Relationships

Glimmer of Love

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She is my muse, love.  My life.  My soul, which I never knew or believed existed until I felt her breath… my breath, filling my lungs.  Lately words have been flowing from my heart that I never expected to hear, feel, or believe.  It is as real and as drastic a transformation as I have ever experienced.  Apparently, it is wholely possible to look forward to speaking to someone just moments after hanging up the phone – to miss someone mere seconds following farewells.  It seems that, despite all doubt, in all appearances, potentially, probably, ipso. fucking. facto. that love not only exists, but that I find myself eyebrow deep in it.  This is a first.  Many firsts, in fact.  But, certainly the first time I find myself deep in something that did not require legal, medical, or moral assistance to get out of.

I am writing this for the same reason I’ve ever written anything, because I have to.  I have written, to date, a number of letters beyond my ability to count (which is to say, I’ve run out of fingers and toes) regarding the subject of love, the subject of my love, addressed to… well, you get the point.  I have killed four pens, 2.5 notebooks, and three packs of envelopes in just a couple of months.  So for anyone wondering if The Duke of Glimmer has been writing… he has, but only for one person as of recently.  And although she prefers not to share my attention, I’m sure she’ll grant me reprieve in this case.

My love is music, for I found her through music.  My love is friendship, for I found her through friendship.  She is dance, and light, and laughter… gorgeous hot days, and long desert nights.  She is drugs – I will not lie.  The greatest (seriously, the greatest) drug I’ve ever known.  I am convinced she is the path to my enlightenment – if that is a thing and it can truly be achieved.  And if not, I’m just fucking happy.  Really happy. Happy enough to write this sappy post that you will probably read, say “awww,” puke, then take an insulin shot.  And that’s fine.

The point is that it’s real and it’s out there – love.  It’s not something you’re expecting to find, or that you seek out on purpose.  It just grows, organically – non GMO, always fair trade.  I didn’t even know I wanted it until love found me, but now I’ll fight with the passion of a thousand souls to keep it, this fire that burns in my heart.  There’s no formula, just live your life and let it find you.  It will.  Somehow it found me.  Somehow there’s a beautiful woman in this world who is just like me, but better… so much better.  Genuinely, just ask Tracy, she’s better… and she loves me, lucky fool that I am.  So for anyone struggling or lonely out there – trust me, if you’re holding the glimmer, sooner or later the universe will send someone to share the burden.

Originally published by Hold the Glimmer at http://holdtheglimmer.com/

Photo by Anastasia Heuer

Photo by Anastasia Heuer

 

Relationships

How to Plan a Nifty First Date

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First date jitters, you know the feeling: that gnawing pit in your stomach eating away at your confidence, making you wish you had never planned a date in the first place. Well what if I told you that you could do away with the dread and actually look forward to your date?  The first step is preparing yourself for the date, but now you have to plan the date. If you plan well, those first date jitters will not be from anxiety but excitement! Here are a few tips for crafting the best first date from my own dating adventures.

Note: These lessons are from my experience and thus lean towards the heterosexual point of view, but I hope these tips can apply to all kinds of relationships!

1) Do something fun: Save the movies for the 3rd date

Going to the movies is a classic date option, but from experience, it makes for a horrible first date. If you are meeting for the very first time, are sitting in a dark room where you cannot talk for 2-3 hours, and feel pressured to hold hands before you even know his last name, you are not in the best context for getting to know each other. Save going to the movies for the third date, when you’re starting to feel more comfortable and you can snuggle—if you play your cards right—on the couch at the local theater pub, drinking a beer and holding hands. I can tell you from experience, this is a great choice for a third date and it is best followed up by a steamy make-out session in the alley next to the theater.

“Do something fun” may seem like an obvious suggestion, but my emphasis here is on doing something. Going to the movies is not really doing something, it’s watching something. Going to dinner does involve eating, but little else to do besides talk. From my experience, the best first dates are when you pick an activity that you can both do together. This allows you to take a moment from talking about yourself and talk about what you’re doing, which takes the pressure off the date and makes it way easier to have fun and connect!

One of my best dates was a night of contra dancing. Yes, instead of dancing with my date all night, I spent the night being spun around by 60-year-old men until I was dizzy, but I smiled the entire time. And when I got a drink with my date afterward, we had lots of hilarious stories from the night to tell. Other great options for doing something on the first date are bingo, trivia (if you aren’t too competitive), or an art walk. The last one is such a good option for a first date that it tricked me into thinking I liked a guy, when actually I only liked going on the date. I broke it off a couple dates later when I realized that I had just planned too good of a date. So good, in fact, that a month later I saw that guy at the same art walk with another girl and when he saw me, he grabbed the girl’s hand and walked away in a huff. And I just thought, “Good job, man. You figured out that this is the best date in town. Go have fun.” And I wish the same for you.

2) Have a time limit.

Part of picking a date where you have something to do is so you don’t spend the whole time talking each other’s ears off. If, however, you end up going to dinner or to coffee or any place where it’s easy to sit there talking non-stop, I suggest setting a time limit. I don’t mean telling your date that he only has two hours to get to know you and after that he must not say another word. I mean know your stopping point. If you’re going out to dinner, have a time you think you should head home. Or if you’re really unsure about the guy, book something after the date. I once went to coffee with a guy and we sat there for three or four hours talking about nonsense, both knowing that we’d rather be somewhere else but neither of us having an out. This isn’t to be cynical and say that you should set yourself up in case the date doesn’t go well, but that you should remember: it’s just a first date. It doesn’t have to go the whole day. If you like each other, you’ll have plenty more time.

3) Offer to pay: ladies & gentlemen!

