Delightful treat or Distraction from progress?

I was just in Hawaii for vacation last week. It was a beautiful time for me to rest and enjoy the unbelievable sunshine and landscape of Lanai Island. I got time to recharge and to re-set myself in hopes of resting and coming back to work with fresh insight and a more centered sense of self and a more clarified vision of purpose.

The time was incredibly valuable. I got to enjoy my friend Megan for several days and remember pieces of myself that I have been too busy to entertain lately. I also got time to reflect on myself as just myself (and not as a therapist, or a roommate, or a girlfriend, or a daughter), and to simply be and rest. I found myself overwhelmed with gratitude for the people in my life and the person that I have fought to become. (Also I got a lot of sleep, ate a lot of pineapple, read inspiring literature, and swam with wild dolphins. Boo Ya.)

On our third day, we were at the pool and I was reading the global updates section in Ms. Magazine and reveling in more gratitude in regards to the privilege that I hold as a woman in the U. S. The updates told of countries all over the world where women are still oppressed in shockingly overt and violent ways. (One update in particular highlighted the young girl who was stoned to death at a sporting event in Somalia because she was considered an adulteress for having been gang raped by three men earlier in the week.) I was humbled by the incredible freedom that I have had as a Caucasian American woman to find my voice, choose my partners, leave unsafe situations, access birth control and health care, and have a community of women who are free to openly meet and encourage one another. (Thank you Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, and Heinrick Ibsen and Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Eve Ensler, and Virginia Woolf, and and and and and and and and and and)…

And just as I was about to share the sentiment with Megan, irony caught us by the earlobes and we were distracted by the conversation next to us. (Poolside eaves dropping is one of our favorite vacation hobbies). There were two younger girls, who appeared to be around eighteen (they were in their first year of college), and a mother, who appeared to be forty five going on thirty. All three women met the prototypical beauty archetype: they were thin, white, had striking facial features, were without goiters, and wearing designer labels. I felt like we were watching an episode of “The Hills”.

I am not sure how the conversation began but these women were talking about dieting. The younger girls were saying that they wanted to lose weight so the mother started giving them tips about how to drop pounds. She whipped out her portion controlled low calorie snacks and talked about the ways that she avoids “bad food”. One of the younger women asked the question, “so, is it better to eat one Oreo everyday in a week, or seven Oreos in one day?” Megan and I laughed audibly. Was she serious? Was this question really plaguing her? The sad part was that it was. This young woman was obviously dealing with body dysmorphia and some form of eating disorder. The mother replied with confidence, “all seven Oreos in one day”. What?

And the conversation only got worse, at one point the two younger women were stating that they really preferred the look of “disgusting skinny”, and the mother agreed, except of course when the “knees start to look knobby”.

Snap-Just like that I was sobered into remembering that the battle for women’s progress in the United States is still going strong, it is just being fought on a different kind of playing field. Women in America are not being massacred by men throwing stones on soccer fields as is the case in Somalia, but they are being massacred by their self-contempt towards their bodies and the psychotic standard of beauty that promotes self violence in the form of starvation, self-induced vomiting, maxed out credit cards, and distraction from greater purpose.

The extreme level of self-disgust and self-hatred that women experience towards their bodies is a result of a beauty standard that promotes FRAILTY as the holy grail for female achievement. Women are taught to be aroused by their own demise, and to desire their position in the world to be that of a thin waif standing next to a man with substance. I have personally known this violent oppressor, and I have had to wage an incredibly long and tiresome war to learn to love my body. Regardless of the work that I have done to grow into a woman who believes in her self-worth, I was aware that as I was pitying these young women for their self-hatred and food obsession, I was also envying their itsy bitsy bodies. Some part of me still instinctively moves towards self-deprivation and starvation as a way to be “beautiful”, and therefore a legitimate and desireable woman.

And I know intellectually this this is hogwash. I know intellectually that my beauty lies within, and my sense of self is my move towards progress and influence. But it is buried deep in my blood to lust for a lie that steals my power away from me. Because the idea that my value is in my ability to allure a man, is something that has been embedded in my unconscious and is more powerful than mere thoughts. The beauty obsession runs deep in western women and does its work to divide us from each other and distract us from our progress as people.

So as I left the poolside, I was reminded of the complexity of gender oppression and the many faces that patriarchy holds. I may not be in danger of being stoned death for being raped, but my body is in danger of starvation at the hands of a sexual beauty standard that promotes emaciation as a desired outcome. And as a woman who has stood up to an abusive man, I know that rocks are not always necessary for a stoning to take place. The war to be free, to be equal, to valued, is still raging around me, and in me, and I can only hope, through me.

I find myself again, at a sort of beginning, humbled by my humanity, grateful for the many privileges I have, and hungry to continue to grow more roots and more trunk and more branches to reach out to women around me and share the good news, that we are already valuable beyond measure. So what do you think? Would it be more effective to spend one hour a day every day dreaming for equality and justice, or all seven hours in one day? I’m thinking one hour every day and at least a couple of Oreos to boot. (With milk of course)

I must admit, I really relate to those who wrestle with the mental illness Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as “Multiple personality disorder”)

(For pop culture reference of Dissociative Identity Disorder, see Sally Field in her film, “Sybil”)

Granted, I know that this disorder is not commonly seen with positive implications. I know that our culture does not embrace this type of self-structure and that we all work vigorously (and I would argue ineffectively)  to try to construct ourselves as “one” “consistent” “cohesive” human, who is predictable, and linear. But I think it is impossible. I think we are so f-ing complex, and fragmented, and full of too many pieces to have a “singular self”.

In the conventional sense of course, I do not in fact have “multiple personalities”. I am consciously aware of myself as one person (although some would argue that the whole Eli/Liz thing is a bit bizzarre).

