Re-Education Through Fire

The engine roars, and then it gives,
but never dies. We don’t live,
we just survive. 

~ Rise Against, “Re-Education (Through Labor)”

You know, I don’t often say this, but I’m not sure where to begin on this one. Generally the problem I have is that I can’t fully latch onto any one of the million half-formed ideas swirling about my head. In this case, it’s that I can’t seem which one to pick first, because it struck me this morning as I was driving home from dropping off Orion at work whilst Tim McIlrath’s scratchy voice blared from my speakers that all these ideas are connected. Not necessarily *all* of my ideas in the sense of everything I think about, but *all* in the sense of the ones I have been bouncing around lately, albeit not necessarily blogging about for want of coherence (and, as always, time).

What are these connected, bouncing ideas, you ask? Well. Back to my original dilemma: where to begin. I think I may just throw them all out there at once and then see where that takes me. Sure, because that usually works, and by “works” what I mean ever so sarcastically is “leads to a coherent end product.” So here it goes.

Disregarding any accusations of being a broken record, I really did spend a good chunk of my childhood running around the woods barefoot and climbing trees, and when I wasn’t getting in touch with my inner fae-amazon-native-hippie-athlete, I was reading books. Devouring books, in fact. I think I might have read The Hobbit before I read The Magic Schoolbus. My point is that I was either outside, learning straight from the source—albeit unbeknownst to me at the time—or I was inside, learning what others had learned before me. Then, of course, I became a pre-teen and discovered that music consisted of more than singing songs about bees and trees and flowers and the things I saw in the woods, and I picked up a guitar. Thus began my semi-rebellious stage. I listened to Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins, the Foo Fighters, Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine. I didn’t exactly understand which machine RATM was raging against, but I liked their music nevertheless. I dressed like a cross between a punk and a hippie with occasional goth-prep elements. (Is that even a style?) I even went so far once as to walk downstairs sporting black lipstick, which was promptly nipped in the bud by laughter from my parents. But really, that was the extent of my teenage rebellion.

My parents never instated a curfew, because I never needed one. I never stayed out late or got in trouble or even ran with a semi-rough crowd. I ran with the track team instead. Sure, I went to the occasional punk show, but those were always straight edge, and I use the term “punk” here incredibly loosely. My parents loved me and always treated me like a thinking adult. All my teachers loved me, with the exception of the 8th grade fiasco. There were no authority figures in my life that I deemed unfair or unworthy, let alone tyrannical (again, excluding 8th grade). However, a part of me always longed for a cause, for a reason to fight the system—any system, really—for a revolution.

Then I went to college, and not just any college, a military one. I became part of the system without even realizing it, and now I serve the machine of the government as the “fourth branch.” However, I will get to that whole service issue later. Back to my college days.

Enter Rise Against.

This song always gives me chills. There are a few songs that do that, all for very different reasons. There is just something about the combination of the screaming and the rebellion and the mechanical references and the driving beats that sends tingles all up and down my spine whenever “Re-Education” scrolls across my iPod screen. While they’ve been making music for much longer than I’ve been listening to them, this song—released in 2008—was my introduction to the band. Even now it affects me with a wave of nostalgia, inspiration, rebellious longing, and just a twinge of fear. Funny how music can do that, and that’s part of my theory on why music is magic, but that’s another post entirely.

I’ve listened to this song for years now, yet my first time actually watching the video was just moments after I decided to write this post. Finally, several paragraphs later, you’re about to understand why this and why now. It's all about the fire. While I do not condone the tactics displayed in the music video, I can’t help but be moved by the symbolism. Obviously, terrorism = bad. But fire? = pretty. Anywho, before my carefully suppressed pyro flares up (flares? get it? I made a pun!) I am going to get back on topic. The fires they start in the city—which at least on the upside appears to be entirely unpopulated, apart from the bike-riding firestarters themselves—resemble the spark of knowledge, that destructive, creative, purifying force in the universe. The fire of suns, fusing hydrogen atoms into helium and releasing massive amounts of radiation that make life on rocks such as Earth possible. Food cooking over a campfire, in an oven, in a microwave, nourishing life further. Bodies burning calories, always consuming in order to produce. Fire is light. It’s energy. Fire is life as much as it is death. In this particular music video, the fire is used to cleanse the city of the tyrannical elements it represented, leaving the ground purified and ready for rebirth, for a new order, one in which differences are respected and celebrated.