To pay or not to pay, that is the question—a question that has haunted me at least. There is a scene from How I Met Your Mother where Ted is trying to choose between a girl who he connected with on a first date and a girl who offered to pay. And he really can’t decide. That scene has stuck with me. On one hand, I was raised on the idea that men pay for dates. That is a perk of being a girl, right? On the other, if I don’t offer to pay, will he think less of me? (Thanks, HIMYM.) Or even worse, if he doesn’t pay, is it still a date? I’ve realized over time that these questions are silly. If the date is good, it won’t matter who paid. This wisdom however was learned the hard way:

In my previous article, I mentioned going on a date with a guy who—it turns out—didn’t really think of me that way.  What I forgot to mention was that during the previous “date,” we paid separately. Rebounding from that experience, on another date, I practically forced this new guy to pay. We were again going to a movie and when I stepped up to order tickets, I freaked out. I worried that if I paid, I would be sending the signal that this is not a date. So, I stepped aside and looked at him in a “Now it’s your turn to pay” way. He looked shocked for a moment and then said “Oh, I’ll pay.” The awkwardness was palpable! Luckily, the rest of the date went fine because—get this—it had no correlation to who paid. Unless you are only in it for a free meal, then you don’t need to worry about money, because that’s not the point. The point is to see how well you get along, not who can bank-roll your next holiday.

This is why I’ve now adopted this policy: I always offer to pay. If he says no and then pays, great! (It’s always nice to be paid for.) If not, oh well. As long as you’ve prepared yourself properly and picked something exciting for you to do, you’ll be enjoying the night too much to worry about money. Remember: it’s just a first date. So have fun!

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Relationships

Let’s Ask: A Thriving Long Distance Love

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Y:  The text read “Dude, Coachella is amazing! We’re all having a blast. Wish you were here! Btw, I met this awesome girl and we really hit it off. There’s just one thing… She lives in NorCal.”

I sent that to a close friend only a couple of days after meeting my girlfriend, the love of my life. Now let me back up and tell the story, because she loves it when I do (M: Oh boy, here it comes!!!). I met M for the first time at Los Angeles International Airport. She was joining me and a large group of my friends, including two mutual friends—through whom we were being introduced—on a weekend trip to America’s premier music and arts festival, Coachella (feel free to send us comp’ed VIP passes (M: for life, please) for the plug, Goldenvoice). From the moment we first shook hands, I was charmed. There is an air about her; her smile is warm and contagious, and her aura (if you believe in such things) is always welcoming. From that point on, the weekend became about more than just the music festival, it became about us getting to know one another: flirting, dancing, making each other laugh, and appreciating each show together. It was like packing 30 dates into a single weekend, and every date was even better than the last. I made it a point to look after her in a crowd of a hundred thousand people, because I wanted her to feel at ease and a part of the group. It must have made a good impression, because despite some of my more nervous moments, we kissed during one of her favorite acts, the Postal Service, and by the end of the weekend neither of us were prepared to let the other go.

M:  It’s true. He took care of me all weekend in a group where I only knew two others and that was more than enough to keep me interested. He was pretty much assigned to take care of me before we even knew each other and didn’t sweat about it even once. He also took me to see my favorite musician when no one else wanted to go, even though he didn’t know of him. Consider it our first date. I tried to return the favors as much as I could but really, it wasn’t enough; he was on point with everything. He even played Radiohead for me every drive back from the festival so I could sing off key. After the festival was over, I promised to introduce him to my favorite band, Tool and well, let’s just say he was most impressed that the song had a sound bite featuring Bill Hicks, one of his favorite comedians. Last weekend, we returned from our first anniversary celebration, guess where? Coachella! There is no other more perfect scenario for us to celebrate our love: music, dancing, great friends, amazing art and good food. Sums us up pretty well.

Here’s something we’ve both heard from other people more times than we can count…

“You’re in a long distance relationship?” *deep nervous inhale* “Wow, that must be, like, super hard.  I could never do that.  Good luck…”

Oh gee, thanks but I actually don’t need any luck because I’ve never been happier. In fact, we’ve been in an incredibly successful, unicorn-tears kind of magical long distance ‘agreement’ (Y: as she likes to call it) for a full year now.  The distance?  Exactly 300 miles between NorCal and SoCal.  Luckily there isn’t much of a sports rivalry as I like ice hockey (SHARKS TERRITORY!) and he prefers basketball (Y: LAKERS BABY!) Though I did drunkenly lash out on him being from LA when the Kings knocked the Sharks out of the playoffs last year. And how did he respond?  By sending me a beautiful bouquet of flowers to my office with a note that read: “Dear M, my deepest condolences for your loss. I hope these flowers brighten your day the way you do all of mine. Can’t wait to see you again. Yours, Y.”. Chivalry… not dead, my friends. And that is when it really sunk in that I need to hold on to this amazingly special gentleman.

Y:  WARNING: Here’s the thing about long distance relationships—they are not for every couple. Really, they aren’t for most. People are wary of them, including us. And for good reason: they don’t typically work. I had never been in one before, and she had tried it twice with really poor results over half a decade ago. All it takes is half an instinct of insecurity to hit you, coupled with a dead cell phone battery, maybe a half bottle of wine, and/or some Facebook stalking, and next thing you know you’re in world war relationship. M and I, insecurities and flaws aside, trust each other implicitly. Even more importantly, we love each other (queue the feign heaving and eye rolling) unconditionally (M: so far, so good ;) ) . We’re both independent people who are incredibly social and have many loved ones to tend to. We understand that we each need space and time to pursue our own interests and have our own fun. There is a genuine exchange of mutual support for everything we do.  So above any tips, tricks, or special anecdotes we share, remember that if you’re not continuously head over fucking heals in love with your long distance love, your relationship is headed for the rocks. That’s not to say we don’t fight (I am a man, after all, and it’s my first real relationship as an adult: I’m bound to fuck up a little) but we’re quick to make amends, and always show each other respect.

