bakadesh1

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New York Times, December 31, 1926

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There ya have it folks! Harrison Ford settles 38 year debate on the set of The Force Awakens set.

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Renée Fleming sings "Song to the Moon" fromDvorák's Rusalka

#opera #renee fleming #dvorak #rusalka #slavic folklore

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Peanuts

#this one's for me

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There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

#lit

[bakadesh1]

i

hope

that i haven't done wrong by you

finally to read

what you've

been putting

to the air

and i hope

that i've done nothing wrong by you

to reflect some of these

back

and i hope

that i've not done wrong

by you

to send

these words alongside

for know you well

that i cannot yet say

to what ends

and what all of this

means

but

i hope

you will know

endlessly

that part of you

resides

inside

(me)

and

i hope

you allow

that unruly piece

(of me)

to remain

inside

of you

-David C. Adams

Jan. 7, 2014

#poetry #personal #the html isn't working right #so you can't tell where stanzas end and begin #maybe if you click on it #or something #internet it #with the internet

[bakadesh1]

Rape culture is when I was six, and my brother punched my two front teeth out. Instead of reprimanding him, my mother said “Stefanie, what did you do to provoke him?” When my only defense was my mother whispering in my ear, “Honey, ignore him. Don’t rile him up. He just wants a reaction.” As if it was my sole purpose, the reason six-year-old me existed, was to not rile up my brother. It’s starts when we’re six, and ends when we grow up assuming the natural state of a man is a predator, and I must walk on eggshells, as to not “rile him up.” Right, mom? Rape culture is when through casual dinner conversation, my father says that women who get raped are asking for it. He says, “I see them on the streets of New York City, with their short skirts and heavy makeup. Asking for it.” When I used to be my father’s hero but will he think I was asking for it? (will he think) Will he think I deserved it? Will he hold me accountable or will he hold me, even though the touch of a man - especially my father’s - burns as if I were holding the sun in the palm of my hand. Rape culture is you were so ashamed, you thought it would be easier for your parents to find you dead, than to say, “Hey mom and dad,” It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t ask for it. I never asked for this attention, I never asked to be a target, to be weak because I was born with two X chromosomes, to walk in fear, to always look behind me, in front of me, next to me, I never asked to be the prey. I never wanted to spend my life being something someone feasts upon, a meal for the eternally starved. I do not want to hear about the way I taste anymore. I will not let you eat me alive. Rape culture is I shouldn’t defend my friend when an overaggressive frat boy has his hand on her ass, because standing up for her body “makes me a target.” Women are afraid to speak up, because they fear their own lives - but I’d rather take the hit than live in a culture of silence. I am told that I will always be the victim, pre-determined by the DNA in my weaker, softer body. I have birthing hips, not a fighter’s stance. I am genetically pre-dispositioned to lose every time. Rape culture is he was probably abused as a child. When he even has some form of a justification and all I have are the things that provoked him, and the scars from his touch are woven of the darkest and toughest strings, underneath the layer of my skin. Rape culture leaves me finding pieces of him left inside of me. A bone of his elbow. The cap of his knee. There is something so daunting in the way that I know it will take me years to methodically extract him from my body. And that twinge I will get sometimes in my arm fifteen years later? Proof of the past. Like a tattoo I didn’t ask for. Somehow I am permanently inked. Rape culture is you can’t wear that outfit anymore without feeling dirty, without feeling like you somehow earned it. You will feel like you are walking on knives, every time you wear the shoes you smashed his nose in with. Imaginary blood on the bottom of your heels, thinking, maybe this will heal me. Those shoes are your freedom, But the remains of a life long fight. You will always carry your heart, your passion, your absolute will to live, but also the shame and the guilt and the pain. I saved myself but I still feel like I’m walking on knives. Rape culture is “Stefanie, you weren’t really raped, you were one of the lucky ones.” Because my body wasn’t penetrated by a penis, but fingers instead, that I should feel lucky. I should get on my hands and knees and say, thank you. Thank you for being so kind. Rape culture is “things could have been worse.” “It’s been a month, Stefanie. Get out of bed.” “You’ll have to get over this eventually.” “Don’t let it ruin your life.” Rape culture is he told you that after he touched you, no one would ever want you again. And you believed him. Rape culture is telling your daughters not to get raped, instead of teaching your sons how to treat all women. That sex is not a right. You are not entitled to this. The worst possible thing you can call a woman is a slut, a whore, a bitch. The worst possible thing you can call a man is a bitch, a pussy, a girl. The worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a woman is the ultimate rejection, the ultimate dismissal of strength and power, the absolute insult. When I have a daughter, I will tell her that she is not an insult. When I have a daughter, she will know how to fight. I will look at her like the sun when she comes home with anger in her fists. Because we are human beings and we do not always have to take what we are given. They all tell her not to fight fire with fire, but that is only because they are afraid of her flames. I will teach her the value of the word “no” so that when she hears it, she will not question it. My daughter, Don’t you dare apologize for the fierce love you have for yourself and the lengths you go to preserve it. My daughter, I am alive because of the fierce love I have for myself, and because my father taught me to protect that. He taught me that sometimes, I have to do my own bit of saving, pick myself off the ground and wipe the dirt off my face, because at the end of the day, there is only me. I am alive because my mother taught me to love myself. She taught me that I am an enigma - a mystery, a paradox, an unfinished masterpiece and I must love myself enough to see how I turn out. I am alive because even beaten, voiceless, and back against the wall, I knew there was an ounce of me worth fighting for. And for that, I thank my parents. Instead of teaching my daughter to cover herself up, I will show her how to be exposed. Because no is not “convince me”. No is not “I want it”. You call me, “Little lady, pretty girl, beautiful woman.” But I am not any of these things for you. I am exploding light, my daughter will be exploding light, and you, better cover your eyes.

