Raha Behnam

Unfathomably big

April 13, 2015

Shame

February 13, 2015

I am shameful. I have transgressed. The center of my chest itches to be scratched.
I retreat, I recede, I withdraw my wounded self into the shell from which I came.

I want to dissolve.

I want to go back in time and destroy things.
Nobody is perfect, but I am all too familiar with my own imperfection.

I am all too familiar with the colors of my imperfection.

I am all too familiar with the gritty taste of my own imperfections.

Sensing the world

December 19, 2014

Writing tonight it keeps coming

September 29, 2014

Tonight, I remember that I know how to watch the sun set. My mind can dance again.

Holding everything without dropppp drop drop droping

the water is deeeeeeee

e

e

e

eep.

I want to open something that is closed right now.

I think I can do this forever.

It’s not done yet.

___________________                                                         _______________________

The world is empty.

I am full.

“The only people for me are the mad ones…”

September 01, 2014

Champaign, IL: At some point a couple weeks ago I was searching for the nearby Target. I took one wrong turn on a midwestern road and ended up on a freeway heading straight here…

My west coast wildness is oozing at the seams and spilling onto other people’s clean furniture.

I am on an island, or am I the island? I push people away.

A big, burly American man is wearing a black t-shirt with one of those hipster mustaches on it. The mustache is filled in with the American flag pattern. I order a margarita and see him looking at me at the bar. His very serious, stern faces winks at me. No smile. No nothing. I can’t help but burst out into a little laugh, as some of my margarita spills out of my mouth.

A new PhD student strikes up a conversation at the bar like this: “Hello my name is Sam, I am completely new here and don’t know anyone!” Hi Sam. I’m new too, it’s nothing to be so anxious about, I wanna say. I talk to him for a while but the rest of the night I can feel his ungrounded discomfort, and feel like I need to get away.

Nothing is free and we all want something from each other. And so sometimes it can be exhausting being out in the world.

I took these pictures at the Berkeley Art Museum soon after I learned that I would be leaving the bay area for Illinois. I wanted them to remind me of the creative, performative, simple aesthetic of the bay area imagination. Of the ease with which everyone can do anything and be whatever, whenever.

There is a terrifying reality to being a politically radical, brown girl dancer in this place. When people here honk and curse me out while I’m riding my bike on the main road, or give me funny looks when I laugh and cheer too loudly at a concert, I feel a violent sense of suppression of my being by an unfamiliar culture and society.  We may take for granted that being “different” is cool or hip everywhere; it is not. In some places, it is plain scary to be different.

It makes me remember what has always drawn me to the west coast. At some point, I realized that being on the Pacific edge made me feel like whatever I was would be okay. It made my soul stop squirming under my skin, and learn to relax. And there I have thrived in my identity and becoming.

I naturally fell in love with Kerouac and the beats around the same time I truly fell in love with the bay area. So it is fitting to end with this quote I am savoring tonight:

“The only people for me are the mad ones,
the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time,
the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn
like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” -Jack Kerouac

Void

July 03, 2014

There is a familiar emptiness that arises, always around but often dormant.

It is around even when I am at work, looking at my computer screen and feeling the meaningless futility of what I am doing. Does this work matter to anyone? For anything?

It is around when I am home, after a day to myself, during which I worked on a project or two which though satisfying in their own small ways, do not fill the empty space of “What is the point of my existence here?”

It feels slightly further away when I go out in the evening and occupy the dark night and the buzzing space of nighttime energy. Getting lost in a sweaty bar amidst pounding music, the emptiness feels further away.

But an hour later, my body has grown accustomed to the pounding rhythms and the sweaty bodies around me stumble in their drunkenness, shoving into me uncomfortably and the emptiness is back – a great expanse of  space between my experience and of those around me.