If you can’t tell, my normally earthy-nature is on a fire kick lately. I think it may have something to do with all the coffee I’ve been drinking. Regardless, between Rise Against and Robopocalypse, my feelings about the future are a mix of excitement and apprehension. Whenever I crack out my tarot cards and ask for insight into the future of this country, of the world, I pull the Moon and the Tower: hidden mysteries, uncertainty, ultimate destruction necessary for rebirth and re-creation. I don’t know where things are headed, but I know I want to be there to put the pieces back together as necessary. I want to be that Amazon—a Warrior-Priestess-Leader—to set things right again once they go terribly wrong. Whether we are approaching a slow economic decay or a sudden, violent collapse; whether we are about to explode into another war or implode into a failed state; whether we are to turn a corner and reclaim our regional hegemony or even achieve global status (believe it or not, we have never quite qualified as a global hegemony by IR standards); I want to be there. I am a part of the system, yes. But what I pledged my loyalty to, what I signed up to potentially lay down my life in service to, is the Constitution. That pledge I hold as holy.

It’s a fabulous document, full of all sorts of wonderful knowledge and governmental ideals. You should read it sometime.

First Attempt At Formalwear

My new dress :) and the
faux fur bolero. While I
did make the dress, I did
not, in fact, hunt and
skin the mink.

So recently there was a formal affair I had to attend, and for once I didn’t have to wear my dress uniform, but could wear an actual dress. Thus, after a long and laborious search for an appropriate dress, I determined that there is nothing presently on the market worth wearing. At least, not in the color I was hell bent on rocking (I’m an MP; I *had* to wear hunter green to our Military Ball, as it is our branch color). However, there are very few formal dresses for sale that qualify as members of the green spectrum that are neither teal nor chartreuse. There’s not really a market, apparently, for a good, solid, foresty hunter green…except me. I looked through store after store. I even looked online, and not a dress was there to behold except a few super-cheap jersey knit ones that really wouldn’t be appropriate anyway, and this one with a slit all the way up to the hoo-hah…

Plus nothing came in my size.

Thus, deciding that my hunt for the perfect hunter dress was futile, and wanting practice in the formalwear-making department anyway, I figured I would try my hand at using a sewing machine.

Now, I had never used a sewing machine, ever. They always scared the crap out of me. I had this irrational fear—and I knew it was completely irrational—that I would sew my finger into the fabric. That said, I’ve done lots and lots of sewing over the years, to include every Halloween costume since second grade (Cleopatra, cut out of a old white sheet, colored with sharpie, and hastily stitched together with black thread), but it was all by hand. My hand-sewing skills have greatly improved since those days, and my sewn accomplishments include a Xena-esque warrior goddess and the Mother of Dragons—complete, of course, with a dragon—not to mention a rather detailed Joan of Arc. Ok, ok, so mostly my sewing exploits involve a lot of pleather and stretch velvet with something of an Amazonian flair. I figured, how hard can using a machine be? or working with satin? boning? corsetry? I can do that. I can do anything! I’m a freaking artistic, craft-master prodigy, after all.

At least, that’s what I told my mother when she expressed her doubts in my abilities to sew a formal gown in time. You see, by the time I admitted defeat in my purchase-a-dress pursuit, I only had one week left prior to the event itself. I went to the local JoAnn Fabrics, picked out some lovely glitter-coated satin in the perfect shade of hunter green, some matching lining and thread, interfacing, the whole shebang. I even purchased a pattern (something else I’d never used before). Initially I was going to wing it, but when I saw the pattern I figured that would be a good starting point, considering it was exactly what I had in mind plus I didn’t have a whole lot of time for my normal process of trial and error.

And…it worked! I didn’t exactly sleep much that week, but by Thursday I definitely had a wearable dress. I had another ball the week after, so I made a few tweaks for the final version—mainly, adding a beaded trim around the neckline—but all in all I was able to pull off the impossible feat, thus making me feel much more confident that the creation of my perfect wedding dress will be doable. Anywho, so the dress is exactly as I wanted it, and I made it all by myself :) if you can’t tell, I’m a little bit on the proud side, hence the blog post and the picture.

Mortal Journaling

Woman Writing, Pompeii

I’ve come to realize—a little late in the game perhaps—that life never slows down. I always find myself thinking that somehow next week, next month, next year, I’ll have time to think and reflect and write and paint and meditate and scry and sculpt and be me. I keep thinking that just around the corner is a break, that I’ll be able to breathe again, to relax. To spend time with the ones I love. And week after week, month after month, I’m wrong. Life never slows down; it just speeds up.

I picked up my diary today for the first time in over a month, and last month marked the first time since 2011. So much happened in between then and now that I didn’t know how to begin to cover it. I deleted a lot of phone numbers, opened an Etsy shop, moved to two different states, deployed, redeployed, grew deeper into my Pagan practice, made some new friends, finished writing a novel, fell in love, got engaged. Too much has happened to tell it all in one or even several journal entries. My life is moving in a completely different direction at a hugely increased speed than when I started, and yet my feet are still walking the same path. Or, perhaps, running would be a better analogy.

