits there like a crust everytime I notice some new horrible manifestation of white supremacy (let's just say, oh, the way the canadian gov't delayed sending supplies needed to combat swine flu to the hardest hit communities: first nations). Now, peeling that lid back, I find a wellspring of pain and grief. I've rarely been able to articulate why I'm anti-racist or feminist etc because the reasons are far from my theories about justice. They are in my heart. I don't have any language to talk about this. This is my fumbling attempt.

No one deserves this more than you
Why do we want to make change? Why do I? It's something about how I know that we are all equally precious and “there is no such thing as the not-deserving”*. Every one of us is dear and inequity, that paltry word, is cruel. I still don't really understand this but it seems that cruelty towards you hurts me. Every time I remain complacent in my ignorance or deem someone an enemy (and ohhhh, it's tempting), I haven't just injured you, I've injured myself. I dunno. Why is it painful to read about uranium poisoning on navaho reservations? Or hate crimes against young black transwomen? I don't understand it but there you go. That pain is what's pouring out right now.

In a practical sense, I am simply learning tactics for building an irresistibly powerful multi-racial and international sex workers movement that united, will KICK ASS and WIN. But anti-racism is also about returning what was stolen from me: an awareness of my shared humanity with people of colour, who I and all white folks, have been systematically taught to view as less valuable.

So I have cried every session. And if I'm not crying, I'm outraged. My instructors are generously calling me “passionate”.

And it's great. When I'm done, my heart feels a hundred pounds lighter and I know I've left some of that sorrow behind. The yogurt cup of despair is emptying.

Deep Thoughts
I have already learned heaps. I have a list entitled “major intellectual revelations” (like how prisons are a capitalist extension of slavery and alternatives to punishment as a way of redressing harm. Damn!), I learned that I need, desperately, a community of allies (not just a few friends) who are dedicated to this process, and that I was so used to cringing when white people talked about racism that I never developed the skills to have those conversations myself. I already feel clearer about my political goals and more confident talking about race and racism. This isn't going to mean I am “not racist”. That assumes racism comes down to the personal attitudes and behaviours. That's part of it but it's hella more than that. I can however, be a conscientious objector to racist capitalism and become more human in the process.

The gossip
Everyone wants to know 1. what do we do in class and 2. are there babes?
The short answers are:
1. classes are 4 hours/week and run like a (well-oiled) workshop on a different theme each week. There are also substantial readings and a volunteer placement in a racial or economic justice organization in the bay area. Finally, there is a mentorship with another white anti-racist ally (I will be meeting her next week)
2. Hell yeah. Remember, I'm GAYLANDIA. But it's mostly in that comrade-y way where you just wanna talk about strategic decarceration. Or at least I do.

I'm a bit in love with the “leadership team” (there are like, nine of them) and each week I debate who I have the biggest political crush on. They offer a model of anti-racism that looks to me to be sustainable, kind, self-respecting, accountable, fierce and rigorous. They are good people, though at this point, still an amorphous heap of “good people”.

And I'm tentatively making new friends, asking folks out on friend-dates and nervously wondering if anyone will like me. Of course I bake cookies and ride my bike and this makes me super happy. I am still though, homesick and will always be for as long as I am out of Toronto. I accept that.

Good night from San Francisco.

* My classmate A said that. She also said “(we fight because) systems of domination cause suffering”. Basically, she says things that handily summarize entire ethical and political philosophies in ten words or less. Awesome.

Woah

2009-06-17T10:55:00.004+07:00

Gemini (May 21-June 20)
It is said there are only two stories: man goes on a journey, and stranger comes to town. And when you’re the one on the journey, you’re likely the stranger in someone else’s town. So who do you want to be? The huckster selling the monorail? Or the hero chasing out the horse thieves? Considering your role in other people’s stories will help ensure a happy ending for your own.
--Sid Skye, Eye Weekly

Who do you wanna be in other people's stories? Me, I'm not really down with the idea that protecting private property from theft would make me a hero but I'm interested in the question.

I've been in Toronto for 18 hours and I want you to come for dinner. Like, now.

2009-06-16T04:10:00.010+07:00

Hey all,
I'm home. Or in someone else's home in my adopted home town. It feels bizarrely familiar. I could *swear* I just left for the weekend. It's been less than 24 hours since I got in from NYC (and my awesomely awesome birthday with Loralee) but nothing seems out of place. I can navigate the transit system with one eye open (thx to Roxanna for the bus station pick up and escort home!), the prices are all what they should be ($1 for water, not $3) and the bank tellers are unreasonably perky. Yep. It's Canada.

I did cycle on the wrong side of the road twice this morning and was a bit amazed by Canadian money but otherwise, same-same. I'm staying in the apartment of a special-friend who is away right now. How perfect. I spend 18 months totally working through longing only to come home and sleep in the bed of someone who's smell makes me a bit achey. Of course! It's so delightful though. I rode down King st West today and yelled out "I love it here!" to the street.

I'm totally overwhelmed with all the stuff I have to take care of while I'm here and that mostly makes me want to curl up in bed and disappear into a book. So I might be a little slack in getting back to you. I would however, love my TO friends to come join me for dinner this Wednesday night, say 7 ish. 28 Temple St (2 blocks south of King, west of Dufferin). Bring whatever, something to share. I'll make a big soup or somethin'.

Toronto lives inside me. When I would cycle around Sydney I was constantly mis-guessing how long things would take. Of course, I just hadn't been there long enough and so the city wasn't engraved on my heart. Toronto is. I have a memory of each and every neighborhood. Today I cycled about five blocks and in that time, I went by a pub where a friend propositioned me one cold winter night. The apartment of an old colleague who gave me a bag of apples the last time I saw her. The apartment where a friend took me to lie down after I got dizzy from wine during dinner. I discovered this friend was genius at silence. We lay there for an hour, not speaking.

I like the fact that I know where to find things. I like the sun today. I like this heatbox of an attic apartment. I like dialing local. I like that I'm about to hop on a fixy, cycle down one of my most storied streets and go meet a cherished ex in the very neighborhood where we fell in love. I'm sentimental and getting to indulge in my sentiment every minute of the day is delicious.

I love being here but I'm also glad it's relatively brief--I leave in mid-July for 4 months in San Francisco. I need a slow re-introduction to my life here. It was hard to leave and I packed away alot of my love for it/you. I'm kind of wary about staying again because...because it feels like a bloody marriage. I've been married to TO for over 13 years. My whole adult life. And in that time, I'd never left for more than two weeks at a time! For the first time, I left to go have flings with other cities and communities and now Toronto is looking at me asking: So Chanelle, are we going to make this real or what? I'm not saying that you can't go away whenever you want. It's not that. You can have all the freedom you need. I just need know: will you be with me for the long haul? Will I be the one you come home to?

And I don't want to answer because, well I can't commit yet! I'm looking at the life I had--was that gonna be it? Is this what I want from my life? I come back here and I start to do the exact same kinds of things I did before I left. I want to organize saucy anti-racist feminist cultural events, build radical networks and community, have friends over, picnic in the sun, write, theorize, bake, bike, advance the ho and homosexual agenda. Make the world more awesome and less cruel, without going crazy in the process. I have traded dating in for meditation but otherwise, I am the same girl I always was. And guess what? I still have the same question I left with: Is this the life I want?

I don't know if I can settle down again till I can answer that. Or maybe I'll be a terminally indecisive Gemini, return and wake up every godamned morning asking that question until I die. (and that's the problem. Death, I mean. It is my fear of it that sparks all this angst). I'm hoping I get to wake up and know that I'm living the right life. Experimenting with everything in my life has been one good way to explore that question. So is silence and stillness. Speaking of which....time for meditation. Hope to see you Wednesday.

yours,
cg

Off

2009-06-08T02:46:00.003+07:00

Hi lovely friends, remember how I was all like "It's great that I'm leaving! I need a new challenge!"
mmm. Yes, well.
Of course immediately after that it became a heartbreaking series of goodbyes, whirlwind race to divest myself of a year and a half of accumulated things and agonizing decisions over where to head next.
Yes, as of last week I hadn't yet decided where to go after San Francisco. SO!
Here's what happened...
1. I'm in San Francisco seeing friends and going to the Sex Work Film Festival
2. I'm flying to NYC on Monday June 8 to spend a few days with Loralee and celebrate my 35th birthday. Yessssss!
3. I'm returning to Toronto for a few minutes!

After Toronto: Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver, then back to SF in late July for a road trip with Loralee AND I will be living in SF doing this program. I'm so thrilled and honoured and excited to have been chosen for a program I respect so much.

Ok, borrowing a computer! Late to meet everyone! Love you lots!

xx
cg
p.s. props to Sunny Drake for pointing out that staying in Australia and Sydney in particular simply offers *different* challenges than leaving--the ones related to staying free and flexible when I start to get comfortable, in a familiar place surrounded by folks who know and care about me. Deep.

Leaving Australia

2009-05-02T17:40:00.003+07:00

I've been in Australia for nearly a year and in about a month—on June 5, I leave. My next stop is the States but so far I only have about two weeks planned out. Beyond that I’m not sure and I don’t yet know when I’ll be coming to Toronto. I’m pretty sure it will be in 2009 but can’t say exactly when yet until I hear back from a training program I’ve applied to in San Francisco.

The reason I'm leaving Australia and not coming to Canada are the same. Well actually, I have to leave Australia because my visa is expiring but even if it wasn't, I'm ready to go. This country has been very good to me (as it often is for white folks) but I've gotten comfortable and I'm not really challenged anymore.

I've slept on a thousand beds, in truck cabs, cars, buses, planes, trains, floors, vans, backyard tents, grimy hostels, the couch of friends-of-friends', swags, a teepee and a wildly rocking sail boat. I've slept drenched in sweat, freezing in three layers of clothing, with my toes peeking over the end of a nine year old's bed, in a few farmhouses, a luxury resort, under the stars in the middle of the desert, in beachfront bungalows and my most memorable: in the Northern Territory, crammed into a back seat of a hatchback piled on top of my luggage with about a foot of space between my head and roof. I got around.

But the worm turned for me a few weeks ago at the launch for the book Femmes of Power. It was exactly what I'd be doing in Toronto. I mean, as if I wouldn't be at that launch. At the end of the night I had a slightly strained interaction with an acquaintance so I walked over to Pike and my friend Rachel and asked for reassurance "It's okay if not everyone likes me right?". "Of course! But you are liked! blahblahblah" they exclaimed. But something twigged inside. I knew that night that I'd been in Australia too long—I've started worrying what people think of me. And that, my friends, is the end of the fun.

I get all cozy when I’m in community surrounded by folks I’m connected to and share some kind of history with. So despite my efforts to remain on the margins, I slowly recreated major facets of the best parts of my life in Toronto: I made great friends, started to feel connected to the queer community and increasingly involved in community organizing. Oh, I fell in love too.

