S and I once argued over the importance of money in happiness. He said, obviously, he was a case in point which proved money did not make you happy. I said I know a lot of people who would be very happy if they could stop worrying about surviving. I said every day was a struggle for me. For so many people I loved the struggle was not even close to romantic or artsy or beautiful- it was unreal, unimaginable.
I thought about it and relished a little in the amazing friends and experiences I have had sharing that struggle. S said, "See! That's why you will win the Game of Life."
When I had access to his money, suddenly all the soaps and miracle cures and vitamins I had always coveted at Whole Foods had suddenly lost their luster. The sparkling in the distance, when approached and picked up, became cheap, flimsy tinsel that turned immediately to dust. It was making me really depressed. I said S, S, it just feels like... like...
"Game Over?" He asked.
"Yes, exactly," I had to admit.
So now, I don't know. Ima do me, I guess. Just do what I do- that is survive. Love deeply along the way. Learn a way to really make a difference and give back because, honestly, I'm rich beyond words.
Breaking up is a tricky disappearing act- the Houdini falls into a secret trap door center stage, never to be seen again and the girl gets left laying there in the box, sawed in half. The good thing: it's all illusion. Usually, when I break up I have my beauty and brains to hold in front of me like a shield against the self-esteem eating demons talking in my head: you're unlovable, what's wrong with you, where is he, who is he with? But when you break up with a millionaire, you have a whole dominant culture behind the biggest, scariest voice: he is better than you. It's hard to talk back to this voice because we have all been learning this since we were little: money equals essential, indisputable worth as a person.
But, I guess, beyond teaching me that I want little to nothing to do with rich people in my life here on earth, this whole experience has also taught me that me and my poor, struggling friends are better. We are just better people and everything we have or make or give is ours, ours- so beautifully ours.
I am really proud today of who I am, where I'm from, and where I am going- my big, beautiful talent and my destiny that I'm riding to a radiant dying breath of total peace knowing I did the best I could and had so much love, innocence and experience, real, pure friends and pain, even my pain is mine.
So, to everyone out there who can only depend on themselves and have no parents paying the way, I dedicate one of my favorite songs. It makes me smile.
S, stop breaking your guitars when you're angry like it's cool when we all know you can just buy a brand new one. Stop wearing electrical tape on your shoes. I'm done being your courage teacher. I'm done being your slum. The holes in your clothes don't fool me. Malibu Barbie, just be you.
24 comments:
Awesome, I'm really enjoying reading these last two posts.
S is a douche. I do think that people with shitty childhoods have a better grip on reality, but its hard escaping that life and not repeating patterns.
Material stuff is empty, sometimes I think that if I was ever rich, I'd probably live like one of those trust-a-farian kids, lots of money but still living "poor".
I feel rich when I look at my garden full of food and color, I know I'll feel rich one day when I have land and I can provide good food, water and life to myself and those that I love.
This society promotes a style of materialism that isn't lasting, that isn't sustainable, its instant gratification and then its gone and then they get you to buy ten more of whatever they sold you on.
Real wealth comes from friends, culture, art, life, gardens (especially organic ones ;-), animals and color. Thats what I want.
amen, Sequoia. Selah and Amen.
I was thinking of you when I wrote that actually.
sometimes, i think it's the fact that i love my parents, they love me, and we don't hurt each other - that makes me the rich kid.
i like this. let's keep naming things that make us rich that aren't money.
i am rich because i have a twin sister who is my soul mate and we have probably experienced together the purest love possible between human beings. we have known each other since conception. far fucking out. we were in the womb together, touching each other's developing faces and bellies and legs.
i am rich because tomorrow night I have 4-6 awesome artsy girls coming over to make crafts we are going to sell carnie style in the streets to raise funds for our friend's sick road dog.
i am rich because i have many artists in my life and i have a deep, everflowing wellspring of creativity within me.
i am rich because i am not hungry and i have a roof over my head and people who care for me.
i am rich because this political spectacle doesn't fool me for a moment; because am learning to tell a genuine solution from a problem in disguise. i am rich because i know if relearn the ways to live without money, i won't need it or be controlled by it.
the lyrics of an ani difranco song come to mind: "i will not stand immersed / in this ultraviolet curse / i won't let you make a fool of me / i will keep my mind & body free."