M: ^What he said… and it’s not about the distance, it’s about the people involved in the relationship. We’re grateful to have each other regardless of the constant physical presence. But of course it’s tough for us sometimes. It’s standard procedure for me to bawl on him before we part after yet another incredible visit. It’s not being able to partake in the mundane everyday activities you’re ‘supposed’ to do with your partner that makes long distance as hard as it’s hyped up to be. Also, not being able to be there for each other physically in tough times or special moments (doctors’ appointments, him moving into his new home, holiday parties, even actual birthdays—thanks for being born a day before Thanksgiving, guy…) can easily strain a relationship, so you need to get creative and accept the reality that you will have to celebrate it a different day to compensate.. But luckily we are always looking for excuses to party so we never skip occasions.

The good news is we take each other for granted much less. Every time we see each other, it’s a mini blissful vacation and we are just with one another 100% because our time together is so precious. Menial tasks like groceries and laundry become enjoyable. But then again we are party people and sprinkle fun into everything so perhaps that’s just us. We rarely ‘fight’ because neither of us can show up at the door to kiss and make up… it’s exponentially more painful being away from each other and not communicating because both parties are being stubborn about coming to a truce. Luckily he is practically ego-less and I can’t stay upset when he keeps showering me with warmth and love.

One time the Mr. was having an extremely hectic Murphy’s law kind of day, so I stole a genius idea from a friend: I called a nearby massage parlor and booked him his first ever hour long deep tissue full body rub down (I threatened the masseuse not to go near his-MY goodies), paid for it over the phone, and called him to tell him he’s to show up there immediately after work.  And the moment he arrived back home, a delivery guy arrived with Thai food. I scored big time.

Y:  It was by far the sweetest and most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me.  Take note ladies, don’t go by those bullshit tips in Cosmo, This is how to keep your man happy.  Anyway, that following afternoon, she wasn’t feeling well and had an unpleasant doctor’s appointment, so I returned the favor by having pizza, pasta, salad, peach soda, and two different desserts delivered to her home.

And while we’re on the topic of food—one of our favorite things to do is stuff each other’s faces.  She will literally have a spoon full of food in front of my face while I’m still chewing the last bite. While she is vegetarian and I am… well, not, I still love sharing food with her, because it’s such a pleasurable experience (with acceptable public moaning to boot) that we get to immerse in together. We even eat together over Skype. Shared pleasures should go beyond the bedroom, and certainly should be relished together even if from afar.  Like communication and-

M: -LAUGHTER! Jinx, you owe me a soda! I win. It’s important to be connected constantly and to share a great sense of humor.  We’re lucky this works for us because we are of the kind that despise constant texting/phone calls. But, our sheer adoration of each other trumps that hard. And we are always laughing, oh man do we laugh… like hyenas on meth.  Why we are glued together from a 300-mile distance is because the hilarity makes the constant contact much more appealing.  We’ve had an ongoing conversation for the last year now: emails, chat, texts, phone calls, Skype, and, get this, over a 100 handwritten letters (multiple every single week)…  I mean, how can you not die laughing (warning: grown up jokey time): Y was on speaker phone while I was doing yoga, and I said, “I’m lying here in child’s pose for 15 minutes because my health guru told me so…” and he goes “Why don’t you come here and get into adult’s pose with me?”  Needless to say I keeled over in a perfect transition from child’s pose to fetal position guffawing. There is also a lot of shit talk, which leads to hilarious conversations we wish we could record to share with the world. I was teasing him about how I annihilated him playing foosball on an epic bar arcade date we had one night (we tag teamed killing zombies and yes, he died first. Milla Jovovich taught me some tricks… He’s lucky I love him enough to protect him during the apocalypse. Y: I sacrificed myself for you, chivalry does still exist, remember! M: See what we mean about shit talk…), and I started laughing maniacally, followed by heavy coughing due to diseased flu lungs… and I said to him, “You’re choking me from afar.” And this Star Wars newbie (it’s true, he watched it at the tender age of 28 thanks to yours truly) responds, “I find your lack of faith disturbing.” To which I retort, “I find you fucked up!” To which we both responded with fits of laughter. You get the point. We’re pretty quickwitted folk.

So the bottom line is that apparently you can fall in love and make it last at a music festival and in long distance… with humor, creativity, constant communication, distance pampering, and truckloads of love. Oh, and to end… here’s 2 nightmare-ish pictures he drew of us (Tim Burton would be proud) because he thought it would be romantic. We’ll let you decide which one is attempt #1 and #2. In the words of the Moldy Peaches, we sure are cute for two ugly people…

1 & 2

1 & 2

Long live (long/all distance) love,

Y&M

Relationships

How to Get a Nifty First Date

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Raise your hand if you’ve had a bad first date? I’m guessing that most of you have. Well, my friends, so have I—many, in fact. And it is through these trials and tribulations that I have come to realize a good date is all in the preparation. You don’t have leave the fate of your date up to, well, fate. There is a lot that you can do to ensure a more successful date before departing on your romantic rendezvous. Let me tell you how with a few of my misadventures in the dating world.

Note: These lessons are from my experience and thus lean towards the heterosexual point of view, but I hope these tips can apply to all kinds of relationships!

1) Be clear that it’s a date.

You know how, in movies or TV, someone seems to always have the tenacity to ask “Wait, are you asking me out on a date?” with a sly smile and a knowing look? Well, I’d never have the guts to ask that and, if I did, it would probably be a shy awkwardly stuttered sentence like: “Date. ME?” If you’re like me, then it can be hard to be sure you’re either going on a date or (often in my case) clarifying that you are in fact asking someone on a date. For the latter, I find asking someone to an obvious date-like activity, say dinner and movie for two, is helpful. However, that doesn’t always work. I bring you exhibit A:

I had a crush on a guy who was kind of a friend, or at least had dated one of my friends (always a good place to start). We had started hanging out and I wanted to progress things to the next level, so I thought, Hey, you know what’s a great idea? Asking him to a movie via text, that’s what. This was my first mistake. A text is never a good way to transition a friendship to romance, let alone obviously ask someone out without the gratuitous use of winky faces. So, when I showed up for this so-called “date,” guess who was surprised to see only me standing at the door and tried to invite his roommate along? I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t me. If you would like to avoid this fate, I suggest you make your intentions as clear as you can.