While that’s all very happy-making, those are not the best conditions for experimenting with life. When I feel comfortable, familiar and connected, there's a strong incentive not to keep taking risks that might result in negative effects on the relationships that have become to so important to me. Essentially, I become complacent, living my life in an everyday way and deepening my friendships instead of growing and challenging myself. I didn't cross the bloody planet to worry about whether Sydney queers will like me. Booooooring! So it's time to go. It's time to be strange and uncomfortable, lonely, liberated, homesick and new again. I want to put myself back on a steep learning curve and I need to create a heap of space so I can focus on a couple of writing projects that are dear to me.

So while I’ve started to get excited about visiting Toronto again, it’s not necessarily the best idea for me right now. It took me months of heartbreak to deal with my homesickness too so I’m not keen to re-open all those wounds when I know I’m not done travelling yet. I will keep you updated though.

OH! Some bizness to attend to!
I will write again later about what I got from Australia but for now, some bizness I need to attend to. First, my friend has been storing a bunch of my stuff in her basement for me but she is selling her house and I need a new storage solution by May 31. Does anyone have space I can use for a heap of boxes? I have been paying a monthly fee and am happy to continue doing so. Alternatively, is anyone willing to volunteer to move my stuff to a new storage space? It's a big favour and I can either pay, barter or thank profusely and bake for anyone who can.

Second: I have a mobile phone that a friend has been using while I've been gone. She no longer wants to keep using it and I could disconnect it and pay out the rest of the contract but it's a very good plan for cheap. Does anyone want to take over my cell? The cost is $45 for unlimited calls anytime day or night within Toronto. With taxes and assorted bullshit, it works out to $61/month. Your only responsibility would be to pay the bills on time and not wreck my credit rating as the phone stays under my name.

Thanks for your love and support peeps.

Peregian Beach, night, piKe.

2009-03-28T21:41:00.004+07:00

Tonight was one of those nights that was so lovely that as i pressed my face up against Pike's and looked out at the stormy ocean, I held my breath and thought: what if it's never this good again? What if I reminisce about this night for the rest of my life?

The wind was roaring, the waves were crashing in from all directions always threatening us with spray, the night was lit only by the sky chunky with stars and we were standing there with my friend Hilary who had just arrived from Brisbane. I showed Pike the phosphoressence in the sand, we ran with Hilary's dog alongside the sand dunes and when I was far enough away so that no one could hear me, I sang to the ocean. We did interpretive dance and talked about our plans for when we returned to Toronto. Then we used our cell phones to light the way back through the grove of eucalyptus trees to the townhouse we're staying at in this sleepy little beach town.

I should know by now that it won't all end, that this won't be my last moment of perfect happiness but still, when it comes, I always worry. How could it possibly be any better than this?

Lullabies to Pain: 10 days in meditation jail

2009-02-13T16:10:00.005+07:00

P.a.i.n. and the Olympics of Austerity

As I sat in the silence of the meditation hall, starving, in unrelenting pain, bored to tears all I could do was compose this story in my mind, over and over. Everyday I refined it, edited, gave it a new title, added in little jokes. Once I disguised the fact that I'd laughed at one of my own jokes by covering it up with a cough. (I was thinking about the grimacing lady who served me oatmeal and stewed prunes every morning). But then I left the retreat and found it hard to describe what happened. Is it a cliché to say that it feels like I awoke from a dream? It's hard to reconcile how I could have spent most of the retreat in misery but leave in a state of easy contentment. Because, I think, I developed a friendship with pain.

Pain—my beloved, my sister, my friend. Pain—stabbing, shooting, throbbing, tingling, creeping, aching, darting, numbing, pounding. Pain--when we just sit and observe, we see that there are infinite varieties of it but they are all just sensation. With nowhere to go and nothing to distract me, I could only sit and observe the pain wracking my body. I'm used to being in chronic low-grade pain but nothing like this. After sitting for hours upon hours, my neck felt like I was being stabbed with a paring knife, my ass felt like it'd been hit with a 2X4, my knees felt like I'd fallen on concrete and my muscles were locked in a vice-like spasm that spread from my ear down to my upper back. Some of these pains would last day and night, some only appeared when I sat. And hunger. We ate two meals a day—at 6:30am and 11 am. When lunch came at 11 am I'd already have been meditating for five hours. The lotus flowers in the pond weren't even fully open yet.

For eight long days I was in pain from the moment I awoke at 4 am till we collapsed into bed at 9:30pm after having done 10 hours of meditation. I talked to my teacher (the only person we were allowed to talk to) about it. She suggested yoga and explained how to distinguish injurious pain and psychosomatic pain. I carefully rationed out my ibuprofen, I stretched or did yoga at every break, I used massage, hot water bottles, changed my meditation position. Nothing worked. There was no escape.

On one of these miserable days, I was “visited” by a voice. From a sort of dream-like meditation state, I imagined a woman who sat with me, rubbed my back, told me I was going to be okay and kissed my forehead. She was kind, patient and compassionate. She was me. It was the first time I'd ever tended to myself with the kind of tenderness I might extend to a friend or lover in miserable pain.

Mental Menthol
A day or so later, some kind of miracle happened. The technique is to first develop a deep concentration through a focused awareness of breathing. Consider the space between your nose and your upper lip. Now consider that spot for ten effing hours. Then do it--again--the next day. This trains our minds to become sensitive and sharp enough for the second stage—simple observation of the subtlest sensations in the body. By day eight, I could feel the course of every breath, every muscle twinge, I could feel my bones and muscles and eye sockets and hair follicles.

On the afternoon of day eight, my body melted. An incredibly cool air blew right through me and my skin was alive. I was pure vibration. This bright cool tingling sensation began to break up and dissipate my pain. Muscles that had been locked for days sparkled and sang. It was like a fire of frost. And when it subsided, the pain in those areas would have disappeared. It never returned.

Very, verly slowly, new areas of pain began to melt. In what is probably the kindest thing I have ever done for myself, I learned to nurse my pain like an injured friend in the home of my body. I welcomed it explicitly: “Come on in, pain. Rest. Take whatever space you need. You're welcome here for as long as you need. Make yourself at home.” Over the course of an hour or two, the frost/fire would move to different areas, melting everything in it's path.

I was incredibly relieved but tried not to goad it on (“oh god, please move to my neck!”) It was what it was and I had to accept my body's own pace. But still, on day ten, I was out of patience for a stubborn knot of pain in the back of my neck, a knot I've probably had for ten years. I was so tired of sitting with this one. I didn't know what to do with it. In desperation, I began to sing it a lullaby. “Rock a bye baby in the tree top, when the bow breaks...” suddenly it began to sizzle..."the cradle...” and melt “will fall...” and then the pain began to break up and evaporate as the others had.

Not all of it disappeared, but I have befriended my pain. I can't believe how I once resented and rejected it when it just needed some tender attention. Pain, you are so dear to me.

By the end of ten days, about 80% off all the pain in my body had disappeared. After sitting motionless for roughly 100 hours, I returned to Sydney with less pain and more flexibility than when I'd left. Today my yoga teacher commented on how “bendy” my spine is.

From a Vipassana perspective what happened was the healing of old sankharas (“reactions”) or what we might in therapy-speak call “neuroses”. All the old shit I'd never fully healed or processed that had gotten locked in my body was transformed through the simple process of careful, patient, equanimous observation. But before this were the times I silently screaming: “I remain equanimous with this pain! I REMAIN EQUANIMOUS WITH THIS PAIN!!”

Most people experience some physical pain but emotional stuff is more common. Not me! And I love crying! grief! sadness! Bring it on! No luck. I had some Really Deep Thoughts and one really good cry—about politics of all things. On day three or four or five, I was ruminating on the racism of the so-called “trafficking problem” and burst into tears of anger. I had a few moments of sadness during the week but nothing compared to that, which made me feel like a weirdo. I'm supposed to be uncovering ancient traumas and instead I found myself trying to explain racism and sex work politics to my fellow meditators (we were allowed to talk on the last afternoon).

Despite being in the Olympics of Austerity (no talking, reading, exercising, music, art-making, writing, snax) I felt free. Freedom from avoidance, from habit, fear, craving, hatreds, denial. As Pema said “No escape, no problem.”

Sailing, it turns out, is kinda hard
Then I came home for a minute before leaving for a friend's birthday celebration in Brisbane which turned into an impromptu week-long sailing trip involving snorkelling, gruesome seasickness, getting rescued by the coast guard from 5 metre waves, living in a space the size of a bathroom with 4 people, intense beauty, shipwreck photoshoots and breakdance lessons on the beach under the moonlight. It was full on. So yeah, i'm feelin' pretty full up on adventure right now. I've been traveling for 14 months and spent about 10 days out of the last 6 weeks at my home in Sydney. I'm back home, and writing this from my kitchen table in a squat where I'm staying with an international crew of such fucking great folks and I desperately don't want to leave the house. But...it looks like i'm leaving Monday for a desert road trip. I've got one year here--I'm going for it.

Up next is a “Unpacking white privilege in queer communities” workshop I'm running in response to some of the gross racism I've witnessed in the queer community here and the big Sydney Mardi Gras celebrations. I'll be facilitating the workshop with Pike who—excitement!!--arrives at the end of February.

Much love...Goodnight all...

Shh

2009-01-08T10:52:00.005+07:00

Just a quick note...tomorrow morning I fly to Sydney, take a train for 2 hours to Blackheath and then...stop talking. I'll be doing my first 10 day silent Vipassana meditation retreat. I'm excited and nervous. Yesterday during my meditation, I got really antsy, desperate to move and jump. This almost never happens and it made me panic a bit. What if it kills me to sit there ALL DAY? But that's the point. It will be uncomfortable. Rise at 4 am. No food past 12 noon. Bed at 9 pm. In the meantime: stare into my mind. What's there?! I can't wait to find out!

And some backstory on the past 2 weeks: xmas in rural Queensland with Lenine n' Fam, watching The Castle as part of my the "understanding australia" series (and so I can finally get the jokes), learning to dive under waves, rip heads off a prawn, read a "rip" in the ocean. NYE in rural New South Wales with 4000 queers...fireworks, cabaret, friends under the stars, slow dance parties, hugs, tears, amazing performances by my own friends (the best kind evah). more later.

love,
cg

Experiments in Living and the True Nature of Love, Part 17

2008-10-18T12:38:00.012+07:00

(My $pread article is now online!)
Apologies for disappearing off the blog map for so long. I've been bizy but not a day goes by where i don't think about my loved ones at home. I get precious about my writing and then recently had a big email meltdown. I've lost about 40% of my contacts so if someone you know didn't get this, please forward it and let them know to send me their email. thanks!

I'll get to describing my everyday life—but frankly I don't find that stuff interesting. “I went here, I did that.” So what? I'm more interested in the machinations of the heart so that's what I'm gonna talk about.

