MySelfLove

“How long have you loved yourself?” Professor Spires asked me recently during one of our beautiful, unplanned, and extremely engaging conversations.

I thought for a second and responded, “About two and a half years.”

Now that I think about it, the truth might actually be one year as I spent that first year and a half learning how to just like myself. I was just so happy that Spires even asked me that question. What I really wanted to say was, “I’ve been waiting so long for someone to ask me that!”

I have spent so much time building a relationship with my Self, I sometimes wish people would ask me how long I’ve loved my Self like they ask me how long I’ve been with my partner, Dan. Perhaps someone might think it an odd, or even a queer question to ask, but it seems quite fitting for today. Except for maybe some professors and artists – all people significantly older than me – I don’t know anyone my age who has yet to build a healthy relationship with their own identity and the body they reside in.

I used to hate myself. In fact, at one point in my life I had a death wish. But as much as I wanted death, when it looked me square in the eyes I didn’t like what I saw. One might say I was scared; I know I did back then. But now, perhaps I would redefine that fear as hope and the acknowledgment that I do have agency.

~

“Do you want to see them?” the nurse asked me as I slid off the operating table towards my clothes. Dazed on lydocaine and still frazzled I managed to puke up a “yaa.”

She rushed over to the countertop and turned back around excitedly, “This is what they look like. Each one will be tested separately to see if the dysplasia has spread.” There were three clear cups, each a miniature version of those cups I’ve had to pee in for pregnancy and UTI tests. They were filled with a clear solution. Inside each of those cups were small slices of my cervix, removed for more testing. And most importantly, these pieces were removed to prevent the onset of cancer.

I tried to look as close as possible. Each one floated about, spinning a little from the nurse moving so fast. They were dark red, almost black, and blood was emanating from them, dyeing the once clear, aqueous solution they now rested in. My uterus finally caught up with the impact of the surgery and started to clench. The nurse hurried back over to the counter, carefully placing the small cups down and organizing things – I didn’t know, or care to know at this point, what those clanking things were. Three pieces of my cervix were sliced off of me, and I wasn’t even sure it was worth it.

~

Two weeks after my first pap smear, I got a note in my mailbox saying my results turned out “abnormal.” There was a card for a doctor named “Kruger” attached to a pamphlet explaining HPV with the words “mild dysplasia” circled in blue pen. What the hell is mild dysplasia? Who the hell is Kruger? And why do I have a pamphlet about HPV? I shoved the pamphlet in my desk drawer screaming in denial.

Months passed as I was determined to ignore the issue. Later on I couldn’t handle the stress anymore so I called the school nurse, set up another appointment for a pap smear with hopes that maybe the first set of results was just a mistake.

Test results: medium/high dysplasia. I had to see Freddy Kruger. Whoops! I mean, Dr. Kruger.

He ripped me up. He didn’t explain to me the procedure. He never looked me in the eyes; in fact, he barely shook my hand. I had a colposcopy, and I didn’t even know what it was. My vagina stunk like stale vinegar and leaked brown goo for two weeks. I grimaced every time I had to pull my pants down to piss.

Results: mild dysplasia. Wait 6 months and get another pap smear.

A year goes by. I get another pap smear. The results are worse. I cry. I scream. What the hell is wrong with me?! I refuse to get cut up by that douchebag, Kruger. As far as I’m concerned he should fucking die. I finally tell my mom what’s happening. She tries to tell me my body will work it out and I have to explain to her.

Look, I have a fucking STD. Alright?! I need to get this shit figured out because I’m scared. I tell her about the first doctor and demand that no penis-bearing fuckwad will ever put a sharp object near my pussy again. Great woman that she is, she finds me an all female-staffed private gynecology practice in Syracuse where I end up with a better explanation of a colposcopy while sobbing my brains out. It’s a biopsy.

We’ve already figured out you have HPV, although we don’t have the tools yet to figure out which kind. A lot of women have this; in fact, when a woman gets an abnormal pap smear we assume it is HPV because it is so common.

It’s common? What?

Test results: Extreme Dysplasia/Pre-Cancer. Come back to Syracuse ASAP and get a LEEP. It’s like a colposcopy, only more of your cervix is removed and you get an anesthetic!