2) You don’t have to lay it all out there, but don’t be completely opaque.

As you prepare for your date, you might find yourself worrying over what you’ll talk about. What if you say something awkward? Or you don’t have anything to say? Or, in your fear of silence, you talk too much? This last one is my biggest downfall and why I advocate keeping the first date light and fun: no midnight confessions or blood oaths. Now, I am not saying for you to hide your true self away until you’re sure he/she likes you and then reveal your deep-seated love of unicorns. All I mean is you don’t have to tell all on the first date. Take it from someone who invited a guy on a first date to a poetry slam and thought it would be a good idea to sign up. I had just met this guy, and here I was standing in front of an audience performing a poem about my parent’s relationship while he squirmed in his seat. Talk about vulnerability. You do not need to do this. In fact, just don’t.

Though, you do need to be somewhat vulnerable. You have to share something about yourself, but more importantly you have to reveal your emotions. The only way the person is going to know that you like him/her is by showing it. Now, I am horrible at flirting, so I usually go with the more direct “I had a good time. Let’s do this again” approach. But even that can be confusing if interpreted as a line. So make sure to send a flirty text later or, better yet, set up the next date. Nothing says “I like you” like I want to see you again and maybe this time I’ll tell you about my unicorn obsession.

3) It doesn’t have to be romantic.

The first date is exactly what it is: a first date. Whether you’re looking for your soul mate or just someone to date for a while, the first date is like a test drive. And since it’s just a test drive, you don’t need to go full throttle (unless you really want to: #punalwaysintended). What I mean is it’s perfectly fine if you do not touch on the first date (I would consider that normal for meeting a stranger).

In the past, I had this ideal that the best dates were the sweep-you-off-your-feet romantic ones and every time I went on a date that didn’t reach those standards, it felt like a failure. And yet many of my most romantic dates ended up being assholes later or just looking for sex. One guy invited me to the top of his roof and as we were sitting there overlooking the sunset, he swept my hair out of my face and asked me what I wanted most in the world right now. I kissed him because that seemed like the most romantic gesture. Guess who never heard back from him? It was a great moment, but it taught me to re-evaluate my standards. These days, I don’t go into the first date expecting to find sexual tension right away; I save that for later. Right now, I just want to know if we can hold a conversation without it being painful.

4) Check your expectations

And this brings me to my final pre-date prep tip: remind yourself that you don’t have to decide right away. As I said, this is a first date, not a life-time commitment, so don’t treat it as such. If you are unsure about how you feel at the end of the date, that’s fine. You can go on another date and continue to test the waters. On the other side, if you find yourself falling for someone on the first date, you should also check yourself.

I have been on both sides of this spectrum. On one hand, I stopped seeing a guy because I thought I didn’t have time to date anyone I wasn’t sure about and in retrospect realized he could have been a great match for me. And then I have gotten my heart broken over a single date. It didn’t help that I was already obsessed with him before I even went on the date, but I could have saved myself some pain if I had followed my own advice.

This is why I say I don’t believe in love at first sight, but I do believe in heartbreak at first kiss. Be careful with your hearts, my friends. And try to remember: it’s just a first date. So have fun!

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Relationships

The Friend Breakup

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All relationships come to an end. Parent-child relationships, sibling relationships, romantic relationships and friendships: all end at some point. Sometimes they end with death, sometimes they slowly peter out over time and distance, sometimes they end in a fierce, burning crash, and sometimes they come to a pointed, purposeful conclusion. A break-up. With the end of especially important relationships comes grief: a complex emotional process. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross has outlined five stages of the grieving process, which are typically listed in the order in which they’re “supposed” to happen, but really, these stages mix and mingle as much as cows caught in a tornado. Friend breakups may feel especially difficult because we don’t have a script for those. At the end of a romantic relationship, we have a whole potential process that can be lined out: lots of crying followed by throwing oneself into work or exercise or school, and then, finally, we get back on the dating horse, usually in the form of a rebound. But friend breakups don’t have a script—“friends forever” right? This can leave a person wondering how to deal with the loss of such an important relationship. I’ve had a few significant friend breakups in my life, and I’d like to share the process I’ve gone through, in hopes that it may help someone else out there dealing with something similar. My process pretty easily follows the Kubler-Ross model, but it starts before the actual end of the relationship.

Denial: Denial comes first for me. It’s when I’m feeling hurt in the relationship, but I keep excusing my friend’s behavior. “She didn’t mean to imply that I’m totally unimportant to her.” “He’s not trying to hurt me; that’s just how he is. I know he loves me.” Part of me knows I’m being treated like crap, but I don’t want to acknowledge it, because I don’t want to think that I’m the kind of person who lets her friends treat her like crap. Denial pairs well in a circular relationship with Anger.

Anger: “I can’t believe she blew off my birthday/ holiday/ graduation party to console her ex! They’re broken up, for f***’s sake!” “I freaking hate him. I hate him I hate him I hate him.” This emotion usually follows some break in the rules of our friendship (like, Rule #1: don’t treat your friends like crap), and is usually accompanied by me yelling into my pillow or journaling swear words fiercely in red pen. I tend to avoid people when I’m angry at them, because I know I run the risk of acting like one of the Plastics from Mean Girls. I take time to simmer down, and then when my friend and I sit down to hash out whatever it was that triggered my anger, I run into Bargaining.

Bargaining: “Okay, we talked about it, and it should feel ….resolved? But it doesn’t. Yes, it does—we talked about it.” In this stage, I argue with myself over whether or not our latest fight was productive. What frequently happens with my dysfunctional friendships here is that I express my concerns, the other person hears them out without actually listening, and I make the mistake of thinking everything’s going to get better, and that whatever disrespectful thing happened in the first place won’t happen again. Sometimes I even agree that I somehow caused my friend to treat me badly, and I think that if I just don’t do whatever my friend will treat me better. Denial-Anger-Bargaining make up the circle that usually has to repeat itself several times before I catch on to the pattern and realize the ugly truth: we have to break up.