The emptiness all but disappears when I see a dear friend for lunch and we bicycle through town, laughing and sharing stories, and sharing the same high plane of love and joy. But even by early evening when we part ways, I see the emptiness down the block. I look at it and say, “Hello, I spent the day with my friend. I will go home now, read a book and eat dinner.”

Emptiness is still.

I invite him into my bedroom, because after a joyful day, I know he will not take over and he will be a healthy reminder of the general shape of all things. She will show me my life as a story with no end, with only blank spaces. I will welcome this openness, embracing the unknown, thanking her for existing.

Life is changing in big ways right now. And the emptiness begs for deep and strong attention, which is almost too much to handle. She says, “Look at me, be with me, hold me in your arms and in your head and in your heart. Take this void. What do you propose to fill me with, knowing full well that I am ever present?”

The small acts, I cannot completely revel and relax in them. Because I see the great power of the emptiness, I see that it is pure potential. And if I a-void it, I will miss the great opportunity it presents. Because he is saying that I can choose more than I have been able to choose for a while! This is the time to cast new stones, and say Yes! and No! And Again! And Never again!

And this is me! And this, no! And maybe I don’t know so much about this!

And maybe I can face this fear!

And maybe I am not who I thought I was!

And maybe look at this question more honestly this time! And maybe don’t pretend to know what love, integrity, creativity, joy, peace, confidence, intelligence, spirit are! Maybe you still have no idea!

a bird that flew into the window of our moving car and died on impact and lay on the road, still so gentle and soft, from full flight to sudden disappearance

A circle of thoughts and some extensions

May 30, 2014

What I think about when I’m idle and alone:

-What should I do?
-Maybe I should call someone to hang out… who?
-It’s always the same people. Why do I wanna see them anyway?
-Maybe I shouldn’t just socialize to avoid being alone.
-What do I wanna do, then?
-What actually matters?
-People do matter (1)
-But there isn’t anyone I really want to see now.
-I just wanna be around people.
-For what purpose?
-I don’t know.
-What should I do, then?
-Maybe something creative by myself.
-Okay, I can do that. But what is the grand scheme? The point? (2)
-Do all of the activities I can possibly engage in have some coherence?
-Is there any point to any of them, or to them all together?
-Will I always feel this sort of emptiness?
-No activity can possibly encompass my purpose for existing.
-I wonder what this emptiness is…

• Why am I here?
• What am I doing?
• What is worth doing? What matters?
• Who matters?
• Am I here to give something? To take something?

  Almaas says meaning in life comes from greater intimacy with one’s true self.

• How can I become more intimate with myself?
• Who is my true self?
• What is she doing right now?
• How close am I to her?
• Am I getting any closer?
• Can I do things to be more intimate with her?

  I stop searching through activities and possible ways to spend my time.
  I am a little less afraid or rushed to do something.
  It doesn’t matter what the time is.
  My mind is poised for careful use.

2. Is there a point to any activity?
-What is my life’s work?
-Am I on the path, or diverging?
-When I read I gain cognitive understanding.
-When I create I feel joyful and productive.
-When I move I feel alive and vibrant.
-When I meditate I can more easily connect to myself.
-When I uncover the patterns of my physical form I feel the fabric of myself changing; I feel empowered by experiencing myself as the witness to change.
-When I work with people, I feel I am helping.
-When I think about the world, I feel moved to help create change.
-When I am out amongst people, I feel inspired and alive.

Every activity offers a different gift. Is just one of these my grand purpose?

On thursday

March 21, 2014

It’s okay to be sad
Sadness, like this,
it’s about surrendering to the situation.

A lot of other feelings can stand in for sadness.

But sadness emerges when you stop building layers on top of it.

Sadness is the last straw. There is always a last straw, after every other one in the bunch has been taken.

Sadness like this
is about yourself being sad.

It is acceptance of an inherently sad situation. Grief or a loss.

Sadness is not a performance.
And sadness is not what you do to get something you always wanted.
It is accepting that you can’t have it,
you never could,
and you won’t keep trying to believe something there is no evidence for.