At least I didn’t have to deal with needles stabbing, poking, and tearing at my cervix. Just one needle for the lydocaine along with a sharp pinch, and then the heart immediately speeds up. I felt my face blush and I started sweating. I could feel my gynecologist’s hands brush against the inside of my thighs every once in a while. Was she cutting the pre-cancer out? I couldn’t tell. The nurse held my hand, blabbering about babies. I zoned her out, focusing on the wall behind her, sucking back tears.

~

After my LEEP procedure was finished, I thought about those three floating slices of cervix a lot. Every time I closed my eyes, there they were floating, dead. I couldn’t tell if I was scared of them, proud of them, or if they just grossed me out. I tried to think of them as symbols of trauma. One for being raped. Another for being abused by my father. And the other for….self hate? I displaced my problems onto them, thinking that those Three Pieces of cervix were the problem. And now they were gone. These problems didn’t bother me anymore.

Then one day all my troubles consumed me and I rushed over to my bedroom. I hid under my covers crying. What the hell was wrong with me?! I hated everything. But most of all I hated myself. Gawd, what I would have given to have just run away from myself and be someone else less shameful. Why did I have to have been raped and abused? My body sucked. I had migraines all the time. I hated that I was gaining weight. And my only source of happiness – my partner, Daniel – was always worried about me. I came with so much baggage and I hated it! I was a problem and I needed to be fixed.

I mention all of these happenings briefly to professors and students. I don’t mean to. In fact I regret it as soon as it spills out of my mouth. It was like these stories took on an agency of their own and found ways to slip out without my permission. A professor once said to me after my story jumped out of my mouth and into her ears: “It’s hard acknowledging one’s mortality.”

She was right. I couldn’t understand why, but even though I hated myself so much I knew I didn’t want to die. I’d thought of death before. In fact, I spent the earlier part of my life with a death wish dreaming about being gunned down by police or a gang and watching my parents mourn me. I dreamed of not existing, melting into the universe and becoming the omnipresent and completely neglected body of existence that surrounds and molds us, the space that binds us.

Despite those dreams, I was discovering that perhaps life could be possibly fun.

My gynecologist called me with hopeful results: my cervix still had mild dysplasia, however they were hopeful that by the next pap smear everything would be normal. I tried to stay calm. Every eyelash wished on was about having a healthy cervix, a healthy body. I engaged in activism, day by day, gathering sources to raise awareness about people like me, and finding resources for those already suffering: like me. I gathered the courage to tell my story about sexual abuse in multiple public settings. Slowly, things got a little better.

My next pap smear wasn’t normal and I walked into the gynecologist’s office sobbing again. She explained to me that a lot of women just have abnormal pap smears for the rest of their lives. HPV is permanent, and she treats it hoping that eventually it will lay dormant in my system and not bother me anymore. I deal with yet my third colposcopy, go back to my parent’s house, and sleep for the rest of the day. I am preparing for a sad and lonely future as an HPV infected scumbag whose cervix gets cut up once or twice a year.

My results: completely normal.

I do a double-take. I ask her again and she chuckles wholeheartedly. “Angelica, your colposcopy results came back normal!” I blush and thank her. Immediately, I call Dan and tell him the good news. Happily, I cry in between excited fits of what possibly may have been an acknowledgment, an appreciation for the remarkable surprises in life.

~

Now, I look back on my experience with my “diseased” cervix and think, “Wow, I’ve been to hell and back.” That wasn’t even the first time – and probably not that last. And you know what else I think? Damn, I survived that shit. I am proud, too!

Soon after my finally normal test results, I discovered happiness in solitude. This came by further realizing that pain is a universal language. And although it seemed like my pain ostracized me from the rest of the world – goddess knows I will never feel as lonely as I did then – pain was what kept all of us from connecting with each other. The funny thing was: All of us are/can be connected by our pain. I really learned a lot by acknowledging that everyone knows pain in some form or another. Imagine if every pained individual – and I’m hypothesizing that everyone is – came out and shared their experiences feeling insecure, incompetent, incomplete! We would be acknowledging the shit out of our fears and banishing them for good!

