check your sugarcoat at the door

(Part I)

A thought (or ten) on self-preservation from a girl who willingly prefaces her pseudonym with calamity is a neon-lit oxymoron, I realize. Hear me out.

Self-preservation is in a constant state of awareness. It is self-protection and the protection of those around you, and it is your open hand waiting to help. When you close your fist, you slam the door on the opportunity to be helped when you’re in need. And regardless of our radiant, natural-as-naked strength – you will need help. In the simplest forms – short a quarter at the Laundromat or during the epic struggle to balance your belongings and children and still somehow open a door for yourself. Or in the challenging ways that we are dependent on fellow humans – when you blow a flat on the freeway and haven’t a clue how to change your tire* or when you lock your keys in your car the day after your AAA membership runs out. We have to work for and with a society that doesn’t bat an eye to these needs. When this is achieved, compassion will be in overwhelming abundance. 

*Self-preservation is knowing how to change a tire. If you do anything this week – learn this skill.

Taking a multi-vitamin or a walk is a form of self-preservation. The body is hard-working, intricately constructed vehicle with no warranties. No one will give you a new one when you wear this one out, no matter who your insurance carrier is. Ever ask who you gotta blow to get a better set of legs? You’ll hear crickets. You owe it to your physical body to be nice to yourself. Or it will make you regret it.

(Which is not to say you cannot scar it. Scars are earned, burns are lessons learned, etc. Simply, the better you treat it, the nicer it will play with it comes time to heal.)

Introducing yourself to your bashful co-workers and asshole neighbors and regular check-out girl at the grocery store is self-preservation. You will never, ever have a support network that is too big, too strong. You will never have too many good humans in your life and you will never in your right mind gather the desire to weed out good people from your graces unless you’ve suffered some self-inflicted head trauma, in which case, your body is only giving you what you deserve for not playing nicely. Association on the surface level or deep, unexplainable, unthinkable mind-fuck connection level is a requirement to maintain your sanity and your role as a human being in this unforgiving world. Have some. Have seconds. Have associations coming out your geedee ears, so long as you are kind in your offering. No one ever hurt themselves waving.

I spent more than two years standing in a check stand at a grocery store, scanning groceries and greeting a few hundred nameless faces a week. It is monotonous, soul-crushing work. The customers that took the time to greet me by name or ask about my day or make me laugh are the reason I still have a full head of hair. By nature, people are impatient and demanding to those who work customer service jobs. Behind that job title is a human – treat them as such. And if you find yourself employed in a position of service, give it to the best of your ability. You are not meant to be anyone’s sponge by absorbing bad attitude, but in life, inside and outside of work, it pays to help people out. And even if someone offers fuck-all when it comes to manners – perhaps they’re at their wits end. You’ve been there. Help them get their wits about them so no one else has to be infected. Turning someone’s red-faced anger into apologetic graciousness is hard work but certainly not impossible. And the reward is the smuggest possible smile you can afford. Those are always fun.

The weather, ocean, streets, and essentially everything else that is bigger than you and non-human will not express sympathy. A downpour in the winter does not owe you anything if you’re driving under the influence. A wave that would take four of you, end to end, to touch the frothing top does not have to give you the benefit of the doubt. And the intersection you cross out of routine, hardly acknowledging your surroundings after taking the same right turn on the same corner five days a week for a decade, will not apologize when someone barrels through it, unthinking, in their car. Making good decisions is self-preservation. Being alert is self-preservation.

I pass the same restaurant every single morning but how often, when stopped in front of it, do I actually see it, and notice patrons having breakfast inside or the handful of people waiting out front at the bus stop? Do I notice who is behind me, in front of me, crossing the street next to me? I cannot recall a single detail of my morning commute, except that I fell a little more in love with the song I’ve been listening to on repeat, because this is the rote of daily living.

We owe it to ourselves and those who like us, even a little, to pay some fucking attention in the world.

None of this is to say do not take risks and this is not to say developing hyper paranoia of all that can go wrong is a good idea. (Murphy was just a dude. Gravity was not. Some things are just catchy, ya know?) What is a good idea is using your senses like they were gifts given to you that morning and learning a little bit about the unknown.

I wholeheartedly believe that too much routine played out over too long is a slow, slow way to kill yourself. Finding ways to break it up is a crucial practice in self-preservation. Count how many people you can make smile back at you. Then compete with yourself every week. Challenge yourself by trying to make a stranger laugh from inside your car before you get to work.