I'm rich cuz I have an deep bag of resourceful tricks that came from years of being on impossible projects in unfavorable conditions, with not enough of what I needed, unrealistic deadlines and unskilled people to whom I couldn't communicate that I had to teach as I went along.
I'm rich cuz I pick up languages like most people do fast food.
I'm rich cuz I can build great gardens with beautiful walls and stairs to other tiers without machinery.
I'm rich cuz I can find food all over the forest when most people (with expensive hiking gear) can't find their way.
I'm rich cuz rich educated people need people like me to get things done.
Not bad for a halfbreed from Appalachia.
:) jarvis cocker (lead singer) lives one street down from me in paris- just saw him yesterday. side note!!
keep writing deergirl, you reanimate dead words like a true gypsy queen.
hey Ms. Deer Medicine Girl, i Googled you up by accident, but i wonder now if you could be one of my students. i hope you are. i wonder if you are one of Jason & Giuli's friends here, if not, you sure oughta' be. if not, look for Toby's People and you'll find them (they used to be the Anthropik blog.)
your blog name is great. i'll always remember how as a child i would sit out in the back-yard and pet the dead noses and ears of the deer my father shot for us to eat, as they hung from my swing-set, while the Steelers were playing and i could hear all the neighborhood dads shouting in their living rooms. grey sky. Sunday. damp snow. winter. such soft fur, such pretty eyes...i told them i was sorry, and also "thank-you."
i'm 42 now almost. i'm guessing you are a bit younger, but i remember that me, who is still maybe a little like you. i hope.
you are right to be angry, but don't let it eat you, okay? we can do better, and we will do better. and i hope to god that younger people like you will be a big part of what helps us all make "better" happen.
we are all rich, beyond measure, we just don't sometimes see it. i have WATER for fuck's sake that runs clean right in my apartment! in here it is warm, it is dry, my family and friends are mostly well. i have the impossible luxury of reading something cool some stranger said online, and that i liked, and telling them i liked it. we live in amazing times. whatever happens, we should not forget this moment--i don't see it lasting that many more years.
but we'll be okay.
and YOU, will *definitely* be okay.
keep writing. keep living. keep creating. keep breathing. keep loving.
(and i will stop sounding like a silly old person now. forgive me, i could not help it. you made me smile, and then i thought What The Hell, Why Not? i guess we all get this way eventually. shit.)
-phadraigin
I have known several of these poor little rich boys, equipped with their dad's credit card full of old family money but sorely lacking in self worth or independence, or generosity. Not to say that their money means they need to help out their poor friends (quite the opposite, I recall buying them dinner without reciprocation), I know better because I am rich enough to know the worth of hard work that begets independence, that begets happiness and possibility for myself.
I am rich because I have learned pride in my achievements because they were unprecedented by other members of my family. I respect my parents as flawed and human because they can't charge whatever I want to a Visa. They are people, rather than a name on a bank account or a signature on a check. I am rich because I know that the world does not exist for me.
Also, Davka, I've been reading your blog for months and I am so glad that you and other magic people do what you love and say what you think. You actually made an appearance in my dream the other day, you were wearing a purple shirt with your hair up and watching some people set up a flea market. Then we got to talking because I was wearing a purple shirt too.
Peace guys.
The perfect money to happiness ratio is having just enough so that you don't have to worry. Just enough to cover essentials. But not so much you become bored and disconnected. I really loved this post, and the one before. Stay strong.
