Respect for Boundaries

My boundaries tend to stretch and bend and break and disappear far too often. I make an exception here and an allowance there. I give in when I should stand firm and I stand too firm when I should be flexible. Still they are my boundaries to set. They are my boundaries to break or bend or erase. No one else has the right to interfere with my boundaries... No one...

Right now a lot of attention highlights what appears to be a worldwide epidemic of rape. As I think about it, I wonder if perhaps it's more of the world coming out of a deep slumber that blinded us to the truth of the pervasiveness of violence against women.

I hear a lot of excuses for rapists and a lot of blame cast on the victims  aka survivors. Talk has turned to prevention with the usual camp of people telling us how women can avoid getting raped and very little discussion about teaching boys/men not to rape...

And, yet, I find myself pondering the idea that perhaps the real problem lies someplace deeper and more insidious in our society. Perhaps the real problem is we don't teach respect for boundaries. We don't teach humanity. We don't teach equality. We don't teach basic respect.

The reality is rape doesn't happen because a girl wears the wrong clothes, goes to a party, has a drink, or makes the wrong friends. Rape happens because a boy/man uses sex as a weapon to assert his control over a girl/woman. Rape isn't about a misunderstanding or a miscommunication. Rape is about control. Rape is about an unearned sense of entitlement. Rape is about a culture that teaches that girls should be "a little weak when they speak" to paraphrase Madonna's What It Feels Like for a Girl and that real men "take what they want" no matter what. And, still, it all comes back to a total lack of respect for boundaries and other people.

If we teach boys to see girls as people rather than something to conquer or a quest to complete, we teach boys to accept no for an answer without the implication their manhood is somehow in question.Seriously, let's be really clear here, real men take "no" for an answer with pride.

When the news bemoaned the ruination of the futures of the boys who committed the Stuebenville rape, I sat agape. Seriously? They ruined their victim's life and in the process ruined their own lives. They must take responsibility for that. They are not victims. They are rapists aka criminals. Rapists are criminals. We need to be clear on this.

I realize that men and boys are also victims of rape, but men are the more often than not those committing this crime even against one another.

So what if we changed what we teach? What happens if we teach boys to respect boundaries? What happens if we teach boys that being a man isn't about conquest and control? What happens if we teach boys that girls are their equals?

What happens if we teach girls to respect boundaries including their own? What happens if we teach girls that being a woman doesn't mean making men happy? What happens if we teach girls they are equal to boys?

What happens if we teach boys and girls alike that "no" is a perfectly acceptable response that should always be honored, that a lack of response doesn't mean "yes", and that only an explicit "yes" means "yes"?

What happens if we treat people as people first and as their gender second? What happens if we decide the roles of yesterday don't have to be the roles of today? What happens if we teach the importance of boundaries and limitations to boys and girls?

Yet, I find myself pondering how women and men who don't understand how to manage their own boundaries can teach boys and girls to set and control theirs. Yet, all we can do is our very best to teach what we're still learning ourselves.

If challenging our current attitudes leads us to a society where rape and violence declines, I can't see how that's a bad thing...

Here are my boundaries... If I decide to move them, that's my decision, not yours...

Exploring Inner Strength

As I look through my poetry, I'm amazed at how often the theme of strength threads through my poems. I'm constantly reminded that I am, in fact, stronger than I realize. In the course of my life, I've faced my weaknesses and hid from my weaknesses. I've faced my strengths and hid from my strengths
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I've been blind to both my strengths and my weaknesses. I've allowed others to commandeer my strength and take advantage of my weaknesses. I've willingly given up my strength because I thought it better for others. I've hidden my strength in the depths of my mind and the recesses of my heart.

I've been conquered and I've conquered. I've been victim and victor. I've been weak and strong.
As I read my poems, I often discover things I've forgotten or denied about myself.

It wasn't until I decided to embrace my own strength and stop looking for strength from outside sources that I discovered true strength.

