ode a ser verde.

being back in verdant Lisboa, but also europe (in summer), is mesmerizing, enlightening, existential. i was last here ten years ago with my two best girlfriends from childhood- at a ripe, jovial 19 years old- drifting aimlessly through one sun-drenched country to the next with little planned and a burning desire to see, smell, taste, touch, and mostly, drink all the juice this continent had to offer us. we squeezed lemon into lemoncello and water into wine with what little means we had going into this excursion of a lifetime. in many ways, that euro trip taught me who i was and also taught me all who i was not (yet). i so badly wanted to be older, wiser than i was. i wanted to skip the steps in between and already be this cosmopolitan woman of my dreams and the only real thing i lived for- was the unparalleled feeling of being uncomfortable. because that meant i was really living. 

that trip showed me a lot of things. but mostly, how i could live on my own terms and seek out what was rightfully mine. it gave me immense hope for the future and at once, showed me what was missing. in many ways, i knew myself more ten years ago as a budding adult than i do now. and in other regards, i am now, finally perhaps, comfortable in my own skin. i like to think i live unapologetically in a way i never knew how to back then. some say that’s just womanhood, the art of getting older. i think it’s the fruits of trial and error. ten years ago, the facade of confidence was well in place but the naïveté, the yearning for acceptance was still feverishly strong. i knew what i wanted to know but i hadn’t the time on my side yet to actually know it. now i do. and yet, in many ways, back then a specific simplicity colored everything. i knew what i liked and what i didn’t. i met people. i saw things for what they were. i looked at strangers in the eye and had time to talk, always. I observed the winding, narrow stone streets, clothing lines and painted houses in hues so beautiful i thought everything on this continent must be art. I derived so much meaning from the mundane. i morn little me, triumphantly leading with mighty curiosity for the world around her. 

and the night life? well, that was was our maxim. and with little training but incredible gusto, we conquered our way through europe’s bar scene and danced the hell out of any disco that would have us. sure, we waltzed through museums, landmarks, basilicas. we took all the pictures. we read the signs and saw the things we were suppose to see. but at that age, there was no real context. i realize that now. at that age, the dragon we were rightfully chasing was contemporary culture- the people of real time, the here and now. we weren’t obsessed with the past nor were we planning for the future. we got jobs dancing on tables at clubs in greece for 23 euro a night, we ate day old bread the seaside baker sold us, drank shitty ouzo from locals and picked fruit from trees in Sardinia. we cooked cheap pasta and red sauce in dirty hostel kitchens and took any job offered. now i couldn’t be bothered to take complimentary vodka shots, much less stay with a hundred other strangers crammed into smelly dorm rooms for the price of a glass of wine in los angeles. but back then,  that was our nirvana. we just wanted to feel alive. and alive we were. 

looking back now i can’t help but feel like the girl back then, the one touring europe on a dime, could tell you a lot more about the way people lived and loved, than i could now. she could introduce you to twenty friends she just made on any given weekend. she could tell you what their aspirations were, where they grew up, what traumas they’d gone through, or how to make authentic portuguese pasteis de nata or shrimp paella in spain. that girl who rode motorcycles into the night with locals after way too much mezcal and sweaty dancing and who would have a good story to tell in the morning when she sauntered back home as the sun rose. she knew her way around town sans GPS and she really hated looking things up. why would you when you could just stop and ask? i’m learning a lot from her. and it’s life-giving. how do we get so stuck in our comforts? why do we do it? these are the questions that confront me now, at 29 years old. 

paradise with eyes

You were always playing that same old game with me—

living in your lazy haze

between sun drenched elsewhere,

the sea, and me.

Stop following me, I’d say.

I have to go be the world now,

while Someone stayed, missing me.

But now that I’m a little older,

I can see that you were

what I wouldn’t see.

I think, maybe,

You were Paradise with eyes.

And I was too busy missing tomorrow

and, waiting for yesterday…

dumpster fire of a funeral

One day, you’ll find yourself down the rabbit hole, falling deeply and recklessly in love with someone. You’ll ditch your inhibitions, and blindly follow the bread crumbs of folly and fantasy until Father Time swiftly gifts you something so devastatingly acute. This is not a feeling that visits and sets up shop during your singularity. No, it comes one day as one of those cute hardshell rolling suitcases a few months into sharing a life with someone, and never goes away. 

It has no little white tag or barcode, nothing to identify it except for its ability to travel any distance alongside you and your person. It’s just simply there and it goes unnamed because neither of you can acknowledge that this uninsured trip you’re taking has no return date or transfer voucher. You’re each smart enough to anticipate a crash, but its gravity and timing is the surprise keeping you on your toes — imbuing a sense of erotic anguish that colors every moment together. Life as you know it will never feel the same, and it’s exhilarating because of the possibility of crucifixion, or equally as plausible — a safe arrival in paradise.

The real nuts and bolts holding this luggage together is an all-encompassing Fear. Fear of being exposed for your faults and failures, for your humanity and all those embarrassing features you so carefully tucked away from view. Impressively nimble, it fits into even the smallest compartments, where it lingers overhead and gets tossed about with turbulence big and small. It will gladly roll along forever if you let it, while conveniently stowing the items you don’t want to unpack just yet. 

