Another Explanation for My Kids

Several years ago I wrote this letter to my daughters. I know they haven't read it.

Like many people in our culture (including myself) they don't often have the patience to listen to an explanation or even ask for one.

And, of course, I do understand that an old, chunky mother is embarrassing enough, even without parading her weirdness and nakedities around town and social media! They're also irritated, no doubt, by the thought that I might have a good reason.

Recent #uglydancing. My upcoming Victoria Fringe show is entitled Naked Ugly Dancing.

Now they are 10 and 15 and, even though I think it's still a pretty good letter, I'm going to attempt to add to the explanation.

I got Stage 4 cancer almost 2 years ago. I was really overwhelmed by a lot of things but especially working as a university instructor. I think that made me get really sick. For me, as a teacher, it was important to share certain understandings about how humans need to think differently. But I made people afraid. No one was interested in supporting me or willing to believe I had good reasons. (Does that sound a little familiar? Haha!)

An example of a difficult thing to learn that you might recognize is how in your schools you have learned about residential schools and how our Canadian government and churches hurt First Nations children very badly and caused harms to First Nations people that continue. For instance, many of those children who grew up abused have turned to addiction and abuse themselves; and, because the children were forced to speak English or French, many First Nations languages have been lost.

This is very difficult for us to understand. Because we want to trust our government and our country. We want to believe that everyone gets the chances we get.

The problems in our world are caused, in many ways, by what people believe. So when we believe we have a trustworthy country, for example, we might not look to see things that happen that are actually very harmful.

Or we might blame another group for those harms.

Unfortunately, the way we live and believe in richer countries like Canada is the cause of most of the difficulties on earth... like global climate change, poverty, weapons, war, etc. 

One example is shopping and poverty. We get many things like clothes and toys and food and things for our house. Almost everything we buy involves people in poorer places being paid very little to make it or grow it or dig up the materials for us. 

This example is very tough to swallow. Because we need some of that stuff and because our society expects us to look or live a certain way. We are pretty stuck. And there are many more examples that show how we are stuck. Another is how we need to drive but we don't want oil (which needs to be sent all over the world so people can put gas in their cars and heat their homes) to pollute our oceans and land.

I think that's why people want to believe we are nice and don't want to look at how not nice we are. Because in a way, we are not being un-nice on purpose. We are in a culture and a system that surrounds us and no one can just step out of it.

So, one of the reasons I do what I do, is to make people think about what "is normal."

I have started to do ugly dancing in the street and for my upcoming fringe show because I think of it as a kind of action to create healing. I'm dancing out some of the ugliness. For the health of our culture and my body.

I also think of it as a cultural antidote. An antidote is something that removes poison. So if there is some not nice stuff going on but people aren't seeing it, maybe doing something the opposite of normal can help remove some poisons. 

One thing about our culture that is interesting is that when women aren't young anymore, they are considered ugly. But I'm not poisonous. I'm a caring, loving person. I'm a wise person. I'm a person who shouldn't be ignored.

So if I show up as an "ugly" dancer on the street, I am doing something very non-harmful and expressive. Why should that be a problem?

A lot of my performance art is about giving people the opportunity to question their beliefs.

It's embarrassing for me too. You have no idea. But, as I've tried to tell you guys, some things are more important than embarrassment.

Self-loathing, stuck, no pregnant HBP events

Some good news. It's started to sink in that I'm getting a beautiful baby at the end of this ordeal. (A girl according to the ultrasound). I'm also sort of better at being sick. A little tiny bit more accepting that this is simply how it is. If I want to read frickin mystery books to cope, well then I'll read frickin mystery books (I recommend Ian Rankin, Dan Fesperman and Peter Robinson... any other suggestions are welcome.)

I have been a cow to my husband, though. This is what has also sunk in: I have deep unresolved feelings of self-loathing. They don't come from a rational place but from a deep, unreachable place that seems to reemerge as I go along; sort of a two steps forward, one step back kind of thing (or God, I hope the resulting movement is forward. I do look back on my life and see some sort of progress but where I am today looks distressingly stuck and fucked up). I have been working on peeling this onion for years. And, I suppose, to extend the metaphor, as you get closer to the centre the layers get more crowded and more difficult to peel away.

Anyway, my current bout of self-loathing spills over into my relationship with Dave. Anything I see in him that reminds me of my shit irritates the hell out of me, I guess because he's handy. This is the poor shmuck who is compassionately looking after his sick, pregnant wife. I am not proud of myself; in fact I know I'm a big asshole. The guy definitely deserves better and I did mention he could take his love to town, though decent fellow that he is, he still comes home at night.