It is the final facing up to reality, the reality that is yours alone and the entire truth.

How he doesn’t give

March 18, 2014

Everyone knows
priceless value
whatever Mastercard can’t buy

This American boy
raised on oatmeal and
Ayn Rand propoganda

He cannot receive or accept any gifts from me
Because receiving in earnest
makes any decent man indebted
by some force, not dollars,
but by some deeper universal law,
that binds us all in the economic exchanges
between sugar and oxygen, water and waste

He fervently fights to be certain
that whatever I do, I don’t do for him.
Lest it be an act of care,
a desire not for self alone, but for the bond that forms from giving,
to give, a giving that is receiving

He grips tightly to the boundaries
between him and I
To receive would dissolve
his self and my self
into the amorphousness of
darling human
you are me and I am you

He will not participate in the exchange of priceless gifts

He will not give me the satisfaction of receiving by giving

Little does he know of worlds
where my desire and your desires converge into
the singular desire for you to have what you desire and your desire
for me to have what I desire.
Where the things we thought we wanted are only excuses for mutual joy
which we realize we give each other anyway

I wonder what feeds me

February 09, 2014

One I know for sure:

Things, and people, and places that have aged. Wrinkles, rust, chipped paint, wisdom, laugh lines, a certain slow buffer in living.

I want to hear music in a language I don’t understand. I look at a book with pictures of humans in places I have never been, living lives I could never fathom. I am hungry for the thought of other realities, the unknown unknowns.

So much of America is youthful speed, vacuous activity. I wonder if I would be better suited to a life somewhere with more age. I am fed by history and by the delicate timbre of my father’s voice – it immediately buoys my heart.

As I lay in bed, reflecting on various aspects of my life, some more satisfying than others, I think of my family and breathe a sigh of relief. I vibrate with their memory and move forward. I am fed by my sister’s ability to expose her vulnerabilities, and by my mother’s capacity for strength and resilience. I am fed by their well-earned laughter.

Last night, I am in a bar bathroom. As I pee in one stall, I overhear one woman helping another woman make herself throw up.
“It’s okay, I’ve done it lots of times. You just put your finger down your throat.”
My heart sinks for this betrayal of life. Of course, it is not an unfamiliar experience for myself and for many; the self-hatred, doubt and frustration that ultimately would lead one to perpetrate a violent act against oneself. Sometimes it is obvious, like purging your body of the food that is supposed to sustain it. Other times it’s less immediate, perhaps more of a prolonged lifestyle pattern that reflects an irking self-loathing. Perhaps the thing that keeps so many of us from being good to ourselves.

Once upon a time, my experience of such a state lead me to the brink. If I wanted to survive, I had to answer a few questions frankly: “Do you want to live or die? Do you believe you are worthy of being alive?”
Once I found the answer was yes, there was nothing to do but live with utter honesty.

I believe in good and evil, and a boundary between them that is subtle but unmistakable. We lie to ourselves all the time. And we are really good at numbing the feeling of remorse. In every moment, we make a vote for good or evil, even in the thoughts we choose to think.

I am fed by transformation and the process of unearthing my darkest demons. I am fed by the feeling of growing closer and closer to myself, of telling the truth and letting go of everything else.  When I am fed, I feel that I am as big as the universe. What does hugeness feel like?

It feels like invincibility, and flying. The feeling that no person, event or circumstance is threatening.
I believe that being and doing are not opposed, they are the same thing. Their antithesis is judgement and resistance – anything that chokes up the freely moving flow of change and action.

I am fed by a flame and by empty walls, and by a story that is colorful and confusing. I am fed by the mere thought of humanity in places I have never been. I am fed by the way life circles back around itself, when old friends and lovers re-enter and show me so clearly what has and hasn’t changed.

I am fed by being fully submerged in the narrative of my life. And by the intimate relationships I can have with songs, rainfalls, and neighborhood streets, so that I am never alone.