Once upon a time I wrote pretty regularly. I bought this journal at the tail end of high school, and the first entry coincides with my graduation. I wrote through all that last summer of freedom before I sold my body, time and energy to the government in return for two undergrad degrees and a steady paycheck (well, at least until the White House runs out of money). I wrote off and on throughout my university days, about once or twice a month until my last year, when I left my diary at home during a break and just never brought it back to school. Half a year went by, and in the absence of a diary I began a blog. Then life got in the way of even maintaining that much, and how easy is it to sit down and write for a few minutes once a week and post? The answer, in case you’re wondering, is entirely too easy for me to justify my blogtacular negligence.

The journal—which I have neglected even more than my blog, if you can believe that—is a hefty little volume, over 1000 pages bound in brown Italian leather with a metal, flower-and-vine styled medallion embedded on the front. It’s heavy, and it looks like something out of a medieval library, which is one of many reasons I chose this journal in the first place to contain my innermost thoughts, thoughts even I—outspoken and open as I am—won’t post anonymously on the internet. Something about today just made me pick it up again, and instead of writing, I found myself flipping through my old entries. I opened to a random page, and it was back when I was first dating DouchebagEx (or, as I prefer to abbreviate, DBX). I drowned myself in those memories, surprised at the insight I had as a 20 year old and yet disturbed by some of the words I expressed on those pages. I read through fifteen, maybe twenty entries before I realized the feelings I have my for my fiancé are so much more powerful than those I thought I had for DBX. The emotional place I am in now is infinitely stronger and steadier than it was back in my freshman year of college, and little did I know then that my early doubts were indicative of an ultimately unhealthy attachment to a sociopath. I do now call him DBX for a reason…

It made me realize, once again, how lucky I am to have found my Orion, and how precious my time with him is.

Most of my friends from college are now scattered throughout the world. Some are presently deployed, some lucky ones haven’t deployed yet, and some have already come back to the States. One of my good friends won’t be coming back at all. It’s the price every one of us is aware of, to some extent, and it’s been weighing on my mind lately. I wonder if that’s what drew me to my diary today, the knowledge of my own mortality. As a Pagan with a predominantly Druidic/Celtic leaning, I believe in reincarnation and celebrate the circle of life; as a member of the profession of arms engaged to one who shares the same profession, I am painfully aware of life’s fragility. Thus, I am presently feeling the need to record the life I have, to write about the times I share with the friends and family who walk with me. Who run with me.

The handfasting is still a year and a half in the future, but in between now and then my fiancé will deploy. I don’t know when exactly he will be leaving or coming back, and even if I did I would not post it here. I only know that he will leave, and I will be lighting a candle for his health and safety every night until he returns to me.

And I’ll be sewing a wedding dress, and missing him, and I’ll be writing.

Cake Face Cats

Meme from here. Um, I'm sparkly?

‘All-gone’ was already on the poor mouse’s lips; scarcely had she spoken it before the cat sprang on her, seized her, and swallowed her down. Verily, that is the way of the world.
~ “Cat and Mouse in Partnership,” Grimm Fairy Tales

Of the many characteristics that have gone into my personality over the years, one thing I’ve always prided myself on was being open-minded with people. I always try not to judge others based on their appearance, and I think I do a pretty good job of sticking to it 98% of the time. However, every once in a while, I meet someone that I just *know* I won’t like. When this happens, usually I feel guilty at first, because I realize that I am being judgmental by forming an opinion about the overall person when I truly know nothing about them. Yet sometimes I wonder if the natural aversion I feel towards some is a remnant of a past-life encounter with him or her, or perhaps just a warning to stay far, far away and not get involved. More often than not, I chock it up to there being some sort of similarity to say, an old arch nemesis.

Yes, I have had an arch nemesis. According to one of my cousins, having an arch nemesis is quite the accomplishment, but quite frankly despite the impression the whole situation left on my development, I would rather it all went down rather differently.

It’s a long story, but suffice it to say that in high school, I had the unfortunate luck of suddenly pissing off the reigning queen of love and beauty when I gained the first chair flute position in band (previously hers). To make matters worse, I also suddenly became pretty. My skin cleared up, I finally developed a sense of fashion that worked for my body type, and I figured out how to style my hair. Curls, you see, take some practice, especially when everyone else in your family has straight hair and keeps trying to make you brush your hair once it’s dry (never, ever do this, EVER). Anywho, the reigning queen determined that she hated me, and therefore everyone else did, too. Her goal for that entire unfortunate year was to put me back in my place, which she and her minions attempted to do. Repeatedly. I have thus sat at a lunch table alone because no one would risk her wrath by joining me, and I have had not only students but faculty turned against me as well since her mother happened to be a teacher. Life was hell. Luckily I developed a few stalwart friends that saw through to the truth and stuck by me. By the time we all graduated, no one cared anymore and she had fallen a lot further down on the food chain, and I ended up a little higher than when I started…but I stayed happiest when I stayed with my nerd herd, with whom I still keep in touch.