I am rich with all these comments because each one is so uplifting and healing my heart so much. :):)
Dalice, I am wearing a purple shirt right now and last night I had a flea market of sorts for a benefit party! :):)
(raises hand)
I'm rich because I live in a place where I can walk into a grocery store and not have to see empty shelves. I'm rich because I don't suffer from rolling blackouts that affect whole cities. I am rich because I can support myself, my coleus plant and my pet snake. I am rich because the light mostly goes on when I tell it to. I am rich because I have the chance to read blogs like yours. Thank you for writing. ^_^
"Hallelujah..
Let it all just burn
Cause they aint the type for listening
and they sure aint
never gonna learn."
N
I see these things happen with my friends who don't have to worry about rent or groceries or how I just had to fill out financial aid paperwork to try and go to college and it's fucking depressing.
common people is a great choice.
Trustafarians: They look poor, wear thrift store clothes, may even have dreads, drive SUVs, live and travel off trust accounts.
phad- I used to be a student at Pitt til shit got really bad with my trauma and I had to drop out, but I will be returning. I don't think I was one of your students, but I'd love to be. Thank you so much for reading and your kind words. Wow, our affinity with deer is amazing. I am still working on an essay called, "Why They Call Me The Deergirl" in which I describe a lot of similar memories. Loving an animal so much and not really understanding the man-made delusional boundary between people and animals because I spent so much time surrounded by them, I just never learned to think of them differently. So, seeing them hurt was very difficult, it did something to me that was not all bad. I would love for you to read that when it is finished and share your own stories.
Thank you for warning me not to let the anger eat me. I am really working on that because anger is an attachment and it gives away a lot of my power. It is necessary, but, like anything, it must be balanced.
You telling me I will be ok stopped an ugly panic attack dead in its tracks the other night, so thank you for that as well.
I want to know Jason and Giuli- who are they? Set it up! :)
Calamity, I totally agree. Thank you for your positive words.
Samadi :) thank you. yes, we are so rich aren't we?
lekutz:) thank you. do you ever run into him? Is he handsome? Is he crazy? I would love to meet him!
jessica:) oh i know that feeling.
anonymous: when the revolution comes :)
Awesome Strong Deer Girl--
thanks! (i was a bit worried i sounded stupid, but you made me feel like i sounded wise, instead! that is a gift you must have!)
when you come back to Pitt, and even if you can't officially enroll, ALL the students are *my* students if they want/need--i'm a librarian, so all you have to do is walk up to me at the reference desk in the main library and that makes you one of mine! i'm there at least three evenings every week until 9--i describe that part of my work as Academic Triage for undergrads (as in "my paper is due at 8 tomorrow morning! what do i do?" and then we do what can be done.)
everyone can read the books, and if you don't have the student ID to check them out directly, we can hook you up at the Carnegie Public across the Plaza and you can get all our stuff for free through them. they have many great films there, free for the borrowing, by the way.
you should look into auditing some lit or writing classes for free, if you can't swing the tuition (and i do not advise anyone to get into debt for that.) there are also writers and poets groups that meet at bars and such around Oakland for readings, and you don't have to be a student to show up and work-shop or just meet other writers. i can come back with links to where they post the dates & times if you want (or just check around the pages for English Writing department.)
i look forward to your deer essay!
being a living creature who must eat to stay that way, but who is also able to reflect on what that means to the life that is sacrificed so that your own may continue, is a strange fate, to say the least. "it did something to me that was not all bad" is a good way to say it.
i walked the vegetarian, even vegan at times, path, for all of my 20's & most of my 30's, but financial and health issues led me back over the last 6 or so years to accept some meat again in my diet--mostly those same deer which my father, now in his 60's, still hunts. biologically i may be as much "deer" as "human" by now, if we are indeed made from what we eat.
the issue is complex, and different for every individual, but i think now that the most important thing is to be whatever you are in a conscious way, to know what it means and be sure the ethics sit right with you, and not to judge others too lightly. i have some very good, if sometimes difficult, discussions with my succesfully vegetarian friends on this, you can imagine.
i am so very glad that my impulsive comment was at all helpful! your Anger *IS* part of your Power, but i suspect that learning to use it (rather than be used BY it, or have it be a way that others use you) is a life-long path of learning. sometimes it feels like we play the same Level of the Game over and over, and die at the end of it every time and must begin again with our hands empty. if nothing else, perhaps we die a *better* death each time?
but you don't need anyone else to tell you that you are Strong. if you did, you wouldn't even be here now, maybe.