But one day, the oxygen masks will deploy, and you’ll put yours on first. You’ll try to help your person but your hands suddenly won’t work and your body will be frozen as the flight descends at such rapid speed that you’ll sit there, paralyzed. That’s when you decide to mentally unpack the suitcase for one last look before it’s too late. Like you might have guessed, it’s overstuffed with your expectations and anger, regret and energy spent. You see that it so kindly took inventory of your passions and adultery, your missed opportunities and anxieties, too.  And finally, in this exact moment, you’ll stop postulating and punishing yourself because you no longer care to fix it all.

You begin to engage and talk quietly to it while softly picking up your semi-retired items, folding them, and smoothing over their ruffled edges with your fingers before placing them into neat piles. You smile as you recall this fight, or that fuck, and try to engage with the memory of something that no longer serves you. 

The only trouble in all this unpacking is that you don’t live in the climate you once did so there’s no need these particular items anymore. Anyway, you prefer less now, so after delicately sorting through your once beloved keep-sakes, you take a bottle of kerosene and light the thing up like one delicious dumpster fire of a funeral. 

Then you stand back, gasoline in hand and saltwater dripping from your cheeks, and let the flames engulf the lot of it, everything it was. 

“Right,” you say to your dog who’s sitting next to you, panting. “I believe that’s all of it.”

Then all six legs sit while four eyes dance with the flames as you ponder the new haircut you’ll be getting tomorrow — more widely understood as the first day of the rest of your life. 

You watch with fascination as the outer plastic shell of the suitcase begins to melt into a gooey pile of galactic waste and chuckle to yourself for how fucked up it all looks from your perspective. You think about the first time you said those three words and how he used to look at you like he wanted your gene pool for his babies. You recall feeling so untouchable in his arms when you were 23 and still kind of adorably stupid. 

Then you chuck the canister to the ground and spit on the fire for some cathartic masculine flex and turn to go back inside. The dog barks.

“Make sure it’s out before you go to bed,” you say to your four-legged friend and turn on your heel.

The plane is now seconds from meeting the ground, so you open your eyes and drink it all in.

“I did not care what it was all about. I just wanted to figure out how to live in it,” you say. 

entropy

You’re laying on your back in a green field looking up at a blue sky and that white goal post. You’re aware of the tall oak trees in your peripherals that seem to ground your body just when you felt you could float away into the abyss of the azure stratosphere. There is a soft breeze and you can hear the rustling of leaves and the distant clamoring of children playing in the distance. There is a void in the air. Your breathing has been short. You’re on the brink of a thought that has been scratching at your frontal lobe the entire day. As if crossing a road in front of a moving vehicle- you are suddenly hit. Blindsided with a wave of warmth that permeates throughout your vessel, filling your veins with a contradiction of equal parts anxiety and elation. Goosebumps have formed over the entire surface of your skin and you are chilled to the bone. Your white flesh looks foreign and you look to your hands for clarity. This shock of feeling starts in your gut, and slowly moves its way up to your chest and into your heart and rests there for a few seconds before taking up permanent residence in your throat. This is now a ball in your esophagus and you start to get dizzy, your mind is running like mad, faster than you’ve ever experienced and you attempt to inhale to calm your mind. Managing a breath, you begin to exhale and strings of white silk pour from your mouth in cognizant surrender to the universe.. the silk leaves your mouth as breath and floats up into the same sky that started all of this.

You’re eight years old. And you’ve just been acquainted with existentialism for the first time, ever. You’ve never felt smaller and more alone in your life. After a few terrifying minutes of traveling through universal space, you are starting to understand that there is no answer and there is no end and that you as a being with a fleshy body and a soul and a mind- you will also eventually end. You desperately want to cease the train because it’s too painful of a feeling to let yourself keep riding into the darkness. You don’t have a light and mom and dad are eons away. The ball in your throat is throbbing now and all you desire is to forget. But your body is being hurled at light speed in any and all directions in the cosmic darkness and the tangibility of objects has left long ago, leaving you with little framework to ground with. So you close your eyes and reach for anything at all. Your hand is met with a cold, smooth handle and you pull. The brake works and the entire ride rushes to a stop, forcing this spell to break and shatter like glass. What metamorphosis occurs from the shatter is a crystalline helix of swirling nirvana permeating your being and filling your veins.. replacing the anxiety with that of ecstasy.

Your elation overrides how petrified you still are, and you find this feeling to be the most beautiful happening you’ve encountered in your limited years on earth. It’s the same sensation as in a dream when you realize for the first time that you have wings you never noticed before, and then you remember that you can fly, and not only that, but you are in control. You are liberated from your self prescribed boundaries of childhood. Something just clicked deep inside of you and you understand that age is both an anchor and oblivion synonymously. You decided then to acknowledge the years of adolescence you had ahead as a gift with an expiration date and that just made being eight years old the most fantastic pleasure imaginable. You’re in on a secret that you can’t share because it’s impossible to translate consciousness. This leaves you feeling very alone, yet strangely at peace with it all. One day you will meet someone who feels this way too, and looking forward to that day is enough to keep you going.

