This is one of the essays I submitted to Sarah Lawrence for my application:


Essay #1: Autobiography

I tend to look at my life as a series of stories—The Religion, The Body and The Adventure—all of which overlap and make a messy meld of a life.

The Religion

I am a Mennonite caught in a Mennonite embrace—for good or for ill. A definition of this embrace is tricky. Some Mennonites dress plain and live in tight-knit communities. Some do not. Some live quietly with their beliefs in simple living, nonviolence and justice for the economically and politically oppressed. Some do not. Some believe in the literal Second Coming of Christ. Some do not.

I come from a group known as the Molochna Colony Mennonites from the Ukraine. The older generations still speak Plautdeutsch; we make New Year’s Cookies and Paypanate during the holidays; Zweibach, Borscht and Verenika the rest of the year. I grew up believing the rest of the world lived as we did, since almost everyone I associated with was Mennonite.

My world-view experienced a shock when I went to a different Mennonite sect’s university instead of my own. I was still among Mennonites, but all were Swiss rather than Russian, had little to no ethnic food, sang different hymns and some had a different, more liberal view of everything. This was all rather bewildering

“Don’t be surprised if people think you are a lesbian when you come back,” I was told before I left. Apparently, this was a place where students, women especially, came out.

I wouldn’t be surprised if people back home wiped their foreheads in relief when I was married to a man—though they can’t understand why I’ve kept my own name.

I have many disagreements with the church. But I’ve also kept to my faith—though not necessarily in ways acceptable to some Mennonites. I feel liberated by these things my religious identity has granted me: the notion of living in this world, participating in the stories that surround me while having a counter-culture vision. I live with the belief that the last shall be first and the first shall be last is not merely for a future time, but is here among us, right now.

The Body

At age three I was diagnosed with Ollier’s Disease, a rare genetic disorder that causes cartilage tumors to grow on one side of the body. It stunts the growth and strength of the bones and twists them out of alignment.

Throughout childhood, I had a dozen surgeries to lengthen and straighten my left leg. A contraption called the Illazerov fixator was used three times for this purpose. My leg was broken and metal pins were drilled into my bones. The pins were held by a brace. Three times a day little screws were turned with a wrench, which pulled the brace apart. The bone created new bone as it healed. The skin was stretched at the same time.

In 2000, I discovered I had an Ollier’s-related brain tumor. It had slowly grown from the base of my skull until it began touching the left frontal lobe, which caused seizures. A little over a year later, they began to intensify, finally resulting in a grand mal seizure.

On September 11, 2001, I had a surgery to remove part of the tumor. It is a strange experience to wake up to a world so utterly changed both individually and globally. When someone told me about it, I came out of the fog of sedatives to angrily state I already knew. Perhaps I had heard people talking or saw in a haze a television report. Perhaps certain sorrows are felt keenly, by osmosis.

It took an entire year for me to heal. My right side was partially paralyzed and I had difficulty speaking and writing. It is frightening for anyone to be subjected to such a paralysis of words— especially when one has linked their entire identity with them.

This summer I opted for proton beam radiation to treat the remaining tumor. For seven weeks in August and September 2003, I went into Massachusetts General Hospital in Cambridge every day to lie on a table and be strapped down in the Cyclotron machine. It looked like the inside of a giant dryer. I was inserted into the drum (i.e. the dryer) and a huge telescoping cylinder shot protons at me for twenty minutes. Afterwards I went home, wrote the day’s story in my web log, sometimes puked, and slept.

The Adventure

In the fall of 1999, I went to the Middle East for a semester-long cross-cultural, a requirement for graduation at my university. My group studied religion, history, literature and Arabic in Egypt, Israel/Palestine and Jordan.

While at Gaza University, I draped a veil over my head and entered a world I didn’t really understand. The women of our group were led to the women’s side of the campus. Our men heard arguments about Americans’ lack of comprehension of the significance of English literature. On the women’s side there were no such debates. The women we met were more eager to hear about our lives, our families. They wanted us to take off our veils and show our hair. To encourage us, they took of their veils and chadors. I had seen this again and again with Muslim women: in refugee camps, at weddings and at this university. It was a gesture of intimacy that intrigued me, this unveiling of one’s body but also of one’s spirit. I am sure these women had many disagreements with our culture and way of life, but they chose to learn about us as individuals. I felt honored to be given such a gift.

