"Just Look Up"

I recently took a wonderful road trip with my mom and our dogs. We visited long-lost friends, family, and saw some of the most beautiful places on earth.


The other-worldly stone contortions in Arches National Park (UT), the overwhelming beauty of the canyons of Utah, unbelievably blue crystaline lakes in northern New Mexico and Utah, cozy Rowland Canyon...yeah, lots of Utah. Which is fitting, as I hadn't explored much of the splendor of the motherland...and even more fitting, to experience it with my mother was nothing short of transcendent.

Our travels took us to my uncle's vacation home at Bear Lake (UT)...with access to water that rivals the Caribbean (color not temperature).  Several years ago, Uncle Reed had added onto his nautically themed house: He built a lighthouse atop it. To get to it, one must scale a ladder, however sturdy, which is erected over an open and profoundly steep staircase. The kind of staircase that if you fell from the lighthouse, you'd be lucky to escape with only a TBI: traumatic brain injury (of course, I am height phobic and creative in catastrophizing. Then again, I am experienced in falling). The day we arrived, he showed me how to access it. He effortlessly ascended, as did his eldest daughter.

I felt a little self-conscious as my fear of heights engulfed me. I placed my foot on one of the ladder steps and said, "I promise I'll get up there, just not today."

The next day, as promised, I scaled the ladder. Alone. But Reed's words echoed in my head, "Just look up. On your way up, on your way down. Just. Look up."

My mom caught the moment as I called to her from the top...

You'll notice that in the photo, I have a bit of a head of hair going....

That's thanks to a few WONDERFUL PEOPLE. Some strangers...mostly friends and family...who helped me exceed my fundraising goal of $25,000 on August 20...just days after my last post. I decided to keep going until September 1, 2013 to see how much we'd accrue.

I'm proud to announce that the BaldBallisticBevyn project garnered $29,237 in 6 months!

For those of you who participated THANK YOU! I appreciate all of your support...words cannot convey how much. And those of you who dedicate volunteer time or dollars on a monthly basis are the true heroes here...I'd be bald into 2014 if not for ya'll!

As I grow my hair back, I am noticing how much it was like my lighthouse experience. It was WAAAY more fun on the way up...and so easy to "look up" as I went. But now, I feel like I'm going down...which is way less fun. And it's way less intuitive to "look up" during the descent. I'll tell you though, it helps to look at what we've accomplished as I move from my G.I. Jane crew cut, morph into the Hedgehog look, and now the River Phoenix in Stand By Me...I will "look up" when my vanity vacillates wildly. As it tends to do.

But I'll also remember this:

It's damned important to take in the view from the top and be truly present in that, for the sake of being mindful and honoring the moment. But I also see the importance of drinking in what can be an all-too-fleeting moment "on top"...it makes it easier to access our small and large victories in those paralyzing moments of fear, doubt, and despair. Which can keep us from focusing on the cold, hard marble floor and potential TBI when what we really need to do is ascend.

In View: End of the road

After calculating the monthly donations/volunteer hours for July, and a HUGE volunteer donation by the Petrovich family, I am amazed to say I am a mere $1,075 away from my goal.

I am overwhelmed by people in my life who so generously gave of their $, time, and most importantly their hearts to participate in my project. You know who you are (and so does everyone who follows my blog...your names are listed). Thank you!

I am promising to NOT start growing my hair back until the end of August...so PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE let's finish this project big. I'd be honored to have more folks participate...so spread the word!

Remember: donate to ANY organization close to your heart...volunteer ANYWHERE that moves you.

Thank you (from me...and from the people/animals/our environment you have so graciously given to) for all of you support!

Mad love. -bkr

Please email me with your donations/hours at DrBevyn (at) Gmail (dot) Com

Donations Page 3 July-August

Please report your donations to DrBevyn (at) Gmail (dot) com

July-August Activity

Total As of 9/1/2013:      $29,237    $4,237 over goal!   