Self-loathing, where does it come from? I saw another energy-worker/healer lady last week (Who knew there were so many in this backward, conservative little city? I have continued to consult with many practitioners of different healing modalities including the more mainstream ones; to what avail I am uncertain). She felt that I had a past life that was interfering with this one and worked on clearing that energy.

I am not overly invested in past life theories but I have often thought that the pain I've suffered in this life seems out of proportion to what I have lived. I do believe in the idea of karma, not just what goes around comes around, but that you are born into this world with what I call gunk (or old energies).

Oh my God, the gunk that is still attached to me! The self-loathing is just there. I can intellectualize all I want about how unworthy I am for such harsh treatment but it's just there like grotesque goop attached to my skin. Like I said, you can peel that onion but there are so many layers. It does feel like I must be closer to the centre, though, because there are just so few breaks lately.
I used to deal with my gunk by drinking, binging, antidepressants, etc., now I use mystery books. This is part of the excellent progress to which I refer. I'm still stubborn enough to think that those old ways hindered more than helped my progress (and, more to the point, they all stopped working) but I wish I had something stronger than mystery books to put me out of my misery for a while. Anyone know an exorcist?

(I also believe that while we allow other people to be less than and while so many people in the world are so lost, none of us can really be completely okay. And maybe that's the human condition, but what a stupid fucking condition, if I may just opine about it briefly.)

Another thing: I'm 45, as of a couple of weeks ago. I want to believe that getting older does not have to mean getting weaker but it seems that in my continuing gunkiness, I am just not as resilient to life on earth as I was when I was younger. If I am lucky enough to shed some of this deep karmic goop, I think I might be able to achieve health, old or not. Since I have been consciously working on this since the early 90s, the jury's way out on that ever happening.

I also know that every pregnancy differs. I was old for a pregnant lady (39 and 40) during my last one too but I felt better during that pregnancy than I had in years--it really was a miraculous break from the gunk. I so looked forward to that experience again. Disappointment.

I am stuck, stuck, stuck. Needless to say, doing a pregnant Human Body Project event is the last thing on my mind. The Human Body Project right now is me growing a baby and occasionally writing about what I'm going through. I can't work myself up to care about doing another event even though I know using my pregnant body would be powerful. I just can't do it (unless some huge shift occurs soon... unlikely). It's been very difficult, however, to say I'm not going to do it. I'm really having a hard time letting myself off the hook.

So I'll say it: Barring some huge shift in my health situation, there will be no pregnant Human Body Project event. Also, whatever the Human Body Project is or will become, besides this blog, is unknown. Same goes for me, I suppose.

The Bully Within (still swearing)

To refer to a few blogs ago, I know I did say bring it on and another time I imparted that I had some understanding that my sickness is related to old, fucked up beliefs. So here I am a whole consecutive month into feeling like complete shit and what can I say? If I could run, I would. I'm not actually noble about healing. (People used to always comment on my restricted diet or my doing yoga--both of which I no longer bother with--like I was somehow virtuous; here's the big secret: I JUST WANT TO FEEL BETTER). But there's nowhere to run and I do still believe that my sickness is evidence of my dysfunctional belief system or, another way of putting it, holding onto past energy.

(Betty, the healer, says that babies are very pure energies so the pure energy of the growing baby is pointing out to me where my own energy is still stale and stuck.)

So I was being very hard on myself for NOT FIGURING IT OUT. And I was very angry with myself for CREATING MY OWN SICKNESS because I do believe that on a spiritual level that is what I am doing. Needless to say, this attitude has not helped me.

My name is Tasha and I am a fucked up human being. I've always thought support groups like AA and OA need to evolve. It's not about alcohol or overeating. Those are definite outward signs of trouble but hanging onto that idea of addiction is very limiting. What caused the addiction in the first place? It's about not being able to love ourselves. Not in the shallow Oprah sense of getting a nice dress and going to a spa and deciding he's not that into you. In a deep, compassionate sense. You have to be the Mother Teresa (or at least the popular image we have of her not the Christopher Hitchens version) to yourself, no matter how actually or metaphorically smelly or deformed you are.

I struggle with loving this person who is me. I have come to a realization that I will never heal without loving myself the way that I love Claire, for instance. So for starters I am letting myself off the hook for not yet having a conscious understanding of why I get so sick. I am trying to stop bullying myself and letting myself be more gentle to this sick and troubled person who is me. I am open to letting insight arrive whenever it does and not telling myself it's all my fault and I SHOULD be smarter. Healing has to be gentle and respectful (hence the fucked-upness of the medical system).

I've been vaguely, though painfully, following news of Lebanon this last week or so. More bullying tactics. More violence. When has it ever solved anything? In my own little microcosm of misery, it sure isn't working.

Honestly, I don't know if it is doable, this loving myself thing. It's just that I know of no escape from the pain of this route except suicide and that's not a choice I desire to make. So on I plod.