Another gift given during my time in Israel/Palestine was when some of us were invited to a Shabbat meal on a cool Friday evening with the family of National Public Radio’s Linda Gradstein. Her two gorgeous children tried to give us their few shekels when they heard we were poor students; her husband invited us to a Shakespeare play for which he had suddenly been recruited. As the wine and challah were served in silence, and the sushi and saki were served amid laughter, I had a sense of connection with an ancient tradition made new. A fresh chapter in an unbroken story.

And

The logistics of story-telling is fascinating. Every time a person hears or reads a story, he or she can find something new to interlace into the narrative. The tale does not end with the final paragraph. Life works the same way. My religion, body and adventures do not merely exist in the past; they are ongoing because my perspective of them changes with time. I recall something differently or more clearly than before. Each morning when I wake up I have that many more memories between the self then and the self now. They have inspired my visions as a writer in my fiction. But the true essence of my story remains the same.

Yesterday was sunny; today it rained or drizzled. Yesterday Tom, David and I wandered Bronxville and ate lunch on Sarah Lawrence's lawn; today we wandered to Coney Island, ran around on the beach wet as it was, stood on the pier staring out into the fog and ate a hotdog by the boardwalk.

How on earth does someone explain the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to a ten year old? Especially when this Japanese-American child lives in a world devoid of any faith-leaning (as he says, he's got no religion)and a world which is very diverse racially, culturally, you name it. (There isn't a single blonde, blue-eyed kid in the bunch that go to this after school program, they are all Hispanic, Asian, Bangladeshi--mostly first generation Americans.) Leo was trying to answer some pretty sophisticated questions based on the tiny article in the Times for Kids magazine. One article to explain something that's lasted fifty years.

How does one explain this without getting her own views on the subject, but telling the truth (as I see it, so of course the question is "what is truth?").

This morning I saw my coworker's friend (see previous blog) on the front page of the Times. Her naked body was found in Inwood Park. I sat there, eating my raisin bran and drinking orange juice and this person I'd never met was dead. She was only 21. And her story was over. Just like that. Over.

Death (?) Marriage Drunk Missing Song

It's been a weird few days. Friday moring a guy called me and said he had gone to this church back in 2000 when he was suicidal, and he was suicidal again. He kept saying what was the point of living. The world was fucked up. Did I think so? Yes, I said. Doesn't that make me want to kill myself? Yes. Everyone thinks of it, I said. But life is precious; we really don't know what awaits us on the other side. So I'd never do it. Because maybe I'd never get a chance to live again. Had I ever been fucked over by life, he asked. Yes. I told him about my brain tumor etc.

This went on for awhile. I didn't quite know what to do. I'd never dealt with this before. No one was around except for me. I didn't know if he was even serious. I just kept talking and listening. He said he had a 38 and what was the point etc. He would get back at the world by doing this. He had been sexually abused by his father, now dead, and his mother was dying.

At one point he got cut off. I about freaked out. I *69'd him, but was told it was a private number. I felt responsible.

When David and Ronnie came, I told them. There's not a whole lot you can do, they said. Sometimes they just need to talk. Sometimes they're faking. Sometimes they want to place the responsibility on another person. Tom said the same when I told him.

Pretty much the whole day was shot for me. But as I left for the day, a group of homeless folks were sitting on the church steps. One of the men said, this is sort of our home--it's our sanctuary. Everyone needs a sanctuary, I said. Then he asked me to marry him, I was so cool. I'm already married, sorry. He laughed. I laughed, and felt a little better.

Friday night we had a crazy Menno House party as an Alicia sendoff. I got drunker, etc, than I'd ever been. I drank tequila for the first time and made vodka shots. As the evening progressed, some craziness of other kinds surfaced. But I'll leave it at that. I woke several times during the night. I got totally paranoid, thinking I would feel this way for the rest of my life.

Monday morning I told the Metro staff about my Friday eve. They loved it. And I loved that I was telling Baptists. It was like the first time I'd ever consumed alcohol in the presence of a religious figure; I had Thai beer with a nun.

Monday morning I found out that one of my coworkers friends was missing. I'd seen her on a flyer that morning as I zoomed to work. I studied it on the way home. I felt an emptiness. I can't explain it. This was life fucking someone over. You go out for a run in a park and don't come home.

Monday afternoon the suicide guy called again. His first words were Why are you fucking around with me?