In just one second, an ocean of possibilities come flooding into your kinesphere and you’re both stricken and boundless in this purgatory of not knowing which path you will take first. If there was only some algorithm to figuring out which direction to choose in your young life, which one provides the best possible outcome, to true happiness, true fulfillment. But you won’t find out until many years later that this very predicament is what gives life it’s preciousness- that you will never be able to live out a trillion realities as the human skin you were born into. Your existence is a microcosm of cells and genes placed in infinite space and time. It means nothing, and yet this very nothingness is how we prescribe value and emotion to every. single. thing. This void breeds emotions we get to experience. Passion, love, guilt, hate, envy, self-awareness, depression, nirvana. Relationships now become sacred because you realize that you and a thousand other people you’ve been exposed to have manipulated your life course, leading you to your present day, and this moment right now.

The entropy in it all is hilarious, and cruel and endless. And if you think about it too much, you’ll cry. You’ll lay in bed with your knees pulled to your chest and experience being on the brink of remembering something that will never transpire. It will drive you insane. An itch that will consequently never be satiated. And you have to turn your not being okay with it, into action. Because the reality is that you probably don’t have that hundred years you were told you’re entitled to. People you love will die, relationships will end, you will be irrevocably hurt and you will hurt others. You will be tainted and strained, humiliated and broken before you’re reborn and it will be maybe harder to swallow than this feeling.

So you get out of bed and you start shaking your body ferociously in movement, wanting nothing but to expel the numbness out of you. You start to jump up and down, and dance as wild as you can for a silent audience. A sweet breeze sweeps through your open window, swaying your cream curtains in undulation and brushes past your cheeks. There is a faint recollection of a dream, where you’re soaring through the air, flying high above your small town ascending higher and higher into oblivion until you can barely breathe. This lack of oxygen paired with the cold wind on your face offers a catharsis you’d been sequestering for years. This snaps you back to the present moment. You look at your reflection in the mirror and you’re 25. You open your mouth and violet silk rolls off your tongue, in deep exhalation. You remember that moment when you were eight years old laying in the grass looking up at the blue sky and you laugh. You grab your shoes and a jacket and you walk out the door because you owe it to yourself to get the fuck outside to that blue sky and grab your life back.

dealer’s choice

There is no method to his madness,

modus operandi or sense of urgency

no desire to show his cards—

in fact, he keeps those hidden under the table tucked from view,

his thumb and forefinger covering their worn edges from wandering eyes.

Yet, it’s the cocktail of reckless abandon mixed with icy hot frugality

and the way he holds me in his arms till birds sing their gleeful songs

that renders my caution futile.

The way he drinks me in like a diver’s lips to its oxygen

swallowing life as slowly and soft as blue lines on the horizon,

or the ones crinkling beneath his eyes when he smiles—

this is the stuff that kills me.

“What will I call you,” he muses,

exposing himself with each candid word said

then pretending ignorance while we lay in bed.

It’s leaving at 4 am when he could have stayed

and the texts never sent that force me to play.

And when all is said and done,

as the truth becomes clear and nobody’s won—

it’s these nuances that scream

it was all one big pathological dream.

early morning sin

As sunrise pierces through a wasted heart,

this city has a tricky way of keeping me close—

marrying me to the shade of its stone walls,

and offering solace in cluttered space.

It’s here that I close my eyes

quietly retrieving my old friend—

taken from a place where sea and sand stretched for miles

and when tears only came from salt water and good humor.

It was borrowed time, lost on us

those days we played in sheets,

until silk strands of brown hair and bare skin

wove thread counts of consent,

forgetting to breathe the second lips met

and how his hair,

wrapped in the day’s sweat and salt air

paired so well with quiet streets.

Letting him sleep while I tip-toed on creaky sheets 

born from slabs of wood once tall as trees.

“Little dove,” he’d coo from the room,

calling me back to trace lines and curves well-loved.

And I’d wait each morning for another late night in linens

unraveling six feet, three inches of him.

But now, only sweet grapes and cigarettes keep me up

until young dew kisses the same cobblestones

that carried me home,

like Odysseus returning from early morning sin.

It’s these mornings above the Aegean—

whose forgiving waters sparkle with promise in late summer heat,

that pull on the prickly pleasures of a soul.

And when it’s finally time to go,

long legs and tan feet shuffle down a dirt road alone

while hands carry lemons on a path back to a place nobody knows.

unrequited love.

I saw silk colors swirling and figures swaying, laughing faces, blue eyes, and black hands hitting keys hard and moving pieces coming to a high then a halt. A slow symphony of hums humming like waves lapping crisp and sharp and then falling back again. People clapped and hats tipped — but we stood staring, tracing memories of fingertips on bare skin. I looked to my hands and they were long and slender and the shoes below them felt farther away than the moon and all the stars.

“Toulouse,” I heard him softly say.

“I’m here,” I said.

“Open your eyes,” he cooed.

Suddenly I was snatched out of my dream and thrown back into the woods.

“Dammit,” I said, rubbing my eyes before rolling over to push myself from the ground. Jack was leaning against a tree, watching the last bits of daylight fall across the valley. He held a chewed-up apple rind in his hand and the horses’ reins in the other.

“‘Bout time,” he said, tossing the rind to the ground. “Ready when you are Lou.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said

I swatted at the dry brush stuck to my hand-me-down jeans before walking over to Rosie. I grabbed the reins from Jack and mounted her fast, steadying myself with my left palm on her shoulder.

“Let’s hurry,” I said before digging my heels into her side.