Yesterday a little Honda pulled up next to me on the 22 freeway onramp. I looked up from the music player in my hand and saw the driver staring intently at me. He broke into a wide grin; waved enthusiastically, as did his passenger, and then they crept forward with the rest of the five p.m. commuters in Orange County. I laughed out loud and waved back. For whatever reason, it made my day. And it was one of the simplest gestures the body could make.

Sharing your wealth is one of the strongest forms of self-preservation. (Wealth in this context being monetary or just having six dozen cookies.) Sharing and giving to those around you and sharpening your generosity skills is a way of ensuring that you too will be shared with. I can feed my friends a fabulous taco dinner but I can’t change my own oil. Tit for tat. You strengthen community, make your life a little easier and the lives of those around you a little happier, and eventually, you’re un-fucking-touchable, my friend. Wouldn’t you go to bat for the guy who mowed your lawn, just because he had the means and time while you did not? He’d be the first on my list when I come up with a kick-ass dessert recipe. Nurturing your community with whatever means you have in abundance guarantees an expanded, strengthened network, glittering below you as the cross the tight rope of daily life.

If you, like me, have a penchant for stuff and things you may find your closets and drawers a little overwhelming. I joined the freecycle.org group in my city and by simply checking my e-mail; I started cleaning out my garage. A family needed a ten gallon tank replacement for their fish. A little girl wanted to learn to play a violin but couldn’t afford one. A mother with two little girls was burning through their clothing too quickly. These people were all benefited from things whose sole purpose in my life was dust collection. There is no need for any of us to have dust collectors. I promise, you have enough in your home doing that to their full potential.

I purged my closet a while back and instead of bagging up and garage-ing the clothes that didn’t fit, I pulled out a band t-shirt that had become too small and mailed it off to a friend that it would fit. I was out about four bucks in packaging and shipping, but her new-Save Ferris-shirt-glee was worth at least fourteen. Lesson: sharing makes you wealthy.

It’s likely that I dumped the rest of the clothes at the Salvation Army. While never a bad thing to make quality items available to people without the means for extravagant price tags, I would have rather made them free for people who need them, or given them to a place with a mission I support. Liberality is self-preservation. And so is personal research.

 I have learned some prime examples of self-preservation in my year plus of living without my immediate family, whom I was heavily dependent on for protection. I am vulnerable to men and women with bad intentions because I am not physically strong, I have not perfected a roundhouse kick, and I have a smaller, even-more-vulnerable-than-me human-being to protect. I keep a hand free at night after I lock my car. The walk from my parking spot in the alley to my doorstep is short, but the possibilities on this green earth are infinite. If I’m carrying my sleeping child, I have one hand that I can snap free without dropping her on her head. If I have too much to carry inside my house and would have to sacrifice my free arm by trying to balance it all, then she will wake up and walk next to me for the sake of my swinging/stabbing/shielding/grabbing arm. I am going to have my keys in hand anyway, so I point the thickest one outside my knuckles. This would absolutely hurt or blind someone who tried to take advantage of me and I dare a motherfucker to doubt that.

It is not beyond me to convene with an internet stranger for a drink after a few months of chatting. I make sure someone knows the time and address of where I’m going and that they know when they can expect to hear from me. While not the safest means of making new contacts, I will not be at the mercy of the news and the mistakes that others have made. If any of us lived this way, we’d be locked in panic rooms all day, everyday, and there’s too much fun to be had for that.

I familiarized myself with my weaknesses (driving directions, punctuality, and stray dogs, to name a few) as a form of self-preservation and instead of chastising myself for having them, I work according to them. A late night in downtown LA that will require I drive home alone is probably not the best idea for me considering I know I will lose myself in the maze of streets and another thing I know about myself is that too often do I wait until the last possible minute to fill up my gas tank.

Picking up a dog, no matter how sweet and innocent looking, would not be my brightest moment considering it could very well rear it’s head on me and dogs do not say they’re sorry and sorry does not heal flesh wounds. The last time I picked up a stray, I spent twenty minutes in the street with her, allowing her to sniff my hands and legs, and waiting only until she approached me willingly to bring her back to my car and stick her in the trunk, where she couldn’t get to me while I drove her to safety. She was so sweet I named her Pie but who would have been surprised if my startling revelation of the week was that stray dogs may bite?

It is okay and perfectly natural to not be good at everything. Check your weaknesses by not letting them get the best of you and enlighten others with your new strategies.