Oct 5
I think about love a lot. In fact, I spent all day yesterday at home doing nothing but...thinking. I just decided i needed some time to process so i canceled all my plans, stared at the wall, had various imaginary conversations in my head, wrote some of the more interesting bits down and thought. I figured out love by about 11 am then i spent the rest of the day mulling over more mundane things like lust, caution and lunch.

I've been trying to understand love for years. I felt I had some understanding of the nature of most of our feelings--except love. What is it? A feeling, a commitment, a projection? What's happening when we differentiate between love and infatuation? Why does it last for decades or evaporate in one afternoon? What is the best way to love and be loved?

My years of ruminating culminated yesterday. So wanna hear my deep revelation about love? It's radical acceptance. That's it. It means to see and accept someone as they are, without the desire to change or improve them, without fantasies, denials and projections. To adore their “themness”. Love is like cleaning a smudgy windowpane. Finally, you can see the person, as they are, with their flaws and problems. They no longer have to improve or correct themselves to be worthy of your love. You love them when they're wonderful but you also love them when they're terrible, selfish dishonest little shits. It's all in.

This is painfully obvious to some people. People like my friend Vanessa who, upon hearing about My Great Insight, said, much more kindly than this, but essentially “um...yeah. You didn't know that?”
"Well, no. You did?"

For the rest of us however, here is the coles' notes version: think about the kind of love you've felt for a kid or a pet. These loves are often unclouded by judgments and expectations. You don't expect a cat to suddenly behave like a bird. When she keeps you up at night and gets hair all over your black shirt, you still love her and don't blame her for her catness. You just love your adored cat, as is. I'm sure i've read this in book somewhere many times but it meant nothing to me till i experienced it.

The impact of loving in this way is pretty big. For one, it means I love without a lot of attachment. The person does not have to be available to me exclusively. They don't exist just to serve my happiness so even if they disappear completely, I might (will) ache with longing but I'll still love 'em the same. There's a lot of freedom.
2. I don't take their behaviour personally. I see that it's not all about me.
3. It lasts. It transcends distance and time apart.
4. I have no goals for them. or for us. I just want them to be happy.
5. There is no distinction between being “in love” and “love”. I've been falling “in love” with friends all year and sometimes it feels as big as anything i've felt for a lover.
6. In those cases where it has had a sexual element, it's still not primarily sexual. I'd call it “romantic” more than sexual. It's not defined by the typical craving to do something about it though the connection is often still incredibly fun. Intimacy is more interesting to me than anything else and so far, sex is occasionally, but not at all exclusively, the medium of connection.

Sometimes i feel like I'm exploding with “like” if that makes any sense. My cup runneth over and I'm overwhelmed with love and happiness for someone. Fun eh? So just in case i start to think i'm a genius, Vanessa, whose known me for 20 years, is the voice of humility: “great, you're becoming more like me!” (Love her!) In fact, it's a great litmus test for whether i love someone. If i want them to be someone just a liiiitle bit different (a better version of themselves, in my mind) then no. If i want them to give me what i want more than i want them to be happy, also nope, not love. This unconditional acceptance is the kind of love i am working on cultivating for everyone.

I know. it's weird.

Oh, i've become so woo-woo as they say. Oh well! On a spiritual journey! When i went to save this document, i accidentally typed in “experiments in loving”. Ha! Can you imagine the book cover? Me, with a rainbow behind me, a beatific smile on my face beaming out the message of love and joy. Hilarious.

Anyways, yeah, so as i was saying, love=awesome. It's not very dramatic, this loving thing. I'm not giving away the shirt off my back, I just avoid judging folks and remember to be kind. And, um, I actually am conducting various experiments in living and loving. I'm all the way over here so i might as well try some new things out i reckon. I want to experiment with who i (think i) am, with my friendships, with money, sex, being alone, with what i believe in, how i love, listen and how i wanna live in the world.

This is what i saw the more privileged (or just less fearful) kids doing when they were 21. But fueled as I was by the terror of getting stuck in the poverty i was raised in, I focused on being a straight-A student and then an ambitious hard-worker making her way up. For all my political commitments, I've never been so fiercely dedicated to anything as I have been to getting away from my childhood of cramped apartments, fried smelts and clothing from Zellers, once a year. I would do anything, make any sacrifice to avoid this—and I sacrificed play and travel. Even when I was supposed to be at play, as with the bathhouse committee, I took it all so seriously.

I graduated university with the top GPA in my department, got scholarships for grad school began working and haven't stopped since. At 25 I began studying to become a gestalt therapist and by 29 had a small therapy practice, was managing Good For Her, had a national sex column, a long-term partner and my own apartment. Ready, set, adulthood.

I got some kick-ass skills and confidence out of all this but i also missed out on some stuff. Like irresponsibility, feeling like i have safety net and the freedom to not know what I'm doing. Playing, just being, hanging out aimlessly. (Hanging out unproductively is the most ludicrously luxurious thing i can think of. Who the fuck has ever had time for that??) So guess what I wanna do now?

I am still a Type-A. I have prioritized lists and make carefully considered decisions (even if it doesn't look that way!). But I feel less fear of falling, less like I'm just running away from my mother's life. Not that there's anything wrong with my mother's life! (*cough* Hi mom!)

The Homo Panopticon
Now in order for me to conduct my little experiments in living, I need a bit of space. And privacy. I've missed having my community around me but in it's absence (in your absence), I've felt less self-conscious and a lot freer. For the first few months after i left, I was haunted by the imaginary presence of various members of the “the toronto queer community” looking over my shoulder. Ugh! I'd internalized the panopticon! I couldn't escape you folks, even in remotest Cambodia! Thankfully the ghosts (which were much less benevolent than my friends actually are) eventually went away.

And now I really enjoy the sense of privacy and freedom i have being on the other side of the planet. Being unknown, i get to see which patterns i quickly and easily reproduce (I couldn't avoid a queer community if it were on fire, it turns out. I love me the homos!) and which ones were always expendable (three jobs, two volunteer gigs and four lovers? um, no. I'll take a plate of calm with a side of reflective thanks!) To protect this, i have to make sure i don't make “too many” friends (!) and end up with an Aussie version of Toronto. I want to remain a bit on the fringes. I avoid parties unless it's for a good friend, am only slowly getting involved in volunteering and I spend lots of time home or working.

Big Revelation #2
is my developing spiritual life. Surely you saw this coming--so obvious! Oh, it's been so amazing! It all began one day in Laos when I closed my eyes to meditate and it's become this brilliantly lovely part of my life. I still can't actually say the word “spiritual” without a cringe-that-verges-on-a-gag but I'm just trying to accept the cliched geekiness of it all. Because I too get to be a recipient of that unconditional acceptance. In fact, I'm first in line.

I am in the midst of a passionate love affair with meditation. I do it for anywhere from 20-50 minutes a day (doing 40 minutes feels the best but sometimes I'm rushed). I just never imagined meditation would be such a thrill ride. I mean seriously, you're sitting there, not moving, but it's a party up there! So when someone asks me how my mediation went, I have a lot to say (“oh today was hilarious because I never even got past stage two of Metta...”). I go to the Sydney Buddhist Centre maybe once a week and attended my first weekend retreat with them. I practice a kind of meditation called Samatha, though sometimes I throw a Tonglen in there for fun (actually, it's a bloody heart-wrenching meditation but in a nice way). At some point, I'm gonna try Vipassana again, see how that flies. Sounds like a riot, eh? What can I say—it is to me. And Buddhism? Well, yes, that too, though more cautiously. I'm balancing my concerns about cultural appropriation with my easy affinity for a philosophy/religion that is for the most part utterly in harmony with what i already believe.

I have no idea what it means to have a spiritual life so i'm just feeling my way along, asking a lot of pointed questions and staying open. Some days I call myself Buddhish. I don't proclaim any exclusive commitment to buddhism (but then of course, being the way they are, that's exactly what they encourage. The funny thing about (mahayana) buddhism is that there's no way to rebel against it. There are ethical guidelines but rules do not trump kindness. Effectively, they have taken all the glee out of being bad!) I missed a Patti Smith show so I could go to meditation class and talk about the meaning of wisdom within buddhism. I know! that's how much I love it!

As you can imagine, all this dovetails nicely with my recent thoughts on love. One supports the other. One of the coolest things about meditation is that it is probably the most self-lovin' thing i can do without using my hands. heh. No matter which meditation i'm doing, my first job is simply to observe, not to change or correct. No matter how messily it goes, it's going perfectly. That means that for those 40 mins, I am already perfect, as is. It is the only thing I'll do all day where there is no right way to do it, so no way to assess if something went “well” or not. It just went. No goals, just kindness.

Experiments! With! Living!
So this is the “here's what i did” part.
Oh y'know, stuff! Lessee, I went on a 3 week road trip with 3 folks who've become like my family here, I take every opportunity to see some new part of Australia, had this little hitchhiking adventure and am learning to do things like: talk to (a lot of) strangers, dumpster dive, steal a postcard, sneak in, be a good guest, hitchhike across the outback safely, be comfortable with being invisible, bake a gluten-free vegan cupcake, know when to tell a story about myself, watch out for snakes in the water hole and spiders in my boots, not flirt or seduce, cry on my yoga mat, roll cigarettes, have a good fight, live with 4 flatmates, ease up, talk about racism with white people, be a faraway friend, stay home alone, swallow my pride, go on a date, take a valium recreationally, write, tie someone up, be the one non-drinker at the party, make new friends and of course, be still, love and learn.

As for how i'm paying for all this? that's coming a future post. Stay tuned, my pretties.

I'm living in a shared house and have a landline, should you want to call me, send me love letters or copies of $pread magazine (except the current issue. They sent it to me cuz i'm in it)

Herself
67 Station Street
Newtown, NSW
2042
Australia

lots of love,
cg

Oz it is

2008-08-13T13:31:00.017+07:00

Hi all,
Just a quick update to let you know that i have decided to drop my backpack and live in Australia till next June.

or so.

I could always leave before then but right now i'm expecting to stay in this country for the full length of my year long visa. I don't know where i'll be going after that.

I'm a bad tourist. I've had incredible experiences traveling but ultimately i'm more naturally drawn to creating a home and deepening my connections wherever i am. My initial plan had been to stay in Australia for 3 months then go to Berlin to see my friend Anna but as the time approached for me to leave, i got more and more stressed out about squeezing it all in before leaving. I wished someone else would choose for me: Australia or Germany.

The deal-breaker was a conversation i had with my best friend Loralee, who said "just be where you are.". That's so deep! I'm on it!

And in fact, part of the appeal for me in Sydney is the Buddhist centre. I want the time and space to study, meditate, read and write. Moving every 2 weeks does not allow much of that.

Sydney also has a lot going for it: a lovely, lively queer community in a fantastic neighborhood called Newtown, beauty, friendliness (so! friendly!), and ease. Within 48 hours of arriving i had a sublet, a job, a meditation class, friendly friends inviting me to stuff and a full schedule. Everything just fell into place as though it was all supposed to.