I am thankful for my big mouth, because if I never got my stories out I never would have met so many survivors. I have also met a lot of assholes, but like the stories of my fellow survivors they encouraged me to keep exploring and sharing. My big mouth and my compassion for others is the root of my activism, my healing process, and my identity. Without any of these things, I would not be alive.

And so I crack myself open once more to share with you a love story, my most humiliating and terrifying experience of acknowledging my existence as it is and finally, passionately, submissively, and completely making love to myself as though the next day was not going to happen. While I know that love isn’t, and most definitely shouldn’t be about being terrified, it is ultimately about acknowledging and becoming the one thing that makes us complete, the one thing we are taught to fear: our Self. And while I also know that death is a legitimate thing to fear, no matter how tangible death seems in instances like mine where a seemingly untimely death is upon us, there is always today.

The Self does not know time. To the Self, there is no such thing as tomorrow or yesterday. The Self exists now. Even though the pain is a reminder of time, our Self, ourSelves, and ultimately each other are more importantly reminders of our agency, the possibilities, and the pleasure.

With the Maadest of Love,

Angelica A.

How do you see me?

Lately it seems that more often than not I am reminded of how different I am from my acquaintances rather than of how similar we are. I wonder how people see me.

A couple days ago I was telling a professor about some of my negative experiences with other professors in the classroom who failed to be an ally when I needed it most, and those who just failed altogether at being intelligent. He pointed out to me that it sounds like a fair number of professors and students have found a way to make me into a cartoon image by displacing any kind of controversy on me. Way too often have I been used for controversy, and have been placed in the defensive in classroom discussion.

Plain and simple: Don’t tell me racism, sexism, homophobia, or any type of oppression doesn’t exist because I will have to prove you wrong. I am living proof that oppression still exists. And so are you.

Even outside the classroom where people attempt to wear their “true” mask – the one they put on when being someone’s friend, instead of the stuffy intellectual asshole mask I see so often in the classroom – people find ways to trivialize who I am. People make accusations of my interests and thoughts. “I know you think I haven’t changed at all,” someone coldly stated to me while cutting off our friendship. How the hell does he know what I’m thinking? I suggest watching a movie and people say, “Oh, I don’t like gory movies.” I like gory movies? I didn’t even know that! People point out my piercings and tattoos in shock, disgust, mild interest and try to get me to explain them just because they demand it. Anything that makes me physically unique somehow is a free pass to making judgments about me without consulting or getting to know me first. Not once has anyone asked me, “Angelica, why do you engage in body modification?” Or, “Why don’t you do drugs?” Or , “Why do you talk so much about X, Y, and Z?”

And then there’s the gang of women who have confessed so many times throughout my life that they were mean to me because they were scared of me. I don’t understand what is so scary about me – and better yet, why bullying is the proper response to fear. I don’t believe violence is the answer to anything and I would never do anything to hurt anyone so long as I can help it, so why do people think I’m going to beat them up or commit an offense? Women have taken one look at me and proceeded to treat me like a rotting skunk corpse. One of these women I have recently befriended and she said I was too outspoken. I told her that I had never spoken to her or in her presence until way after she mistreated me. She then said because she knew I was from the inner-city. How did she know that? Do I look inner-city? She couldn’t answer. I’m just scary to people on the outside apparently.

I try my best not to get bitter about any of this but it is difficult when my desires and passions, my internal and physical identities are placed in direct opposition to what society considers acceptable, or even pleasant. I literally wear my beliefs on my sleeves and it scares people away! I must confess I feel awfully lonely because of this.

Choking back tears and frustration, I continue attempting to communicate with people in a multitude of ways about my experiences and passions, my love for life and human connection.

[am I speaking your language?]

I love it when people are passionate about all kinds of things, even the things I don’t appreciate – like chick flicks, or horse shows, or pop music.

[how about now? am I speaking Your language?]

It’s true that I can be aggressive at times, but I’m just trying to sift through superficial barriers and restraints.

[do you Like this?]

The thing I love most is humility, the moments of enlightenment – or, rather, enlightened confusion: As Speed Levitch said it, when people go “dancing with [their] own confusion.” Let’s cut the crap and just dance!

[can you hear Me?]

I wish people would tell me in more detail what it is they are thinking, why they think that, and engage in some real human connection with me: that is, discussion. Because unless I tell you, there is absolutely no way you can read my mind or tell me who I am.