Teaching and expressing tolerance for what contradicts even your firmest beliefs is self-preservation. I do not agree with many things but this is not The World According to Calamity Jill, so I must fully accept that people will differ from me. Lots of people. With many varying degrees of opinions and beliefs. It keeps the planet seasoned deliciously, if you think about it. I am not threatened by this, but fascinated. People will not like me or my convictions or the things that I think are right and true. For example, two doors to the left of my house and four to the right house homophobes. I do not agree with them – but like I have my own strong opinions – I accept that theirs exist. These differences, no matter how stark or unsettling or infuriating, should never warrant harm. I absolutely stole their ‘Yes on Prop 8’ signs from the grass on the street because it is as much my cul-de-sac as theirs and my freak flags weren’t denying rights to anyone. Should I post a sign in disagreement with their right to bear arms, I risk letting perfect strangers know that I am not okay with something they have in their home. Like the homophobes, I do not hurt them by screwing my lady friends in my home, so I don’t have to look at their signs if I don’t want to, much like they might not like seeing mine. Admittedly, this is rude and stubborn. While I try to expand my lenience for most human behavior and preach for others to do the same, I am still having some trouble wrapping warm acceptance around people who openly discourage a form of love they simply don’t enjoy.

But I acknowledge that homophobes and racists and megaphone-wielding prejudiced-as-all-get-out men and women are humans with beating hearts, much like mine, and we are going to share the planet for a long, long time. We have our beliefs and this we have in common. And so I remain peaceful so long as they remain peaceful, and I explain to my daughter as gravely as possible that not everyone is the same and they never will be. Harm onto others for any difference between them and you is wholly unacceptable. The most I can do to maintain a healthy, nicely scented and favorable homeostasis in my environment is to educate myself and others on the ways of the world and its people. Balling my fists and clenching my teeth only hurts me. Encouraging destruction only widens the difference gap and after a point, there’s simply no skipping over that hole for mending purposes. There is no need for these fissures in our world.

Practicing self-preservation is one of the wisest things one can do for themselves and others. I plan to major in it, spread it out among my community and reap its benefits. And cookies.

Accept that you are but a blip of beautifully complex atoms and energy in a monstrously, unbelievably infinite world. Most of this ginormous world is cruel and unchanging.

 Got that?

 Now zero in on your existence and expand it. Stretch it from one edge of your community, to your neighbors’ kitchen, to the far corner cubicle, to your grandparents’ dining room, and every stranger you pass in the process, stretch it over them too. Stretch it until it risks tearing at the seams. This is your environment. This is your community. This is your home team. The living things and places around you are immediately affected by your blip of beautifully complex atoms and energy. Not the entirety of the cruel and unchanging world so much, but this space, for sure. And it can only get bigger, better and stronger since it is yours and you would want nothing less for your team, right?

Now you can send an intense, rippling wave of energy in any direction, at any given time, whether you mean to or not. You need to know this, because this is powerful, and as was demonstrated in 2000 and again in 2004, not everyone with power uses it well. Let this be a lesson to you to take your power and use it properly.

Do you want to be surrounded by positivism, happiness, and a general assuredness in this crazy, uncontrollable world? Or anger, negativity and constant burning resentment? You get to decide. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise. You Are In Fucking Charge and you have to take responsibility for your environment, for your team, to remain in charge.

Bred and raised in beautiful southern California, I know that hundreds of thousands of people begin their mornings in traffic, myself included. Traffic is shitty. Traffic is a direct effect of too many people in too small of a space (like Orange County), where it is hard to breathe and oppressive but we have this in common: we’re all trying to get to a destination. Likely, we’re trying to get to work, and it’s also likely that we need to be there at a certain time. Like in any game or sport, we have the same goal, so we should be on the same team. No use in competing with the kid who is also trying to score for the home team when you could join forces and kick ass with your now multiplied strength. No one person’s rush is more important than anyone else’s. This is a large, collective team of people doing their thing to collect their stuff, to continue living their life. Don’t play on the opposing team. Don’t be that guy. Let people merge. Acknowledge someone’s blinking indicator, tap your brake, and let them over, even if they have bumper stickers in direct opposition to your beliefs. (How hard pressed are we to judge someone’s sticker? Let them have their fucking stickers.) When someone lets you in, wave, flash a peace sign, let them know their tiny gesture is appreciated, is making your day that much easier, is a small but positive ripple in your direction and deserves a positive reaction. Let them know that you’re on that team too. Keep the ripple moving.