I'm hoping to get an apartment in September, though i have faith that if that doesn't work out, something else will. Next week i'm leaving for a three week road trip through the outback in the great Northern Territories. 4 women, 3 weeks, 1 van. Fun! (I was so not ready to leave the country before doing that!). This weekend I'll be on an island for Lenine's 30th b-day celebrations so i will have little to no internet access for the next month.

An update on my sex life
My life in Sydney is populated by numerous very cute, smart and charming queer girls--and a few boys. This has led to a recent realization that i do indeed still have a sex drive--but it's changed. I am still fully awake to desire, i just no longer have need to pursue it or be pursued. If sex comes my way, nice. If not, that's also nice.

For months, i'd been thinking i was experiencing a flattening of desire but that's not it. Now my desire is just more "still". It just sort of sits there, friendly and alert but not hungry anymore.

I've found this completely liberating. I think that my desire has often been related to a need for reassurance that I am desirable/lovable/worthy. There are two problems with this: First it means that i was trapped in a never ending cycle of of craving adoration. I rarely got to stop and feel satisfied. Second, though this wasn't conscious or intentional, it still amounts to using people to feed my ego. Blech! (that's shorthand for: i consider this unethical and something I endeavor to end.)

I remember the exact day my sexuality shifted. After a long dry spell in Thailand, I had this totally unexpected threesome with two Thai women. I think I may have mentioned it in a previous post? No, no. That was a *different* almost-threesome. (oh brother, how times have changed). Anyways, it was pile of fun. They were adventurous girlfriends of three years and I was their prey for the evening. They got me drunk at noisy bar and took me home.

The next day i had this feeling I didn't recognize. It was satiation. I felt "full". Done. Satisfied. I've felt different ever since. Strange eh? I have no idea why *that* finally, was enough. One odd fact: my menstrual period disappeared at the same time. Haven't had one since April. Anyone think that might be a problem?

This confirms a Buddhist theory I always resented: that desire causes suffering and that attempting to feed our desires just produces more of them. They were right. Rats!

So now I focus on non-sexual ways to give and receive love and attention. My friend Elena described it thusly: "You no longer need sexual attention. Your radar for a diversity of attention has expanded and you can find non-sexual forms of attention just as satisfying, fun and stimulating". I thought that was so insightful, i promptly wrote it down.

It's true. I walk around with my hair in a bun and have worn the same pair of pants for the last month. I don't much care who thinks I'm cute. I learned months ago that I can be loving in non-sexual ways. Often it's as simple as paying more attention to someone. Noticing and listening. Holding the door, picking up the check for lunch, doing the dishes, getting a little gift, baking, being encouraging, singing along. The most important one though, is attention.

And you have it. So tell me something you want me to know.

love,
Chanelle
p.s. here are some pics i took on an idyllic day on a farm with my new 6 year old friend Taneisha. She was staying at the same farmhouse i was visiting in the northern (rural) part of the state. From the very first we recognized each other as sister-femmes. We picked fruit then she art directed a photo shoot of the fruit basket, we played "scary makeup", we built a house for an imaginary lizard, we picnicked on the grass and we stared at clouds. A lovelier few days, i can't imagine.

Giant Redheads: On coming to Australia, generosity and being a nobody.

2008-06-29T10:18:00.009+07:00

(I finally got my pictures up!

Before I even landed in Australia, I noticed three things that seemed strange to me: redheads, giant men and noisy, bossy children. In Thailand, no one raises their voice, red is not a natural hair colour and I dwarf the women and most of the men. At the luggage carousel, I kept peeking over at the men, thinking “Jesus, they’re…massive”.

Lenine’s “special friend” Melly picked me up at the airport and whisked me to Lenine’s where a big vase of lilies, cupcakes and presents awaited me. Due to visa dramas before I left Thailand, I ended up arriving on my birthday. I loved turning 34 as I crossed over the Pacific. That night I settled into the front sunroom, across from Ange, Lenine’s fantabulous housemate, a radical foodie/chef with a PhD in food ethics. The neighborhood I’m in is greek-immigrant-turned-middle-class-environmentalist so everything is fair-trade-this or organic-that. It’s expensive ($18 for a used book?!) but otherwise a lovely, leafy, lefty neighborhood. My lifestyle couldn’t be more different than it was in bkk.

The best thing about Brisbane is Lenine and the warmth I’ve received in her home and from her friends. The second best thing is that it’s not a thrilling mega-city. After the madness of bkk, Brisbane feels like a turn-of-the-century private "sanitorium"—all manicured shrubs, immaculate (and empty) pedestrian walkways, sunny blue skies and friendly smiling people. Really, it's so spacious and clean, I feel like I’m in a David Lynch film. Initially I had all this energy that I was prepared to put into "handling challenges" due to disorientation, language differences or confusion, but the challenges just never appeared. Imagine taking a big breath to shout to someone across a busy street only to discover that the person is standing right across from you. And speaks your language. For days I held my breath and wait to be rocked, confused, lost, frustrated or amused all to hell. But it didn’t happen.

I have very little desire to explore—or at least to explore beyond what I’ve found at arm’s length. It’s not like I’m going to stumble on a Chinese opera being staged at an open-air temple where a friendly middle-aged lawyer uses his limited English to explain the plot and invites me back the next night to see part 3 of the epic opera. That’s one night in Bangkok. Here I stumble on the neighborhood thrift shop, a little riverside dog show or some swings in a pretty park.

I love it. All I want to do is nest: putter, bake, read, do laundry, email home. In short, make a home again. I delight in returning the DVD rental and stocking up on the toilet paper. I’m excited about things like what I’ll find when I raid the grocery store garbage (my friend Warren taught me to dumpster dive), about the Circus Essentials class (Brisbane is a hub of alternative circus) and about baking vegan pumpkin muffins. Especially baking. What was always a pleasure has become a full-blown passion.

I enjoy everyday, ordinary pleasures: queer community, friends, food, learning stuff, sometimes painfully. New but “familiar-new”. I miss some things about Thailand: the heat, Buddhism, my friend Aileen, spicy street food and using the ‘wai’ to greet or thank people, speaking my 50 words of Thai and jaywalking thru traffic. I don’t miss the crowds and the wall of noise that greeted me everyday.

Loneliness, revisited
My loneliness is different here. It’s different to long for what’s right around me. When I was alone in bkk or laos, I was really alone. Because of the language barrier, I couldn’t tell someone how I felt even if I’d wanted to. After the first couple of weeks I was rarely lonely though. Partly because I made friends and set up a home. Partly because when it takes all your focus, your limited language skills and the better part of your patience just to find a subway station, there isn’t much time to miss home.

Here though, I can have a night like the other one at Gay Karaoke (which is so delightfully earnest and irony-free). A young woman walks in that everyone at my table is so happy to see. They all disappear with her and suddenly I’m the only one still at the table. Some queers are slow dancing to karaoke power ballads (my favourite!) and even though I’m around friendly folks listening to music I know all the words to, there is no one for me to dance with. Out of the corner of my eye I see someone who reminds me of a close friend. Another has a stripey shirt that reminds me of my friend P. It’s excruciating. I leave the bar to go find a cigarette, my head exploding. I make it about a block before I find a little alcove on the (immaculate and empty) street and sit down to burst into tears.

I miss you. I miss you. I miss you, I sob to the sidewalk.

No one is running up to me, happy to see me. I am the outsider, observing a group of folks who share long varied connections to each other. No one has known me for more than a week or so. Instead of just smoking, going home and telling my friends about it the next day, I end up sitting on a bus bench with the friend who brought me, crying while he sits with me. I’m so utterly, shamelessly sucky. Between tears, hiccups and blowing my nose, I choke out: “there’s…no one…here (gasp)…for me to…(gulp)…dance with!” Which I think translates to: No one loves me!

I would not do this at home. But here, fuck it, I have no other options. Turns out it’s the best one. I don’t try to make it nice and he doesn’t either. I’m so thankful for that, for his patience and warmth with me. I laugh long and deeply when he quotes a line from Sin City to me: "Dames! Sometimes they just gotta get it out."

Shortly after another friend from the bar comes out, she hugs me long and comforts me. I sigh with relief. When I’m done, I feel so unburdened and relieved that I’m positively walking on air. I go back in the bar and for the first time in my life, sing karaoke unselfconsciously, belting out Nine-To-Five by Dolly Parton, dancing around with unadulterated joy. My face hurts from laughing so much when we all head home at midnight.

Lately, when I’m curled under my duvet at night, I often imagine a lover there with me. Someone who can make it all go away, make me feel safe, protected and cared for. I remember the different chests I’ve nestled on and pick one to dream about resting on.

And I’m so glad I don’t have one. I know there’s a reason that I don’t have a safe “out”. Out of my feelings, out of my fear, out of the challenge of making my decisions about what I want from this life. It’s up to me to figure out what I want and how to get it. If I need some support, I need to find it myself. If that’s not possible, then I need to learn that too. That night in karaoke, my only solace were the friends I’d known briefly. I had to decide whether to trust them. I did and it worked. If I was traveling with someone, I’d never have experienced that.

One of the first shocks I experienced traveling is that stripped of my context, I become a total nobody. No one knows where you’re from or why they should care. I remember when I first got to know Lenine in Toronto, I thought “Wow! Why isn’t everyone excited to talk with her about her experience?” Because you’re no one, that’s why. You’ve gotta earn every connection. Every time someone includes me in a conversation or asks me about myself, I treat it as a gift and receive it gratefully. I worked for that, sister.

The emails I get from you, dear friends, are also such a gift. I read them over once really fast and excited. Then I go back to them and re-read them, enjoying their nuance and humour, imagining your voice and remembering the last time I saw you.

I tell you, I will never look at outsiders the same way. I lived in a perfect bubble in Toronto, insulated by my community, work and friends. I had no idea what this was like. I have so much to learn and I couldn’t have known there was this much to learn.

Generosity
There are those lonely nights occasionally but much more commonly are the days and nights where I am treated to a kind of friendliness we just don’t do in TO.

The Aussies are legendarily friendly. But so are Thai folks And Laotians. (You shoulda seen my last day at Empower: a two-hour flow of food, gifts, blessings, and endless group pictures). In fact, it’s just that in general, Torontonians are misers--my friends excepted of course. For example, that airport pickup I got when I arrived? It was a nearly 2 hour drive away—and my flight had been delayed. Still, Melly gave me the scenic tour on our drive home. I told this to my friend Loralee who said “No one’s ever even picked me up at the Toronto airport!”

Exactly. I’ve never done it myself—it’s so far, expensive, I’m too busy. Ferget it. But this kind of thoughtfulness is routine here. I get invited out, given phone numbers, and have drinks bought for me every time I go out. People I’ve talked to for an hour offer to let me stay with them. Then they buy me a drink. It’s crazy. There isn’t any weirdness or expectations, just friendliness.