slk

Rape Culture (Cover Your Eyes)

everyone read this. please everyone read this.

(via shisno)

#this #rape culture #society

[bakadesh1]

how to fall out of love: a guide.

learn the names of the constellations and fall in love with each of them. they are watching you and they will not cry when you tiptoe vicariously around their bodies in the dead of night and confess your sins into their ivory ears and they will not tell you that you are uneven. they will listen to your pleas and they will nod their glimmers with lukewarm patience and they will kiss the sight of you. learn their names and tattoo them into the margins of each of your poems and learn that the stars will not tie themselves into promises they cannot unwind.

watch the man at the park whose hands are forever fishing in his pockets for a cigarette he may have forgotten. watch the way he chisels his tobacco-dry lips around words only his sleeping laugh lines can hear and the way his eyes brew with jealousy of the birds whose wings are never clipped. watch the way he favors his right leg and imagine the way his breath caught on a bayonet’s hook the day he killed his first man and realized that a last breath is a last breath no matter which side of the battlefield you are on. watch him as he smiles to no one and wonder why he is not in love.

walk into the doctor’s office and when the nurse asks you whether you have been there before, answer no and take the form she gives you, and do not fill in the slots you always thought you knew the answers to. do not fill in your name and your age and leave the easy ones blank and realize that uncertainty is a strange tasting tea when you brew it for yourself. realize the way the answers dry and soil and wither beneath your tongue and taste the way they become bitter and let the foundation tremble, let it gather at the edges of your fingertips in weakness. let it.

roll down your sleeves, darling, and wear the rims of your hats pulled low. do not let the horizon divulge her love for you and do not allow the clouds to spit elixirs into the dents of your bones. the earth will notice the translucent rivers of your wrists’ veins and she will surely become a lover and at night when sleep gathers at your neck she will tell you that you were wrong all along, that she will uproot her soil for you, so roll down your sleeves, darling. the days of half-sleeved dresses are gone and certain heartaches do not allow for such things and the rawness of your secrets will chafe your skin and it is best to keep those scars hidden, yes, it is best.

don’t. the business of unraveling is a thread so thin. you have tied your nooses, you have woven your dues, you have braided your plaits down love’s back. you are now knee-deep in cuts and chrysanthemums that smell too sweet. you cannot turn back from here.