Grief: This is where I finally acknowledge that the bad stuff isn’t changing, and may even be getting worse, and I finally call it quits. I meet up with my friend (ideally in neutral territory, but sometimes my place or theirs) and say, “Look, I’ve had these problems with our friendship. I don’t feel loved/ respected/ wanted/ cared for, and I think we need to break up.” Yes, I use the words “break up”. The friendships I have ended purposefully have been best friend relationships—people that at times felt like family. Friendships of lesser intensity usually just taper off of their own accord; it’s only the very intense, very unhealthy friendships I find require an actual break up. During the Grief stage, I experience a lot of sadness and a large sense of loss, but it usually runs parallel to Acceptance.

Acceptance: I know, underneath all the pain and sadness, that I made the right decision. I keep making and re-making a commitment to myself that I deserve to be treated with respect and kindness, and I know that by ending this friendship, I’m renewing that commitment. I know I’ll be better for it, and who knows, if we both change enough, maybe someday we might even be able to be friends again, but I don’t hold out for this possibility.

As I grieve and accept the end of the friendship, I usually circle back around to anger at least a few times. I think that’s normal, because I’m still hurting. Ultimately, though, I can come to a place of acceptance without the grief and anger, and that’s the final, healed stage for me.

Each of my ex-friends has reacted differently to my actions throughout these stages. The first one, before I had all the savvy communication skills I do now, was probably the messiest. I brought up that I felt like she treated me like I was not important, but I didn’t do it very well, which let her brush it off. Finally, when she said something blatantly homophobic (I’m queer), I got angry and left. When she tried calling me, I told her I was angry about her remarks and not in the mood to talk. She apologized, then tried to explain the logic behind her homophobia. (Folks, don’t do this.) She felt like I was overreacting, which in her eyes, I was. I was breaking off contact based on one little remark, from her perspective. But from mine, I’d been treated like I didn’t matter for two years, and now she had the nerve to straight-up tell me that I was less-than by default. She didn’t bother to ask if there was anything else that contributed to that fight, and I was too angry at having all of my attempts to bring up the “chopped-liver” feeling dismissed, so I told her not to contact me again. So far as I know, she’s still confused about why we broke up.

Another big friend break-up in my life happened four years and much introspection after the first one. He and I had been very close for about three years but in the last year of it, we’d started some pretty dysfunctional ways of interacting. He loved to party, but I hated when he was cross-faded, and as the night wore on, he would get annoying and I would get just plain mean. I told him at the end of one summer that I thought we were dysfunctional, and maybe we should break up. He agreed we weren’t in a good pattern, but he wasn’t going to be the one to leave. He told me if I had to leave for my own health, he would support me in that, even though he would miss me. A few months later, after an infamous night and the most violent my pacifist self has ever been, I called it quits. I officially hated who I was with him. We disagreed on some of the reasons behind the breakup but we agreed that we’d gotten to a bad place. We parted calmly, and I went home and cried. We run in the same circles still, so for several months after that night he was a little cold during our exchanges. Now, we interact like civilized divorced folks: not necessarily sweet, but nice enough.

Breaking up requires insight into the patterns of behavior expressed in a friendship. Frequently, when we’re doing something that’s bad for us, we ignore the signs that say it’s bad for us because we want to keep doing it; the same goes for friendships. I know that I always want to believe the best of people, that they (and I) can change and that we can work through whatever fight we had, but the truth of the matter is that if I am feeling mistreated on a regular basis, I owe it to myself to get out. Unhealthy patterns in one relationship don’t automatically equate to the people in them being bad—sometime’s the chemistry’s just gone sour. But both parties owe it to themselves to end a relationship that’s damaging someone. I am a human worthy of respect and love, and so are the friends with whom I’ve broken up.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Brainfood

Finding Islam

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My journey was long and winding.  I’m not an outwardly religious person, and I normally don’t volunteer my religious views.  Muslims aren’t popular in the United States, and revealing that you’re Muslim can sometimes be a dangerous proposition.

I feel compelled here, however, to speak candidly about my journey.  It’s a la mode these days to bash Islam, stereotype and pidgeonhole and caricature Islam.  I hope my story can cast a different shade on the conversation and reveal that Islam is a complex thing, and with over one billion adherents, is far from monolithic.

I wasn’t raised Muslim.  As a matter of fact, I’m the most religiously Muslim person in my family—my parents are basically cultural Muslims.  I was five years old and I asked my dad “Baba, what are we?” “Oh, we’re Muslim.”  And that was the extent of my religious instruction from my family. We ate pork; my mom enjoyed wine and beer; I openly and notoriously dated.

Islam was my choice.  I know what Islam is and what it represents might be different to someone who has it imposed on them.  Even filet mignon isn’t enjoyable when it’s shoved down your throat.

I was 19 and in a bad place.  Life changes, academic pressure, friction with my family, and ending my first relationship had me emotionally disoriented.  I noticed that my college had an Islamic studies class, and as a general history buff with law school aspirations, it seemed natural.

The Islam I learned about was leagues away from the Islam portrayed on television.  The only thing radical about Islam was how inclusive it was.  It accepted all adherents of the abrahamic religions.  Moses and Christ are both considered Prophets equally important to Mohammed—if Abrahamic monotheism was the Star Wars trilogy, Islam viewed itself as Return of the Jedi.

Women had extensive property rights. Considering that the Quran was written in the seventh century, this makes it a radical feminist text. Comparatively, the Vatican didn’t recognize that women even had souls until the fifth century.  Women in the United States were the property of men (father or husband) until the 1870s.  But to Muslims, God did not believe in race or nationalism.  All were equal before God.