I don't need to be saved from myself. I don't need to be saved at all. I am enough as I am. I am not perfect, but perfection is overrated anyway. I'd rather be scarred and bruised than weak.

I've learned there's more strength in vulnerability than there is in a facade of toughness.

As I explore my journey to find and secure my inner strength, I'm reminded how many people, especially women, follow a similar journey. As women we're often taught that our strength needs to be tempered in order to not offend the men in our lives. In tempering our strength, we learn to accept behavior and attitudes from others that is less than we deserve. We are taught to not voice our opinions, needs, desires, thoughts with authority in order to make the men in our lives feel better about themselves. We're taught to bolster the egos of others even if they beat us into the ground. We're taught that we're responsible when others mistreat us. We're taught it's better to be weak than to offend someone else.

If we're lucky there comes a times in life when we learn those teachings are wrong, and we refuse to be less than we are for anyone or any reason.

When we embrace our inner strength, we learn to be responsible for our own behavior and hold others accountable for theirs without sacrificing ourselves. In the process, we learn that to survive is not enough, and we seek to thrive.

Amazing how the words we write reveal us to ourselves...

My forthcoming collection of poetry, Strength in Silhouette explores my journey away from and back to my inner strength.

Reading During Poets at the Playhouse

I recently read four of my poems during Poets at the Playhouse Hosted by Ariel at Brush Creek Playhouse in  Silverton, Oregon. You can watch me read any or all four poems, The Bird Judges Not, Bleeds, Music in My Heart, and Our Game.

Take To the Dance Floor on Dear Teen Me

My Freshman
Snowball Dance

Some time ago I read a letter on Dear Teen Me posted by an author friend. Then I read some of the other letters on the page. I loved the idea of Dear Teen Me, and I wanted to participate; however, I had no idea what to say. I asked myself repeatedly what I would say to my teenage self if given the chance. Nothing felt quite right, so I kept procrastinating contacting Dear Teen Me to participate. I wrote a poem to my nieces, but it didn't fit the vibe I felt at Dear Teen Me. Finally, in March, I wrote a poem called "To My Teenage Self" and decided maybe writing a letter just wasn't the way to go for me. Perhaps the letter needed to be in form of a poem. I contacted Dear Teen Me, and they offered me a slot for today. I wasn't happy with "To My Teenage Self" but one line in it stood out to me. I used that line to write a new poem based on an actual experience. That poem appears on Dear Teen Me today, April 22, 2013.
So please check out Take To the Dance Floor on Dear Teen Me! Then take a moment to check out some of the other letters!
I'm so honored to be included in this project!

Trashing Other Authors

There's a reason I don't trash other authors' work. Actually, there are many reasons, but they build out of the one. The only point I can see to trashing another author's work is to make one seem superior whether to one's self or others or both.

Today I witnessed an exchange that bothered me immensely. A published author trashed another author's work on Facebook. Now, the "trasher" didn't name names or give a title, but he used an excerpt from the book. Here's the problem with that. I could go through just about any book I've ever read and carefully select a few passages to make the author sound like a dolt, a hack, or someone trying too hard. It really isn't that hard to do. Conversely, I could go just about any book and hand pick a few passages to the make the author sound like a genius. That's the nature of writing. People have different styles. That doesn't make one style better than another.

The conversation took the inevitable turn where someone suggested it must have been a self-published book. It wasn't. The book was published by Ballantine, a well known traditional publisher. Upon my last check, neither the "trasher" nor anyone else participating in the conversation had bothered to point this out. I guess those who looked it up thought it better to let the "must have been" linger out there than to clear up the misconception. Sure, I could've posted the information, and perhaps I should have. I excused myself from doing so with the excuse, perhaps lame, that I didn't want embroiled in the conversation because I found the entire exchange distasteful.

When an author trashes another author's work, the "trasher" is fairly akin to being a gossiper. I'm not talking about giving a book a fair review, but just trashing other authors' work based on what appears to be a passage or two. Let's be clear, this wasn't a book review by any means. It was posted as an example of bad writing.