Please tell me, I wanna know

How do you see me?

Bus Stop Winter

Clumps of snow gradually fall onto the street signs, garbage cans, and piles of shoveled snow and slush. A few large bumps appear in the snow on the right side of the street directly ahead of me; at seven a.m., most people are not awake yet to brush off their cars and go to work. The only living thing, except for the snow, is we who wait at the Fowler High School bus stop every morning. And yet, we seem to be out of it, still locked inside our own dreams rather than at the bus stop, entranced by the ever-falling whiteness that conceals my home in Syracuse. Maybe I haven't woken up yet, but it seems like everything that was once human is now buried under a massive white canvas, and I'm standing in the cold waiting for the bus to take me away.

At the corner diagonal and to the right of the one on which I stand is the bus stop for Henninger High School, our high school's rival. There is never any tension between our bus stops, in fact, we rarely acknowledge each other's presence. They are on Fowler territory anyway - school districts are divided by streets - so very few Henninger students are at that stop. Their corner is directly in front of a store with large barred windows, beer signs, and announcements for Marlboro cigarettes. Many corner stores especially known for being owned by Middle Easterners who sell cigarettes and cheap dutch cigars are sprinkled throughout Syracuse. I can only see the one across from me, and it is one of few corner stores within a five-block radius that are open this early in the morning. The store is at the bottom of an apartment complex and to the left of that, directly in front of me, is another apartment complex that is home of a cheap and unprofessional looking garage where a few of my old boy friends supposedly work. The other two corners, mine and the the one to the right of me, also have apartment complexes, but the rest of these streets have one and two-story houses. The streets that divide my stop and the Henninger stop are at the bottom of a hill, and they seem to stretch for miles ahead of me. The four roads that branch out from my bus stop all angle upwards, and I am stuck at the bottom of a bowl covered in snow and ice.

“Yo nigga, I got mad fucked up last night!” some guy in a black Carhartt hooded sweatshirt too big for him said while waddling over in his sagging jeans towards another guy wearing the same outfit. He lit a dutch, continued with the story, and the smell of marijuana tickled my nose. Most of the discussions among people at the bus stop were about the recent beefs people had and the fights that went down, so it was a nice change to hear about a fun party. The two guys speaking did not have on a backpack or any papers in their hands. They didn't even look familiar, which led me to believe that his probation officer told him that he needed to make his monthly appearance at school. A lot of people disappeared and came to visit once in a while, but usually once people stopped they didn't bother to come back. Most of the girls that used to stand at this bus stop have dropped out and had children, and most of the guys have gone on to deal drugs.

I am one of about few people wearing backpacks, and the rest who outnumber us are in a little group gossiping. Those of us who are wearing backpacks stand alone, patiently waiting for the bus while either trying to ignore the loud chatter or listening to music. Most of my friends live within walking distance of Fowler, and my friends who live near me usually get rides. During the winter, the bus arrives anytime between 7:15 and 7:45 a.m., meaning that I have to leave my house at 7:05 and hope that I don't have to wait for too long. I never bring a watch with me, so I am unaware of the time. All I know is that the bus always takes much longer in the biting cold, and is sometimes late.

I lean against the Stop sign and take a deep breath of the cold, charcoal-scented air. My finger turns up the volume of my cd player, and the fast, crunchy guitar riffs and double bass drums from Fear Factory's song “Corporate Cloning” match the speed I wish I was moving.

The half hour wait early in the morning seems like another day, another mandatory ritual that I have to endure in order to arrive at Fowler's front doors. Yet, still, I am going nowhere. The bus takes me away from the snowy world, leaving track marks on the white canvas in case I need help getting back home. But I somehow end up back to that same place, at the same time, and there are no track marks. No evidence of my departure or arrival, and no change in my daily life to make me feel like the next day will be significant, worth living. Footsteps and track marks are filled in with fresh snow, giving the illusion that Syracuse was untouched by human influence. Snow is persistent at covering any evidence of change.

