Thoughts on Marriage

When I was a kid, I thought my life would be just like my mom and dad’s:  I would become a teacher like my mom.  At age 23, I would marry a computer scientist like my dad.  We would have some kids and live happily ever after.  In high school, my boyfriend and best friend, Gavin, told me he wanted to be a computer scientist just like my dad.  I thought it was a sign.  I was sure he was meant to be my husband, and we would live out the same life as my parents.

I was wrong.  Gavin and I have remained friends to this day, but our romance never blossomed.  And as we went to colleges on opposite sides of the mainland, my feelings about marriage and my future changed.  In my early 20s, I decided I didn’t ever want to get married.  I felt that I could never promise the traditional wedding vows to anyone.  I particularly took issue with the parts about “obeying” and “till death do us part.”  I know I’ll never blindly obey anyone.  And I can’t realistically promise to be with someone until the day we die, because things happen in life.  Things change.  It is important to me to keep my word, to not promise anything I can’t deliver.  And it’s also important to me to live my life to the fullest and always keep growing personally and spiritually.  If at any point it weren’t the healthiest and best thing for my partner and me to remain together, I wouldn’t want us to.  Too many people stay in miserable, abusive, and dead marriages, because they made a promise to be with their partner for life.  I think that’s tragic.  So, in my early 20s, I decided marriage was not for me.

And then I met Susan, an intelligent, kind, and beautiful woman.  I fell in love.  Not the “this is like my parents, so it must be right” kind of love that I felt with Gavin.  Not the “I’m infatuated with you, because you make me feel superior” kind of love, or the “I desperately need you, because you love me when I can’t love myself” kind of love, or the “I feel intense desire and lust, so it must be love” kind of love, like I felt in my past relationships.  Those really aren’t love at all.  Susan made me want to be a better person.  I admired who she was – her sense of justice and fairness.  We shared the same core values, and I felt we could learn a lot from each other and grow together.  And after being together for a couple of years, my feelings on marriage changed again.  I still didn’t feel I could promise the traditional wedding vows to anyone, but I wanted to be in a committed relationship with Susan.  And who says we couldn’t write our own vows?  Who says we couldn’t create what Gary Zukav calls a “spiritual partnership,” a marriage for the purpose of spiritual growth?

Well, it turns out that a lot of people do.  Marriage for gay couples is not legal in most of the world, including the United States of America – supposedly the land of freedom and equality.  Currently, gay marriage is legal in 5 states and Washington D.C. and banned in 30 other states.  Some states give gay couples all the state rights of marriage, but call it a “civil union” or a “domestic partnership.”  Still other states offer some of the state rights of marriage under these names or, like Hawaii, call it a “reciprocal beneficiary.”  All very unromantic names, aren’t they?  “Domestic partnership,” I think, is the funniest one.  It sounds like we clean houses together.  Even with full marriage rights in some states, most of the 1,138 rights that come with marriage are federal, and they are currently denied to all gay couples in the US.

So, now I want to get married, but because of where I live (Hawaii) and who I want to marry (Susan), I can’t.  Coincidentally, Gavin fell in love with a man and is dealing with being treated as a second-class citizen in the USA as well.  In the end, I don’t know what will happen.  Maybe Susan and I will make a commitment to each other one day, and maybe not.  But I believe in my heart that we should have the right to decide for ourselves.

Transitions

I was just reading over my first blog here… all about my lofty dream.  I still have that dream, but some of the specifics have changed a bit.  I said in that entry that I wanted to run my own “Art 4 Justice” company and website.  That part has evolved into something I’m now calling Voice Is Power (VIP).  The idea is to start a non-profit organization called the Voice Is Power Foundation, which will raise money through educational programs, performances, and donations to bring more peace and justice into the world.  The Foundation will give 100% of its profit to organizations and projects that help bring people out of poverty and into lives of dignity and authentic power.  One idea of an organization I’d like to put some money into is Kiva (www.kiva.org), which changes people’s lives and helps to bring them out of poverty by giving micro-loans.