I’m stunned at the consideration and thoughtfulness I’ve received in the past year. From my move in Toronto to my friend Aileen sleeping on the floor so I could stay with her after my visa was delayed, to being given a home for a month here in Brisbane, it’s far beyond what I expect—I suspect because it’s far beyond what I typically offer. Was I on bad-house-guest crack until now? I look back and I can’t believe I stayed with people without cooking a single meal for them or making sure to take care of the cat while they were out. What was I thinking?! Just lost in my own bubble of self-interest I guess. I’m pretty sure I’m a much different guest than I used to be. (nb: After Ange read this, she described me as “a fabulous guest”. Yay!)

Why aren’t we all like this? I’ve tried befriending people in this way in TO but I never know when people are going to look at me with suspicion, thinking I want something. I love that if I like someone here and it’s mutual, we don’t have to dance around it for ages, waiting for an appropriate waiting period to elapse before we’re allowed to get excited and hang out. In Toronto, you’re not considered serious or cool if you’re too happy. Y’know what I get to be here? Positive! Happy! Cheerful! It’s great! I’m thrilled! (can you tell? God, I can be so cryptic sometimes can’t i?) How nice it is to be normal.

So dear readers, Torontonians and not, I challenge you to make a new friend this week. Here’s how: meet someone you like? Get their contact info and follow up. Done!
Or give a hand to someone who’s lost. As in, actually take someone to the destination they’re trying to find. Y’know folks do this all the time in other parts of the world but it’s nearly unfathomable in TO. Tell someone how much you like them. Try something that seems “excessively” considerate and tell me how it goes.

But as difficult as my own community can sometimes be, I am more and more sure that it is where I want to be and where I want to make a difference. I’m so glad I’m here right now—I wouldn’t trade that night at karaoke for the world—but the Toronto queer community is still my home and my extended family. Missing home helps me understand exactly what matters to me. I want to know that I’m not just accidentally falling into my life. I want to know what I’m choosing and why. And what I want is community.

Money, weather, blahblahblah
Y’know what else I’d also really like? My money. I have money, I just can’t get it. I’ve fallen into some kind of weird vortex where it is a nightmare for me to access my own money and I’ve been dependent on borrowing money for 7 weeks now. When I say weird vortex, I mean that errors keep happening which even my credit union and credit card company can’t explain.

I’ve been assured three times that my credit card is coming. By the last time, the operator was as mystified as I was. “But that’s…impossible”. Apparently not, Mr. Mastercard International, apparently not.

My bank card? Well, they think the first one was lost in the mail. And when I emailed for the 8th time asking about the replacement card, they told me that they’re now having problems with the card manufacturing and don’t know when they’ll be able to get me a new one. Um, what are THE FREAKIN CHANCES OF THAT? Who’s even ever HEARD of a bank not able to make ATM cards? I can’t bear to email them again and ask about it.

So after nearly 2 months of effort, I have one temporary credit card to show for it. People in lineups get pissed off at me because it won’t swipe and has to be entered manually but hey, it’s mine! I’m SURE there’s a lesson in this somewhere (I think it might be an extension of my lesson on generosity but like most lessons, it’s annoying.)

Finally, I’m freezing cold almost 24/7 because I acclimatized in Thailand and being a hot place normally, Brisbane makes no accommodation for the cold. Windows don’t close, houses aren’t insulated so I feel like I’m camping in October all the time. As I write this, I’m wearing my regular outfit of 3 shirts, tights under my pants, and 2 pairs of socks. That’s what I sleep in. Yes, I know you’re thinking “cry me a river Chanelle. It was 34 degrees for you in February while we dug out from under a metre of snow”. True, but they tell me here that acclimatization changes your blood. I’m cold in a way I wouldn’t be in the same temperature at home. I sleep wearing gloves people. Blue fingers, aching toes, uncomfortable. I am warm in the shower. That's it.

Don’t cry for me though. As my friend Pam put it: “I have no sympathy for your world-traveler dilemmas”. Nor should you! Yeah, I’m lonely sometimes but yesterday I learned to stilt walk in a women’s circus class then went to the queer-youth centre for workshops on gender and zine-making before meeting up with new friends who took me out to the (kinda cheesy) local dyke night (and bought my drinks, naturally). Today I’m going to a photo exhibit (on what might be a date, not sure yet) and then Lenine and I are having a sleepover in Melly’s new apartment tonight. Tomorrow Melly and I go “bushwalking” (that means hiking) before I head to a beach town near here. It can be hard but I’m still enormously privileged. I'm heading to Sydney next week and looking for a few places to stay. If you know anyone who could host me for say a week, please let me know!

Love and all,
Chanelle
P.s. what’s this about rising prices on food back home?? There were food riots in parts of SE Asia but I thought that was localized. So like, is the world coming to an end?
pps. Happy Pride! I had a lovely one myself. You'd have all loved the "Pet Parade" portion of the day. Yes, that's two dog shows i've seen in 2.5 weeks. This place is c.u.t.e.

Bugs for Breakfast: One week in Cambodia

2008-05-15T17:06:00.007+07:00

I don't usually post this often but Jesus, Cambodia was intense. I just spent a week there and i need to process.

Here's the nutshell version of this epic entry (i've given up on trying to write succinctly): i got blown away by one of the 7 wonders of the world, broke up with my friend and traveling partner E., ate fried cockroaches on a bus, got my wallet stolen, broke down in the bathroom of the museum of genocide and realized that i'm trying to crack my heart open.

Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat was actually as stunning as i hoped it might be. 25 k. of temple ruins that can only be described as magnificent. Jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, magnificent. Worth the endless hassles, corruption, thefts (plural!), delays and scorching heat. I'm a sucker for awe. As we rounded the corner toward the main temple, I teared up in amazement. It is one of my new favourite places on earth.

Breaking Up
Remember E. from my last blog? Days before we left for Cambodia she lay on my bed talking about our upcoming trip and said she could feel herself turning me into an authority figure. The problem, she said, was that she'd become more and more helpless until it drove me crazy and ultimately alienated me completely. I was cheerfully unconcerned. I'd spent a month hanging out with her and yes, she always acted as the tag-along to plans and parties i'd arranged but it didn't bother me. I was doing what i wanted to be doing—if she came along for the ride, cool. If not, no skin off my nose. So i reassured her “But it's been fine so far!”

It took less than three days to completely unravel.

The first sign was the fact that for a week long trip she brought along a purse. As in, nothing else but a purse. Guess who was expected to provide all the things that are nice to have in (scorching hot, malarial) Cambodia—like mosquito netting, shampoo, detergent, guidebook and american dollars?

Within two days I became irritated and cold while she grew sulky and whiny. Precisely the way you'd expect things to break down when someone starts playing the role of resentful teenager—and i've reverted to my classic big sister/surrogate mom pose. i don't like the dynamic but i'll be the first to admit that it's nowhere near the first time i've been in it.

On the third day her sulkiness turned to meanness (i overheard her talking about me, a cardinal sin in my book), and i started to want out. Still i thought maybe we could talk it out. I spent some time meditating on it and hoped we'd be able to have a heart-to-heart about “how things are going” (Just like you'd expect from an annoyingly new age parent).
I started with “So um, E. it seems like this isn't really workin--
“Yeah”. She shot me a look.

oh.
Why was i expecting a 21 year old who was in the process of re-enacting every fight she'd ever had with her parents to be able to admit to and laugh about what was going wrong? Her dependency drove me nuts but i could work around it. Meanness, i would not.

With relief, I told her i'd be getting my own room and going to Phnom Penh tomorrow. I did not invite her to join me. So we broke up. She got the money she owed me, we said “see you in Bangkok” and went our separate ways.

Lesson learned in Siem Reap, Cambodia: if someone tells you that they are about to sabotage your friendship, believe them. We could have talked about how she does it and how to prevent it. how to laugh about it and not take it seriously. it's a shame as it was the end our sweet friendship.

Fried crickets taste better than cockroaches
On the hand-me-down bus to Phnom Penh I offered my seat mate some of my (delicious) sticky rice wrapped in bamboo. He declined but reciprocated by offering me a helping from his bag of fried bugs. This was the moment. if i was ever going to eat the bugs sold as snacks all over these parts, i might as well do it with this dude who could show me how to remove the inedible parts. He and the guys in the seats ahead of me found it terribly amusing to watch me ineptly pry the wings off the roach and then hesitate with a look of distaste on my face. Go on! go on! they prodded. I popped it. The little critters taste like popcorn. Even better were the crickets. When a cockroach skittered across my bed a few nights later, i thought “I ain't afraid of you. I can eat you.”

Heart of Darkness
After getting hit on by the children of Cambodia's elite at a bar called Heart of Darkness (or “the heart” as they call it), i got home to discover i no longer had a wallet. i knew it would be a “high risk” night so i left my passport and camera at home but still, I wasn't careful enough. The zipper on my purse had just broken and I just hadn't taken into account that Cambodia is much riskier than Thailand. That learned me, The next day i got to enter the special hell of of card replacement—from cambodia. Bad phone connections, long echo-ey delays, 13 hour time difference and sweaty internet cafes. Sucked.

Tuol Sleng (or S-21) and the Killing Fields
The museum of genocide is housed in a former torture prison used by the Khmer Rouge (did you know that Khmer is actually pronounced K'mai? Me neither). Before it was a prison it had been a large school in downtown Phnom Penh. But that was before schools were abolished and all the teachers killed. I would walk around PP and think about the fact that every person over the age of 29 is a survivor of a genocide. Unbelievable eh? All of them! and what happened to them during that time? i was dying to ask each one. I resisted the urge and read my books by survivors.

At Tuol Sleng, guards kept very detailed records and all new inmates were photographed on entry. A good portion of the museum are these mugshots—raw images of grief, shock, fear, sadness and resignation on the faces of people who were about to be imprisoned, starved, tortured into giving confessions and then murdered at the killing fields. The word for this place is anguish.

The wall of children's photos sent me darting to the bathroom to sob. It's completely unbearable. Terrible beyond words.

In one mugshot, a woman who was a high ranking cadre's wife has eyes brimming with tears (internal purges were common). The second photo is of her profile. Now a tear is visible streaking down her cheek. In her lap sleeps a newborn infant about 1-2 months old. a thicket of black hair on his/her little head. There isn't much that can be said about this horribly heartbreaking image. Only 7 people survived Tuol Sleng.

The whole thing is desperately underfunded, the exhibits have no security and are often just propped up on the floor. Maybe for the same reason that Pol Pot got to live to a ripe old age in rural Cambodia, without the tiniest intervention? (?!)