$/Hours                   Donor Name                           Organization

$20                                            Erin C.                                         Wild Oats Diaper Drive

$20                                            Teresa A.                                     Wild Oats Diaper Drive

5 hours ($100)                           Kelly G. E.                                    WHS

4 hours ($80)                              Jason H.                                       Cascade Aids Project: Pivot

$720                                           Rowland Family                           Donating meals and manual labor to local families (Salt Lake City)

$1,080                                        Slyns Family                                     Conquer Cancer (Australia)

21 hours x4 people ($1680)         Richardson Family                                      Relay for Life

38 hours ($760)                            Krystal J.                                    Humboldt RollerDerby & Sequoia Zoo

89 hours ($1,780)                         Petrovich Family                                             Camp Nemanu

$50                                               Me                                                                 ProBono Counseling

$1,720                                          Leslie and Ron M.                               Took in homeless folks & dogs                                                                                               Calculation: used $Rent/SqFt x time of hosteling

$5,120                                             Slyns Family                                                Conquer Cancer AUS.          

7 hrs ($140)                                       Shayna C.                                                 Habitat for Humanity

$350                                             Carole and Wes M.                                       Paws N Claws

$50                                               Carole M.                                                     Roadside Donations

32 hrs ($640)                                   Maidie S.                                                   Wilderness Volunteers

Naked

Last month two wonderful reporters from the Clark College newspaper The Independent interviewed me for my project. They were both under 21 years old, with an enthusiasm for writing about things that matter in the world. Their energy and passion were absolutely stunning...and reminded me of a time in which I, too, was  boldly naked with what mattered to me.

I was honored to be the focus of one of their stories. Read it here: http://clarkcollegeindependent.com/life/clark-counselor-holds-hair-hostage-for-charity/



Photo credit: Brittany Koonz, The Independent

For the interview, I put on makeup (those of you who know me, understand this as a relatively rare thing) and wore my favorite hat. Until that day, I had been wearing hats EVERYWHERE. Grocery store, dinner with friends, driving, walking the dog...I had been bald for 3 months and rarely been without a hat. On the occasions that I did, I felt absolutely naked.

The kind of naked that you felt in that recurring nightmare you probably had in your early 20s. You're late for a math test in high school. You've forgotten where the classroom is and know you're going to be late. Just after the bell, you make it into the room only to realize you've forgotten to notice you don't have pants on, so you try to fold yourself innocuously into those horrible writing desk/chair contraptions. You know: Naked.

In telling my friend Bryson about this one day over sushi, he pointed out to me that I might get more response for my project if I actually went about my business bald. When he said this, I felt a wave of embarrassment that reminded me I created this project to make a statement that catches people's attention...and more importantly that I had been hiding my purpose under (really cute!) hats.

As with most lessons in my life, the teachers kept coming. First Bryson, then a random lady on the street who shouted at me "You go girl!" as I walked Dexter without a hat, then a dude pumping gas across from me who tried to figure out if I was bald under that hat while staring THE WHOLE TIME...to Brittany and Atalie, the overwhelmingly energetic and passionate reporters at Clark College.

So, I decided to be naked. More often.

Being naked requires nothing more than a willingness to tolerate the discomfort of being seen.

Sure, there are times that I don't want to be seen. On those occasions, I check-in with myself to see if I can tolerate the anxiety. Usually, I can. If not, I put on a hat.

(Please email your hours/donation amounts to: DrBevyn (at) Gmail (dot) com

Strange Attachments

For those of you who read the headline and thought I'd be writing about all the weird features of my hair-clippers ..sorry. (But hey, you're right. What the heck are all of these attachments for anyway??!! Our culture is WAAAY too interested in hair management. Alas, that will have to be another blog post.)

It has been nearly a week since I donated my hair to Locks of Love. And I still miss it. Not the hair on my head, mind you. Rather, the hair that had been shaved and then bundled and then tucked away until we raised the first $5k of my $25k project (and HUGE thanks to all of you who made that happen!).

A bag of disembodied hair. I couldn't let go of a bag of disembodied hair...which I had cut off for this very purpose.

I hadn't expected this. I mean...I SHAVED IT OFF. What did I think was going to happen? As it turns out, for me, the shaving it off (and keeping it off for nearly 3 months, and counting) wasn't the trial...it was mailing away a bunch of hair in a Ziplock bag that sat in a drawer of my ancient writing desk for months.

Talk about strange attachments.