The main educational course, Voice Is Power, will be a holistic course for writing, singing, and speaking out, designed to teach people to recognize the power of their own voices, how to use their voices for healing, empowerment, justice, and peace, and to find where their passions and the world’s needs connect.  I’m working on writing the curriculum for this course now.

Right now, I’m in a transitional period in my life – looking for a job in order to save some money to move to the mainland with Susan, still working for Kids Talk Story (a creative writing program) part of the time, working on my own curriculum ideas when possible… dreaming and planning for the future.  I suppose one could argue that life itself is a bunch of transitions, because things are always changing.  But right now, I have that very strong feeling of being unsettled that usually comes with big transitions – of being simultaneously excited and scared of what will come next.

 

Mastering the Art of Living

I have a good problem:  I have a lot of interests!  I keep trying to consolidate all of my interests into one “career,” so that I can do what I love all the time and get paid for it.  That’s the dream, anyway.  And I think it’s a good dream, a great thing to strive for… unless trying to make all my interests into a job would either ruin the fun of them (which I’ve experienced before) and/or turn them into something they’re not really meant to be for me.  For example, if I love doing yoga, does that mean I should become a yoga instructor?  Not necessarily.  Maybe I should just do yoga in the comfort of my own home, in absolute solitude, for my own well-being, with no money or strings attached.

Maybe sometimes our “trying to make a living” gets confused or entangled with “trying to make a life.”  I DO want to make a decent living, so that I can have a place to live and food to eat.  However, what I really want is to master the art of living – not making a living, but living itself. I think the confusion comes in because I live in a society that values work and money above everything else – above even one’s well-being or life.  I am trained to always look for ways to make money.  If I love writing, make a career of it.  If I love singing, become a professional singer.  And even more often, unfortunately, those messages don’t come with one’s interests in mind; instead of “make money doing what you love,” the message is “make money however you can, no matter how unethical it may be.  It is a dog-eat-dog world, and you have to look out for #1.”  I do not subscribe to that belief.  I believe that I can do something I love for a living.  But even more, I think that I can have a happy life and that work is only a part of it.

I’ve had a couple ideas recently.  One is to record on GarageBand my own a capella version of The Fray’s song, Never Say Never. Another is to write what I call a “fragmented memoir.”  This would be a memoir with different sections giving a different perspective on my life.  One would be my life as a tragedy.  Another would be my life as a comedy… and so on.

What is the significance of these ideas?  Maybe nothing.  Will they lead me to a way to make a living?  Maybe, maybe not.  Or a life?  Maybe, maybe not.  I can only hope that following my heart’s desires, however strange or disconnected from the rest of my life they may seem, will lead me in a positive direction.  In the very least, I think that it will make me more in tune with myself and my own intuition.  And that alone is very valuable.

Maybe Massachusetts

The other day, Susan said, “What about Massachusetts?” Massachusetts has legalized gay marriage, they have the closest thing to universal healthcare there is in the U.S. (from what we can tell so far), and we wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of becoming citizens of a whole different country.

A fellow writer suggested that instead of fleeing the country, we ought to stay and try to change things in the United States.

I don’t know if wanting to move someplace – whether it’s across the country or out of the country – is like chasing a rainbow.  Maybe I’ll never be able to capture what I’m after outside of myself; maybe I can only find true peace and happiness within, and moving around (or even dreaming of it) is a convenient distraction from that.

Then again, what if moving someplace in particular would somehow facilitate the process of discovering my own inner peace?

Sometimes I wonder how to tell the difference between true desire (which leads you on your true life path) and obsession, between resistance brought on by fear and resistance brought on by honest disinterest, between what is really good for me and what isn’t.

So, for the sake of trying to look at this practically, here are some pros and cons to moving to Massachusetts…  Susan and I have been looking particularly at Northampton, MA.