The Killing Fields, it turns out, are a peaceful and beautiful orchard. The only sign that something horrendous happened there are the giant stupa filled with skulls and the grassy divets in the ground—sites of mass graves. It was such a pretty place and so hard to imagine the terror it must have struck in people's hearts as they were led to it, blindfolded and shackled. The eeriest part are the local kids who beg by hissing“moneymoneymoneymoney”. I have no idea why but they do it in packs, in perfect unison, frowning, hands outstretched, children-of-the-corn style.

“I'll be the one to break my heart”
Welcome to the “big insight” portion of this entry and thank you for staying with me to this point. I left TO when i finally had my long-awaited opportunity for travel. But it was precisely at a moment when i was in love with my life. I could have gone for a few months and come back to my apartment and my job, everything pretty much where I left it. But no. For reasons that were totally mysterious to me, I knew i wanted a clean break. I wanted to leave everything i cared about behind, as though i were in some kind of strange endurance test for the heart. I would just wing it, alone. Why?

Along the way, clues have appeared. A few weeks in, i came across this breathtaking phrase: “shatter my heart to make a new room for a limitless love.” I could feel the words sear into me—but couldn't explain why.

Recently, i noticed that I was intentionally breaking my own heart. I didn't want to shatter it perhaps, but wrench it, squeeze it, crush and stretch it. This is a painful enterprise and still, no idea why. In Cambodia, I got the answer.

Some background: I've always denied that we geminis have twin personalities but in my case i know i have a public side and private one. My public face is confident, independent, determined, capable. If you've ever had a work meeting with me, this would have been your impression of me. All bizness.

My private side is tender, kind and generous. I care passionately about intimacy, love, friendship and community. I dislike conflict. If I've ever kissed you on the cheek or listened attentively while you bare your soul, then this is side you saw (and were surprised by).

They're both fully me, one isn't more genuine. But after a lifetime of effort, I'm still uncomfortable with my feelings of affection and care. I still freeze up when my own friends tell me they love me. That's not what i want, not what I've spent all this time and effort working toward. No, I want to love more fiercely, more courageously, more tenderly. I want it the full experience.

I've found that heartbreak enlarges the heart. Makes it bigger and more compassionate. So without realizing what i was doing, i decided to break my heart by leaving all the things i absolutely adore—my friends, family, community, neighborhood, job, apartment—behind.

I would break my own heart till it cracked open.

Now I want to learn everything there is to know about love (seriously, send me your ideas) and I like that here I can practice far away from all of you. Private! Thousands of miles away! No one at home can see me telling a friend here that i love them. No one can see me being generous, open and welcoming. Or making a game out of finding nine new ways to love strangers, meditating toward compassion or thinking about this god-is-love idea. (The exception is my landlord. Ever since I had my first overnight guest, we have been engaged in a tense stand-off and have weekly sitcom-like fights in pidgin english!)

In a way, i am trying to prod myself into loving everyone, you included, more unreservedly (and how does that feel? i want to ask each of you). There's a lifetime more to learn about love. I guess I won't ever “arrive” (if I do, i'd be the Dalai Lama or Nelson Mandela, both who say they have no hate in their hearts). I'm always going to be confident, assertive and big. And I reserve my right to be difficult and selfish when the occasion requires it. That's me and I like me.

But I won't return home till...till when? When i can feel a shift in my heart. Till that other part of me is stronger and softer.

It's begun though, now that i think about it. The other night after reading “First they killed my father” about a girl's experience of the Cambodian genocide, I felt this powerful urge to call my dad and tell him how enormously important he is to me. I thought my gushing emotion seemed a bit odd and kept wondering if i was just premenstrual but now that i look at it, it is my experiment working it's magic. Success! I'm going to become the effusive and sentimental person i secretly am!
I can't wait.

I'm back in the Big Mango and had a great class today. In the last part of class, i often help students write out emails they want to send to their overseas boyfriend/financial supporter or help explain their boyfriend's emails to them. Today, i helped write a love letter and another reassuring a boyfriend that her text messages were just from customers, not other boyfriends. They especially liked my sign-off phrase:
“A thousand kisses,”

cg

Are You Happy? (or FAQ's, Round 2)

2008-05-06T16:59:00.006+07:00

hey all,
I'm heading to Cambodia for a week to check out Angkor Wat, Phnom Penh and renew my Thai visa. Likely going with my friend E. who lives across the hall from me (a young high-femme lesbian playwright from NYC. we trade dresses and gossip. I love my life.) Anyways, so i thought i would do another little round of FAQ's—the ones my friends ask me when they call.

Are you happy?
yes, very. I have a fantastic life in Bangkok. The longer i'm here the more fun, easy and relaxed it gets. I would live and work here again in a heartbeat.

Friends?
Yeah, really great ones. I've developed a few intensely loving friendships actually.

Romance?
Mmm, not unless you call the occasional debauched hook up, “romance”. And I don’t. The eeriest thing? I kind of don’t care about sex right now. Last night a friend tried everything to talk me into have a threesome with this really cute thai guy but i was tired and indifferent (been there, done that) so i just offered to watch. Instead I have fallen in crazy friend-love with a few of the kindred spirits i’ve met here. I am seriously passionate about these friends. I’m totally psyched about getting a (romantic) crush again someday but it might be a long while and that’s cool.

How come you decided to stop in Bangkok? i thought you were gonna travel around more?
Because i wanted to work with Empower and because i kind of hate “Tourism”.

What do you do all day?
Essentially i'm learning and having fun while leading a fairly pampered life.
Let me explain: Bangkok has enormous wealth disparities. A maid in Bangkok gets paid about $100/month (and has no labour rights whatsoever including a minimum wage) but if you need a new Valentino gown, you can just head downtown to one of the many luxurious Bangkok malls.

It's precisely this (totally gross, unjust and unecessary) disparity which allows me to live a comfortable life on just my savings. The huge working class are the reason for $1 noodle soups and fifteen cent bus fare (like i ever take the bus anymore) and the wealthy are why i can get imported chocolate at my overpriced grocery store and exercise in a well-equipped three-floor gym.

Like many westerners, i take a class leap in Bangkok. Most travellers get queasy when a Thai person describes them as “rich”. Like me, many scrimped and saved while working more than one job to get here, but once we're in Thailand, we are among the upper middle class, and we get to live large by Thai standards. We can blow $5 like it's nothing—and that's likely 5% of the monthly salary of the woman who did your laundry.

So once i got a handle on how to get around, it became a pretty easy life. And here's what i did with it today: i worked out at my fancy gym, got groceries at the overpriced store that has a salad bar (!!), gossiped with E. about our escapades last night, tried running errands but got stuck in traffic that was so bad, i had to give up, bail out of the cab and take the skytrain back home so i could be here in time for a scheduled telephone interview with with a few women who work at Can-Do Bar. That's the sex work bar owned and run collectively by members of Empower. I'm writing an article about Empower and the Can-Do for $pread magazine.

Later tonight i'm going to meet up with my friend V. at the city's hippest gay bar, conveniently located a few streets down from me. If it's a typical Bangkok night, plans will change every 45 minutes, i'll meet new people, get drinks at the 7-11 to avoid high drink costs and have fun till i hit the sack at about 4 or 5am.
(post script: yep, that’s what happened. Plus gay karaoke, street-side noodles at 2 am and a threesome. Very Bangkok.)

I write everyday, see friends, run errands, do a bit of work, ask a lot of questions, eat thai food. Easy.

What's Bangkok like?
True story: Bangkok is the kind of place where a queer girl can be lying on a stretcher about to get a colonoscopy and have a beautiful nurse in a precisely starched cap quickly and furtively hit on her while the doctor is out.
Nurse: So why are you in Bangkok?
Friend on stretcher: Oh well, to meet people and...
Nurse: Oh? (leans in and touches her hair) You're very beautiful. Do you like thai boys or girls?
Friend: uh, what...i, the doctor...?
(doctor comes in. Nurse quickly straightens and changes subject)

Oh Bangkok, so lovably unpredictable! Messy, fun, chaotic, open-hearted, smoggy, delicious, steaming hot, cheap and free-wheeling. From limbless beggars to office workers crowding the ad-hoc noodle-stalls at lunch. From noisy bars full of “sexpats” to robed monks shopping for electronics. The vibe of thailand is evidenced by its most famous phrase: “my pen rai”. No worries.

The three omnipresent sacred cows: nation, monarchy and religion. Flags, His Majesty the King on every building, buddhist amulets around every neck. Oh, and don’t search for art that is critical or irreverant toward the buddhism or the monarchy. You won't find it—it's illegal.

Informally though, the twin bangkok obsessions are eating and shopping. It's actually kind of a nightmare to be surrounded by cheap cute shoes, none of which i can wear (they stop at size 9. i'm a 10.)

Finally, a word on safety. Theft is an issue for but physical safety is not. I walk at night with less fear than I would in TO. Homophobia isn't an issue either.

What next?
Here in Thailand till early June when i head to Brisbane Australia. Probably 3 months there.

When are you coming home?
oh yeah, that. Well, remember how i said i'd be back in 6-12 months? That’s not going to happen. Don't fret—i'm coming home at some point, but i love this life and it's a big world. I'm thinking i will probably return sometime in 2009. ish.
That's why i so encourage folks to come visit me because i won't be in your parts of the world for a while.

(And then i'm going on a road trip through the southern states, focused on the history of the civil rights movement. But that's another story.)

ok, that's all for now. Love you, miss you. i'll let you know what Angkor Wat is like and all about the now-privatized Killing Fields (ewwww).

xo
cg

on love, laos and loneliness

2008-04-15T20:21:00.011+07:00

My internet situation is a nightmare so i hope my irritation at computers doesnt mar this posting. oh, and there wont be any apostophes throughout--not an option. Nor are images. And i can barely see the screen. But this is the best its gotten for a few weeks so im taking advantage of the opportunity (limited tho it is) to send a hello out over the ethernet.

Hello.

first: congrats to GFH on the feminist porn awards. yay! have heard many great things about this years awards and im so proud and excited for the gang! im so psyched to see it go in new directions with new ideas and energy. so cool.

Second: this is way too long. i should post more frequently but...see above re: internet. Just read it in little chunks over the next weeks and ill try to be a better blogger.

So: Im living in bangkok and have been for a few weeks. its a long story but i decided/was invited to stay here and work with Empower as an english teacher. i have a cheap micro-apartment in the finance district. Its 5 mins from the Empower office on Patpong 1--in the citys oldest sex tourist area. it is a typical working class apartment--one room, no kitchen. I am soooo happy having stopped in one place and am loving bangkok in all its crazy beauty.

Before I got here though, I spent nearly a month in lovely little Laos and then 10 days traveling with my dad and cousin Christie. First, Laos. next posting: more on thailand.