I am internally informed of my unique parts and their presence in my experience of life. I do not have periods of “fugue” or amnesia that indicate a split in my personality. (A person who suffers with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), is NOT aware of the different personalities that they present….in other words, there can literally be a “tom” and a “bob” and a “ichabod”, and those parts of that person’s experience create gaps and confusion for them. What happens to “bob” may not be accessible to “tom”, which causes a lapse in time and narrative.)

I do however feel that I am multiplicitous.

There are parts of me that are vibrant and alive, and full of gusto and confidence. And there are other parts (little tiny baby parts), that are fragile, and terrified, and quick to fold at the hand of violence and intimidation.

And I could go on an on (thanks to years of psycotherapy) about my different “me’s”, and the relationships that they have with the world, and the relationships that they have with each other. (My opinionated, intellectual me, doesn’t tend to be too approving of my weepy, terrified, under-confident me).

But I am starting to realize something really profound. There are in fact many me’s. And this is not a flaw, or a burden (although sorting through them sometimes feels that way). But rather it is the power of the mysterious and the sacred manifest in my being. It is the glory of a life that has the possibility to continutally redefine and rediscover itself. I have too many me’s to be complete, and so I am left to explore and desire and decompensate at times….but always I am morphing and changing in relation not only to others, but also to myself.

Sometimes I want to throw up when people pull the cheesy “my partner is a never ending well of mystery and newness each day”. But other times I so long for that to be true. And I think it is high time that we start approaching our many me’s in the same way. There is always something new, something old, something profound to be discovered about ourselves, and in this way, we are blessed to be so damned fragmented, piecy, and confused about who we are.

Because this IS who we are. We are the compilation of the infinite moments, relationships, sensations, and places that we go, feel, see, and long for. And the gift that we have in that multiplicity is what I think makes life worth living.

So maybe this is just an exercise in validating my multiple neurosis, but maybe it is also an exercise in truly falling in love with the most intimate group I will ever be a part of….myself (or should I say, myselves?)

And it’s not a normal thing. It’s not a hot-day-outside-I-need-a-cool-down-thing. It’s not a sometimes thing. It’s a first-thing-in-the-morning-thing, a middle-of-the-day-most-of-the-day-long, and sometimes it’s even a middle-of-the-night thing.

I am the great Northwest hunter of all chewable frozen H2O.

I love the feeling of the particles crushing between my teeth, and forming a frost river that cools my throat as it heads towards my belly. I love Pizza Hut ice, (you know the kind that is in little cylinders, and crunches like popcorn), I love Starbucks ice with its square and sensible shape, and I love the crescent shaped ice that soars down the refrigerator shoot directly into my glass while making noisy celebration all the way down. I think the only ice I haven’t been desirous of was the monstrously huge and hard shot-glass sized ice that filled my diet cokes in Greece this summer. Those suckers were way too huge to conquer, and frankly, in the 90 degree weather, it pissed me off.

I chomp and chew with reckless abandon. The fact that I have never lost a tooth is actually quite ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous really, but I can’t (or maybe it’s don’t) stop. It cools me, relaxes me, and it serves as a truly non-violent way to cope with my inner restlessness.

I’m not exactly sure when this frigid love affair began. And, I am not entirely sure what it represents (assuming that all addiction is something deeper revealing itself in perversion) I can say that my hunger for ice holds greater meaning than the urban myths attributed to it (you know…sexual frustration and iron deficiency….yada yada yada)

Strangely enough, I think this odd little habit of mine has the capacity to reveal a substantial amount of insight into my being.

I can’t say with accuracy where it comes from and what it means, but I do think that is hovers somewhere around the roots of my desire. I think it reveals the gnawing, dissatisfaction in me that may never, (ok, will never) be satisfied. And similar to my thirst for ice, I always find myself thirsting and longing for something more eternal, more substantial, and more beautiful. I stand before the ice machines of the world like I stand before the unknown future hoping to ingest, and digest, and be filled with beauty I have not yet known.

And, like my desire, my ice-chewing has cost me my pride a few times.
Like the time that I got written up for violating health code while I was bartending. (I brilliantly reached down into the ice bin, grabbed a cube, threw it in my mouth, and smiled at the stranger next to me with unabashed confidence. It turned out she was the Washington State health inspector. Awesome.)
Or when my roommates come home from work to find that the entire ice bin is empty. No, it is not a small bin. And yes, yes, yes, they love to profess to others about their quirky roomate, and her olympic ice-chewing skills.
Or when I am at a social event, and I am trying to fit in, and someone else notices before I do that I have absent mindedly chomped my way through several glasses of ice, and usally, trying to hide their judgment, says something to the tune of, “you really like ice don’t you”, or “you know that ice chewing is bad for your teeth don’t you”, or “seriously Eli, I can’t hear the movie”. oops.

But the pride thing is overrated. And I think this addiction of mine gives me more than just a chilled esophagas. It gives me insight into the fragility of desire, and the necessity of hope.

I find myself sometimes embarrassed, sometimes annoyed, and sometimes laughing hysterically at how peculiar I seem to the rest of the non-ice-addicted world. And though at some point, it would probably benefit my teeth to give it a rest, for now I find myself delighting in this pastime of desire, that leaves me restless, waiting, hoping, and chomping at the bit (of ice) that reveals how earnestly I long for life.

So although my desire may cause me loss, and embarrassment, and often times dissappointment, I will continue to chew, and chomp, and work my way through glass after glass after glass, until the day comes when I am finally, and profoundly filled to the brim with the beauty I was intended to hold.

And so this blog shall be like a tall glass of ice, a place for me to chew, and chew, and chew, and wrestle with the magnitude of desire that dances within me.