Pros:

• Gay marriage and adoption are legal.
• Massachusetts has a public option for healthcare.
• Seasons (sometimes cold ones, but the change can be nice…).
• Northampton has great schools – elementary through college – which means the potential for great jobs (as Susan and I both work in the education field) and a good education for kids down the road…
• Northampton has been called the “top town for a simple life,” the “#1 small arts town in the U.S.,” and (and I quote) “Lesbianville, USA.”  Three things that are especially appealing to Susan and me: simplicity, the arts, and an acceptance of our relationship.
• Cost of living in Northampton is definitely lower than Hawai’i.  We could even buy a house at some point!
• Bike trails and parks where we can walk our dog Jake.
• More social and political activism (to get us working on making positive change within the U.S. instead of fleeing).
• Friends and family on the East Coast.
• The ability to see my sister more often, as she often goes to New York on business.

Cons:

• Well, it ain’t Hawai’i – by which I mostly mean, it gets cold! Hawai’i's also got a laidback atmosphere we enjoy.  And beautiful beaches!
• We’d miss our friends Jill & Evelyn.

I’m sure I’ll think of more pros and cons as we do more research.  Right now, however, I’m thinking that Massachusetts may be a decent compromise to getting more of what we want without having to leave the country altogether…

Shopping Around for a New Country

Susan and I have been dreaming of moving.  I know, I know:  We live in Hawai’i – one of the most beautiful places on Earth, so why would we want to move? Well, we want to live in a place where:

1. We can get married.
2. We can adopt kids.
3. We have universal healthcare.
4. The people and the Earth matter more than profits.

Yes, we’re not talking about moving to the U.S. mainland; we’re talking about leaving the country. So far, based on the above criteria, we’ve found eight countries that could work:

1. Canada. We’re leaning towards this one, just because it seems most feasible and is closest to our friends and family.  (Don’t want to break my mama’s heart!)
2. The Netherlands. The first country to legalize gay marriage, and Amsterdam is ranked the #1 most bicycle-friendly city in the world.
3. Spain. Probably the warmest of all our options (which is a consideration after living in San Diego and Hawai’i my whole life!), and we do already know a little Spanish!
4. Sweden.
   
5. Norway.
6. Belgium.
7. United Kingdom. They don’t have gay marriage, but from what we can tell, they give same-sex couples all/most of the rights of marriage and call it something else.
8. Iceland. Same as the U.K. on gay marriage rights.

There’s still time.  We’ll be in Hawai’i until at least May 2010 as Susan finishes up her PhD at the University of Hawai’i – Manoa.  But a big move and even dual citizenship could be in our future…

Can I Be Happy Now?

Often people fall into the trap of thinking, “Once I have _______, then I’ll be happy.”  The problem with that is that whenever they get _______, that thing or person or whatever it is… is then often replaced by something else… and happiness is something that lives eternally in the future.  This is one of the dangers of goal-setting.  Sometimes you can become so focused on your goals that you forget to live today.

I don’t want to do that.  I want to be smarter than that.

So now I’m asking myself a question:  What do I want from all of the things I want?  For example, I want to take a year off of work.  I want to marry Susan.  I want to join an a capella group.  I want to go to Italy.  But what is it that I think all of these things will give me?  What is the desire that underlies them all?

I guess it’s what most of us want:  We want to be happy.  To be at peace with ourselves and the world.

So, the question then that follows is:  Do I need to do all, or any, of those things in order to be happy or at peace?  Hmmm…  That’s what I tell myself sometimes, yes.  But is it really true?  Can I be happy now? Can I be happy without those things?  Or before I have those things? In fact, maybe being happy now would help to create those things…  Would it?

I have no great answers.  Just these contemplations right now.  Truth is that I am quite happy with my life as it is.  There’s just this gnawing feeling that it could be so much more.