I was in a meeting at the time, and I was amazed at how calm I replied, mainly because he was alive: I'm in a meeting right now. Can you be more specific? He continued on the fucking mode, and finally I got his name, though I don't know if it was true. He said he'd cut himself and gone out into the street and no one cared. I said, do you want to talk to the pastor, he's here, and more qualified to talk to you. I passed him on to David. I don't know what happened after that.

This morning David gave me a recipe for Ugly Rum Cake. He smiled as he showed it to me.

I'm listening to Cat Stevens right now. Trouble and If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out totally fit my conflicting moods today. A few weeks ago, some Menno Housers and I had a hymn sing. When I'm singing that is when I truly believe there's a God. How can something as beautiful as music just fly up to the sky unheeded?

A horrible day behind me, I boarded the A train at Times Square, followed by two fellows in the usual rapper gear. As the train pulled out of the station, they whipped out two violins and began a duet. It was great. They played in time to the train rushing along the tracks. I found myself smiling and smiling at them the whole time. As the train stopped at my stop, they did a little flourish, and as I got off and the doors closed, I heard them begin again, to a never-ending audience.

I took off-brand NyQuil last night, so now I'm doing the floating thing at work...

This morning I talked with an EMU friend I hadn't seen in years--literally--she's thinking about moving here next year. Her parents met in this very house. It made me think about how Menno House is this weird nexus of Mennonites and Mennonite converts. That like Lancaster, Winnipeg, Newton, Harrisburg, Harrisonburg and Fresno, you're destined to come to these places at some point in your life, if even for just a moment. No wonder some call it a cult. And some non-Mennonites who come to this house get swept up into this whirlwind of these people, never to be quite the same again.

Apparently one of those boy band boys is Mennonite. Which is weird in its own way.

COMING SOON: Woolf T's

Apparently, there's this web thing called cafepress, and you can sell t-shirts etc. on your website or blog site with slogans or artwork you send in to them. It doesn't cost you any money up front. They set a base price that they will collect when someone orders something, and you profit from whatever you price above that!

So, all my creative friends and/or enemies, start thinking. I'm definately expecting something from you, Ted.

The reason I haven't written lately (the usual excuse) is because I've been crazy busy...the director of the afterschool program is in Thailand, so I'm taking over that, a major project that is due at the end of the month, and all the little things that take up time are upon me. Now I'm just hanging around the office, waiting for a banquet to begin. It's to honor the church's volunteers. Which is great, really, but it's Friday, and I have to come back to work a stint at a flea market down the street...I just don't wanna be here!!

I too took the belief-o-matic quiz (a set of questions about my spiritual beliefs, then rates your answers to what faith group they go with), and here's my results:

1. Liberal Quakers (100%)
2. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (95%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (94%)
4. Neo-Pagan (86%)
5. Mahayana Buddhism (84%)
6. Theravada Buddhism (84%)
7. Orthodox Quaker (79%)
8. New Age (78%)
9. Secular Humanism (77%)
10. Taoism (76%)
11. Reform Judaism (72%)
12. Jainism (67%)
13. Bahá'í Faith (60%)
14. New Thought (57%)
15. Scientology (54%)
16. Hinduism (51%)
17. Sikhism (50%)
18. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (49%)
19. Nontheist (47%)
20. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (44%)
21. Seventh Day Adventist (43%)
22. Orthodox Judaism (39%)
23. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (39%)
24. Islam (35%)
25. Eastern Orthodox (28%)
26. Roman Catholic (28%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (25%)

Here's the kindness of Mennonite institutions revisited:

Hesston College has been advertising an opening for a Theatre prof with guarantees of full-time work. The woman who previously held the position is an aunt to one of my housemates, Anya. This is how she came to leave said position:

Theatre and costume loft was infested with toxic mold. For quite some time, apparently. After 12 years working in such an environment, the woman, with a master's in theatre and a seminary degree, fell very ill. Now she cannot be near deoderant, car fumes, perfume, etc. without her chest constricting and keeping her from breathing. She has moved back in with her mother in Ohio and basically can't leave the house unless she wears a mask. She has applied for worker's comp through the college, but apparently the college isn't liable for anything to do with this toxic mold. So, no worker's comp. The college has taken no responsibility for the illness and subsequent disablilty of their former faculty member.

Ahhh...the usual community spirit that is so advertised in the Menno world...makes my MMA struggles look harmless.