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Two Things Are True

12/1/2024

I have had the honor of being part of an brave and extraordinary creative project from the mind and heart of filmmaker Sarah Hannsen.

From the press release: "As part of a multiphase creative project documenting her healing journey and culminating in a feature documentary film Two Things Are True, Sarah has invited over 30 artists to rework her father’s paintings and redefine their place in her family’s future."

**Please note the content/trigger warning: sexual abuse, incest, pedophilia before reading the press release or watching the film's trailer.**

The final product (still in process) will be a feature-length documentary called Two Things Are True. But first - Distortion Society is hosting a group exhibit of some of the artist's reworked pieces (including mine!).

The exhibit opens 12/14 with a reception from 7 to 9:30 pm and runs through the end of January.

My contribution to the project was a series of blackout or erasure poems made from letters exchanged between Sarah and her father.

Poetry for Palestine

11/24/2024

rally in New Plymouth, New Zealand

This past year plus I found it difficult to think or write about anything, but Palestine.

I felt silly and sometimes even ashamed writing little poems about a genocide that was being live-streamed from my phone and funded by my government. Around this time last year, some of them started making their way around social media. A couple took off in a surprising way and I started seeing them pop up in very unexpected and far away places.

I never pretended my poems were helping anyone (except maybe myself). Certainly nobody in Gaza. But in spite of that, there was something overwhelming about seeing my words appear all over the world. I felt gross finding any of it meaningful. Because the thought of having any good feelings about anything even remotely connected to genocide is repugnant.

But after sorting through that guilt and discomfort, I realized it was ok to find meaning in this. Because it wasn’t about me. It was about the experience of connection and solidarity with people from across the globe–people who were similarly moved, outraged, and heartbroken about what we were witnessing.

When something I wrote in my grief-filled bedroom in Portland, Oregon was being shared at a candlelight vigil for Palestine in Ireland, hand-written on a protest sign in New Zealand or read at a Shabbat for Palestine event in Capetown, South Africa. it felt good, not because people liked "my" poems, not because I was getting recognition, but because people resonated with the message. Suddenly the world felt smaller and more hopeful. I felt threads of love and solidarity connecting us across many oceans. In an incredibly dark time, it felt like a light.

seen on a wall in Barcelona, Spain

Over a year has passed. Israel is as brutal and relentless as ever. The United States is as complicit as ever. The amount of lives stolen and destruction caused is shattering. And there is still no end in sight. It feels so bleak. But it helps to remember all the people flooding the streets from all corners of the world. People who believe in liberation and are willing to stand up for what's right.

When Our Life's Work Includes Everyone Except Us

9/16/2022

A massage therapist who neglects his body.
A counselor who struggles to receive care from others.
An art teacher who won’t make time for her own creativity.

What do these have in common?

Throughout my time as a therapist and a non-therapist regular human, I’ve encountered something again and again: people who have chosen careers where they generously give others what they won’t or can’t allow themselves to receive.

Sometimes we’re conscious of the disconnect, the very injustice of it all. Other times we’re seemingly unaware of the ways our life’s work includes everyone but us.

"Long-Distance Love": The Little Poem That Could

10/18/2021

I'm so excited to share that the paper-cut book made by Laurie Moorhead featuring my poem "Long-Distance Love" has been purchased by the Cynthia Sears Artist's Book Collection which is housed at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art.
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The slideshow above has a few photos of Laurie's book. The full poem can be found at the end of this post.

Keep reading if you'd like to hear about how the poem and collaboration came to be.

Things You Can't Google: a collaborative poetry experiment

10/6/2021

On Instagram, I asked people to send me examples of “things you can’t google” to be used in a poem by the same name. ⁣I took all the answers, added a few of my own, and spent time arranging them into one poem. ⁣

Except for a few tiny tweaks that I made to help things flow a bit better, I kept submissions exactly as they came in. Each new person's answer comes after a forward slash (/) or line break. There were twenty contributors in total, including me.

I'm so pleased with the final product. I hope you like it!
~fara

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picture is a view of someone's hands on a laptop which is open to the Google search page. there is an iphone and a pen to their right and flowers in a pot to their left.