Islam wasn’t afraid of science—it embraced it.  Islam prized education and literacy: God’s first miracle performed before the prophet Mohammed was to make him be able to read.

God was forgiving and merciful.  I was introduced to the idea of a being capable of knowing me so intimately, understanding my thoughts and motivations and intentions, and understanding my shortcomings.

The most important part to me was that there was no compulsion in faith.  You’re allowed to practice what you want, and set aside what rituals you don’t care for.  The idea is that those rules are for human benefit: God doesn’t need them, we do.  You aren’t a bad Muslim if you enjoy a beer or some wine, or even if you can’t resist some pepperoni pizza.

The thing that appealed to me was the contempt for hypocrisy.  Hypocrisy was my major beef with the loud practitioners of religion whom I encountered.  The gay-hating closeted gay pastor; the politician who goes to church on Sunday, meets his mistress Monday and divorces his cancer-striken wife on Wednesday; the moral majoritarian who frequents prostitutes; the list goes on.  In Islam, the worst thing you can be is a hypocrite.

It wasn’t all magical.  Like all religions, the adherents can be a problem.  I traveled to Iran to visit family.  While I was there, I’d hoped to get closer to Islam—after all, it is an “Islamic” republic.  I was wrong.  In short, I saw an almost part-for-part analogue of what was wrong with conservative reactionary Christian theology in the United States played out in Iran.  I saw hypocrisy.  I saw priests driving around in Mercedes when there were people starving in the street.  This wasn’t the Islam I learned about.  This wasn’t my Islam.

What I learned from that disappointment was that each person has to travel their own spiritual journey.  You can’t get a 1040EZ form for faith.  It isn’t something for the lazy.  It’s a long, rocky hike where you might stumble and fall and scrape yourself up.  You have to be willing to struggle.  Some folks don’t have the patience for it, and perhaps faith just isn’t for them. Not everyone likes pizza either.  It takes a particular type of person.  I got comfortable with an idea of what my Islam was.  My Islam was inclusive.  My Islam embraces all—and yes, that means LGBTs.  It wants to end poverty and hunger, illiteracy and ignorance.  It seeks peace in the human family.   It’s still a struggle from time to time.  I get so absorbed into the busyness of my life—law school, starting a nonprofit, getting scholarships and hustling money for fun—that I don’t set aside time to reflect on my life from the macro view.

I see my Islam in my American generation.  I see it in Mos Def and Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco, in Dave Chappelle and Aasif Manvi and Rainn Wilson—an enlightened but idiosyncratic expression of the human condition: beautiful and chaotic and flawed, but always trying to be better and never losing hope.  I don’t eat pork, but I do drink.  I date women.  I am by no means a strictly adherent Muslim in any “conventional” sense. But I think convention is bullshit—it’s a euphemistic term for uncreative or lazy.

I’m Muslim.  I’m proud to be Muslim. But if I get to have kids, I will want them to choose their own path.  It’s only fair: that’s what I did.  I’m comfortable with the possibility that there is no god, no afterlife, none of the mysticism of religion; there are finer points I disagree with, even within the text of the Quran.  I don’t view faith as an all-or-nothing ultimatum.  . The totality of the philosophy speaks for itself.  As a Christian friend of mine once said, “Truth is truth.”   The truth to me is that the point of us being here is to love each other, comfort each other, and keep the other from suffering.  It’s okay that I falter or fail or have my moments of doubt and cynicism, and even disagreement with what may be considered ‘devout.’  Ultimately, the word “faith” means not knowing.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Brainfood

Leaving Islam

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Growing up, religion was never something I questioned. When my mother told me I was Muslim, because she and my father were Muslim, I didn’t question it. I told everyone that I was Muslim without hesitation.  This usually meant the other kids thought I was the weird kid who couldn’t eat bacon. What being Muslim meant to me, however, was doing everything in my power to prevent going to hell. My parents very effectively and efficiently instilled the fear of God in me: I said a prayer before meals, after eating, every night before bed… I never dared to think of religion as a choice; it was simply what I was born into.

Then I hit high school and the angsty teenager in me started questioning my parents. I became that stereotypical punk kid with the stereotypical rebellious attitude. I disobeyed my parents, stayed out late, and listened to loud music about how The Man was keeping me down. My religion, however, was still unquestioned until senior year of high school and—like many life-changing stories—it involved a girl. I’d had a crush on this girl all year, and we had just started dating, I was excited to bring her home and introduce her to my family so one day after school I invited her over to play some video games in my room. About five minutes after we started playing Rock Band my mother called me into the living room and asked why there was a girl in my room. When I told her about my new girlfriend she was furious. While my girlfriend was waiting for me in my room my mother proceeded to shout at me in Arabic about how she had raised a sinner and how I was forsaking God.  I’d had a crush on this girl for the better part of a year because of what a genuinely good person she was and my mom completely denounced her without even meeting her. This was the first moment I started questioning my parents about religion. My whole life I had been told never to judge anyone and here she was shouting at me about my girlfriend’s terrible character based completely on her gender. It all seemed extremely hypocritical to me at the time and that made me reflect on all of the other ideas I’d been taught about religion.

I was conflicted for a couple of weeks. I didn’t understand how dating someone was such a crime against the creator of the entire universe. Then, after those weeks of thought, I decided that I was going to do something absolutely crazy. One day I went to school like I always did, but when lunch time rolled around, I walked to the cafeteria and ordered the one classic school lunch that I was never able to try: I ordered a slice of pepperoni pizza. In a single decisive moment, I took a bite into this pizza topped with sin and I waited for God to smite me.

But the smiting never happened. That was the day that I stopped being Muslim. It was the best pepperoni pizza that I have ever had.