We made fast towards the lookout — our favorite clearing in the woods to sit and gaze at the open flatlands before the last bits of fiery orange crawl behind the blue mountains to the west. We made it just in time for Jack to let out a slow whistle as the sun disappeared from sight. He unbuttoned his leather pouch and uncorked the whiskey he stole from his Nana. He offered me the jug but I shook my head, unwilling to tear my eyes away. 

“Not tonight.” 

Longing for that view all day won’t do you any good. You’ll get a few sweet seconds but just as quickly, you’re married to a sense of abandonment that hurts like a punch in the stomach, and returns when you let it. Sal tells me that’s called unrequited love.

“Worth the wait,” I said. 

“Always worth the wait,” said Jack. 

We sat there staring like spectators trying to replay all the best details of a horserace. Then when it was almost too dark to see, we turned the horses and made our way back toward the ranch.  

“Race you,” he said.

“You can sure try,” I said.

the Italian: a letter to yourself

Your mind is racing as you throw all of your dirty valuables into your open 72-liter backpack and all of her shit into her bag, too. You look up and your best friend is rifling through his nightstand and has just picked up a handgun and a picture book. 

“Woah what the Fuck you guys, what the fuck!” She yells, hands trembling she slowly looks around the room, surveying the dungeon you have found yourselves in the past three days.

“We need to get out of here as soon as fucking possible. Put that shit down and help me with the rest of her clothes!” You say.

She looks down at the book of pictures in her right hand and quickly flips through the first three pages. 

“They’re all of girls. They're so young, Mads.” She says.

“I bet they are. Sonovabitch.” You say.

She puts the book and the gun back inside the bedside table and moves toward you. You are both stuffing a bag so fast it’s a whirl of clothes, colors, make-up and postcards. You hear her moan and your attention is drawn to the corner of the room, where she sits slumped over on the floor, leaned up against his bed. She is drooling. Her eyes are closed.

“Fuck,” You say. “Lily she’s not doing okay…”

“Alys!?” Lily walks over to your best friend, and grabs her limp wrist. She is overdosing on roofies and as much as you wish you could go back in time, you can’t. You look on and watch this terrifying scene unfold as you continue to throw the last bits of her belongings into her baby blue backpack with all the various airport tags hanging off the thing like festival wristbands.

More moans and slurred vocal attempts.

You start to feel nauseous as your stomach constricts into knots. Fighting back the urge to puke you put your head down and suck in a deep breath. Breathe. Okay. Breathe again. In and out. We’re going to be fine. Just count to ten. You hear your father’s words in your head. You girls are going to find yourselves in dangerous situations if you're not careful, he said. You can’t accept drinks from strange men out at night, he said. This is different! You protest to nobody because you're six thousand miles away and he's not here to help right now.

“The guy in Venice wrote us back finally. He seems safe… I guess.” Lily looks up at me, in consideration.

“We can stay with him tonight—he says it’s a long day of travel to get there though,” she says looking down at your cracked iPod screen, replying to a couch surfing message.

“We gotta go, now.” She finishes.

You weren't sure if you had managed to collect all of your belongings at this point. It didn't matter much to you anymore. You just wanted out. One of us was going to have to grab her bag, the other would be holding her, making sure she would make it. You knew it was about to be a shit show, taking the entire day to relocate yourselves—with a big handicap. Hoisting your fifty-pound pack on your already aching shoulders, you grunt and reach for her bag.

“I’ve got her pack the first leg, you need to help her walk, Lil. We’ll switch halfway through,” you say.

“Alright honey, you’ve gotta pull it together as much as you can. We’re getting out of here, and were going pretty far. I’m gonna help you walk so you just need to stand up now, okay?” She calmly instructs to Alyssa. 

She impresses you with her wealth of patience and tenderness even in the most stressful situation. You envy that. You? You are hurried, anxious and too focused on getting everyone safely out to maintain composure and compassion.

Alyssa looks up and nods her head in confused consent and begins to push herself off the floor. She is having difficulty doing just that. Her arms give out under her weight and she capitulates back to the floor. This worries you, and you doubt if you will make it there before night.

“Alright, here we go,” you say, opening his bedroom door for them.

All three of you make your way out of his room, peering around the house, holding your breath. 

“What if he sees us? What if he gets home early?” Lily asks, her soft voice strained. You navigate through the dimly lit apartment, through the labyrinth of odd hallways and makeshift couch-beds. You find the door and push. 

“He won’t,” you offer in hopeful finality.

Down four flights of stairs, past two large double doors, a walk to a bus stop, a bus to a train, a trip, and a fall, a fast ride into a city, a long walk up the metro stairs.

Alyssa falls over five times, tripping over her own feet, barely making it out the metro doors in time. She works to keep up with you as you work your way through the maze of humans, undergrounds, signs, strange looks, and language you don’t understand.

“Come on babe, you need to try to keep up with us!” You call after her. She looks up from her floor gaze for a second— long enough for you to see the deadpan look in her hazel eyes.

“Dude, this is bad,” Lily whispers to you. “We should carry her.” She runs back to Alyssa and grabbing her, she lifts her arms over her shoulders and drapes her body around her own. They walk astride the rest of the way. She looks so little and fragile to you then, like a child who is too tired to walk back on its own. You continue to navigate, still carrying Alyssa’s pack, and desperately wish for this all to be over. You try hard to not let on how terrified you are and silently pray that the guy you are about to stay with next will not be the same, or worse than the one you just came from.

