Go the Distance

When people ask me to name my favorite film, they’re often caught off guard by my answer – Rocky.  I get it.  I don't look like the type of woman who would like something like Rocky.  It's not a romance drama/comedy or action film filled with hot guys.  It just doesn't seem to go with my outward appearance--hair, makeup, and nails done.  Unless you know me.  Then you get it.  For those who don't I'll explain why Rocky is my favorite film.  

At its core, past the grit and blood and sweat, it’s a story about a man going on a journey not to reach a goal set by others but by himself.  Rocky is seen as a loser, a thug, someone who was too lazy to reach his potential.  Prior to becoming his manger/trainer, Mickey says as much to him.  Frustrated and angry Rocky sets out to prove others and himself wrong.  When others tell him he isn’t going to win and he’s wasting his time, he tells them he doesn’t care.  Because, Rocky doesn’t agree to fight Creed in order to win the championship.  Rocky decides to fight to prove to himself that he can go the distance with something. He says, “just once I’d like to go the distance on something.”  And he does and it makes him a better man.

 

 Ultimately, Rocky loses the fight but he meets his goal.  We watch as he trains his mind, body, and spirit to meet his personal goal --punching meat, chasing chickens, and running.  

 

As the music swells during his long solitary run we understand what he's gained.  And we know no matter what happens he's already won.  

So at the end, exhausted, bloody, and beaten to a pulp, he celebrates his personal victory, calling for Adrian to tell her he loves her.  

Too many movies now focus on the hero winning the fight.  And while winning is important what’s more important is what is learned on the journey to the win.  Even when we lose, we take the knowledge we’ve gained from failure and use it to win the next time.  Life is not always about winning more often it's about the losing and what we learn from that loss that helps us to grown, change, and win our next challenge. 

Rocky is a movie about the journey not the destination.

And that’s why it’s one of my favorites.    

Poetry Month

This month is poetry month.  In honor of the month, I'm sharing a favorite poem.

fuck
by Kim Addonizio

There are people who will tell you
that using the word fuck in a poem
indicates a serious lapse
of taste, or imagination,

or both. It’s vulgar,
indecorous, an obscenity
that crashes down like an anvil
falling through a skylight

to land on a restaurant table,
on the white linen, the cut-glass vase of lilacs.
But if you were sitting
over coffee when the metal

hit your saucer like a missile,
wouldn’t that be the first thing
you’d say? Wouldn’t you leap back
shouting, or at least thinking it,

over and over, bell-note riotously clanging
in the church of your brain
while the solicitous waiter
led you away, wouldn’t you prop

your shaking elbows on the bar
and order your first drink in months,
telling yourself you were lucky
to be alive? And if you wouldn’t

say anything but Mercy or Oh my
or Land sakes, well then
I don’t want to know you anyway
and I don’t give a fuck what you think

of my poem. The world is divided
into those whose opinions matter
and those who will never have
a clue, and if you knew

which one you were I could talk
to you, and tell you that sometimes
there’s only one word that means
what you need it to mean, the way

there’s only one person
when you first fall in love,
or one infant’s cry that calls forth
the burning milk, one name

that you pray to when prayer
is what’s left to you. I’m saying
in the beginning was the word
and it was good, it meant one human
entering another and it’s still
what I love, the word made
flesh. Fuck me, I say to the one
whose lovely body I want close,

and as we fuck I know it’s holy,
a psalm, a hymn, a hammer
ringing down on an anvil,
forging a whole new world.

Becoming a Rape Advocate -- Day 3 & Day 4

This week I had two days of training --Tuesday and Wednesday.  While there are more facts I could give, I decided I wanted to talk about emotions.

The first day of training our trainer told us that for some of us, who might be survivors, some of the information we were going to be given might trigger us.  She assured us that if we didn't feel we could handle it, we could quit, no one would be angry or upset with us.  After that, two women dropped the class. 

On Tuesday, we talked more about the victims of rape, the process of collecting information and evidence, and what our role as an advocate would be.  We also learned about the physical evidence of abuse and rape such as bruise, tearing, etc.  Some of it was entertaining.  I learned a lot more about the hymen but that's for another blog at another time. 

As we were being told about strangulation, it happen, I felt triggered.  I felt a wave of anxiety wash over me; thousands of little pins scattering over my skin.  I clasped my shaking hands together, crossed my legs at my ankles and just waited for it all to be over; to move onto a new subject. 