#ho #ly #shit

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#1 #that's #a huge question #2 #i certainly hope so #i've worked hard to let her know #(though this messages and its companions may not be helping) #3 #... #another #huge question #with complexity #but #i see my responsibility more and more

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mooneyedandglowing: This song & post is for eternally-interwovenflames, for understanding what is happening, for the strength to keep believing in the intensity & rarity of the connection that was/is felt, & for healing & growth. x x "3) You Feel Threatened. Twin flames separate because at first the connection threatens all that they think they know about the way the world works. The first time you met, something happened. You knew this person even though you didn’t recognise them on a physical level. You feel such intense love, but you wonder how this can be so when you don’t know them. You conclude it’s just lust, but why is there that knowing feeling deep in your soul? You know your life has changed forever, you can just sense it, but you haven’t a clue why. You can’t stop thinking about this person, re-living your times together over & over again. The love you feel for this person increases over time when you think logically it should fade. You can’t stop fantasising about them. You’re distracted to the point that you cannot concentrate on anything else. Yet you’re frightened; afraid of losing this person somehow or scared that you have already lost them. Afraid because you don’t even know them & that it means you are crazy to feel such intensity. So you run. You attempt to block it out & convince yourself it’s just lust. You know that it’s unhealthy to pine after someone, & so you try your hardest to forget all about him or her. But you can’t, you just can’t. Then you meet again & all those feelings flood back. All your hard work to tamp down & extinguish these feelings is undone. Add to this all the reflected fears, arguments & confusion, & it all becomes even more frightening. It just feels safer to run away & hope it all just disappears. It’s understandable that fear is going to present itself in this situation. It’s a “fight or flight” situation & often twin flames run. This running is needed in order for them to have the distance to make sense of it all. It can take years, but, if you or your twin flame are “running”, then it is because this is part of your life path. You need to get the distance to make sense of your new reality. This harks back to overcoming the ego. It takes time. Each twin must reprogram themselves to learn to live from soul consciousness rather than ego consciousness. It doesn’t come overnight. We have incarnated possibly hundreds of times, living in our egos. It is unrealistic to expect yourself or your twin to suddenly flick a switch & be back to living fully in soul consciousness.”

#... #this...

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2014 will be the year everyone fears me

#i know

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#God...

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Changing Genres by Dean Young

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I have this weird theory that some people are drawn to each other because their atoms were near each other when the universe was created and over time the same atoms keep coming back together