Because I didn’t know a thing about Laos before I arrived, finding this quiet, gorgeous green country felt like falling through a hole in the ground and into an emerald forest. Laos is small. 6 million people and almost totally un-industrialized. As in: rural villages with thatched homes, run by village headmen who are elected by all the village adults. Yknow i never expected a village headman to be a smiling, open-faced 25 year old guy in a sky blue polo shirt. that was the day we arrived at a wedding where I was asked...mmm, ordered is more like it, to dance with the wedding guests. i literally couldnt understand one godamned thing that was happening so I took a deep breath, danced and drank the rice-whisky.

Laos’ claim to (western) fame is being the target of the American *secret war* and having been the most bombed country ever. Most of the country consists of forested hills being burned to create rice paddies—and many old craters. It’s unbelievably beautiful. I never imagined I’d see anything like it.

Plus waterfalls, wonderful travellers who dont complain that no one speaks english (?!), green hills and rivers, little girls with roses in their hair, hand-made ice cream sold by a guy in a pith helmet on a bike, craters and caves used during the American war, the smell of slash and burn agriculture, insanely good baguettes, novice monks shyly practicing their english. and temples, temples, temples.

I kayaked through a river beneath limestone cliffs. I spent 3 days deep in rural countryside at a mining exploration camp where i walked in clouds and talked to one of Laos’ most powerful and wealthy men. His right-hand man who learned english in a thai refuge camp translated. We smiled politely across the vast cultural and linguistic differences. When any of the laos guys working there talked to me, it was a huge deal and the entire camp would watch. I had to get used to such an immense level of uncomfortable attention in Laos. I mean, im an extrovert but not an exhibitionist--id say i was uncomfortable about 95% of the time for my first couple months. Now in Bangkok, im down to about 50% of the time. But discomfort is just the name of this game so im getting used to it. Not only am i farang (foreign), im a solo female. i.e. unimaginably weird.

I got propositioned by the provincial minister of social services and labour over a game of Petanque (a french game akin to lawn bowling). I stumbled on this rad photo gallery where Lao young folks (apparently only hunky young dudes from the self-portraits i saw) are given cameras and photo training, something i really liked because Luang Prabang is carpeted with french tourists taking endless snaps of the "colourful" children, monks and hill tribe folks in the former french colony.

Jesus.

Oh funny story, i found god too. did i mention that part yet? um, yeah, i realized im more of a theist than i had thought.

AND I started meditating. wow, who knew? ok, half the world but still, its AMAZING. i dont know why i started really. I just did it on whim and to my suprise, i found it created this warm, loving, heart-opening sensation in me. huh! thats cool! In fact, one day, after an hour or so of sitting, i walked out onto the main tourist drag in Luang Prabang and thought "oh, these tourists are so cute in their funny hats, squinting in the sun!" Then i KNEW for certain it was having an effect. tourists are not that cute. Regardless, i noticed myself feeling compassionate toward a few of my fellow travellers who had been driving me crazy. Like, genuinely. I wasnt tolerating them, i was just able to love them for their humanness. And mine. Neato.

While in laos i coined the phrase Incredibly Authentic Experience With the Locals (IAEWtL) to describe the fetishistic way that travellers hunt down "the real laos" and then brag about it. When i had my own IAEWtL, i would often not tell other travellers because i cringed at the way these experiences were treated as trophies. But then sometimes i would casually pull one out and watch its impact on those around me. i felt devlishly hypocritical doing it but it was so hilarious to play with.

Ok, so back to love! My my, hasnt this been interesting. So in SE Asia, foreign dudes can prepare to be both hated and adored. As in, many thai guys resent them for obvious reasons while piles of lovely thai women are very, very happy to make their acquaintance.
And as for us foreign girls? um, well be over here in the corner for the REST OF OUR LIVES watching it all. Were not *invisible* per se but might as well be. So ive gotten fairly used to being stared at and knowing that no one will ever actually approach me--but neither will i be harassed. Just stared at. endlessly. In my time here ive seen thousands of foreign guy-thai women couples and TWO that were the reverse. It does. not. happen.

Which brings me to loneliness. In the past ive been unsure how loneliness feels. Is this it? is that? ha. now i know, oh, so intimately. Ive had lots of time to observe my own thoughts, mood and reactions and what ive noticed is that i take loneliness personally. i think its about me. i am doing something terribly wrong and thats why im alone.

Since i noticed this habit, its gotten better--i have more perspective and catch myself. but still, i had this awful night of sobbing for hours shortly after i settled here in bkk...and then its been better ever since. Now im fine. Im only here for another 6 weeks before i leave for cambodia and brisbane Australia. Not much more time really and ive made friends. its cool--but i have learned that landing in any new city can be brutal. try one with 10 million people where i dont speak the language, understand the culture or have any friends!

Ok, the other thing about my loneliness: no queers. There are tons of visible queers here. While Thailand still has its measure of homo and trans phobia (some of which is reported to be imported from westerners), queerness and gender variance is definitely more tolerated than it would be at home and seeing what we might call "gender queers" is a regular occurrence. the travel agent is a tom (what we might call butch), the woman running the internet cafe is trans, the boatman is a mincing flamer. its amazing. I gape in delight at gender expressions that would be met with outright violence in Canada.

But i have as yet to figure out how to actually meet and connect with the Bkk lesbian crew. i remain committed to finding a way to meet bkk queer women! I tried the one dyke bar with disastrous results. well not entirely. The FIRST time i went i ended up making out with a cute tom in the alley but the second time two women hit on me but they both had gfriends who, understandably, got really pissy and cold toward me. ugh. i felt terrible and weird about the whole thing as my status as a foreigner was clearly playing some role.)

oh, just got invited to go out dancing (by a tom--with guess what? a girlfriend!). Im debating (she might have cute friends OR ill end up in another totally awkward debacle involving a tom with a wandering eye for the ladies)

and hey, happy new year! thailand is on the buddhist calendar and today is day 1 of 2552. The city is involved in a massive water-fight. I havent left my house without getting soaked and covered in a white paste for days.

Next time: some fun stories about teaching! hanging with my family and elephants! and maybe pictures if all the computer gods will it to be so.

love,
cg

Empower! On sex work and stereotypes in Thailand

2008-03-13T20:46:00.008+07:00

I just came back from a month in amazing Laos but before I left for Laos I spent a week morning, noon and night (late night!) with the women of Empower in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I'll be hanging out/volunteering at the Patpong Empower office in Bangkok too. Here are a few stories.

Empower is the national organization by and for sex workers. Importantly they are not an ‘exit agency’ attempting to save women from sex work. They have offices in four cities and run their own sex work bar in Chiang Mai called Can-Do!

And they Can. And Do. They offer high school equivalency classes that are sensitive to sex workers and at times that workers can attend. They offer English classes to women who need it for working with foreign customers and Thai classes to migrant women who need it to work and survive in Thailand. And more! Safer sex materials, public education, political advocacy at local and national levels, they negotiate with workplaces directly for safer conditions and keep track of the appearance of any “locked in” brothels (aka trafficked women). In short, they do it all and I wanted to come to Thailand in part just so I could meet them and deliver a gift of 250 condoms donated by Good For Her and Maggies.

The night I arrived in Chiang Mai, I wished to the universe for a ride on one of the ubiquitous motobikes here. I didn’t know the answer to my prayers would come in the form of a big garrulous chain-smoking Aussie named Liz. Liz, with brown hair just past her chin and eyes that squint when she smiles. Liz is the one foreign member of the Empower organizing committee—she’s been with them for over a decade. She picked me up at 11:30 am on a Sunday and spent the next 12 hours talking sex work politix with me. A lot of what I learned in the next week was confidential so I will share just a bit of it here.

At 6:30 we went to a demo inside a temple to protest the detainment of Shan political prisoners in Burma (organized by the Shan women’s Action Network and Shan Youth Power). It was my first time at a demo 1. inside a temple, 2. involving monks offering prayers 3. shoes off (off course. No shoes ever in a temple).

Thai TV were there covering the demo as it was technically illegal—Thailand has been under martial law since the September 2006 coup. As we exit the temple carrying little candles, into the glare of the TV lights, Liz snorts “hope you didn’t want a visa for Burma! Ha!”.
Ha.
We walk three times around the temple’s stupa--it looks so lovely against the stars in the sky--before planting the candles on it with wishes for peace.

In Empower I see an organization with strength, size, success and solidarity that I have never witnessed in Canada. And in our endless conversation about thai politics it is clear to both Liz and I that one obvious reason for the difference is the lack of ego involved in Empower’s organizing. Empower has been around for over 20 years and no one has ever left in a blaze of recrimination or created a splinter group. They have no formal decision making process—no need for one. They have hundreds of members but no formal hierarchy. When funders ask about their structure, they draw a picture. One year it was a spiral. Another, a tree.

This is an organization so integral to Thai politics that after the coup, they were one of the organizations to address the 100,000 people who gathered at a demo in Lumphini park, Bangkok. Can you imagine any of this at home?

More than anything else their solidarity astounds me. They have a relentlessly “client-focused” approach. Nothing comes before the sex workers they serve and this shows in even the tiniest details. I amazed at their success and how little conflict they've experienced. When I mention this to Liz she says “we’re in a revolution, we haven’t got time for bullshit”

Oh yes, right. Bullshit. I see how ego (mine included) has divided much of the organizing I’ve been a part of. I’ve had a lot of time to observe my own ego--mostly with amusement and exasperation. After a long meditation one day in Laos, I see how my ego is like one of those bossy 8 year old girls I saw playing in a laos school yard. I expected to be humbled by this trip and in fact, I have been. My experiences are ordinary and predictable for a woman like me. I’ve read bestselling books, walked around confused, started meditating, found god in a bamboo shoot and realized that nature is like, really pretty. Amazing huh? Heaven forfend i should be just like everyone else.

I learned so much on just that first day that I went home and wrote 15 pages straight. I wrote about the end of trafficking in Thailand in 1996-7, on how male sex workers seduce foreign women, on volunteers-who-implode, on the human rights awards that Empower has been granted, working with the UN, how the sex work markets differ in various parts of Thailand, on political strategies and why strikes don’t work, on the law, pay ranges and more. 12 hours worth!

Over the next week I learn tons more from the workers themselves. I hang out all day at the drop in centre which feels like a beauty salon (and in fact it is: I got my hair dyed and finger nails done), I help with outreach on Valentine’s day going into the bars where the women work, I go out dancing with them at night, I sing karaoke at the Can-Do, I teach English and give a little sex seminar late one night with some of the most warm and gracious women I’ve ever met. It’s amazing.

Over the course of my week, so many of my expectations were blown away. Here is one of my favourites:
We were out one night at a dance club with many foreign men. Sex workers frequently work in regular bars and tonight my friends may or may not be working, depending on whether they see any clients they find desirable. So I ask P. if she thinks anyone at the bar is cute. Yes actually! She points to three young drunk English men, dancing terribly with their sunglasses on. Indoors.
Really?!
Yes, she nods enthusiastically.
Them?!
Yes!
Huh.