Photo by Nathana Rebouças on Unsplash

The Intimacy of Goodbye: Embracing the Vulnerability of Endings

7/1/2021

This post was originally posted on 12/26/16 on my previous blog.

Recently, I had to say goodbye.

This one was made up of many small and big goodbyes all tangled up into and born out of a single event. I left my job as Dean of Students at East West College after six years.

As a social-worker-therapist-type-person, you might assume that I am comfortable "sitting with" painful, vulnerable and complex feelings. If you assume this about me, you would be correct, and... I am still a human being!

Saying goodbye after six years, much less saying goodbye over and over again to many people, multiple times, over weeks and months was really tough.

Photo by Amine Rock Hoovr on Unsplash

It was uncomfortable and exhausting and hard, and a profoundly rich and sacred opportunity. At some point in the midst of all of this, I had a thought:

There is something so intimate about saying goodbye.

On Redeeming a Gift Certificate for a Necklace When I Hadn't Worn a Bra or Real Pants in 7 Months

4/10/2021

[I actually wrote this about six months ago (October 2020) and then forgot to finish and post it. It still feels resonant, but there is a very different emotional and energetic quality reading it in April now that vaccinations have been underway for a while and the timeline for stepping out in the world a bit more feels imminent.]

In the summer of 2020, I had the honor of officiating at one of my dearest friend’s (virtual) weddings. When they asked me over zoom, I cried instantly. She said I could think it over, but even though I was nervous, I didn’t need time. I said yes without hesitation.

I was honored to play such a significant and sacred role in the lives of dear friends. And--while this was secondary--I also appreciated that it gave me something creative and hopeful to focus on in the midst of the shit show that was 2020, and the scary liminal space I was stepping into as I prepared to close my therapy practice.

As a thank you, they gave me a gift certificate to a local jewelry designer who makes stunning pieces from vintage china. Necklaces are my thing and there were so many beautiful pieces to choose from. My indecisiveness got in the way so I kept putting it off. Eventually, it fell off my radar altogether; but it occurred to me later that there might have been something else at play causing me to “forget” to follow through.

Lessons From a Self-Imposed Evacuation Watch

12/8/2020

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Recently, when much of Oregon (and the rest of the West Coast), was being ravaged by wildfires, I found myself on a self-imposed evacuation watch.

I say self-imposed only because my exact address was never officially given the official go-ahead to start preparing. But saying it that way makes me seem more paranoid or neurotic than I am. I mean, I am those things, but in this case, I feel like my actions would be justifiable even to people with a less notable tendency toward anxiety.

The facts: I live in Multnomah County (Portland, Oregon). Our house is about 2 miles from the Clackamas County border, give or take a half mile depending on how you’re calculating it. All of Clackamas county was at least in the green zone--phase 1: “Get Ready.” Large parts of the country were in the yellow zone--phase 2: “Be Set.” And an uncomfortable percentage of the county was in the red zone--phase 3: “Go now.” It was not unheard of during this week for some areas to go from Phase 1 directly to Phase 3 without pausing at Phase 2. When you add up all of these factors, I felt like I might as well act as if I was already in Phase 1.

Also, my thinking was that if I’m fairly anxious now, how much more anxious will I be if we ever do officially enter the green zone? And knowing that anxiety will inevitably make it harder, not easier, to prepare, I thought I should start now, slowly and (relatively) calmly, rather than sit around with my rapidly building nervous energy just waiting for the “GO NOW!” order. Prepping was something I could do that might feel useful and potentially settling to my nervous system.

This is a Story About a Woman Who Dressed Like a Surgeon for Halloween in 2019

10/12/2020

This woman is me. I had waited until the last minute (as usual) and was struggling to come up with a costume. Time was running out so I looked through my costume box to see what I might be able to pull together that would be good enough for the party I was going to that night. Miraculously, I found some-blood stained scrubs from many Halloweens ago that still fit. I was delighted when I realized the entire costume could be pulled together with just a short trip to Walgreens.

I left the store with:

one box of gloves
one box of face masks
one tube of fake blood

And with that, I was Halloween-ready.

It felt wasteful buying an entire box of face masks when I only needed the one for the costume. I could easily imagine other uses for the gloves and since they’re not perishable, it didn’t feel like a problem.

“But, face masks?" I thought,"How would I ever get through an entire box of these???”