That's the reality of staying with complete strangers while on the road, you really cannot fucking know for sure. There are no safe security checks, stamps of authenticity, or legitimate screening ensuring that your Couchsurfing hosts are not serial rapists. The fact is, you are essentially gambling your life to create these genuine experiences and travel cheaply through foreign countries and all it takes is one wrong decision to ruin your life.

Another train to a taxi. A taxi to a water taxi. Through a canal, across the waterway to the other side of Venice.

You sit on the outer deck of the ferry and you take the deepest breath you can manage. The first full breath you’d taken since the night before. You reach for her curly hair and pull her head into your chest. The same curls you had known since you were three years old.

“It’s gonna be okay Alys,” you say to her, knowing she probably can't understand you anyway. 

“We’re alright now,” you convince yourself.

If there was one thing you regret the most out of all of your years traveling, it was that day. It was not being able to come to terms with how terribly fucked up she was during those 30 hours. It was not leaving warning signs or letters for the other girls still staying with Dino and the hundreds yet to come. It was deleting your online scathing review on his Couchsurfing profile after he blackmailed you. It was not taking photographs for later evidence. It was being too scared to call the police because he was the police. It was your naivety at nineteen years old that caused your passivity with the situation. It was emotionally removing yourself from what had happened and not seeing that in that moment, you had the chance to save some lives. It was fear.

Because that day, you couldn’t predict that what had occurred during those 65 hours in Italy would follow you for the next ten years of your life. You couldn’t predict that you were just a few out of hundreds of women down the line who would also eventually be systematically drugged and preyed upon. You couldn’t predict that three years later while living in Latin America, you and your two best friends would be contacted by the IRPI requesting formal written statements because a massive investigation was finally taking place. How could you foresee that years later Alyssa would fly back to this very city to testify in court for hours and stand next to Satan himself during formal questioning? That your story would wind up becoming part of the reason he made it to prison for numerous counts of rape, abuse of power, and serial drugging. You couldn’t predict that the majority of the damage had yet to come. No, you couldn’t predict that then.

So you sit there on that ferry, with the fleeting view of the ancient city juxtaposed against the setting sun, and you hold her little curly head in your hands and you start to cry. And you think to yourself, “How the hell did it come to this?”

cancel culture: dodging bullets amid trigger-happy crossfire

Over the past few months, you may have heard the term, “Cancel Culture” circulating throughout the public conversation, the news, and across social media platforms. Ignited by a flagrant comedy show last year, this system of social checks and balances barreled ahead during the Coronavirus pandemic and continued to grow exponentially during the Black Lives Matter movement. Cancel Culture has since overtaken our collective perception of public figures and businesses whether we asked for it or not. This overzealous public shaming has undoubtedly made its way into the psyche of our modern culture, leaving our First Amendment teetering precariously and calling into question the very framework of our unique American democracy in a way that was never previously challenged.

“Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. [It’s] generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.” Described by Katie Camero, Miami Herald.

Oftentimes these cancellations are a reaction to unconscious behavior, a politically insensitive musing, a concerning affiliation, or a dogmatic Tweet. Increasingly, the general public has become lightning fast to strike without pausing to examine the full context or intent of the individual’s comment, behavior, or photo. And not only does pause often lend context and clarity, but it also allows for the fact that at some point or another, we have all been guilty of stating opinion from an uneducated perspective- oftentimes regretting our words and wishing we had been more informed. If we’d never experienced a tail-between-the-legs moment, we may all still think and act very differently than we do now. It’s the very nature of being human, to misstep, to feel emotion about our wrongdoing, and then draw from that experience to grow into better people. And it is our collective responsibility to help guide those seemingly lost or misinformed towards a more widely accepted truth.

So how do these personal attacks on figureheads and the widespread quieting and canceling of people, corporations, and brands affect our collective experience as Americans?

Many have found that this runaway train of sensitivity and the censorship of personal opinion to be dangerous, and damaging to our autonomy in the process. This censorship has fostered a contemporary culture in which honest thought is no longer valued. A nation in which shared opinion is unsafe from public scrutiny, a world in which anything said from the totem of our public platforms will undoubtedly trigger someone somewhere.

To clarify, there is, of course, a place and a real need for checking one another within reason so as to educate, evolve, and elevate our collective language and views towards one another. Nobody likes to see the remarks of that racist/sexist/xenophobic friend while scrolling through the daily feed. Yet the ultimate difference between calling in and calling out is that the former is done with compassion, patience, and guidance, while the latter is achieved through slanderous public shaming with defamation as the main target in sight. Does this form of “canceling” create understanding? After witnessing the effects of Cancel Culture over the last year, it appears that this concept has actually deepened the divide between races, sexes, and classes, and in most instances, has deviated us off the road to real change.

Admittedly, some acts of “cancelation” are done as a citizen’s only system of checks and balances when other forms of accountability do not exist. When the public witnesses political leaders using freedom of speech to discriminate and dismantle oppressed groups, people are moved to take action against power groups.