(on a personal relationship note, i've lost at least two otherwise mostly decent male companions over the years to "class issues" and i've got NO solution for that one. it would seem that you just can't beat into their hearts what they never saw on their own in the first place, or can't ever see. keep the lesson, but let the hurt and resentment fade away with them, i guess? better than 50% chance they'll drop in again years later with half-understood apologies and remorse. be gracious. or give them a good ass-kicking, your call!)
(sorry--i wrote so much, i had to send it in two parts. still guilty of the same things my teachers complained about in first grade, apparently.)
as for the local couple i mentioned, you might start here:
http://tobyspeople.com/ideas/the-neolithic-crisis
and for more background, from their older site, here:
http://tobyspeople.com/anthropik/2007/09/a-short-history-of-western-civilization/index.html
given the comments on your own site, i'd say probably someone you know, knows someone who knows them already. this city is not that big, and certainly not in terms of--i'm at a loss for the right term to describe the loose constellation of motivations and beliefs across these different sub-cultures of artists and thinkers...J & G use "re-wilding" a lot to describe what they want to do both concretely and spiritually, but that means different things to different people.
they've been trying for the 5 or so years i've known them, to forge a like-minded community locally or regionally. most recently, they've emailed about plans to host some kind of meeting on Saturday (1/30) at the Kiva Han on South Craig, at 4PM. i'm hoping to go, you are certainly welcome, and bring any like-minded others if you wish.
"their thing" may not be quite exactly "your thing" but i suspect a very happy amount of over-lap philosophically and spiritually, and maybe some new ideas to be shared for mutual benefit.
or, if not, at least there will be good coffee.
we're making a whole new world here, after all, every day.
(i put this series of links to mythological deer images together for my best friend, a few years ago, it seems right to share it here with you now.)
OISÍN
"There was once a stag the colour of gold. His eyes were like two jewels and his antlers were bright as silver. His mouth was like the reddest flower, and his hooves were hard and resembled diamonds. He was king of a forest herd of 500 known as Banyan Deer."
http://www.khandro.net/animal_deer.htm
http://www.dilithium.org/tibet/lhasa/jpeg/0884-019.JPG
"One of the major symbols of Tibetan Buddhism. The wheel and deer representing the Wheel of Dharma which Shakyamuni Buddha expounded at the Deer Park in Sarnath India."
http://www.dilithium.org/tibet/lhasa.html
http://search.cpan.org/src/CMUNGALL/Data-Stag-0.10/homepage/images/celtic-stag.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_in_mythology
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Fawn_in_Forest_edit.jpg
OISÍN: Means "little deer", derived from Irish os "deer" combined with a diminutive suffix. In Irish legend OISÍN was a warrior hero and a poet, the son of Fionn mac Cumhail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fionn_mac_Cumhaill
(phadraigin)
Lovely piece. Thought provoking-
We are all privileged, in various ways. We have all squandered our gifts, flaunted and shared our gifts. Money = less frustration at times for sure, but, more paranoia too.
everyone has felt they weren't good enough at one time or another. everyone falls into the pit of comparisons- it happens.
We are weak & we are strong. some spend more time weak, some spend more time strong.
we all transition.
Life, like art, is subjective.
the trustafarians have a mirror too- it's the wannabe rich poor folks, running around in clothes and cars they can't afford. "Making airs"
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