Another tells me she doesn’t like the young men, but prefers men with white hair. She points to an older guy, in his late 60’s sitting with a young thai woman. You mean the guys that everyone thinks are skeezy for hooking up with 20 somethings?
Yep. Him!
Huh. Well…Oh.

And I learn one of many Big Lessons: everyone is beautiful to someone. And that's a good thing. Did I think they were dragged into working with foreign men that they secretly disliked? Why—because that’s how I’d feel about these guys?

Over the course of the week, one stereotype after another bites the dust. Another of my Big Lessons was: Why Sex Tourism in Thailand is Perfectly Fine. Ask me if you wanna know more.

Within a few weeks I realize that relationships between Western men and thai and lao women that began through sex work are some of the most loving, happy and honest relationships I’ve ever seen. Not all of course! But wow, I can almost hear the bombs dropping on my stereotypes about Farang (Western) clients.

Speaking of bombs, eventually I have to leave the country in order to renew my visa so I head up to Laos for what was supposed to be a 2 day visa run in the world’s most heavily bombed country ever. For a few reasons, this turns into a month in lovely landlocked Laos. And that I think I will tell that story next time…

xo
cg
Oh, here’s a fun experiment! Tell someone (ANYONE) that you are working with a thai organization by and for sex workers. They will get this pitying look on their faces and say how generous you are because gosh, those sex workers really need help getting out. Say “why would they need to get out?” and watch them stumble over their words with shock. I have been doing a lot of my own “outreach” among the travellers on why sex workers in Thailand are doing just fine thank you very much. It’s my own little contribution and my ego loves it.

hey look! i'm famous (at least in regina). Interview on the Feminist Porn Awards

2008-03-14T22:37:00.005+07:00

Nikko Snyder of Briarpatch mag wrote this smart article about the Feminist Porn Awards. Big mango-sweet kudos to Nikko for initiating a conversation that simply assumes the legitimacy of sex positive feminism and then goes from there. Also, thank you to Tania A for the image.

I hadn't heard of BP before but they seem really rad.

And hey, y'all know the next awards are coming up right? Yes! check out this SUPER SEXY flyer! Damn that looks good.
xo
cg

bang! kok!

2008-02-25T11:06:00.003+07:00

Gang of believers,
Holy fuck, i'm in Bangkok.
After Atlanta Georgia, Richmond and Leesburg Virginia, NYC/Brooklyn, Ottawa and Vancouver, I flew to Hong Kong on Jan 15. There are a million things I could say but I wouldn’t know where to start so here's a bit of it.

1. Apparently it takes a village to move me out of my apartment. I was so touched by the incredible community support I got in getting ready to leave. I couldn’t name all the ways that folks helped: from a FULL day move to drives and DJ'ing and encouragement, support, advice and kisses. Mmm, kisses. Big, big love. I don't know what i did to deserve you all. I have a debt to my friends and community that i hope i can repay.

2. Hong Kong and Macau: butch extraordinaire Mais Lee is my hero. Mais and her family in HK took me in and then she gave me the royal tour of hong kong from shark fin soup to the top of a mountain to drinks overlooking a spectacular skyline and back alley night markets. Amazing. I got off the plane and hit the ground running. We spent 12 hours walking on my first day. (we figured i took every single form of transit available that first day). And eating, of course. Eating in both HK and bangkok is indescribable. Can i tell you what it feels like to bite into a small wrapped candy only to discover it is tuna flavoured? deliciously and viscerally disorienting. wonderful.

God, i don't even have time to describe my day of guns, sun and gambling in Macau. (i ended up hanging out with a bunch of european and korean guys shooting AK47 bb guns on the small island of Taipa. long story)

3. Bangkok.
The first leg where i am alone and it hit hard. I fell into this strange fog. It was as though a bell jar had descended over me and the old Chanelle was gone. In her place was someone timid, overwhelmed and confused. Me, timid. The first day I barely left my hotel room. I was thinking “hey! It’s Bangkok man! Get out there” but I could seem to go no further than about 6 blocks from my hotel. I slept anxiously for a good part of the afternoon.

Day 2, I managed to make it about 10 blocks from my hotel but still not enough to see or do any of the things on my list. Just accomplishing basic tasks like eating and staying hydrated seemed to consume all my energy. When I thought about taking a bus somewhere, let alone a river taxi, I wanted to cry.

Like everyone, I feel all sorts of fears and anxieties all the time. But I rarely bother to heed them because worry is just a way my mind keeps busy. It's rarely an indication of real danger. This was different. As i wrote in my journal on my second day "I can't believe how insurmountably difficult everything seems...I have no confidence here. Huh. That's kind of cool actually." It was interesting to me, to see myself afraid. I felt like I got to understand more about fear and what it feels like. Mostly I didn't resent it--i just figured i'd hang out with the feeling til it changed.

And then yesterday (day 3), it did. About half way through the day, on the river bus (which I took in the wrong direction naturally), I suddenly woke up. I realized that I was perfectly capable of getting around and taking care of myself. I was going to be fine.

From that moment I was able to jump in with both feet: I waded across 12 lanes of traffic to find the temples, took river taxis all over, jumped on the skytrain out to a lovely park for some respite from Bangkok’s heat and smog and finally spent nearly 3 hours on a public transit odyssey out to the outer edges of the city to get a bus ticket outta here. It was a hilariously challenging expedition--the station had moved and entire families were trying to help me find it, calling their brothers and the station to no avail. But i was delighted. It didn't matter how long it took or how many times i backtracked past the smirking street vendors trying to find the right stop. I was myself again--curious, fearless and ready to go.

The fear might have been due to just simple disorientation. I've learned alot, fast. How to eat (use your fork as an implement to push food onto a spoon. Forks do not enter the mouth), how to sit at a temple (never point feet at Buddha), how take a bus (doors are in the middle of the bus, an attendant will come get your fare, the Stop Request button is on the ceiling), how to introduce myself (prayer-like hand position. Touch nose to fingertips) and how to find my way around a notoriously confusing city (directions will often refer to a street then say “turn left at the coffee shop, then right, left, left”. Many streets are unnamed or inconsistently named so they don't even bother) and so on. So, with that hard-won bus ticket, i am off tonight on an overnight bus to a tiny island in the south. Not sure for how long. i *may* do a 10 day silent retreat at a buddhist centre that begins on Feb 1. I'll let ya'll know. i'll save my thoughts on being a farang in thailand (farang=westerner) and about the sex industry as i have seen it, for later.
xo
cg
ps oh! and btw, totally cute thai butch dykes here!

the island

2008-02-25T21:06:00.006+07:00

All,
I never quite know where to start...I can feel my insides changing--maybe from the permanent smog or maybe from the way my mind is being blown. I've been in the norther thai town of Chiang Mai for a few days hanging out with the women of Empower (the thai sex workers organization) and am in *total awe*. Developments a'happenin' but that's for later.

For now I want to talk about "the island" and about beauty. I was not looking for the perfect beach. I don't tan or do beach things. Lounging is not my style. Plus I think it's annoying how western tourists are always looking for that perfect undiscovered beach and then complain about how much they've all been ruined by the other tourists. It's as though they feel that Thailand owes them--and only them--their postcard version of the country. Pah. But well, i'm in a place who's natural beauty is legendary so I figured i should at least have a look! I would do my best to avoid the dumb party scene and find something quiet. I asked around, got some recommendations and then, what the fuck? An actual island paradise presented itself.

Koh Chang (there are two islands with the same name--i went to the one no one has heard of). Koh Chang has no electricity except for a few hours from a generator for the restaurant, otherwise, lit only by the sun or our trusty flashlights, required for walking home along dirt paths after sunset. No tv, air con, internet, phones, cars, roads, loud music or motos. I walked 90 mins inland to get to a store that sold me the pair of flip flops i'm wearing today.

I lived in a bamboo hut (or "bungalow" as they are called) in the trees over looking the blue-green Andaman sea for 2 weeks. Every day i swam, played in the waves at sunset, played beach volley ball (seriously) or did yoga, read in my hammock, ate, walked, wrote and hung out with travellers, many of whom were long termers, spending months or years on Koh Chang and spoke thai.

I awoke to birds in the trees every day. I saw how a spider's eyes create a diamond-like refraction at night. I played with the cook's cute-baby-fat kids at every meal and got to know Ton, Fon and Sunny who run Crocodile Rock Bungalows.

On my first day on Koh Chang i showered (using rain water) in the thatched open-roof shower. The sun streamed down on me, dappling through the trees. I noticed a couple of orchid plants on either side of the shower and started to laugh a little. The beauty was so over the top it seemed almost comical. But the laugh caught in my throat and became a choked sob. Beauty on this scale is a visceral experience. Pictures do not prepare you for it, i can assure you. It encompasses everything--from the phosporescent lights in the sea at night that create comets of sparkles to the sky packed dense with stars all visible because of the total night-time darkness. Believe it or not, on my first night there, i even saw a shooting star.

Seriously, you can't make this shit up. I was gaping up at the sky with this german boy i was minutes away from having a fling with and we both saw it. When we returned to the little open-air restaurant that served our bungalows, one staff person was still around--Sunny. He played us Burmese songs on his acoustic guitar and showed us card tricks--all without a single word of shared language--in the total silence of the island. Crazy.

After i got used to mind-boggling beauty surrounding me, i was lulled me into a sort of complacent stupor. Doing 3 things in a day seemed plenty (wash clothes in bucket, go to yoga, play in waves). Hard life. But i got terribly lonely with only german tourists around! They were my only company till i met Mayyasa.

Phew. thank god for Mayyasa, a british (well, Syrian-East german but born in london) documentarian. She was walking down the beach (the only one on it i might add. of course--you must have guessed that the beaches were huge and empty too right?) one morning and might as well have had "LESBIAN" tattooed on her foreheard. I flagged her down and insisted we have dinner. Until 2 days ago when i met the women of Empower, she was the only person i'd met since i left Hong Kong that i felt i could really be open and relaxed with. Otherwise, western tourists are mostly really fucking boring people (and say racist things All. The. Time.)

After 2 weeks both Mayyasa and i left Koh Chang and we spent 2 days running errands and nearly getting killed by a motorbike in bangkok. Chatting in our little flea pit hotel room in bkk about Koh Chang, she mentioned how the beauty had brought her to tears. We talked about how we'd never expected that beauty could have such a powerfully emotional impact (grief? from a beach? wha?). We made rough plans to meet up again on the road and i'm really hoping the timing works out.

Ok, i'm going to get my hair dyed and finger nails painted by Fon at the Empower drop-in centre. I'm learning so much from them so fast that i drop with exhaustion every night and am writing heaps and heaps. Promise more details later.
I miss you all (tho i do not miss TO).
xo
chanelle
p.s. no pics yet. too much trouble to load! but i will eventually. plus, if you want to see what i described above, then come! Did i mention that my bamboo bungalow cost $6/night? Ton can be reached at tonn1970@yahoo.com tho he only checks email 2/month.