Brandon Tensley of CNN offers, “Some are articulating righteous anger; others, such as the President, are just afraid of a bit of accountability.” For those enjoying a station of power, Cancel Culture can act as a real threat to the continuation of bad behavior and affecting rhetoric. For example, Donald Trump’s distaste for Cancel Culture is an unequivocal protest in evading responsibility for his bigotry, offensive language, and unsavory actions. When slanderous comments are so frivolously cast on the general public, it is affecting, troubling, and exhausting.

Though, without our collective ability to consider each other’s views, values, and unique perceptions, we have abandoned our ability to debate, to grow, to bridge gaps in misunderstandings that ultimately lead to compromise, and nurture the ultimate goal of acceptance. When we publicly shame people based on one or two statements taken out of context, whether unknowingly or not, we demand ideological conformity that runs the risk of totalitarianism.

Moreover, when the public “cancels” someone, they strip these figures of their life’s work and disallows them to grow, to reply, to explain or to repair whatever triggered the collective, casting them to the point of no return. This leaves their careers, businesses, and entire lives in total disarray.

“A Letter on Justice and Open Debate” was recently published by over 150 writers, poets, playwrights, screenwriters, scholars, and journalists, among them Margaret Atwood, and Gloria Steinem. This letter was intended as a public rejection of Cancel Culture, cyber-bullying, and a protest against attacks on free speech, which they call “the lifeblood of a liberal society.” “The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away.” they asserted in their collective statement.

As a human being, one must allow room for diversified thoughts and opinions to enter their sphere in order to develop reason and to learn how to engage in two-sided debate. It is inevitable as humans that we will experience disagreements whether at the individual or collective level when considering values, morals, and ethics that filter into our everyday lives. It is an integral facet of our human condition to experience adversity, perhaps our greatest journey is that of becoming ultimately unaffected and uninhibited by others. So is closing our eyes and ears to those who trigger us the answer? Like Seth Andrews said, “The internet has made this kind of mob rule far too easy. It has never been easier to pounce on someone from a distance, jam them into a box, and set the box on fire.”

We should be collectively asking ourselves, “Do personal attacks help solve these larger issues?” “Does calling out and embarrassing someone publicly help to change their opinions and better our world, or is it just bullying under the guise of righteousness?” Behind the veil of digital anonymity, people feel a sense of security in their assaults on others because there are no major consequences for egregious behavior when it’s done for the sole purpose of proving their own personal agenda of rectitude.

Despite its intent, this novel instrument for accountability is so infantile that we’re only scratching the surface of mastery, and with that, comes all the awkwardness and misguided harm along with it. At the core of this movement, I truly believe that those who engage in Cancel Culture simply demand liability from our top figureheads and real leaders alike, calling from the only platform available to them. My question is, how can we achieve the ultimate goal of mutual respect and acceptance without leaving a path of destruction in our wake?

el pinché sistema

Your life should be a fucking fairytale,

He said. 

It was 2 o'clock in the morning. He was stumbling drunk on the beach with a beer in his hand, underneath those gorgeous Nicaraguan stars, kicking softly at the sand beneath his feet. Those dirty feet, bloody and cracked from dancing with me on broken glass barefoot all night at the bar in our little town. He wore nothing but boardshorts and his own sweat. Waves lapped at my numb ankles as I listened, quiet. Barely nineteen and full of that naive youthful exuberance, I giggled at first.. before realizing he was about to say something of value.

And if it's not, you're doing something wrong.

He said.

We manifest our own reality.

Breed our own karma. 

Create our own sad problems and derive our own beautiful solutions.

We chose our own families and decide how much, or how little we really care.

You have your whole fucking life ahead of you Madeline. Those decisions you make everyday, those seemingly small choices you laugh about? Better choose them wisely.

I don't know. Our lives are just comprised of these inconsequential decisions we make everyday, compiled and compounded to create our own little cosmic existence. Waves in our sea. Each movement flowing into someone else's wave and manipulating their course.

Who knows. Maybe tomorrow I'll jump on that bus that comes through town every afternoon. The one we watch while drinking at Costaños. Takes people out and brings new ones in, just like I watched the day you arrived. I'll leave this Neverland and keep moving, maybe to Spain. Morocco. I'd even go back to Australia. I haven't been home in four years. Thats the reality of this game Mads, nothing is permanent. 

Oh shit. Don't cry. Are you crying?

Don't get too emotional about it love.. its all unfolding how it's meant to.

I wiped away the few tears that had escaped my blue eyes, embarrassed. I faked a smile and started laughing like I had not a care in the world. I hated how right he was. And I hated that I was falling for this person I had just met ten days before. In a country where I felt more myself than I ever had. And I didn't want it to end, not yet.

I had a boyfriend back home I was no longer in love with. A waitressing job that I hated. I knew it was just a distraction from facing my art. It was the obvious path of least resistance. I would be returning to school in a week and the thought of my life back home made me feel like I could puke any second.

There is no replacement for intentionality. He said.

Don't be a victim of your life,

He said.

The system in place loves to make you think you're a victim. To feel sorry for yourself, your situation. 

Don't. Thats letting them win.

Fuck the System.

Your life should be your most valued art piece.

new janes

“You could use some new Janes,” Someone called. I turned my head to meet the voice and our eyes met. I stopped walking and stood there a few feet in front of his table. 