One morning as I eased my way onto the 405 north team, a younger guy in a fast little black car came roaring up behind me. I checked to ensure I was cruising at the proper speed limit if not a little above, at the appropriate time and noted that he was playing on the opposing team, not me. As he threw a fit and raised his angry arms wildly and cursed furiously in his car, I laughed my fool head off at his Angry Boy Show because it was a good one. And then I felt bad for him. Seriously, overwhelmingly sad for this kid. How bad had his morning (or his freakin’ life) been that the use of his brakes among the hundreds of other people on his team was causing him to make this kind of display? Certainly he hadn’t had a decent breakfast or he’d woken up too late and couldn’t rub one out in the shower. Maybe someone had played on the opposing team shortly before this and cut him off or flashed him the bird because they didn’t like his bumper sticker beliefs thus sending forth a negative ripple in his direction, and now he was ineffectively trying to pass that to me. If I’d had a bagel handy, I may have tossed it through his window to cheer him up.

Since I’m in control on my environment, he was not allowed to bother me and he was sure as shit not about to pass his crappy energy through me. I am not penetrated by anything that does not positively affect me or my community. I made sure to move to the left and out of his way. Taunting him would be accepting his negativity, toying with it, and amplifying it so he could use it against one of my other teammates.

Fuck that.

That is not the kind of thing I want amplified in my environment. A good reggae beat or amazing guitar solo, maybe, but not that shit.

One afternoon after work, my 55 south team and I were lining up to merge into traffic and onward to our destinations. One girl in a little gray car hadn’t merged in time, or was maybe lost and confused, or possibly just distracted by something shiny in the distance and needed to get in front of me to resume her quest. She was very late to the line and probably pleading silently for someone to play on her team and let her cut in this long line before she missed the opportunity. I tapped my brake, waved her in with a smile, and she graciously pushed forward into my line and flashed a beautiful smile and peace sign in her side mirror. I put out a tiny, positive ripple by simply touching my brakes and waiting a whole five to seven seconds and she reacted positively to it and in that moment we were friends and we were definitely on the same team. I like to think she passed on that ripple of good energy to our other teammates in some way.

Understandably in this massive, unforgiving place we all reside, there are many thousands of millions of things we cannot help or change. The weather. The construction on the street that makes you late to work. The unjust treatment of people/animals/plants worldwide throughout history. This is when we gear up and bust out that old friend of ours, Perspective. Perspective is a little bitch if you don’t reel her in and control her. She’s an untrained puppy pissing on your furniture and eating your underwear. She’s a hive of unforgiving wasps above your front door.

Until you bend her over and slap her a good one, effectively dubbing yourself the Master. Or whatever you’re into. As you learn to control Perspective, (simply, as stated by dictionary.com: a mental view or prospect) you effectively change the energy you put out. To make use of my puppy metaphor, I have a hyperactive, loveable little mutt named Lucy. She has gone through my entire underwear collection with unabashed fervor, shredding them to bits with sheer joy, more than once. And this used to really get under my skin. I mean to the point that my entire day’s mood rested on whether or not I could depend on a clean pair of in tact underwear. I could kick and scream all geedee day, but the fact remained that there was a problem here, something that was directly opposing my positive output by instigating a totally shitty mood, and it was my job to get the roadblock out of my fucking way. So Lucy and I became teammates. I made this OUR roadblock and we worked on ways in which to curb the issue. Instead of punishing her and actually being surprised every time it happened and flailing around like a fuming oaf, I made every possible effort to keep my laundry out of her reach. For a while, she found even the sneakiest of ways to get into my hamper, or pounced on my split second carelessness of dropping my dirty clothes on the floor during a shower (the nerve) and I tried my mightiest to use my friend Perspective when she did. As in, hey, a girl can never have too many cute pairs of booty shorts. Or eh, guess I’m catching a breeze this morning. As there was literally nothing I could do after the fact, when my favorite striped pair was in three pieces, may they rest in peace, I had to make light of this and take back my day. In my little blip of presence on this big-ass planet, I could certainly not let my mood, my outgoing ripple of energy, be dictated by the state of my undergarments or my mutt’s (strange) appetite. I had to recognize the absurdity that lies in this and puff out my chest and get bigger than this irritant and move forward with my day.

I have some serious trouble with my financial responsibility. I’m hardly a frivolous spender and the most expensive thing I own is a $15k car. But tracking my dollaz carefully is not my forte. It’s not my forte like orange juice is not toothpaste’s forte. It’s in direct opposition of what my fortes are. In the last month alone I have bounced two rent checks and had my power turned off. And I make pretty decent money. This is inexcusable. Seeing my bank account go into the red, or watching my bills and debt and APR creep north had the ability to crush me. I would literally loose my legs, hit the floor, and bawl like a goddamned newborn bawls at the injustice of all the light and noise in their new world. So I reigned in my friend Perspective. And I was like, “This fucking blows. I have to make light of it or it’ll take me all the way down.”