Can I enjoy the journey of life and not always have my eye on the destination?  How do I set goals, dream, and strive for great things, and at the same time, be present and happy right now?

My heart tells me that stopping the activity of my mind is one way.  It is when my mind is caught up in the to-do’s of work and my emotions are on overdrive to accomplish a million different things… that I feel detached from my own soul.  So, for now, I will just stop.

Dreams Change

One thing I keep learning over and over again is that dreams change. When I began this blog, I set out with this dream of making $100,000/year to do what I absolutely love.  And that dream still remains, but a greater, more immediate dream has since stepped in:  To learn, grow with, and marry Susan (my awesome girlfriend of over 5 years). Yes, I began this journey mostly dreaming about my own personal career goals.  But since Susan’s herniated disc started to take over both our lives, we’ve had plenty of time to sit and talk.  And as we’ve talked, we’ve begun to dream together.

Susan and me on top of the "pillboxes" in Lanikai.

One big dream Susan and I have is one we each came up with on our own and then to our surprise, we discovered we had the same dream!  That dream is to take a full year off of work – to practice following our intuitions, gut instincts, passions, and insights.  To take time to truly discover who we really are at our cores and what we really want out of life (as opposed to being constantly caught by the need to merely make a living, please others, and “be productive”). We don’t know yet how we’ll pull this off, but we’re determined to find a way.  We’re saving our money and looking into caretaking as a way to live rent-free…

Another dream we have is to get married. This is probably a stronger dream for me than it is for Susan, since a former marriage left a bad taste in her mouth… but for the first time, she has said that she wants to marry me, too.  Of course, there’s somewhat of a challenge to this one:  the fact that in most places on Earth, gay marriage is not legal.  It isn’t legal in Hawai’i, where we live now.  So, to marry AND enjoy all the rights and benefits that come with marriage, we will have to fight for the laws to change here and/or move.  Once again, we don’t know how we’ll do it exactly, but we’re determined to make it happen.

So, there you have it.  My career dream is now on the back burner, and my love dream is taking center stage. I imagine our year off as the perfect time to build the foundation for a happy career anyway.  (Susan and I have talked, too, about starting our own non-profit organization, so maybe that is in the cards…)  So, until then (or until my dreams change again…), my energy is going into making our year off and our wedding realities.  Here’s an idea:  We get married, and then call our year off our “year-long honeymoon”!

Here’s to you and me and our dreaming, growing, learning, loving, and living together, Susan…

A Dream Detour

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind.  I have not gone to MuseDaze on Tuesdays.  I have not met up with the a capella group again.  I have not pursued the dreams that I’ve outlined here in this blog.  Not because I didn’t want to, but something else took precedence.

This is Susan and me at Lanikai Beach a couple of years ago.

Her name is Susan.  She’s been my girlfriend for over 5 years now.  We live together in Honolulu with our dog, Jake.  And in the last few weeks, she has developed progressively worse pain in her upper back and down her right arm.  A week ago Sunday, we ended up in the ER at 3AM, because the pain was so incredibly excruciating.  Every painkiller the doctors gave her didn’t work.  They kept trying more powerful ones.  They didn’t work.

At 7AM that morning, Susan was taken in for an MRI.  At 9AM, we got the results:  she has a herniated disc in her neck.  Their suggestion:  surgery.

After several trips to several doctors to get several opinions, Susan decided to go through with the surgery.  It is scheduled for this Thursday.

And that is why my dream has taken a detour.  At first, when all of this started happening, I thought it was an interruption to my big dream, because I haven’t had the time or energy to pursue it.  But as I’ve watched Susan suffer in pain, I’ve felt my heart grow.  Beneath all of the sleep deprivation and emotional exhaustion, there is deep gratitude, because all of this has shown me that one of my biggest dreams has already come true: I have someone incredible to share my life with.  Tragedies and heartache are never fun in and of themselves, but they carry with them great treasures.  You just have to open your eyes to see them.  This has made me see what is truly important in life: people.  Susan.  Love.