Elsa and I were arm and arm. She looked over, snorted, and dropped my left arm.

“Good luck,” she said and continued walking towards our group gathered at the far side of the club. I followed her with my eyes for a moment, feeling abandoned. Then I shifted my attention back to the table.

“I like these heels. They’re perfectly fine heels.” 

He looked absently over my shoulder at the stage I’d just come from.

“They distract from your performance,” He said plainly.

“I haven’t received any complaints,” I said. “About my performance.”

“No?” He asked.

“No.”

“Ah,” He looked away dismissively. “Well, now you have.” 

He sucked at his cigar and picked up his whiskey drink and took a slow sip, having decided our conversation was over. There was a softness to his eyes which I’m not entirely convinced matched his semblance.

I surveyed his company, a ring of suited men slouching around the large wooden buffet, elbows casually resting on top, some crossed their arms. Two held cigars and watched the dancers up on stage. Not one of them acknowledged my presence. They all had drinks and a spread of cards sprawled across the round table. No one said a word. 

“Well, gentleman,” I said, tipping my non-existent hat in their direction. “Enjoy the evening.” I eyed each one of them as I spoke, except for him.

Then I turned on my heel and walked smoothly and slowly back to where I’d come. Once backstage I threw my purse on the chair and cursed him because no one was there except Maria and who cares what Maria sees anyway. 

She ran over and flooded me with questions about the performance because she was stuck backstage during our numbers. I looked down, considering my T-strap heels Aunt Alice had bought me four years ago when I first started at the Academy. The back of each heel was significantly lower than the front and there were scuff marks all up and down the sides. One of the toes was beginning to bore a small hole. I fingered the old satin on the top and steadied myself with the chair back as I removed each of them from my feet.

“What do you think about these?” I asked her, dangling the shoes in front of Maria. 

“Oh, they're fantastic!” She gushed.

“Good. Take ‘em.” I handed them to her and dug my black wedges out from the bottom of my bag and shoved my feet into them. I walked over to the mirror and reapplied my matte red lipstick another time.

“You’re giving them to me?” Maria asked as she tried them on.

“Yep.” I smacked my lips together to spread the color around. “C’mon. Let's take a cigarette outside.” I grabbed her hand and we quickly walked past the row of bulbed vanities and through the thick black curtains, out the back through the door and to the street.

humor of the gods

To commence this sad epic, I'll begin with a substantial assertion: I have the worst flight karma out of possibly anyone before me.

I've lived a lifestyle on the road the past decade, traveling over 30 countries, various states, and many an island, thus booking an absurd amount of plane tickets. My success rate of making a flight at this point is less than 10%. It’s gotten so bad that my unphased demeanor at the airport when I’m denied access is starting to make people uncomfortable.

I could equate this phenomenon to the like of Odysseus enduring the wrath of Poseidon—forever. That's a pretty fair analogy. My version looks more like Zeus punishing me for my most flighty and frivolous decision-making and lack of regard for the time schedule the rest of the world adheres to.

To illustrate this, I'll lend a story about my experience leaving Asia a few months back in an attempt to fly home to California. I had been in Asia for two months and had ended my travels in Bali, Indonesia. On this trip alone, I had already lost about two thousand dollars in missed flights. Including my initial flight leaving California.

Now I always know somethings wrong when I arrive at the check-in counter, and within a few seconds, I find myself witnessing that very concerned facial expression as it slowly begins to plague the countenance of these forgivingly tolerant check-in reps doubling as inadvertent social workers. This was precisely what I was experiencing at this moment, in the Singaporean airport.

“You don’t have a transit Visa to fly into Qingdao madam. We cannot let you board this plane without a transit Visa to China. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

“What.”

That was all I could muster. And in those two seconds that followed my weary mind acknowledged the grim realization that I've lived many a time- where I’ve exhausted all other viable options… there is no plan B’s, god-sends, hysterical crying pitty-parties to yank on the heartstrings of said flight gurus. The only solution in getting the fuck out of whatever country I’m stuck in is consequently to throw in the towel and drain my bank account faster than 8-year old me at the Radio Shack buying spy gear. 

I sat there in the airport bar downing a strong Manhattan and experienced a cumbersome wave of numbing existentialism and an acknowledgment of my tendency to miss my appointments with life. I made a mental note to work on that when I returned home—whenever that would be. After two more glasses of poison and a most sobering phone call with my parents, I bit the bullet and dropped $800 on a new flight home. Because it's me, and it can never be easy and simple in these moments, the only flight going to California was for the next day, with a ten-hour layover in Manila, Philippines. So I raised my hands in the air, said fuck it, and gave in. And in giving credit where credit is deserved, I recognize the success of this journey can only be rightly attributed to the help of my friends, Valium and Benadryl PM. 

Emptying out the entire contents of my backpack, I made a makeshift bed on the tile floor in the Singapore airport with all my clothing… tied a scarf around my eyes, ceasing the florescent light-induced insomnia, popped a Vali and Benny, and went the fuck to sleep. By some miracle, I awoke in time to make my 11 AM flight across the South China Sea. 