People have different tastes, and an author can alienate a reader when they vehemently trash an author the reader enjoys reading. That reader may never try the trasher's work after reading his/her disdain for another author's work. Perhaps the trasher doesn't care...

As a reviewer I find this a fine line to walk. I like to review books I enjoy to share them with potential readers, and I rarely post truly bad reviews. I may post a less enthusiastic review for a book I didn't particularly enjoy than for one I loved, but to out and out trash a book or an author just isn't my style. In writing a review, I will point out what I see as flaws with the book while being careful to acknowledge things that are about my taste preferences rather than factual flaws. The reader reading my review may genuinely like the thing that annoys me. It's not my place to judge the reader for his/her taste or the author for his/her style.

As an author, I accept the fact that not everyone is going to like my work and some will hate it. Others will judge it before they ever read a word. I also know my work is never perfect. Even when I release it, I'm wondering if maybe just maybe that other word might have worked better in that one passage or if maybe I should do just one more read through just in case. No matter how many people tell me it's ready, it's good enough, there's always a sentence, a word, a comma, a period I could change.

As a reader, I've never read a perfect book no matter who wrote it or published it. I always find some small phrase that doesn't quite work or reads a bit pretentious or a bit passive in a book. Sometimes the flaw lies in punctuation or spacing. There's always something somewhere in the book that is just slightly imperfect.

At the end of the day, as soon as we pass judgment on another person, we invite judgment to be passed on us. So I have to wonder if the authors participating in the conversation feel their work is above such reproach and judgment. I've now lost interest in reading the books by the authors involved in the conversation, so I guess I'll never know if their work is above the judgment and reproach they leveled on the other author...

Me to Tell Me

Comment: "What I like matters, too."
Question "Did you really need me to tell you that?"

Reply "Nope, I needed me to tell me that."

The words rolled off my tongue easily, but I felt strange saying them. I'd prepared myself to declare the importance of what I like, but I hadn't anticipated the response or my response to the response. And, I realized it was true.

As the words left my mouth and lingered in the air - and were answered with silence, I stood and reflected on them for a minute. As a matter of fact, they stayed with me the rest of the night. I ended up writing the following poem.

“I needed me to tell me”

The words surprised me

When I heard them come from my mouth

The truth of them

Stopped me mid-step

Threw me off-balance

Left me speechless

For a second

I stood still in my thoughts

Realized I announced aloud

That I refuse to need permission

From anyone but me

For my likes

For my wants

For my needs

For my desires

For my loves

For my likes

For my life

In that moment I embraced

That I don’t need nor do I want

External permission or approval

I really only need

Me to tell me

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how often I've relegated my life to others, not intentionally, of course, but as an attempt to keep peace or find a compromise.

When we stop granting ourselves permission to live, we stop living. When we stop granting ourselves permission to play, we stop playing. When we stop granting ourselves permission to have pleasure, pleasure disappears and takes desire right along with it. When we stop granting ourselves permission to like the things we like because someone else might not, we stop liking anything.

At some point, my desire to create harmony silenced my voice as I became confused about what I liked because I was always worried about whether or not someone else would like the same things I liked. I didn't want to be judged for my choices either way, so I kept my opinions to myself about many things. I forgot that my likes and dislikes matter, too.

But, like most things denied, my likes and dislikes demanded to be heard and acknowledged. People may not like what I like and they may like what I don't, but that's okay. We don't all need to like the same things, and nothing makes one person's like or dislikes more or less valid than another person's. I now stand ready to say "I like it, and I don't have to defend my preferences to you or anyone else." What a fabulously liberating feeling!!

Reading Poetry on Thunderous Thursday!!

I recently read my poetry on Thunderous Thursdays with DJ Maureen. I had a great time! You can listen to the reading and interview here:



Reading Poetry on Thunderous Thursdays