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Love is when a week ago I go to the ER at UCLA, where I work, for a cough and feeling that “something isn’t right,” and even though my complaints are mild, I’m brought right in and treated respectfully. Love is when the chest X-ray comes back with some abnormal findings, and the ER attending attentively points out the fuzzy mass in my chest and the collections of fluid around my lungs. “It could be nothing,” he says, “but we need to get a CT scan right now.” Love is when the CT scan comes back, and the attending carefully, gently, sits down on the gurney next to me and asks if I would like to read it with him. He says he’s not a radiologist, but knows I would want the results as soon as possible. He points out the fluid collections (called pleural effusions) and a few enlarged lymph nodes. Then he points out a large mass in my anterior chest, measuring 18 x 11 x 7 centimeters. I ask him, “This is bad, right? It’s lymphoma, isn’t it?” He says he can’t tell me for sure — that I will need a biopsy ASAP. I start to cry. I tell him this was not what I expected when I came to the ER. He asks me if there’s anyone I need to call, and I tell him my cell phone doesn’t have reception. He gives me his phone to use. Love is when my friend Marya comes to the ER to be with me then share some tea at Starbucks when I’m discharged, even though it’s midnight and she’s an anesthesiology resident who probably had to be up at 6 a.m. the next day. Love is when I go home and wake up the middle of the night with blood curdling, searing pain in my arm, and panicked that the tumor is occluding a blood vessel or nerve, yell to my boyfriend to call 911. I hear him sobbing on the phone and tell him to stop because it’s too hard for me to see him so afraid. He yells out, “I can’t lose you!” Love is when I go back to the ER and even though they can’t find out what caused the pain, they expedite my biopsy and have it done in the hospital. Love is when I’m discharged again, but another UCLA resident, Becky, who specializes in hematology/oncology and who I knew back in medical school, hears of my case. She has me call her that night, and moves mountains to have me admitted back to the hospital the following morning directly to the hematology/oncology service for expedited work up and treatment. She emails the medicine chiefs, the ER residents, and every single oncology specialist at UCLA to arrange my admission and expedited testing. Even though there is a week-long wait to get a PET scan, I get one the next day. My bone marrow biopsy happens right after. Every resident, fellow, and attending I talk to tells me that Becky sent them an email asking them to take extra good care of me. I don’t even know her that well, but she might have saved my life. Love is when so many friends and colleagues visit me that I’m quickly dubbed “the most popular patient in the hospital.” Love is when my boyfriend, Peter, has not left my side for a single night and has been sleeping on a mini Aerobed, even though he’s 6’3” and usually complains about sleeping on anything smaller than a California King. Love is when my parents immediately fly to LA from the Bay Area to be with me in the hospital. My mom, a pathologist herself, even calls the lab directly to read the slides with the attending pathologist. Love is when nearly every oncology attending who works at UCLA comes to visit me and check in, even though it’s not part of their job description and they’re not officially on my case. Love is when every single staff person in the hospital, from nursing to care management to the custodians, treat me kindly and compassionately. Love is when I get the news that the biopsy is not Hodgkins or B-cell lymphoma like I had hoped, but a more rare, more difficult to treat type of cancer called acute lymphoblastic T-cell lymphoma. It has spread to the lining of my lungs and several groups of lymph nodes, making it Stage 4. It will require 6-8 months of intensive chemo in the hospital, and up to two and a half years of less intensive maintenance chemo after that. Unlike the chemo regimens for Hodgkins or B-cell, this one will make me infertile by ravaging my ovaries. The oncologist did have one patient who had twins after this chemo, but it was a rare exception. I could be in the hospital for the next month if I become neutropenic (a suppressed immune system) from the treatment. The oncologist spends almost an hour with me and my family going over the diagnosis and treatment plan, even though I ask him the same questions over and over because my mind is so overwhelmed. Love is when I’m given the option to wait two weeks to start chemo to do egg retrieval to preserve my fertility. But — I am told the entire tumor likely grew in only six weeks, so this could be very dangerous as the cancer is already occluding my blood vessels and lungs, making it difficult for me to breath. My boyfriend hugs me and asks me not to wait. He tells me, “It’s like putting the oxygen mask on yourself first. I need you more than I need our future child.” Love is when the next day, when visiting with the hematology/oncology fellow, I start crying that I will never be able to have children. She sits down next to me on the hospital bed, holds my hand, and with tears in her own eyes, tells me, “Nothing is 100 percent.” Love is when that day, I decide I will choose the course of my illness. I write on a piece of paper, I have acute lymphoblastic T-cell lymphoma. Here is what I know to be true. I will not get neutropenic and will be discharged from the hospital by the end of the week. My bone marrow biopsy will be negative. My cancer will respond so quickly to the chemo that I will only need the 6-8 months of intensive chemo, and not the 2 and a half years of maintenance chemo. I will be that 1/1000 who is fertile after this chemo and will have a child. Love is when, knowing my long hair will soon fall out, I decide to have a stylist come to the hospital to preemptively cut my hair so it can be used for a wig. He comes on Sunday evening, after a full day of work, the night before he’s supposed to leave town for the holiday break. He gives me an awesome haircut. He refuses to accept any payment. Love is when my former roommate and best friend from medical school, Julie, offers to cut her long, brown hair in solidarity, and as a contribution to my wig. Love is when the following day I get the results back that my bone marrow biopsy is negative, and that I do not have leukemia on top of lymphoma. Love is when, the day after, my blood counts are looking so good they tell me I could be out of here by Friday. Love is when such a tragic event has shown me how many people out there care about me deeply and hold me in their hearts, showing their concern through visits, phone calls, texts, emails, messages through family, and heartfelt gifts. Ignorantly, I hadn’t before realized this was true. Love is when I feel an urgent desire to get well so I can continue doing the work I am meant to do, here on this blog and through my connections with patients, promoting a positive and integrative view of psychiatry, a field I care so much for. I will get well for me, but I will get well for you, too. Love is when I realize my passion for life far supercedes my fear of this illness or its treatment. Love is when I know this cancer will hurt, and will make me sick, but it will not kill me. Love is too strong not to live for. I am here for love.

Love Is… (Holy Shit, I Have Cancer)

#love #life #cancer

[bakadesh1]

Litany In Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out, Richard Siken.

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let not this be true of me