My ten-hour layover in the Philippines ended up being a peppered cocktail consisting of equal parts patience and resilience. It was THE WORST AIRPORT I’ve ever been to, and mind you I’ve been to my fair share of Satan’s Sick Rendition of Flight Facilities- this one took the cake. Upon arrival, I foolishly denied the option to leave said airport because I figured I could casually, comfortably lounge upon a nice cushioned booth seat at some awaiting restaurant. Right? Wrong. There were no restaurants, there were no benches or cushions, or places to rest your weary bones for ten hours. What they did offer, were rows of metal chairs, thoughtfully connected by metal armrests as to discourage any feeble attempts of sleep whilst waiting out your falsely convicted airport sentence. This was a cruel, cruel invention and within the first minute of scope, I realized I would be sitting at a 90-degree metal angle for the next ten hours, snacking on oh, nothing. And punishing myself for not reading the fine print. 

Something inside of me cracked then and there, and after being denied for the fifth time into the one and only exclusive Frequent Flyers Lounge, I dragged myself over to customs and shamelessly pleaded mercy to a panel of very unimpressed security guards. 

To my sheer delight, this supplication resulted in me obtaining a visa to leave the airport by way of a bit of acting, some tears, and the compassion of a female security guard that must have had a baker’s dozen children of her own. This led to me hiring a sketchy cab driver and commanding him to drive until we found a hotel that was both A) cheap enough to not exceed the $20 cash limit I had set for myself when extracting monies from the airport ATM (I believe this was my radical attempt at protesting the current situation I was in) and B) not a sleaze-bag cum-stained roach-infested establishment. 

This was a very (un)surprisingly difficult medium to reach. For both the cab driver and I did not know the area well enough to make judgment calls purely based on the exterior decor of each lodging. I believe we hit about seven different motels, hotels, home-stays before Goldilocks found her perfect bed. The three little bears were long gone by then, so I paid the $12 for the room in full, and in cash (which, at the time I found to be enormously over-priced… who am I?) and again, I passed the fuck out. 

Now, at his point I hadn’t eaten in about two days except for the crackers they presented to me on the flight over from Singapore… yet my appetite was nonexistent and my mind was most definitely elsewhere. I woke up with two hours to spare before my final flight (because God forbid I miss that one) and got myself to the airport after a most unimpressive rip-off attempt by cab driver #2. Seriously, I actually asked him if he thought he was cunning, to which I received a less than tasteful response.

Running through the terminals, I found my gate and sat myself down, front and center awaiting my line to be called, like a dog waiting for a treat. I sat there so well. 

Once all boarded and settled in I was pleased to discover that I would be sharing my row of seats with no one other than my sad satirical self. I had made it. Nothing could hinder my arrival to the Golden State now, except perhaps an aggressive lightning storm, or an unfortunately timed, long anticipated terrorist attack on San Francisco. After ascending past the troposphere, I called the stewardess over and politely instructed her to bring me a scotch on ice- now, and for the next four hours, every half an hour on the dot, until I was a drooling dreamy, infantile version of 24-year-old me. She happily agreed and exceeded my expectations with an overly healthy pour of Manila’s finest bottom-shelf golden poison. 

After tossing back the last of my Valium, I passed out cold for about ten amnesiac hours and was only awoken by the forcible shaking of my arm by my favorite stewardess, Cathy.

“Madam, we will be touching down in San Francisco in 30 minutes. Please fasten your seatbelt and prepare for landing.” 

Holy shit.

I was home.

After two months of dragging myself across the warm sand and seas of Indonesia, the cities and jungles of Vietnam, I was there, in the clouds.. flying miles above my favorite place on earth. I could practically taste that sweet Northern California salty air and eucalyptus in my dry recycled air-filled nostrils. Half placebo, half anticipation. 

I knew my mother and my black lab Jade would be standing there at the entrance, waiting for me with smiles and warmth radiating from their beautiful souls.

I sat and closed my eyes for a minute and took it all in. Took in this past journey- the incredible people, the spices adorning each dish of food, the lush green countryside, the crazy nights out, the uninhibited dancing, the hilarious, the depressing, the hopeful, and the broken. I took in the lessons I had acquired, and those still yet unlearned. I reminisced on the natural beauty of the islands I visited,  on the organized chaos in the streets and the motorbike mayhem that I too eventually played a part in… the folks that had taken me in as a sister or a daughter, humbling me with their generosity and tender compassion. 

I could have never anticipated how much I would fall in love with it. The authenticity of Asia enveloped me like a warm blanket and left me feeling so full and elevated, and at the same time overwhelmingly melancholy for what I was leaving behind.. a true dichotomy. 

In the darkness of closed eyelids, I relived the most truthful moments of that trip as if I were watching a movie, engulfed in an intrepid dream. The sensory allusions of taste, smell, sound, and touch, love- they were all palpable to me at that moment. Another leaving behind of international best friends, saying another goodbye to the man I was falling in love with… relinquishing the wildest lifestyle of free-living the in-between, traveling untouched by the societal confines experienced by those stuck in the daily grind. Mourning the loss of those sweet, stimulating, existential conversations you don’t find yourself having with the average American. I would miss that possibly the most.

The wheels of our 747 hit the tarmac with a loud screech, tearing me from my self-induced inception and bringing me down to earth. In a sense, it was all over. Hitting the ground in that tangible vessel marked an end to an unexplainable journey. But if reality is subjective, and if all it takes is for me to close my eyes and relive those memories, on some plane- I’ll be free forever.