I’m currently in the Self-Expression and Leadership Program, the third and final course in Landmark’s curriculum for living. The main focus of the program is to create a project that inspires you and has an impact in one of your communities or the world in general. They encourage you to think big and take on something unlike anything you’ve ever done before.
I looked at the communities in my life and I really struggled to find something where I could do a big project. There were some obvious things that I was probably going to do anyway, but nothing that really jumped out at me and lit me up.
Then it hit me. Single mothers are really important to me as they have had a big impact in my life. I wanted to do something that would empower, recognize and perhaps even aid them. Then I thought about how much I love movies. So I decided that I would enlist 10 women filmmakers to contribute or create a short 5-20 minute film on a subject that empowers women. The idea would be to have a screening at the Alamo Drafthouse. So the project would end up empowering and recognizing the filmmakers and single mothers as well.
I need to see if there are any sort of national organizations that somehow benefit or provide aid for single mothers. And I need to start talking to filmmakers, women’s groups and the like.
And I need a good name for the project.
Tags: family, Jess, Landmark, Something Real
I had issues that I had given up hope on get resolved during the Advanced Course.
We were doing an exercise where we examined an aspect of our life where things just weren’t working out. We cast our memory back to early instances where we noticed that we felt like something was wrong and we had changed our behavior to compensate. My area had to do with how I behave when I feel that I have failed/disappointed/hurt a woman in some way. Somehow this has become the worst thing in the world and I feel horrible if I let a woman down.
At first, my earliest memory had to do with the time I decided to make my mom happy by taking out the garbage unasked. She had always wanted me to do more chores around the house, so I thought this would be a nice thing to do. As it turns out, for whatever reason, she had left the garden hose in the bottom of the garbage can and it got taken away when the garbage truck came. She scolded me, telling me “That was a perfectly good garden hose you threw out!” So I learned that, despite my good intentions, I was never good enough for a woman to approve of me and I carried that with me in life.
But then, an earlier memory opened up like a forgotten door. There are whole years of my childhood memories that are just blank and dark. This was a memory before that time.
I was however old I was when I was in kindergarten (I have a problem with tracking time). I had been put in a small, dark shed next to one of the neighbor’s houses. I was sitting on a wooden chair, maybe tied to it. There was someone else in a chair next to me. A boy, I think. There were two older girls there, one of which was my neighbor. I remember being told to stay quiet as they peeked out the crack in the door. My neighbor’s face moved in towards mine, filling my vision and then everything went dark. I have no idea what happened. I just remember having a crush on her and thinking it was important to impress her and do what she wanted. From that point on, I was attracted to girls and women who had a facial resemblance to her. If they were older than me, that was even better. There is nothing wrong with this attraction. It simply is. But that experience was ground zero for my behavior towards all women in my life since then.
I had speculated for a long time about what may have generated certain relationship issues and challenges in my life. I say “challenges” to protect my family, but some of you know what I mean. This insight tied so many issues together, it was indeed a missing piece of the puzzle and I cannot express the kind of freedom I feel having faced it.
Tags: Jess, Landmark, reft
This is pointless.
I never really said goodbye.
On this birthday I will be reborn.
Tags: Jess, Life
Tonight I found myself sitting in the outdoor yard of a coffee house called the Irie Bean, listening to a singer-songwriter open mic and reflecting how life seemed completely transfigured from a few weeks ago. I had decided to demand more out of my life and to just make the things I wanted to happen happen. Breaking camp and moving to some foreign locale is not a trivial matter. For a long time I had been anchored by the perceived weight of all my possessions and responsibilities. And I did feel the weight of all my worldy possessions, now stripped of function, cargo that took up space. In Gibson’s “Pattern Recognition”, the protagonist Casey travels the world unfettered, needing only a laptop, a credit card plugged into some deep corporate account, and a leather jacket. Somewhere, offstage, is an apartment that perhaps contains a couch. That lifestyle has a great attraction to me. Sometimes I just want to Go and everything not attached to me seems like a net.
I have ready answers for people who ask why I up and moved to Austin. They are of course true answers, but they are not the real answer. I shouldn’t need an answer at all. I am free and I am flowing. I moved because I wanted to and because I had already left. I moved because I loved someone so much that it eclipsed everything else and I couldn’t tell what love was anymore, like staring into the sun and seeing a sun everywhere I looked.
And I needed to remind myself about what I could do. This is what is possible when I don’t take “no” for an answer.
Tags: Austin, Jess
I wanted so badly
somebody other than me
Staring back at me
but you were gone
I wanted to see you walking backwards
And get the sensation of you coming home
I wanted to see you walking away from me
Without the sensation of you leaving me alone
Time and time again
Time and time again
Time and time again
I can’t please myself
I wanted the ocean to cover over me
I wanna sink slowly without getting wet
Maybe someday I won’t be so lonely
And I’ll walk on water every chance I get
Time and time again
Time and time again
Time and time again
I can’t please myself
So when are you coming home, sweet angel?
You leaving me alone? all alone?
Well if I’m drowning, darling, you’ll come down this way on your own
I wish I was traveling on a freeway
Beneath this graveyard western sky
I’m gonna set fire to this city
And out into the desert we’re gonna ride
Time and time again
Time and time again
Time and time again
I can’t please myself
I can’t please myself
I can’t please nobody else
- Counting Crows
Tags: Albuquerque, Jess, music
The stream of time hit a nexus and, like an arrow striking ice, it splintered into five possibilities. I slipped into the most difficult crack, the choice hardest to make.
Like the Cylons, I have a plan.
And I am so sorry, my friends. I’m so sorry.
I must raze Caprica and follow the Eye of Jupiter.
Tags: Albuquerque, Austin, Jess, Life
I never thought I’d end up here
I never thought I’d be standing where I am
I guess I kind of thought it would be easier than this
I guess I was wrong now one more time
Cause I tried to climb your steps
I tried to chase you down
I tried to see how low I could get down to the ground
I tried to earn my way
I tried to change this mind
You better believe that I tried to beat this,
So when will this end
It goes on and on
And over and over and over again
Keep spinning around I know that it wont stop
Till I step down from this for good
“Sick Cycle Carousel”
- Lifehouse
Tags: Jess
On a whim, I decided to map out my current social network. It illustrates the chain of circumstances responsible for my current relationships.
As you can see, this is all Jodi’s fault.
Click on the image for the full view.
Tags: Albuquerque, Cathy, college, Jess, Life, poetry
Thanks again, xkcd.
Tags: Jess, Life, webcomics
It’s a new world. The one where you didn’t die. But you still can’t see me. You can’t know who I am while you are alive. But it’s me that’s moving. The river can wash me away if I stand in the right place. I don’t have to do any of this any more. I can go. I thought that *I* was almost done, that *I* could go away. Now everything has changed. The world is still heading towards the grim meathook future, but its because everyone wants it to. There is no They who are getting away with it. It’s everyone who is in love with despair and complaining and worry. They are the ones taking this world away. Because it can change if you want it badly enough. I’ve seen it. It doesn’t have to be this way, but all the despair has such a strong gravitational pull, more and more paths are pulled through that one tunnel. I wish they could see it, the strands circling, the nodes where moments intersect, the path breaking away from the car crash, the path where the finger slides off the button.
Tags: Be Part of the Solution, Jess, New World Order