Winters in Syracuse drag on for about seven months a year and makes standing at the bus stop more difficult. I am always too cold and frustrated that my jeans are wet for the rest of the day. Falling is a constant fear of mine while walking down to the bus stop, or walking on slippery carpets that have exceeded their slush-holding capacity. The snow is an inconvenient presence that makes my daily routines even more frustrating. I am always in a rush to leave my house in the morning because I need to get to school, do pointless homework, and have superficial conversations with friends. But the snow always slowed me down as if to torture me more. The monotony of my life wasn't bad enough.

Even though my relationship with snow is often rocky, I always enjoy my waits at the bus stop more during the winter than in any other season. Snow covers the streets that were once littered with beer bottles, used diapers, cigarette butts, and papers. What was a rundown and filthy looking city is now a glistening white castle. Snow lights up the city and gives it a brightness it doesn't have during any other season. During the winter time, people stay inside, and when they do go outside they are too focused on staying warm to worry about anything else. Syracuse is a violent and depressing place; the people are poor, or at least always in need of money, and there are few opportunities to make money. Because a lot of people don't have jobs or aren't in school, they loiter in the streets and start trouble. When heat first breaks through the snow and ice leftover from winter, all sorts of crimes are committed in the streets. The news has nothing but negative things to share with people whose eyes are glued to the television. A homicide here, a gang rape there.

I was jumped on one of those nice days with my friend. We decided to get off the bus on the block before my bus stop so we could walk. A black guy about my age came toward me, “Hey mami, why you walkin' like that? Why don't you come sit on my dick?” I tried to ignore him as the rest of his gang started crowding around us. I kept walking while they continued to push and harass me. They punched my friend in the face, “Why don't you help your girlfriend out? What, you don't like her?” We were followed up to the corner store and then they decided to go bug someone there. The police didn't care. We weren't seriously injured. They had more serious crimes to deal with anyway. During the winter, I don't have to worry about getting jumped or gang raped or murdered because everyone is inside. With snow came safety and quiet streets.

I waited at the bus stop in a blizzard one morning during my freshman year. There was probably a foot of snow on the ground, but the news hadn't said anything about a snow day before I left. Twenty minutes passed. “I'm too black for this,” a girl exclaimed while brushing off the snow on her hood, implying that Africa never got cold. There was a surprising number of people at the stop that morning, maybe ten or twelve people. We stood there, attempting to fight off the snow for another ten minutes. Everyone slowly vanished from sight, exclaiming that school wasn't worth the wait. Luckily it wasn't too windy outside, or else I would have nearly frozen to death. After about an hour, it was just me and Dante. He turned towards me, peeking out of his snow-covered hood, “Do you think it'll come?”

We were tempted to leave, but we both didn't want to go home. We had nothing to look forward to. When the bus finally came about forty-five minutes later, it was empty. We stepped into the bus and were immediately warmed up. We walked straight to the back of the bus and sprawled out, the right side was mine and the left his. The bus drove slowly, but I didn't care. As long as I was moving away from that world of white oblivion, then I was happy to wait to make the transfer to yet another world, and another.

I Have a Confession to Make….

I am absolutely in love with the movie Twilight.

Despite all my experience, my activism, my feminism, I am hopelessly and reluctantly in love with this movie. It’s weird. I’ve watched the movie 4 times now in less than a week’s time, and every time I watch it I think to myself, “What the hell am I doing?”

Twilight has all the things in it that I hate: a weird stalker boyfriend, the recently adored Edward Cullen, who make jokes about killing his girlfriend, the pale beauty, Bella; non-consensual sexual interaction, pushing, and shoving; high school clicks and gender stereotypes; de-humanization of Natives (poor Jacob, he’s so cute!); and terrible acting.

As I watch the movie I remind myself of these things: the same things that steer me clear of most atrocities Hollywood gives birth to. And then the camera zooms in on Edward’s pale, tortured face as he exclaims, “I don’t want to be a monster,” and I fall in love again.

What the hell?!

So what’s to like about this movie anyway? I would never recommend this film to anyone with the slightest hint of intelligence. And I’m watching it alone, curled up in a ball on my bed, trying hard not to cry when Bella is forced to cut off a relationship with her father when she becomes the target in a sadistic game of let’s-hunt-Bella.