Talking about it yesterday, I told the instructor that I'd felt triggered but decided not to leave the room.  While she asusred me that I oculd have walked out and no one would be upset I told her I didn't want to leave.  I wasn't going to be able to leave when a victim came in and talked about their experience because the victim would need me.  So, I had to learn how to seperate myself from my feelings and focus on being there for the victim.  Maybe, I was wrong or too self-sacrificing, I don't know.  I do know that I just want to do my best and be the advocate I would have wanted when I was a victim.  

The Side Hustle…

from internet

I have always been an entrepreneur.  It’s in my blood passed down through generations and cultivated by my paternal grandmother. As far back as I remember she was always trying to help me make money on the side.  It started with freebee telephone key-chains that my step-grandfather got from his job.  I would wear them as a necklace to school and sell them, depending on the style for 10₵ to 15₵ each.

from Google but I think she made a set

I have also always been a crafty person.  This too was passed down and encouraged by my mother.  My earliest memory was of watch my mother do the sequin ornaments for our Christmas tree.  I could sit for hours watching and waiting for her to let me push a pin with a shiny sequin into the Styrofoam.

About five years ago, I decided I needed to do something different in the area of crafting and I took up bead stringing.  This lead to bead weaving.  Stringing is basically putting beads on to jewelry wire while bead weaving is sewing beads together with a needle and thread.  

Bead Stringing: Firemountain.com

Bead Weaving:  Bead Magic

As I became more and more proficient and people started to notice the bracelets, earrings, and necklaces I wore and wanted to know where I’d got it.  When I told them I’d made it they started pushing me to sell my stuff.  

   

My friend Heather started to urge me to ask another friend of ours, Tim, if I could have space in his bookstore to put my jewelry.  After a year of consistent cajoling, I finally went to Tim and asked.  He said yes and since then I have had a space in The Bosslight Bookstore.  

I really enjoy taking the raw materials and turning them into a piece of wearable art.  I enjoy seeing my jewelry on people and I enjoy giving it as gifts.  And I really enjoy earning money that I can spend on more jewelry supplies so I can make more jewelry, haha.  

So, if you’re ever in the little town of Nacogdoches, TX stop by the bookstore, check out my little space, buy something, and buy a book. 

 P.S.  You can follow, Weesha’s Odds and Ends on Facebook to see what’s happening in my workshop.         

Becoming a Rape Advocate – Day 2

This week I attended the second training day to become a Rape Advocate.  We had two assistant district attorneys from the county come and speak to us about the difficulties of prosecuting rape and sexual assault cases as well as the process of trying a perpetrator.  I figured I’d share some of the information I was given. 

This information can be found here.

They got this information from RAINN, which is the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization.  You can check out the stats and get more information on their website www.rainn.org. 

Additionally, they shared that 36% of rapes are among family or intimates and 42% of rapes are among friends or acquaintances.  So basically, a victim of rape and sexual assault is more likely to know the person than not. 

So what does all this mean?  Well, it means that perpetrators of sexual violence are less likely to go to prison than other criminals.  And in the majority of sexual assault cases the victims have named their rapist unlike victims of robbery who rarely know the identity of the perpetrator.  The DA’s told us that sexual violence crimes are some of the hardest to try and even more difficult to receive a conviction. 

I’m sure you’re asking why, if victims name the person who assaulted them, is it so hard to convict more of these people?  Well, all you really have to do is check out social media.  Every day we are treated to stories about victims of rape who didn’t report immediately and those who do/did report are basically raked over the coals – accused of bringing it on themselves by virtue of the clothes they are wearing, their levels of intoxication, etc.  Those who don’t report immediately are accused of lying in order to ruin a person’s life, to gain money and/or fame, etc.  The stories of men false accused are dredged back up as if this is the majority of what happens in rape cases rather than the minority.  And just to remind everyone, only 2-8% of sexual assault accusations are false.  So which is more likely? 

As a survivor, I can tell you that I was scared, confused, and ashamed.  I didn’t know what to do or say.  I was afraid of what would happen if I said anything.  I was afraid I wouldn’t be believed or that nothing would be done.   

From the RAINN website (based on information gathered from victims from 2005-2010):

• 20% feared retaliation
• 13% believed the police would not do anything to help
• 2% believed the police could not do anything to help

This month is Sexual Violence Awareness Month.  I ask that people do their research, listen to the stories of survivors with open minds and open hearts rather than cynicism and judgment.  Please wear teal to bring awareness, volunteer at a women’s shelter, and do research about sexual violence against women and children.