I may have stopped being a Muslim that day, but my religious journey was far from an end. For a couple of years after that moment, I identified as an atheist with a staunch disbelief in God. I was basically a jerk to every religious person I met. I thought I had it all figured out. Of course I didn’t, and I still don’t, but that didn’t stop me from sitting on an anti-religious high horse. I still haven’t been able to tell my parents about my absence of religion.  But religion, or the lack of it, became a consuming part of my thought process—probably because I was still coping with an ingrained part of my life coming to an abrupt halt—and I, for some reason, decided I should tell everyone else what they should think.

Eventually, however, I grew out of that as well. I realized that I have no right to force my beliefs onto anyone the same way my parents did on me.

These days, I don’t even identify as an atheist. In fact, I don’t really identify as anything. I’ve had a long transformation on the path to my current (non)belief system, and my ideology will probably keep changing as that path continues. After 23 years of life, the only thing I’ve learned about religion is that I don’t know anything about it. For all I know Zeus and all of his godly acquaintances are sitting in Olympus and using the human race for their amusement.

The only thing of which I can be certain when it comes to religion is that I will never know anything, and at this moment, that feels kind of enlightening.

Brainfood

Shabbos, Shittachs, and Shomer: How to Succeed on the Upper West Side

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On a recent Sunday morning, I venture into Fairway, a grocery store on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, prepared to battle the crowd of strollers, walkers, and yoga mats that stand between my grocery list and me. This week, I am on a particular mission: it’s the week before the Jewish holiday of Passover, meaning that I—like what appears to be the majority of the other customers—need to stock up on the foods that meet the specific dietary restrictions for this eight-day holiday. I imagine this mission to be a reenactment of the actual parting of the Red Sea—the story of the Jews’ escape from slavery in Egypt, which we retell on Passover—since people rush toward the Passover food aisle with the same sense of urgency one would bring if being chased by enemy soldiers and crashing waves.

Finally, I find two people stocking shelves and ask them where I can find the Kosher for Passover yogurts. They speak to each other in rapid Spanish, and they don’t respond to me with directions in English; instead, one leads me to the dairy section and shows me how to find the Hebrew, Kosher for Passover stamp of approval on certain Dannon products. It’s a safe bet that the majority of the people who work at Fairway aren’t observant Jews, but they cater to a demographic of shoppers who are, so they are all well-versed in the laws of Kashrut and the Jewish calendar year. As I walk out of Fairway with shopping bags full of matzah and special yogurts, overhearing groups of people stopping each other on the street to wish each other a “Happy Holiday,” I have one of my only-on-the-Upper-West-Side moments.

Manhattan’s Upper West Side—mainly between W 70th and W 96th Streets—is home to an enclave of observant Jews across the religious spectrum, and with that comes a concentration of synagogues, Kosher restaurants, and challah per capita that I believe could only be rivaled by a city in Israel. The neighborhood is made up largely of families and the elderly, but it also has the reputation of being the “it place” to socialize for Jewish twenty-somethings. It’s a comfortable place to live for young, single New Yorkers who want to mingle with others who observe Shabbat, keep Kosher, and integrate Jewish religious or cultural practices into everyday life. There’s even a version of Craigslist that caters solely to Jews searching for apartments on the Upper West Side.

These idiosyncrasies are, in large part, why I find it easy to call the Upper West Side home, even when my own family isn’t nearby. But, like any family, this community can feel overbearing and judgmental, making it just as easy to feel self-conscious as it is to feel included. When I join the hoards of young people walking from synagogue to a Shabbat dinner on a Friday night, I know that other Sabbath observers who pass by will immediately identify me as part of their community and try to figure out who we know in common, wishing me a “Shabbat Shalom” (“Good Sabbath”) even if we are perfect strangers. On the flip side, if I’m coming home from work late, with my headphones in as I head out of the subway, I don my invisibility cloak, hoping that I don’t run into my religious friends and ruin my chance of being indexed as “datable” for eligible bachelors who are Sabbath observers. Last year, an acquaintance set me up with an old friend of hers who lives on the Upper West Side. I was so paranoid that it would be the topic of every dinner conversation in our social network, that I refused to go out on the Upper West Side all weekend, and I swore my friend to secrecy. Low and behold, before we had even set a location for the date, people came out of the woodwork to text me, telling me they’d heard I was going on a date with this person—and, in many cases, to tell me they’d already dated him. Utterly mortified, I coined the catch phrase, “Can’t a girl have a private life on the Upper West Side?!” I quickly learned the answer to that question.

All of that is to say that the codes and assumptions about lifestyle choices, political opinions, and social circles that filter into the young Upper West Sider’s lexicon can make a welcoming community feel more like an exclusive club, and you need to know the password to be let in. Personally, I navigate the Upper West Side by straddling the “insider” and “outsider” Jewish circles of my neighborhood, sending out the appropriate signals depending on which I feel like joining at a given moment. Like in any club, you feel like more of a participant if you can “talk the talk” and “walk the walk”—literally and figuratively in this case—so rather than describe this diverse Jewish community through sweeping generalizations, I thought I’d provide a beginner’s “phrase book” so that you can come and experience it like a local.