Thus, when I see people who remind me of my former arch nemesis, I can’t help but have a boiling dislike build up within me. I try not to, because I know that it’s unfair to them and maybe they really aren’t the evil, conniving, self-centered venus flytraps they appear to be. Maybe they cake on the makeup because they’re insecure and think having an orange face really does make them look better. Maybe they bleach their hair to such an unnatural shade because they like having split ends. I never really find out, because I tend to just associate people—ok, women—who wear a lot of makeup and tend to go out of their way to attract male attention with my former arch nemesis. Whether or not I see them in action, it’s in their body language; they think they are better than me, better than everyone.

And yet, I know that’s also very hypocritical of me to judge them, because upon occasion I have been known to rock glitter eyeliner and sparkly lip-gloss, not to mention purple mascara. For me it’s a fun act of putting color where before there was none, of self-expression, of painting the canvas of creativity that is my face. But on a day-to-day basis, I don’t wear makeup. I never wear makeup at work, because I feel that when I am in uniform I am there to *work* not to impress anybody with the length of my fluttering eyelashes. The only time I’ll wear makeup in uniform is if I’m at a formal event and wearing my dress blues, and then it’s tasteful, natural looking makeup (no glitter eyeliner, le sigh).

The reason I bring this up, is that in the barracks arrangement upon this lovely detail that brought me out to the middle of the California desert, there is such a woman who reminds me of the arch villain of my formative years, and try as I might, I just can’t help but hate her. I don’t even know her, but I know that I dislike her. I feel guilty for it, and on some level when she’s around I also feel like I’m in high school again, that I’m the same scared little girl who just wants to be left alone. So I tend to withdraw. I’ve read 24 books in almost as many days, and I’m sure I’ll read several more before we leave. When I wasn’t reading, I was writing. I’ve written two songs, finished the first book in the Circle series, mapped out the chapter summaries and dialogue sketches for the second book, and talked on the phone to my Orion and my parents almost every night for at least an hour each. And in all this time, almost a month of sleeping in the same room with eleven other women, I still have not spoken a single word to the one who reminds me of my arch nemesis. In my defense, she never made an effort to speak to me either, but I wonder if she picked up on my intense, uncontrollable dislike, which just leads to further feelings of guilt on my part.

On the other hand, sometimes I also wonder if there’s another reason I sometimes dislike people. Surely not all of the sudden aversions I feel upon meeting certain individuals can be due to their over-use of makeup. Maybe there really is something off about some of the people I meet, and my subconscious sees it before my conscious does, and so it is only the interest of self-preservation that makes me want to stay far, far away from them. However, this recent encounter has left me pondering ways to get over, well, my issues with cake-face makeup tendencies and reigning queen attitudes. Maybe it’s not always their problem. Maybe, just maybe, it’s mine.

Or maybe they really are evil.

I guess there’s only one way to find out, and that unfortunately isn’t by withdrawing into my shell or avoiding them altogether.

Ugh. Socialites. *shudder*

Ex Umbras

I lived in the darkness,
in the shadows of a primal cave;
I was a force to be reckoned with,
and all who heard it, feared my name.
I thrived in the dark there,
living for the hunt, the chase.
I was the only one I needed;
in the darkness I was safe.

And when the light came in,
     I was blinded and then
     the nighttime had come to an end.
At first I was scared
     until I saw you there,
     with your hair all a-stir in the wind.

You were everything I wanted to be.
     Suddenly it all made sense to me:
I’d spent all my life trying to survive,
     not realizing what I’d been missing.

When I lived in the darkness,
in the heat of a hunter’s race,
when I was a force to be reckoned with,
when everyone knew my name,
I was alone in the dark there,
where I thought I was safe;
but now that I have found you,
nothing is ever going to be the same.

Because the light came in,
     trailing songs on the wind,
     and you shattered all of my doubts.
It was strange and surreal
     the way you made me feel;
     there could never be anyone else.

For you are everything I want with me;
     you’re all of the stars in the sky I can see.
I’ve spent all of my life barely half-alive,
     not knowing it’s you I was missing.

And I’m not letting go,
     now that I finally know
     what love is supposed to be like.
I’m never leaving you,
     now that I have found the truth:
     you are the source of the light.