And I did.

I went beyond financial responsibility, which I clearly lack, and I decided I would really pay lots of magnified attention to where my money goes and how much of the shit I buy is needed. And I would make the most use of my broke ass time that I possibly could. So instead of going to bars, clubs, restaurants, concerts or anything else that would require money I did not have, and having a good time with my lady friends, I acknowledged the crucial difference between want and need from my couch, with a glass of two dollar wine. And I read like a motherfucking champ. And I watched movies that I did not have time to watch when I was busy spending money. And I reorganized and cleaned my home and walked around my neighborhood and finally burned through a few magazines that had collected dust on my desk and started experimenting with cooking. I was at the zenith of production high for quite a while. You bet your ass I would have had more fun grinding on girls at the club or deflecting cheap lines while drinking beer at the bar with my friends or laughing my ass off at the comedy shows I’d been frequenting. But my situation was this: broke. And I had to own that, control how it affected me, and make the most of it or it would positively consume me whole. And there’s way too much fun to be had for that.

A while back, I was sitting around with some ladies, talking and laughing, when one brought up something she’d seen in a bar. A scantily clad gal was dancing around in a not-sexy way, so I’m told, and bringing lots of attention to herself by bouncing about just so and putting the crowd on the edge of their seat as they waited for her tube top to fall down, which it eventually did. And this person said, “I hated that girl.” And I barely choked back whatever I was eating because I damn near sprayed it on her face. She hated her? This perfect stranger in a bar, who was feeling the music, and feeling sexy and liberated, and minding her own geedee business, affecting my friend not at all and yet she hated her? I’ve made these unjust proclamations before too. We all have. This is why we have stereotypes and why people sometimes spit in your food. Because we are all unfair at some point. I didn’t say anything at the time because I know this person well enough to know how completely she would tune me out when I explained how staggeringly ridiculous it is to express hate toward this dancing gal, even in the secluded company of your friends. This is a negative ripple and it has a very good chance of bringing out mean and meaner stories of similar degradation from the group of friends we were with. Instead of saying anything, I just removed myself from the place and left. What no one was taking the time to think or say was that this girl hurt no one in her attention nabbing gyrations, so where was the hate stemmed from? Jealousy? Not likely, but I wholeheartedly believe it was my friend’s lack of ability to show the world what makes her feel sexy in such a carefree way. Her energy toward this girl was simply repression of something she wasn’t acknowledging. It may not quite define her definition of sexy, and it may emit a vibe she would be uncomfortable emitting, but who is she, or me or you or anyone else, to deny a woman of feeling confident and acting sexy? This too is a team. One woman’s insecurities expressed in cattiness can infect her community through ripples of downbeat energies. And I’m left hung by a question mark on this one: WHY? Why would we want to do that?

Picture this. You do or don everything that makes you feel good. You hit the town with a forceful vengeance and shitload of positive vibing girlfriends. The women around you in your community all throw out compliments and instigate well meaning conversations. You exchange tips and ideas and you celebrate what it means to be the incredible, flowing, all-jiving, absolute pillar of exquisiteness that you are. You make a ton of new friends. You learn new things, gain insight, broaden your horizons, and fill up your calendar and phone book. You come home high as giraffe pussy on that collective camaraderie.

How fucking rad, right?

But most women aren’t like this. Most women are not involved in the kind of community where this type of evening is a likely event. I can’t speak for everyone else, but as far as female strangers go, I notice that a lot, certainly not all, but a lot, of them tend to be very concerned with how we view their looks and their boyfriends. They can turn most anything into a threat against them and their raging insecurity could go flying off the handle like spittle in a cat fight.

So here’s what you do: You partake in a serious pep rally for your team.

This means your outstretched hand, your shoulder, your ear, your mind and your brain open to your whole team at all times. Send out WAVES of positive energy in the forms of facial expressions, body language, conversation, commiseration and celebration. Be positive and give positive to your team. Thwart the negative, opposing team with the use of your super sharp enlightenment sword. Talk to strangers but don’t necessarily eat their candy. (Self-preservation is a whole ‘notha chapter.) I could just squeal and explode with the enthusiasm of a five-year-old and sugar to think about this kind of community. This is the place I want to be. This is the place I’m willing to work toward.

-Calamity Jill, wholly & completely inspired by Inga Muscio and the gal I saw driving in Santa Ana with the peace sign decals and the license plate frame that said, not a hippie, just a decent human being.