  1. Summer camp: The best thing that ever happened to you. The place where you met your lifelong friends, learned about prayers and puberty, and probably had your first kiss. When meeting people for the first time, even if it’s been ten years since anyone was even a camp counselor, you will likely be asked where you went to camp, followed by a ten-minute back-and-forth until you find someone you know in common. (If you didn’t go to camp, say you went to “some remote location of Camp Ramah that no one’s ever really heard of.”)
  1. Meal: This word you know, but in the context of the Upper West Side, it refers either to Friday night dinner or Saturday lunch. Starting Monday morning, friends will text each other to find out where they’re “having their meals” the following weekend. If you are “invited for a meal” (as opposed to “invited for dinner and drinks”), you should ask if you can bring challah or wine. Rather than try to bring something artisanal or fancy, which may not be up to all guests’ standards of kashruth, you should pick up something from a bodega on the Upper West Side. Meals are places to see and be seen. It’s a big deal to secure a place around certain people’s folding tables, and following your meal you will likely walk over to someone else’s meal and schmooze over scotch and their leftovers.
  1. Shittach: Twenty-four-year-olds on the Upper West Side seem to be more obsessed with marriage than the average New Yorker that age, so it’s a safe bet that you’ll throw in this term often. When we talk about dating and marriage, we use the word “shittach” to mean a blind date. Officially, a shittach is a setup orchestrated by a matchmaker, but, come on, it’s the Upper West Side, not the Fiddler on the Roof’s shtetl! Instead, you might be invited to a meal to orchestrate a shittach; in other words, your friend wants to set you up with her friend from camp, so she invites you both for a Friday night meal, seats you next to each other, and it’s b’sheret (“meant to be”). (And, if it doesn’t work out, just know that you will run into this person and all of his friends for the rest of your life on the Upper West Side.)
  1. Shomer: When looking for a roommate, you will want to know if that person falls into any/all of these categories: shomer Shabbat; shomer Kashruth; shomer nagiyah. The first refers to whether somebody observes all the laws of the Sabbath, abstaining from use of electricity and spending money. The second term gives you insight into how many sets of dishes that person would contribute (one for milk and one for meat?). The last, used mainly among the more Orthodox circles these days, will allow you to inquire about a person’s—ahem—sexual experiences. If your friend wants to set you up on a shittach, you’d best first confirm whether or not he’s shomer to find out if he touches girls before marriage.
  1. Jake’s Dilemma: Watch out! This phrase in no way allludes to the biblical story in which Jacob wrestles with an angel. (Actually, now that I mention it, maybe it does?) In this context, it simply refers to the most crowded bar on a Saturday night. If you want to go out in the West 80s, start at Jake’s Dilemma, show your ID to the bouncer, and throw in some of your new catch phrases. You’ll feel like a local. And, who knows, you might just meet your long-lost friend from camp or your b’sheret.
Photo by Gali Levi-McClure

Photo by Gali Levi-McClure

 

 

Brainfood

Teaching Myself Buddhism

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For me, it began with yoga. A new studio opened in my hometown, I wandered in out of curiosity and walked out with an interview to work in their daycare. I started doing yoga and, a year and a half later, my primary instructor handed me a book called Dharma Punx by Noah Levine.

If you haven’t seen it, the book’s cover is a photograph of the author’s tattoo-covered hands in prayer position against a stark black background. I was intrigued. The story details Noah’s young adult years in Santa Cruz, CA, his descent into drug use and eventual arrest, and his turnaround following a poignant conversation he had with his meditation-teacher father, Stephen Levine. After his release from prison, Noah began attending classes and sitting retreats at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, a center that was just a few hours away from where I live. Within a year of reading Dharma Punx, I attended my first weeklong meditation retreat, not realizing it would be a silent meditation retreat—as in silent all. day. long.

On the first evening, I was sitting in the dining hall, eating dinner after settling into my room, and the man across from me commented to the woman beside him, “I can’t believe people are talking right now.”

The woman replied, “Oh don’t worry, tomorrow you ‘ll be able to hear a pin drop in here.”

“What?” I blurted out.  “Is this a silent-silent retreat, as in no talking? Not just during meditation?”

They both looked at me quizzically. It didn’t help that I was probably the youngest person in the room by a good 20+ years on average. They explained the retreat’s parameters: no talking on site, not even in the residential halls, and reading and writing are also discouraged. Gulp.

And thus, I entered the silence for the first time. I’ve since attended two additional weeklong retreats and listened to many, many dharma talks. I’m still working to make time for meditation every day. These experiences with Buddhist teachings (dharma) have significantly shaped my perception of and approach to life.

In a dharma talk I listened to recently, Joseph Goldstein summed up the dharma thusly: everything is connected (non-self), nothing lasts (impermanence), you are not alone (suffering). It is our suffering that helps us to feel compassion for one another. The first of the Four Noble Truths is that dukkha (suffering) exists, the second is that it is caused by craving or clinging. The third is that suffering abates as craving is relinquished. The final of the Four Noble Truths is acceptance that the Eightfold Path leads to the cessation of suffering.

Here are a few concepts that have particularly stood out to me over the years:

  • Near Enemies and Far Enemies: the Four Brahma-viharas (Source)
  • In Buddhism, there are four desirable states, or brahma viharas. Each of these has both a near enemy and a far enemy. The far enemy is easy to spot, while the near enemy can masquerade as the desirable quality.
    • Metta (loving kindness): near enemy is attachment; far enemy is hatred
    • Karuna (compassion): near enemy is pity; far enemy is cruelty
    • Mudita (sympathetic joy): near enemy is comparison, insincerity; far enemy is envy
    • Upekkha (equanimity): near enemy is indifference; far enemy is anxiety, greed
  • Five Daily Recollections (Source)
    1. I am of the nature to grow old; I cannot avoid aging.
    2. I am of the nature to become ill or injured; I cannot avoid illness or injury.
    3. I am of the nature to die; I cannot avoid death.
    4. All that is mine, dear and delightful, will change and vanish.
    5. I am the owner of my actions;
      I am born of my actions;
      I am related to my actions;
      I am supported by my actions;
      Any thoughts, words or deeds I do, good or evil, those I will inherit.
  • Enlightenment takes effort (samma-vayama).
    Don’t strain or judge yourself harshly.

If you’re interested in exploring Buddhism, here are my suggestions:

  • Look up the nearest meditation center or Buddhist temple. Most centers have a variety of classes, daylong retreats, and overnight retreats. Do your research and delve into the background of each center—there are big differences in approach on every level, from the branch of Buddhism on which the center bases its teaches, to the daily schedule of meals and meditation.
  • Listen to dharma talks. DharmaSeed.org has literally thousands of dharma talks that you can stream for free. You can search by key word to match the subject to your current feeling (e.g. stress, anger, frustration, calmness, love) or search by teacher. They even have a free app for mobile device streaming.
Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery