The Soft Burden, Part 3

This is the final part of an essay I wrote about my family's history of racism and how I try to deal with it. I hope that those of you who've read it have gotten something out of it -- maybe a stark picture of white privilege as it's played out over the centuries, maybe an understanding that not all Southerners are racist, even if we've come from racist backgrounds, maybe a vague sense of hope that we, as a society, can move into a more unified and less traumatic future. For those of you just tuning in, here are links to Part 1 and Part 2.

The Soft Burden

(Part 3)

This is where Mom's beliefs and mine come into sharp contrast. Mom has her pride and her Klan stories, and like so many other people born into Southern families she dismisses the KKK as some inconsequential thing from the past. But I am acutely aware that it still exists. A former Grand Wizard held public office and still makes political endorsements (because people still listen to him). In Georgia, a branch of the Klan wants to adopt a stretch of highway for litter cleanup. I see Klansmen as domestic terrorists who are somehow clinging to outdated beliefs and perpetrating acts of violence based on a war that, despite the rhetoric of extremists, has been over for a very long time. But the invalidity of their philosophy does not mean they are extinct, or even endangered. For me, the Klan is part of a very real white supremacist movement and an organization that wants to violently tear down one of the principles I grew up with: equality for all.

(From Wikimedia Commons)

I am fortunate to be surrounded by people who oppose hatred, ignorance and violence, and they do it without resorting to hatred, ignorance and violence themselves. They know their “enemies.” When they protest Klan or other rallies, they dress up as clowns, relying on distraction and irony rather than anger. When I was in college in Austin, a few women I knew went to a KKK rally and asked Klansmen about membership possibilities -- “So can anyone join? Is there a form to fill out? Can I take some of your literature home to share with my family?” – which really impressed me, because the women were Black. I've known other people who oppose the social and political groups that use patriotism and religion as excuses for hatred – and rather than protest angrily, my friends pray for these people to find peace and enlightenment. They have inspired me to do the same.

These are the kinds of people I stand with, but they are not the kind of people I came from. In a way, counting myself among those who oppose the Klan and its ilk deepens my shame about my family history, because I came from a large family full of the kind of people my friends stand against. By action, I am part of a force against injustice; by blood, I'm the very thing I oppose. But believing and acting in opposition to the Klan and any other group that promotes hatred is a possible path to salvation– a way to try to transcend the past.

I had a conversation about the KKK Quilt with a friend of mine who's a missionary. I told her how even though I was not a slave owner or a KKK member I felt a kind of residue from the actions of my ancestors. I told her the quilt seems like a giant symbol of institutional racism that will eventually come to me, like some family curse. She agreed that it's a heavy subject and said she could understand how I might feel like the quilt, and everything it means, is a burden I have to bear. But then she reminded me of the story of Nehemiah in the Old Testament and how he prayed for forgiveness for himself, for his family and for his entire country.

“That kind of thing happened a lot in the Old Testament – one person seeking salvation for a whole group,” she said.

Then we talked about my great-grandmother, Granny, and what she might have been thinking when she grabbed the KKK robe and cut it up into squares to use it for an entirely different purpose.

“She redeemed it,” my friend said. “She turned it into something new.”

And I suppose she did. Granny took something almost universally reviled and turned it into something useful -- something with a connotation of coziness, gentleness, home.

The quilt and I are alike in that no one would ever guess, just from looking at it, where it came from and what secrets it might hold. And if the remnants of that hated robe can be redeemed, perhaps I can, too. What I end up doing with my strange inheritance can help me change how I view myself and my past. Holding on to it seems somehow unhealthy, but giving it away seems like a form of denial, and although I feel shame and disgust about my family's ties to the Klan, I can't deny that they exist.

In the county where Granny lived, there is a small museum dedicated to the area's history. I think the healthiest thing for me to do is loan the KKK Quilt to the museum indefinitely, for display or just for safe keeping. I will tell the curators where it came from – made by the daughter of one of the county's prominent families – and what it is made of – a symbol of hatred given a new and gentle purpose.

The museum houses a collection of the pottery made by the former slaves who ran their own free enterprise after the war. Many of the clay jugs and bottles on display are still whole, survivors of the nearly 150 years since their creation. My ancestors' KKK robe, however, is no longer recognizable. Perhaps putting all these artifacts in the same building can show that freedom endures, but hatred can be rendered powerless and even be turned into something comforting. Perhaps, a century and a half after the Civil War, some of the “general hard feelings” – including my own – can be put to rest.

The Soft Burden, Part 2

This is the second part of an essay I wrote a few years back about my family's history as slave owners and KKK members and how I try to cope with that. Here's a link to Part 1 and a better explanation of where this essay came from.

The Soft Burden

(Part 2)

I remember looking back through the newspaper archives in the county where my great-grandmother lived and seeing a very brief story about a young Black boy who had been found “accidentally lynched” in a barn sometime around the turn of the century. There wasn't much question in my mind about who might have “accidentally” lynched him, especially after I found out my ancestors who had lived in that county were part of a thriving population of Klan members in the area.

The same county was home to the first Black free enterprise in Texas after the Civil War – a pottery shop operated by the freed slaves of a Presbyterian minister. This could be taken as a sign of enlightenment, and the site of the pottery business has earned national landmark designation. But there are reports of “general hard feelings,” as The Handbook of Texas put it, and violence against the business owners. I can't help but wonder if my ancestors ever acted against the pottery owners  – if the robe that's now part of the KKK Quilt was there during any of the post-war attacks on these men who were trying to become truly independent.

This part of our shared heritage has created quite a few “general hard feelings” between Mom and me. Mom is unflinchingly proud of our family's past, but not because of any lingering racism on her part. She is from the last generation of my family to go to high school before desegregation, and she used the words “colored” and “Negro” for decades, but when social mores changed, she changed with them. And, after all, she raised me to accept everyone as equals and embrace other cultures.

(From Wikimedia Commons)

But Mom's genealogical research revealed so many details of our Southern ancestors' lives and their hardships and accomplishments during and after the Civil War that she became enthralled with the men and women who came before us. She saw, looking back at a century of slow migration and hard fighting, the miraculous sequence of events that had to occur for her to come into this world. Some of those events involved owning slaves. Sometimes I wonder if her pride is a kind of coping mechanism – she might not be at peace with the vein of racism and cruelty in our heritage, but since there's nothing she can do to change it, she's just decided to accept it and wave her Confederate flag high.

If you ask her about why she holds our Southern ancestors in such high esteem, she'll simply say, “You have to remember, these men were fighting for what they believed was right. They weren't right, but it's what they believed in.”

The last time we had that conversation, I wanted to respond that the same could be said for the Nazis, but that would have started a conflagration of a magnitude I was not prepared to deal with. I just shook my head, letting Mom know that even though I knew I could not change her mind, she had not changed mine, either.

A couple of years ago, Mom presented me with a special gift. She had just had one of her prouder moments: attending a rededication ceremony for a monument to Hood's Texas Brigade, the outfit in which one of our more prominent ancestors served during the Civil War. She bought me a limited edition medal struck to commemorate the rededication. The medal came in a plastic box with a certificate of authenticity that included the words, “May You Wear This Medal With Pride.” She also gave me a copy of the program from the ceremony, sure that I would want this souvenir related to one of our accomplished ancestors. According to the program, the crowd said the Pledge of Allegiance and also the Salute to the Confederate Flag: “I salute the Confederate Flag with affection, reverence and undying devotion to the cause for which it stands.”

What was that cause, exactly?

But Mom didn't care – the important thing to her was the recognition of our forefathers and their tenacity in fighting for what they thought was a noble cause. The important thing to me is that I can't wear the medal she bought me with pride, nor can I salute the Confederate flag with affection. But filial devotion, and a little joy at seeing Mom become momentarily giddy, kept me from mentioning either of those points as I accepted these mementos with a tired sigh.

Mom has even been able to justify our ancestors' membership in the Klan. She's not the only person who's ever done this, of course – a friend of mine who has the same sort of background I do said her grandmother told her that Klan members just put on their costumes and rode their horses together, as if it were some kind of social club to keep the menfolk busy while the women were at their knitting circles. Whenever I bring up the Klan's place in our family history, Mom always stops me in mid-complaint and says that whatever else it did, the Klan stepped in to see that justice was carried out whenever a Black man raped a white woman. Somehow I think it would matter less to them if a white man raped a woman of any color, but regardless, Mom focuses on the perceived chivalry of the Klansmen, as if they were actually white knights and not just calling themselves that.

One of Mom's favorite family stories (and her favorite Klan story) has to do with one of our foremothers: a woman with the improbably adorable name of Tiny Bell. Tiny Bell's husband died in the flu epidemic in the early part of the 20th century. At the funeral, in the middle of the ceremony, the church doors swung open and several Klansmen, in hoods and robes, walked into the church, found Tiny Bell, and handed her a bag of money. Her husband had been one of their own, and they had collected money to help support his widow.

I was surprised to learn that the Klansmen were capable of such an act of kindness, but I don't think the Klan could assist enough poor widows or avenge the honor of enough compromised women to save its reputation.

I know the Klan began as a response to Reconstruction. It was started by men who found themselves suddenly desperate – their fields and homes in ruin, cities burned, social order destroyed, friends dead or starving, and a crowd of politicians who seemed indifferent to (if  not pleased with) their suffering. But I can't accept the idea that man's inhumanity to man is reason to carry out more acts of inhumanity. Hunger is no reason to drag a family out of their home in the dead of night and whip them. Cognitive dissonance does not give a man the right to shoot a Black man for not tipping his hat as they passed each other on the street. And there is no excuse for allowing hatred to expand to include other minority groups. I can't say I fault Tiny Bell for taking the money the Klansmen gave her – perhaps it was their way of trying to help her avoid the destitution that had turned them into what they were, and I have no doubt she needed the money. But one act of charity – even one that benefited my relatives – is not enough to get me to ignore more than a century of violence. Instead, in a sense, it makes it worse.

Just a little something about racism and genealogy

So a few years ago, I wrote what I guess would be classified as a personal essay about this peculiar family heirloom that I will be inheriting when Mom passes away -- a quilt incorporating pieces of one of my ancestors' KKK robes -- and everything that entails. I had wanted to post this a few weeks back but I hesitated because of the protests and riots and, thank God, the national dialog that began emerging about institutionalized racism and white privilege. I decided not to post it then because I felt like I would be intruding on a conversation far more important than where I, as a white person, am coming from and how I got here. I still don't want to interrupt that conversation, but I feel like this might be at least a sidebar.

Growing up Southern and white, with the knowledge that my ancestors were slave owners, gave me a pretty disgusting feeling at a pretty early age. I wasn't even sure what to call it, other than "white Southern guilt," until I heard the phrase "white privilege" maybe just a year ago. That's the unsettling knowledge that you inherently benefit from the current system because of the color of your skin. That's the realization that store security personnel or police officers will probably never automatically consider you a suspicious person because of the human-suit your soul is encased in. That's the feeling I have had since I was about 13 years old when I found out that my family's fortunes -- lost as they were during Reconstruction -- were built on the bones of slaves, and their losses avenged by hooded men on horseback wielding guns and torches.

(From Wikimedia Commons)

This was the hardest thing I have ever written, and it is probably the hardest thing I will ever share. But it might go some way in explaining why racial injustices, particularly those involving authority figures, prompt an anger in me that makes it hard for me to even have a rational discussion about it. I can't do a thing about my ancestors' behavior without a time machine, but I can fight the same hatred when I see it today. It is not meant to be my personal diatribe about Ferguson, or Staten Island, or any of the other countless police shootings of unarmed Black men, nor is it meant to drown out the voices of people of color who obviously have more experience and more to say than I do -- this is just the road map of my own experience of white privilege and how I try to cope with a past I can't change. Read it if you want to, don't if you don't.

I'm posting it in three parts because it's a long damn thing and it might be easier to digest in pieces anyway.

The Soft Burden

(Part 1)

I sat in my parents' dining room, waiting for Mom to show me the quilt she was digging for in the bottom of her cedar closet. She came down the hall with it, cradling it in her arms as if it were swathed around an infant.

“Here it is,” she said, approaching me. “Here.”

I looked at it – an unassuming patchwork quilt. A top of purple and white squares, tacked onto a white backing. I could tell that my great-grandmother had taken some care in making it, but as Mom stretched out her arms to hand me the quilt I shrank back in my chair.

“I don't want to hold it,” I said.

“But you said you wanted to see it.”

“Yeah, because I kinda can't believe it's real.”

I stretched out a hand, hesitated, then traced the tip of my index finger over one of the white squares.

“That … this. This that I'm touching. That came from …”

“That's a piece of one of your ancestors' KKK robes,” Mom said, without a trace of pride or shame in her voice. “I'm not sure if it was Granny's father's robe, or her brother's, or her husband's. Could've belonged to any of them.”

I withdrew my hand as if I'd just touched fire. In a way, I had, though it was one that had been lit generations before.

Someday, “The KKK Quilt” – a most unsettling heirloom – will be mine. I'm my mother's only child, so there is no one else for her to pass it on to. But, like the culture of hatred attached to the garment used to make the quilt, it is not an inheritance I want.

Because of an intersection of geography, curiosity and open-mindedness, other cultures have bled over into my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up on an Air Force base among people from all over the world, and Mom and Dad raised me to believe that no race or nationality was any better than another. I began learning to count in Japanese shortly after I learned to read and started learning Spanish before I was 5. The friends I made when I was very little came from such far-flung places as Germany, Alaska and Barrio Pescado in San Marcos, Texas. I fell in love with old-school blues and jazz when I was in college and was nearly 20 before I learned that the fried chicken, watermelon, chitlins and grape soda I had grown up with were “a Black thing.” As far as I knew, it was all just food, much like my childhood friends were just friends.

I was not raised to look down on others – I was raised to learn from them. And as an adult, I believe in equality, human dignity and freedom and fighting ignorance with reason. Yet I don't feel as though I have found the kind of grace that washes me completely clean of the history of racism and hatred in my family -- the Southern version of original sin. Like the Judeo-Christian concept, this sin is something I was born into, though I didn't ask for it and would certainly prefer not to have it. But I don't know where to look for salvation, so I walk through this world feeling irredeemable. I might not want this inheritance, but it's not something I can just throw away, because it seems to cling to me.

So many of my friends' relatives were drawn to America because of the Potato Famine, the anti-Semitism in Europe and Russia ahead of World War II, or the crushing poverty and despotic governments in Asia and Latin America. These families were fleeing some kind of oppression and looking for freedom. Their immigration stories are beautiful and heroic.

My “coming to America” story is less noble. My privileged ancestors, all of whom came to this country before 1865, loved freedom -- but mostly their own. The story I usually tell is that my people came over from England, Scotland and France, where most of them had been aristocrats. They settled largely in the South, then made their way to Texas, where we've been for five generations. I don't mention that they owned plantations and people in several states. I don't say that we were impoverished after the Civil War because some of my ancestors abandoned their homesteads and fled to Mexico to avoid surrendering to Union authorities. I will announce with pride that my ancestors have fought in every war in U.S. history; I just don't mention that my family still talks about what our forefathers were doing during The War of Northern Aggression. I certainly don't mention the quilt.

Mom has done genealogical research for decades; books on the various branches of our family and notebooks full of pedigrees and photocopied letters and pictures fill shelves in her library. She was the one who found incontrovertible proof that our ancestors owned slaves. Court records and estate inventories she discovered in her research list people among my ancestors' property: “Sixty acres of land. Two mules. House servant, George, age 31. Four cattle.” Some of the court records give a person's name, age and value in dollars.

Over the years, I've heard dozens of people inside and outside the family give a litany of justifications for slave ownership: It's how the French and Dutch were building their wealth. It wouldn't have happened if Africans weren't selling other Africans to European traders. It's what the economy in the South was built on at the time. People didn't know any better. People have owned slaves since before the days of the pharaohs, so Southern plantation owners weren't doing anything new.

Although the idea of slavery fills me with revulsion, I could almost see how some people could find comfort in these attempts at rationalization. But there is no acceptable justification for the Ku Klux Klan. It was founded with a specific and malicious purpose, and the men who joined it did so with every intention of carrying out that purpose: using an arsenal of violence including lynching, burning and assassination to terrorize Black Southerners and white sympathizers and reclaim supremacy in the South.

Winter Sucks (Or How To Keep Seasonal Affective Disorder From Making You SAD)

Sweatshirt available at CatalogClassics.com
(Seriously! I found out about it 3 hours after this posted!)

It's been weirdly cold here in Central Texas for almost a week now -- we're in line for another hard freeze tonight. And it was cloudy and occasionally drizzly and gross for a few days. Cold, cloudy, gross. My allergies started acting up. I mostly just wanted to stay in bed with Netflix and the cats. It was hard not to get depressed until I dragged my sickly, shivering self through the mist to an open mic last night to perform some poetry & talk to friends and strangers alike in a cheap & cheerful bar.

Yes, the holidays are coming up, but along with Thanksgiving and whichever religious celebration you partake in (or don't) 'tis the season for Seasonal Affective Disorder. Whether it's because of the cold, damp ick that settles in for a while, because of allergies/colds/flu dragging you down, or because as more years pass, so do more loved ones, making the holidays feel lonelier, winter can really suck.

However, you're not powerless to make it suck less. These are things that have helped me during my long history of depression (which does tend to get worse during the bleak winter months):

1. Do something charitable. Take a few cans down to the local food bank, or donate something to a local toy drive. Gather up some things around the house that you don't need or use anymore and take them to Goodwill or a similar charity shop, and think of it as making room for incoming gifts. Find somewhere to do some volunteer work, which will not only help you feel like you're contributing to your fellow man but is an opportunity to have some human contact (see Tip #4).

I have a tiny Christmas
tree topped by a disco ball,
and I'm not sorry.

2. Don't stress out over having The Perfect Holiday. All the commercials say that this is the time of year for togetherness. Of course they also tell you that togetherness has to happen in a pristine house with an impossibly picturesque Christmas tree and a meal that took days to prepare though the hostess shows no signs of having been in the kitchen long enough to break a sweat. And of course all the presents have to be the newest, shiniest, most expensive toys -- even for grown-ups. Don't do this. Don't set expectations so high that your holiday will drown in disappointment like a piece of fudge accidentally dropped in the gravy boat. Don't try to out-Martha Stewart Martha Stewart if it just freaks you out. For the holidays, as for every other day, you do you.

3. Make homemade gifts for friends and family. Considering the state of the economy, this is almost a no-brainer. On top of that, people appreciate the time and effort that goes into making something yourself, whether it's a crocheted headband or a jar of pesto. And if you're fighting Seasonal Affective Disorder, spending time working on projects like this can help keep you busy and feeling purposeful.

4. Go out. Leave your house! Especially if you're living far from friends and family, the holidays can make isolation feel even more pronounced. Go to a coffeehouse and make conversation. Befriend your barista. Go listen to some live music and befriend a musician or aficionado. You're not alone in your loneliness, and your company can be a gift you offer to someone else who might be feeling as alienated as you are.

5. Accept some suckiness. When one of my best friends died when I was in my 20s, the holidays started to hurt because I missed being able to give her presents or be in her company at get-togethers. When one of my dear friends -- whose birthday is on Christmas Day -- passed away a couple of years ago, the holidays began to hurt more. The first Christmas after he passed, I didn't even put up a tree and sat like a zombie at my family's holiday dinner. The following year, I had a long discussion with myself and said, "Well, Christmas is just going to suck now, and you can either have a sparkly but sucky Christmas Day or an even more depressing, un-sparkly sucky Christmas Day. It's up to you." And I put up my tree and a few other decorations because I accepted that Christmas was going to be less pleasant than it had been before, and even if it would never be perfect, I could still try to make the most of it. As with Tip #2, I stopped being hung up on having The Perfect Holiday and aimed for the best holiday I could have, instead. I felt a lot better just knowing that I tried.

I have dealt with depression for most of my adult life, and I write this to ask others who might be suffering, particularly this time of year, to hang in there. Don't give up hope -- reach out to friends, family, even strangers/professionals if you find yourself unable to climb out of an abysmal state this season. This is part of a Facebook post I made after Robin Williams died, and I think it's a good reminder that if you're depressed, you are not alone and don't have to surrender to it:

Sometimes I think a certain degree of depression can be a gift -- it's the "strangeness in the proportion" that gives a person a different take on the world, that helps a person understand that this world is indeed temporary and that every one of is is going to die someday, though most people don't like to think about it and think you're weird if you do. That sense of urgency, and that sense of sorrow, can be fuel for a powerful fire. You look for the sweetness in life. You appreciate how rare and wonderful the beautiful and funny moments are. You run like hell from the darkness that's chasing you, toward humor and beauty and light. I think that's why it turns out that so many funny people are depressed -- we're not joking, we're fighting for our lives. And if you're lucky, really lucky, you can find a balance between the darkness and the light. You can stand on the edge, keep that fire burning, without getting sucked into the blackness. But sometimes you lose that balance. Sometimes you get too tired to keep running. And if you don't ask for help, if you don't find help, that's the end of you. But there is help, folks. There are friends. There are professionals. There are meds if you want/need to go that route. Every day that I wake up and find one thing that touches my heart or makes me laugh is a "fuck you" to the disease that could have taken me but didn't. Today I'm grateful that I found help -- the best group of friends a person could hope for, wonderful therapists, meds when my heart was too heavy for even these kind people to lift, and lifestyle changes that have made the struggle more manageable. When I find myself balancing on the edge, I don't stand there -- I dance.

Poetry bits

For me, the autumn so far has been the Season of Dancing, with Cabaret Dance Camp in mid-October and then a weekend-long workshop with Hossam and Serena Ramzy at Zein's Dance Studio in Austin, and now I have at least one performance coming up before the end of the year. Woo! But as autumn fades into what is currently a hard-freezing taste of winter, so my heart turns to words again. I'm going to the Triple Crown Open Mic this Sunday, the 16th, to read some of my bawdy poems that I don't usually perform -- pitch some woo at the crowd there & see what sticks. Plus, poetry and music used to be very closely related, so spouting out some words on stage at the live music hot spot just seems logical. If you're in town and want to come see, things get started at 7 p.m.

Also, I've just sent some pieces to The Literati Quarterly, the fantastically designed San Marcos-based arts journal. It is really well-designed and they have printed some quality work, so I'm hoping that at least one thing I've sent them is pleasing to the eye and ear. If you've got something you'd like to submit -- poetry, speculative fiction, animation, video, artwork, music, critiques, etc. -- the deadline for the next issue is Dec. 1. Check out their submissions page to find out more about what they're looking for and where to send it.

If you've never read or heard any of my poetry, here is a piece that's usually a crowd favorite, commonly known as "The Fat Businessman" although that's not its actual title, published at Asinine Poetry. They also included it in their podcast that month (scroll down to #86), with some hilarious sound effects.

People and music and San Martian stuff

Summer was a pretty rollicking season around here. San Marcos had its first Pride Weekend, and I am glad to know a few of the people involved in making that happen. In an inevitable display of small-town charm, the Pride Weekend festivities included a drag show at the VFW Hall. Here are a couple of pics from the parade downtown:

Some cops escorted the parade, some were in the parade

The Sun God shows his support

Though I don't have photos, I mentioned in a previous blog post that my friend Dave Shelton has been studying and giving workshops on the Nordic Runes and the subconscious. He has a great blog called Thorsdaeink.

And I promised pics of some of the bands I have been out to see over the past few months, so here they are. Most are from San Marcos, and all are spectacular. I've put links to Facebook pages and websites in the captions so you can find out more about these talented folks.

Molly J. Hayes of San Marcos, with her heartfelt singer-songwriter sounds

Conway the Whale, another local act offering impassioned folk

Captain M.A. Zing, yet another San Martian,
offering catchy rock from another planet
(with special guest percussionist on the suitcase)

Two-fifths of Chasca, San Marcos' local glam band, at their Halloween show

Brokestring and the Empty Promises, more tasty folk music
from San Marcos

Three-fifths of Chasca, San Marcos' local glam band,
at their Halloween show

San Marcos' melodic folk duo 4orms
on Halloween with special guest Armando on drums

Armando behind the drums again, this time
with the very rockin' Adrian in Austin over the summer

My absence, part 2: Doing the wrong things, or getting trapped in the Web

This is where I confess my secret: Hi, I'm Robin, and I'm an Internet addict. And possibly a rage-oholic. Because the time that I have spent online in between my adventures of the past few months has mostly been spent getting angry. I haven't been productive because I've been allowing myself to get sucked into the dark vortices of the Internet instead of trying to contribute some light to it.

I once described the Internet to a friend as "pretty much nothing but cats, porn and outrage." Which I realize is a bold and hypocritical statement for a blogger, but it's true -- or mostly true. I forgot misinformation and entire forums full of delusional people feeding each other's paranoia. That's on the Internet, too. Oh, and stalkers. How could I forget stalkers? I acquired one and had to shut down my old Twitter account, change passwords, do pre-emptive blocking on other social media sites. I'm sure he's found this blog by now -- hi, Robert! -- but I'm not going to let him take this away from me.

Anyway, back to my Internet problem, if not the Internet problem: It really messes with your head.

Humans are not meant to stare at glowing rectangles this much

Oversaturation: I don't know how many hours I have spent in the last 6 months online, letting strangers tell me what it is I should be pissed off about or terrified of on any given day. It's not that I'm anti-awareness or anti-news -- it's that if you see something often enough, it begins to take over your mind and your mood. Take street harassment. I know it's a problem. I've experienced it, and it's upsetting when it happens, and I try to talk to people about it so that they're aware of the problem and maybe try to help put an end to it. But if I read 20 articles about street harassment in a 48-hour period, suddenly I am ready to go ballistic in the real world. I am ready to snap at a casual acquaintance who tells me he likes my outfit. It becomes overload. The same thing happens with issues I'm only marginally interested in -- Twitter flame wars between celebrities I don't even pay that much attention to. Yet if they're arguing, and if half the people I know on social media are talking about it, or if there are "news" stories about it, all of a sudden it's like watching a soap opera that never rolls closing credits. It just keeps going. And so I keep watching. And it's a time suck and an energy suck and it adds nothing to my life or the lives of others.

This gives you a little endorphin surge?: "Likes" and "favorites" are like little virtual hamster treats we give each other's brains. Someone approves of something I said! Someone thinks a photo I took is nice! Yay! "Liking" and "favoriting" is nice and all, and the sentiment is appreciated, but it's lazy on the part of the "liker" and far too important to the receiver of the "like." ("Likeee? Isn't that some kind of fruit?) I find myself getting either smug or depressed about how many "likes" my posts get on Facebook and Instagram. Favorites and retweets on Twitter don't mean that much to me if for no other reason than there is such a fast and vast stream of information on Twitter that things get lost in the flow; I halfway don't expect anybody to see anything I post there. But oh, God, if I don't get that approval, that external validation, of my life as presented on other social media, it actually -- if briefly -- affects my mood. And it's stupid. And I know it's stupid. Which is why I'm cautioning you about letting it affect you, too.

THE YEAR IS 2016. FACEBOOK DOWN FOR TWO YEARS NOW. AMERICA'S NEW MOMS ROAM THE STREETS. IS MY BABY PRETTY? THEY SAY. PLEASE LIKE MY BABY.
— Mark Agee (@MarkAgee) August 1, 2014

Is this the real life? Is it just fantasy?: The other night, some friends were joking, "I'm gonna send you a friend request in real life!" Maybe we should all start doing that more. Back in the days of Livejournal, I imagined that social media would be a great supplement to real-life relationships. People you don't get to see that often, you can still communicate with and keep up with, and people you see all the time, you can make plans to do stuff in real life. Instead, more people seem to be settling for the online experience of a friendship than actually taking the time to see each other face-to-face. Social media has become a substitute for social life, and it can get frustrating. I work at home. I am here and awake sometimes 12 hours a day. Don't Facebook message me -- call me and let's go have a cup of tea.

Facebook drama: I won't even go into detail but oh, dear God, the things I have seen ... Facebook is the perfect place to willfully misunderstand a stranger's comment and assume it means the worst possible thing, then take out your anger on that stranger who meant something completely different. It is also great for passive-aggressiveness, making everything all about you, spreading misinformation and having temper tantrums. (I have been guilty of some of these things in the past, I know.) And then there's "vaguebooking." Example: You stub your toe on the coffee table for the third time in a week. You post: "You bastard, how many times are you going to hurt me?!?!?!?!?!!!" And all your friends come to your virtual rescue and tell you how awesome you are because fuck that guy. Facebook is wonderful for keeping up with friends and planning events and sharing pictures and remembering good times, but it is also fraught with crazy, and thus it can make you crazy.

Even Tom gets sucked into the Web.

Comments on YouTube and everything else: If you ever think you might have developed too much faith in humanity, just read the comments section on any YouTube video and really, just about any article posted online. You will see the weirdest, angriest, most irrational things come out of people's fingertips and onto the glowing rectangle in front of you. If there's a video of Shirley Temple singing "Animal Crackers," there is probably a comment underneath it about how the Ebola virus is opening the Seventh Seal, Miley Cyrus and the Duck Dynasty dude are raising opposing armies in preparation for a psychic war, and Jesus will be coming back to throw (pick a politician) into the depths of Hell. Why are these people spewing hatred and delusion? And the bigger question, why am I reading it?

And finally ...

Nobody knows how to act in public anymore: We do everything online. We watch movies and TV online. We socialize online. We play games online. As a result, we act like the whole world is our living room. The sense of etiquette and decorum, of basic manners, is disappearing because after spending so much time eating popcorn in our underwear while chatting with friends online, we are socially dysfunctional now.

So this is the other reason why I haven't been blogging lately: The Internet got my mind. I plan on backing away from large parts of it and not seeking out things that piss me off (which, let's be honest, will be easier now that the election is over).

There are plenty of good things online and on social media -- it is great for making plans with friends, there are a lot of educational websites and things like TED Talks and online shopping and lectures and books and videos and music and marvelous things. And blogging allows a person to share her life with other people and maybe say something that resonates with or makes a difference to somebody else. But for the past six months I have been doing a lot of the wrong things online. I've actually made myself a "Not To Do" list, and it includes not reading comments on YouTube videos and online articles, along with not spending more than 9 hours a day online during the week (I work online for 8 hours, and I give myself more time online if I'm writing or doing something creativity-related). This fantastic innovation is a marvelous thing, and it has its place and function, but it can also suck the humanity right out of you if you let it. Don't let it. Now get up and call a friend!

A quick note - poetry open mic tonight!

I am dragging my tired old ass back onto the stage at San Marcos Poetry Night at Wake the Dead. The shindig starts at 7:30. Come enjoy the talents of local poets! I've really only got one poem I'm planning on doing, but that could change depending on where the night takes me.

My absence, part 1: Doing the right things

I can't believe it's been six months since the last time I wrote a blog post. Well, actually I can ...

First, life got in the way. Recovering from the kind of heartbreak that makes a person rethink her approach to love, to life and to herself, I took a three-day retreat at a spa and resort up on Lake Travis. There, spent a lot of time alone, thinking, writing, walking around in nature, eating healthy food and enjoying the extra brain bandwidth that comes from being in an environment where I didn't have to make very many decisions. My food was prepared, my room was cleaned daily, there was a set schedule of activities, and I didn't have to worry about a thing. As I told my dad, it was an expensive vacation, but the only other place I could think of where other people would take that much care of me and just let me wander around pondering things is a mental hospital, and the spa and resort seemed less complicated to get into and out of.

Nathan Fillion photo op.
I forgot every word I know in 2 languages.

After three days on the edge of a wilderness preserve, I drove up to Dallas to be around people again. Throngs of people. Specifically, throngs of people at the Dallas Comic-Con. More specifically, Nathan Fillion. Who's just one guy but has all the power a of a throng. Honestly, after a bad breakup, standing next to Nathan Fillion for even 30 seconds is a marvelous thing for a geekish girl like me.

Dancing at Euro Cafe

And then there was the belly dance solo. I had been wanting to dance to the arrangement of "Kashmir" that Jimmy Page and Robert Plant did with Hossam Ramzy back in the '90s for what felt like forever. I had fallen too far behind on the choreography we were learning in belly dance class to catch up before our big performance, so I went on hiatus from class and stayed at home, coming up with choreography to the first 4 1/2 minutes of the song. I had a couple of private lessons with my teacher to show her what was doing and get some advice and ideas, and by the end of the summer, I had a solo. I danced it for the first time at my teacher's free monthly show here in town. A bunch of my friends came to support me, which was awesome, and I did a good job of dancing -- didn't freak out, didn't forget anything, didn't trip over my own feet and land in anybody's lap. And my first performance of my first solo did wonders for my confidence level and frankly made me love dance even more. Since this summer, I've been to Cabaret Dance Camp -- four days of dance workshops and sharing cabins at a camp on the Guadalupe River -- and a two-day workshop with Hossam and Serena Ramzy up in Austin, and I'm now working on choreographing a drum solo.

In August, which is typically the crappiest month of the year for me -- there's a long history of death and destruction in August -- I managed to get and stay productive. I went to a creativity workshop based on the main ideas in "The Artist's Way," and that helped me kind of unblock some things with my writing and gave me a lot to think about. I've been doing Morning Pages every day since the workshop and in some ways, that's left me with less to say online, but considering the kind of nonsense that comes out every morning, it's probably good that none of that is ending up online! And my friend Dave began a series of workshops on the Nordic Runes and how they relate to the subconscious. I have been fascinated with runes as divination tools and as writing since I was in high school, so I've found Dave's ideas to be fascinating and valuable.

At the Poe Cottage in The Bronx.
This is the nicest place in The Bronx.

In September, to get out of my own head for a little while, I visited a friend in New York City, where I saw Robert Plant in concert, stood inches away from Ewan McGregor in a boutique in the East Village, had tea in the "Physical Graffiti" building (which houses the Physical Graffi-Tea tea shop), visited the Edgar Allan Poe cottage and the Fordham campus in the Bronx, saw a ton of art and had a marvelous rooftop dinner involving coq au vin, three bottles of champagne and some pears flambed in bourbon. Oh, yes indeed.

Zepparella at Red 7
in Austin

And of course, in between all of this traveling and other frolicking, I have gone out to see a lot of live music -- a lot of rock 'n' roll, and a lot of other stuff. It's all been good for my soul, and I've met some pretty amazing people along the way. I'll be posting some pics from some of the shows I've seen later.

Anyway, all of this getting back in touch with myself and the world around me is a good part of why it has been so long since I have blogged. But just as San Marcos is my rock, my home base, that makes me feel free to travel knowing I will have a little paradise to come back to, so this blog is my home base -- something to return to after many flights of fancy and exercises in spreading my wings and fleeing from my comfort zone. Plus, all that time away has given me plenty of material.

However, there is another side to why I haven't blogged in so long, and the post about that will be coming soon.

Just For Fun: Comforting the disturbed, disturbing the comfortable

I've been to a lot of parades. I've even been in a few, including the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City one year. But my favorite parade to watch, and to participate in, is the Just For Fun Parade here in San Marcos, Texas.

The beginning of the Just For Fun Parade, 2012

Just For Fun Vikings, 2012

Basically, on the fourth Saturday of April, a large flock of "San Martians" put on some festive costumes, drag out their hula hoops, stilts, unicycles, bicycles, tricycles, pennyfarthings, skateboards, wagons, musical instruments, flowered garlands, day-glo accessories, tie-dyed T-shirts and all manner of whimsical things and parade through downtown. There are always a couple of rock bands riding on trailers. There are always children and dogs dressed up in colorful costumes. There is always at least one Viking, and typically a gorilla. San Marcos is a pleasantly strange place full of pleasantly strange people, and this is how we let our freak flags fly, giving them the momentum to keep flying throughout the year. Not everyone participates, and not everyone appreciates it -- but I did notice that the number of people who stepped out of their places of business to watch and wave as we passed by did outnumber the people passing by in their cars who looked genuinely concerned that this was going on. I imagine these people need hugs.

The Callous Taoboys, featuring what looks like
Pippi Longstocking on drums, 2012

I hadn't participated in Just For Fun in several years -- I usually get down to the Square and watch as the parade goes by, as the older photos indicate -- but this year I am very glad I did. I got to meet people I hadn't met before, because at the staging ground and during the parade there are no strangers -- everyone is a friend. I got to talk and march down the street with friends and acquaintances I don't get to see often. I got to see what kind of whimsical weirdness other members of my community felt like sharing with the town that day. (Even some of the people who'd lined up to watch the parade were in some kind of costume, including one guy clad in a flesh-toned body suit with a thong and what looked like strategically placed bits of a wig -- did anyone get a good picture of that guy?) I got to add my own little dash of color to the ephemeral, colorful, spangled tapestry of joy that is the Just For Fun Parade, and there's not much that feels better than taking your weirdness out of its box, putting it together with other people's weirdness, literally parading it around in public and making people you don't even know smile.

Your humble blogger in a belly dance costume and waving as she
marches among friends, 2014 (Photo by Julie Balkman)

It doesn't matter how old you are, how much money you make, what kind of very serious business you have to deal with every day -- fun is crucial. As the Internet meme says, we don't stop playing because we get old; we get old because we stop playing. And I love the Just For Fun Parade for giving the town an opportunity to very publicly play. Of every spring rite I've heard of, this is the one that I am most convinced keeps its participants -- those parading and those watching the parade -- young.

And as for the people who looked a little upset by the parade ... bless 'em. I hope they know how to have some kind of fun. But that's another thing the Just For Fun Parade accomplishes: Comfort the disturbed, disturb the comfortable. It comforts the "disturbed" by letting us be as weird as we wanna be together (though I would argue that we're not as disturbed as the people who never do anything for the sake of fun or hilarity). It disturbs the comfortable by reminding them that they share a city with people who aren't afraid to let it all hang out -- and maybe it challenges them to do the same.

Party on, San Martians, I love you all!

"Pics or it didn't happen": Being present in the age of the selfie

Note: Hahaha! One person answered my poll question, so no more poll questions for a while. That person said they post pictures of stuff online sometimes.

Last weekend I went out to see my favorite band of the decade, Chasca. They're a glam band, they're local, I know all the guys personally, and I have a deep affection for each of them. They play at a bar called the Triple Crown here in town about once a month, and there's a regular crowd of friends and fans that you can count on seeing at every show -- delightful and colorful folks that I'm happy to know. It's less like a show at a dive bar and more like a party where I know I'm going to find old friends and make new ones.

As always, at their show last Saturday I had a blast. The opening bands were all great, I was dressed up in a belly dance costume, everyone I met was really friendly, there was much hugging and mingling and dancing and sweating and singing along ...

and I forgot to take pictures.

I was having such a good time I completely forgot to let my phone and its camera get between the fun and my face.

(L-R) Ian, JT and Junior of Chasca
at a show a few months back

Normally I do share a lot of stuff on Facebook and some on Twitter (I have an Instagram account but I never use it). I take pictures of food if it's particularly pretty, or if it's the first time I've cooked a particular dish. I take pictures of weird things I see on the roadside or at the grocery store. I take pictures at parties and concerts, too, but I started noticing when I went to a concert about six weeks ago that while I was taking pictures, I wasn't really paying attention to the music, and that's why I was there in the first place -- to be in the presence of music I love, not to document for posterity that I go to rock shows. And while I was trying to get a decent shot of a bunch of musicians in motion under strange lighting, I wasn't really in the moment. I had traded my own focus for my camera's focus.

My disenchantment with photographing everything became complete at the Texas Wild Rice Festival earlier this month, when I saw three women standing in the river together taking a selfie. One, it seemed kinda stupid to have a fancy phone in the water. Two, the river is such a pleasant and sacred place to be, especially with friends, I couldn't understand why they weren't just enjoying being there together.

Maybe they were having a great time and just took a brief pause to capture it. But this is the age of the selfie, a strange period in the course of human relations characterized by the saying, "Pics or it didn't happen."

(L-R) "The Seans" (Sean Hannon and Sean Palmer) and JT of Chasca --
again, from a few months back

I suppose it has to do with how we communicate with each other now -- social media and mass communication make it easy to just take a photo and share it with everyone instead of telling everyone we know a story about some cool or interesting thing we were a part of. But I can't help thinking that sometimes it's healthy to exchange those thousand words that a picture is standing in for -- take time to talk, and listen, to each other, like people used to do before technology made it possible for us to let 500 people, some of whom we've never actually met, know what our breakfast looks like.

A recent study indicated that photographing something makes you less likely to remember it in the short term. Part of me wonders if that's the case because when you stop to take a picture, you're no longer in the moment. You have to step outside of whatever's going on to become an observer of the situation instead of a participant in the situation. It's a violation of the simple rule, "Be where you are."

So be where you are! Sure, take a photo, but be fully present as much as you can so you'll remember it, feel it, and have a great story to accompany the photo. Life isn't just a bunch of pixels -- it's breath and sweat and laughter and real human interaction. Enjoy it!

I'm grateful that I was able to really be at the Chasca show this past weekend, because it was far more fun to have conversations with old friends and new acquaintances, get hugged, dance, sing and jump around than to spend an inordinate amount of time messing around with my phone's camera. And as a bonus, the night I didn't stop having fun long enough to take a picture of it, there were three or four professional photographers there, shooting photos and video. Here are my friends:



(And at about 1:45 you can see me in the background in a belly dance costume -- so even though I have no photos of my own, I got documented that night anyway!)

A new poll -- posting pictures of your life online

I'm curious about how many of you take photos of absolutely everything and post them online, and how many of you don't think sharing stuff online is that important. Answer the poll here!

Online meditation conference

This is starting today over at entheos.com: Meditation 101. It's a series of interviews about meditation -- what it is, how to do it, different aspects of it. It's free to watch, and the interviews will remain available online for 24 hours. I've been meditating for a long time, but it never hurts to refresh and learn more, so I'm going to check out as much of it as I can & thought it would be good to share. Enjoy!

"Hey, you got your rebirth ritual in my fertility celebration!" "Hey, you got your fertility celebration in my rebirth ritual!"

Plaid Easter Egg. Yes.

It's Good Friday, one of the most solemn days in the Christian calendar, marking the arrest, persecution and crucifixion of Jesus. The day we celebrate his resurrection, Easter, shares a name with an ancient goddess, Eostre (also Osta or Eastre), who breathed life back into the world every spring.

I wrote earlier this week about thriving in chaos, how a crisis can help people live up to their potential. That's what today symbolizes for Christians -- the agonizing death that must come before rebirth and ascension.

St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans.

But there is a rebirth -- a victory over death. For Christians, it is embodied in the Resurrection. When the women go to look for Jesus to anoint his corpse, they find an empty tomb. He is risen and the stone covering the opening to the tomb is rolled away. When he first speaks to Mary Magdalene, she mistakes him for a gardener -- who is, after all, a man who toils to bring life into the world.

I found an old email from a dear (and now departed) friend of mine, Dr. Edward Shirley, a theologian who taught and changed lives at St. Edward's University. This is part of his Easter email from four years ago:

There is no better way to describe it than it was a crappy situation all around. Religious leaders who were more concerned with their authority than with the welfare of the people. A corrupt foreign government that was concerned with its own power. An innocent man condemned to death for treason. 

Good Friday was not so good for Jesus. His closest associates, the men he had chosen as his inner circle, had abandoned him. One of them had betrayed him outright to the authorities. Peter, the Rock, had wilted in the face of a question from a maidservant. Only a handful of women stuck around to watch him die. Two days later, the men still cowering in fear, three women ventured to his tomb. The story is they found it empty. Their first thought was that someone had stolen the body. Only after they encountered the Risen Jesus were they transformed. 

One of them, Mary Magdalene (called by Tradition "the Apostle to the Apostles"), took the news to the men, who were reluctant to believe her. Peter, the Rock, and the beloved disciple ran to the tomb. The Gospel of John says that the beloved disciple (the mystic, who rests at the heart of Jesus, just as Jesus comes from the heart of the Father) got there first, but he waited until the Rock got there. Somehow the entire community was transformed through the encounter with the Risen Christ and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

Ed went on to talk about the theme of renewal after crisis in Biblical history and in the history of the Church:

Yes, out of Good Friday came Easter Sunday. Out of the Great Schism came the teachings of mystics. Out of the corruption of the 13th century came the Franciscan way. God, it seems, had been doing this for a long time: Abraham and Sarah, well beyond child-bearing years, became the parents of a great nation. Joseph, sold into slavery in Egypt, rose to "vice pharaoh." The Israelites, coming out of slavery only to be confronted with the sea, marched to freedom on dry land. The kingdom and Temple destroyed, the king of Persia returned them to their land and rebuilt the Temple. For one who is familiar with the themes of the Jewish Scriptures, it should come as no surprise that Good Friday was not the last word.

Spotted Easter Egg by Molly Hayes.

Some Christians refuse to use the term "Easter" because they think it is too closely tied to the pagan goddess of spring, and instead refer to the celebration of Jesus' return to life as Resurrection Sunday. Me? I celebrate the fertility of spring and the Resurrection together. Although one is specific to a particular religion, and it is an important celebration, both recognize that life renews itself and that after the coldest winter, the world will grow and bloom again. After the darkest night, the sun will rise.

This song -- "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground" -- is one that Blind Willie Johnson wrote by meditating on the suffering of Jesus on Good Friday. It is moving enough that it was included on the Gold Record that was sent into space aboard Voyager in the '70s and is arguably one of the most soulful songs ever recorded. Whatever your opinion of Christianity, I hope you enjoy the deep emotional expression in this song, and I hope that you get joy from the rebirth and renewal that comes with Easter (the goddess and the holiday).

Thriving in chaos

Over the weekend, at the Texas Wild Rice Festival, I got to hear Dr. Jim Kimmel give a talk about what you can learn from a river -- how people and the environment interact with each other. About 100 years ago, along the stretch of the river now known as Sewell Park, a man with an augur would come through and plow up the vegetation growing in the waters, including the Texas Wild Rice, to make the area more welcoming for the many swimmers that visited it. Once it was discovered that the rice was an endangered species, it of course became illegal to plow it up. However, once the rice was protected by law, it thinned out. When it was being plowed up regularly, it always grew back, and always thicker and than before. After a major flood in 1998, during which the river basically dredged itself, the wild rice once again came back stronger than it was during the years of calm. Some species, Dr. Kimmel said, need a certain amount of chaos to thrive, to reach their potential strength.

The San Marcos River at Sewell Park, with Texas Wild Rice waving in the water

I think people are another species that need a degree of unrest in order to grow. The only way we are ever really challenged is through difficulty -- coping with crisis, tragedy or trauma. To survive, we have no choice but to grow stronger. But at the same time, we need a secure base -- like a riverbed -- to stay rooted in. That base can be family and friends, a broader community, a sense of faith, or even something as basic as the knowledge that we have a roof over our heads and know where our next meal is coming from. This is true for emotional growth, spiritual growth and artistic growth. I don't like to play into the idea that suffering is necessary for art, but exploration and adventure may be. The strange, the unexpected, the daunting experiences that life has to offer -- a certain amount of chaos. Don't be afraid to let yourself get cut down a little. You'll grow back stronger than before.

A celebration of nature and community along the San Marcos River

The Texas Wild Rice Festival was held here in San Marcos this weekend -- an ambitious undertaking inspired by the San Marcos River, which is home to several endangered species and is the centerpiece of the oldest continuously inhabited spot in North America. Texas Wild Rice only grows in one place on earth: the upper 3 miles of the San Marcos River -- the segment of the river that flows through town.

I grew up here in San Marcos, and like so many other native "San Martians" have developed a love for the river that is both ecological and spiritual. While some people go to church to get in touch with the divine, for me there is no more effective way to do that than to go down to the banks of the river, take off my shoes, stick my feet into the water and feel the pulse of the river as it pumps up through the springs upstream. Knowing that people have lived beside these waters for thousands of years makes it an easy spot to feel a sense of continuity, of connection with the ancient. Knowing that the river is home to unique species of plants and animals lends it a sense of wonder.

It warmed my heart to see so many people from so many different backgrounds coming together to celebrate all aspects of the river. Locals performed songs and poems about it, several different environmental groups were there to discuss water conservation and habitat preservation, a group representing the indigenous cultures was there to highlight the history of the area, artists were selling their wares inspired by nature in general and the river in particular. There was a drum circle, hoop dancing lessons, fire dancing lessons, yoga and breathwork sessions -- a multifaceted event that brought all kinds of people, from young hippies to more mature ecology experts, together for a common cause.

Plus the mayor, who had promised to float down the river in an inner tube wearing a suit if the organizers met their online fundraising goal, did just that. Who doesn't love a city official in a suit and red sneakers chillin' in the middle of the river?

San Marcos Mayor Daniel Guerrero, making good on a promise and wearing sensible footwear

When a group of people from diverse backgrounds find a common cause -- something to love, protect and celebrate -- wonderful things can happen. Strangers become friends, different groups working to address related issues come together and find ways to solve problems, and a true sense of community is born. I'm grateful to have seen that kind of unity manifest here in my home town, along the banks of the river that I -- and thousands of other people -- treasure so much.

Here are a few more pictures from the festival:

Near the Communi-Tea Area on the festival grounds

Handling critters!

Dr. Jim Kimmel sings and speaks about rivers

The Texas Horned Lizard Exhibit

Part of the Habitat Conservation Plan, an effort involving several entities
including the City of San Marcos and Texas State University

Festival Season in San Marcos!

It's my half-birthday! And I'm heading out this morning to spend most of the day at the Texas Wild Rice Festival at Sewell Park here in San Marcos. Music, art, yoga, tea, local vendors, environmental education, nature walks, a screening of the movie "Yakona" ... a little bit of everything will be going on, all because of some folks with an Indiegogo campaign and a dream. If you're in the neighborhood, check it out!