I do like vampires. When I was 14 years old, I was reading Kim Harrison’s steamy novels about vampires, witches, and demons. However, these books had much more sex in them – which honestly isn’t saying much in comparison to Twilight, because these books didn’t have much sex either. There was A LOT of sexual tension though. Maybe that’s it: the whole movie is one long foreplay session. Just like the rest of Twilight’s fans last August, my behind-all-the-most-recent-fads-self is now dying to know when and how Edward and Bella will satiate their murderous desires to fuck.

I read a review of the Twilight series in Bitch magazine a few months ago that describes the books as “abstinence porn.” The movie is about Edward’s struggle to refrain from “biting” Bella, and I know that he finally does when they get married. (Way to wait until married, Big Guy.) Also, Edward has the power of all sexuality in this movie. Unbeknownst to Bella, he barges into her room and tells her he wants to try something and that she must not move. Painfully, he slowly moves in to kiss her and she becomes extremely aroused. Edward stops the whole thing and then prides himself on his ability to refrain, while Bella chastises herself, “I wish I could say the same.” Edward can either give the affirmative or the negative. All Bella can do is wait, and she seems happy with that. We even see her blush when her mother asks over the phone, “are you being safe?”

While the abstinence porn idea fits quite nicely, there is something else to it that complicates this whole thing. Bella wants to be bitten, even after she gets a taste of the pain of conversion (re: death). She practically begs at their prom. I also hear that she ends up kissing Jacob in the second book? (OMG I CAN’T WAIT TO FIND OUT WHY AND HOW!!!!) She’s very adventurous and claims quite persuasively that she is, “not afraid.”

This movie begs for it to be viewed with an S/M lens of pleasure, power, and submission. Who has the power? Who’s submitting? And ultimately, how pleasurable is this for the players involved? Bella and Edward seem very happy - err, lusty. And Bella and Edward seem to take turns torturing each other with sexual desire and refrain. And as far as my knowledge and experience go, (someone can always challenge me on this), especially for S/M sexual practices, it’s not about when the sexual act begins, it’s about the play. And the play happens when someone acknowledges a sexual attraction. When the players are getting ready and setting the boundaries, demolishing others…

The sexual act is always just the sexual act. But the beginning of play, the end, the playground and its rules change, interact, repeat, and even make love to each other. And as Andy Warhol points out in his art over and over again, there is no such thing as a beginning and an end to sex: it just is

a vital part of the relationship

the essence of human connection

intense longing

the eternal waiting

Bella and Edward have already engaged in sex.

This all leads me to another movie criticism/curiosity/question: what about that scene where we actually see Bella and Edward make out? As some of us may have noticed by now, in all movies “sex” – as in the naked, physical connection – that the camera sees is raunchy, dirty, and, ultimately, trivial. When the sex is meant to involve love or is considered significant the camera turns its view to some trains, oceans, rainy windows, or in Twilight’s case tree tops in the beautiful Washington forests. Twilight treats those moments when Bella and Edward look into each other’s eyes like sex scenes. But then when we get a glimpse of what we define as sex, the camera stays. Why? Maybe this fits with the abstinence porn thing: we are given examples of the bad sex, and are forever confused about what good sex is.

Or, perhaps this scene plays to our/my/the audience’s fantasy of what the naked, physical act of sex would look like between our two anti-heroes. Maybe this movie is engaging in sex with us. Teasing us by giving us a sexual connection, and then torturing us by cutting the act short (Edward pretty much runs away), and literally dangling their sexy bodies in our faces, out of reach but definitely in sight and in mind. Because we are not directly involved in their relationship – we have no fallen desperately in love with either of them, and likewise, they haven’t fallen in love with us – engaging trivial attempts at expressing love and connection, the naked, physical sex I’ve been referring to, is the only way for us to get directly involved. Even art, as great as it is, is limited and must make petty attempts at imitating humanity.

humanity creates art

to define itself

to engage in humanity

and art struggles

to keep up

And as horrible a boyfriend as Edward is with his stalking and murder jokes, his humility and need to maintain a human connection with the world, his desire to fight his destiny of becoming a “monster” is what attracts me to him. There’s hope for him yet. I have faith in him to commit to change, to love, and productivity. Although I’m not sure I trust him, I’ll have to see how our lamb, Bella, stands up to the fight.