This has not interrupted my dream; it has brought it into focus.

Finding My Own North Star

Martha Beck

Finding Your Own North Star

I began this blog as I was just finishing a life-changing book.  It is Martha Beck’s Finding Your Own North Star:  Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to put some real time and energy into creating the life they truly want.  It is a well-written, personable, and funny book that guides you on a path towards realizing your dreams with the right balance of dreaming and good ol’ hard work.

In the book, Martha talks about 4 main parts, or “squares,” to making your dreams come true.  They are:

1. Death & Rebirth
2. Dreaming & Scheming
3. The Hero’s Saga
4. The Promised Land

As far as I can tell, I am in “Square 2″ right now.  Square 1 is some kind of departure from your old life.  For me, that came from having a lull of work in the summer months (I’m a creative writing teacher) and having a lot of time on my hands to really think about how I’m living my life and what kinds of changes I’d like to make in it.  With the creation of this blog, I stepped into Square 2 and began to dream. That dream has been posted here for all to see, and now it is time to “scheme,” or make a plan of action for realizing that dream.

One of the first realizations I had in starting to scheme was that there are several dreams within my dream. So, if I want to break that dream into manageable steps (or what Martha calls “turtle steps”), I’ve first got to break down the dream itself into its different parts.  As I looked over my dream more closely, I decided that it centers around the desire to start an “Art 4 Justice” company. Here are the different pieces of that company:

• WEBSITE – I want to create a website that brings together already-existing resources, artists, and organizations that are doing some form of “art for justice.”  This would include reaching out to those people and organizations and building a strong community of artists dedicated to justice in the world.
• EDUCATION – This would involve writing a curriculum and teaching “Art 4 Justice” classes.  It may also include writing a book about it for publication and sales.
• PERFORMANCE – This is the part where I would build a performance group (music, poetry, etc.) dedicated to bringing about justice through performance.

So, I’ve begun to gather resources into I-Web on my MacBook to create a website.  I’ve started putting resources into a folder on my computer also as research for a curriculum and possibly a book.  And my new a capella group and poetry workshops are my first “turtle steps” in the direction of a performance group.  How exciting is this?!? 

Links

For more on Finding Your Own North Star, go to:  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812932188/1n9867a-20

For more on Martha Beck, go to:  http://www.marthabeck.com/

A Creative Week

Last week, I did a few great things…

On Monday night, I met up with a group of women that I found on craigslist.  We just went out for dinner so that we could meet and get to know each other a little bit, but the PURPOSE of meeting each other is to form an a capella group! I really liked the people (a diverse group of women, ranging in ages, musical backgrounds, and interests, but all open to each other’s ideas and input), and I’m looking forward to our next meeting (to be determined).  I’m really excited to have found other people who love to sing and to be embarking on a new musical endeavor.  I used to write songs, play guitar, and sing solo, but now I’ll get to sing with others.  Perfect!

On Tuesday evening, I went to my 2nd MuseDaze at Bar 35 with Evelyn and Sarah.  This time, Darron Cambra led the free poetry workshop.  It was really fun.  Evelyn can’t make it this week (tomorrow), but I’m looking forward to hopefully going with Sarah again.

On Sunday, I posted the description of the Righters’ August Meetup.  The Righters: Writing for Justice is the name of a writing group I started through meetup.com about 2 years ago.  It’s exactly what it sounds like:  a group with a purpose of writing to bring about justice and make a positive difference in the world.  One of the suggestions for our members this time is to start a blog!  (This is mine. )

It feels good to have the ol’ creative juices flowing again…

Links

For a great place to find ANYTHING you need:  http://honolulu.craigslist.org/

For more information on MuseDaze on Tuesdays or Darron Cambra:  http://www.poorwettree.com/

For more information on the Righters: Writing for Justice:  http://www.meetup.com/righters/