Come to think of it, that particular drawer has held several strangely precious things that I didn't know what to do with at the time. Most recently it held the box of my father's ashes (which still await their final resting place) until I decided to have them in plain sight--an attempt to help the process along. Despite their relocation, I still don't know where to put them...and the longer I keep them, the more I find myself wanting to keep them.

Is this the same process as giving up my hair? Is it a slow, ossification of habit? Or, in my holding the long strands hostage...did I somehow invoke whatever the opposite of Stockholm Syndrome is?

Maybe. But it's probably more akin to my ill-timed attempts to hang onto what has already been lost.

How many times have you tried to capture a moment in a photo, only to realize that as the shutter closes, the experience you were trying to seal up and savor was gone before you even thought to pull out your camera? 

This happened to me on an excruciatingly regular basis, until I realized that if I had the urge to capture something on camera, I had best surrender to the moment. Be IN the moment. And I've gotten good at that. With the sublime, the adorable, the funny.

No so much, it turns out, with the smoldering sting after the sucker-punch of loss. Sure, back in the day I overstayed my welcome in unhealthy relationships...relationships that were O-V-E-R but I just couldn't seem to jettison myself away. Thankfully, that phase is over. But I continue to grapple with loss through death...expected/unexpected. I still remake conversations or say gorgeously choreographed goodbyes that were never uttered...but only to redo them later that week or that month.

I think my bag-o-hair represented much more loss to me than I had anticipated. As proficient as I am with navel-gazing, I'm still not sure of the totality of what it came to represent--suffice it to say, I miss it not because it covered my head (but I am missing head-cover people!!).

 Henry Ellis: "All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on."

(Please email your hours/donation amounts to: DrBevyn (at) Gmail (dot) com

Donations Page 2 (May-June)

“As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way.” 
― Mary Anne Radmacher

Total as of 6/30/2013                           $13,201  ($11,799 left)

$/Hours                                       Donor                                    Organization

June Activity (Please email your hours/donation amounts to: DrBevyn (at) Gmail (dot) com

15 hours/month ($300)     Bryson L.                                      Big Brothers/Sisters & Hard Times Cafe

$25                                   Amanda R.                                   Scripps

$300                                 Carolyn M.                                   Family Village (Seattle)

$30                                   Rebecca R. H.                               Union Gospel Mission Career Program

5 hours ($100)                  Jason H.                                        Cascade Aids Project

9.5 hours ($190)                Laura L.                                       Eugene Schools and Youth Programs

$120                                  Vallejo E.                                     Komen Foundation

5 hours x 5 people ($500)  Alyssa M. and her crew                Ronald McDonald House Meal Prep

$150 groceries                   Alyssa M. and her crew                Ronald McDonald House Mother's Day
        
25 hours ($500)                  Bryson L.                                     Big Brothers Program

$350                                   Carole M.                                    Paws & Claws

3 hours ($60)                      Amanda R.F.                                Hilhi Campus Cleanup Project

25.5 hours ($510)               Jason H.                                       Cascade Aids Project

$100                                  Me                                                Pro Bono Counseling

25 hours ($500)                 Bryson L.                                       Hard Times Supper (Portland)


May Activity
24 hours ($480)                   Kelly G.                                       Wilson High School

$130                                    Carole M.                                   Nutrition shakes & Dog food to homeless  
                                                                                                 
$125                                    Jean D.                                       PNW Hospice Foundation

$25                                      Rebecca R.H.                              Plumpy Nut Drive (WorldVision)

10 hrs ($200)                       Kelly G.                                      Wilson High School

$600                                    Katrina H                                    Conquer Cancer (Australia)

$200                                    Me                                              Pro Bono Counseling

$12/month                           Shayna C.                                    OPB

16hrs/mo ($320)                 Shayna C.                                    Lines for Life

Amount Forwarded from Donations Page 1= $6,658 (March-April Activity)

Biggest contribution yet!

Huge thanks to ALL of you who have donated $2,609 worth of money and volunteer hours to help me grow my locks back!

But an ENORMOUS thanks to Laura L. who contributed 52.5 hours to a Eugene Oregon Youth Program. @ $20/hour, that makes the largest donation yet to my project: $1,050.00
Large or small...I appreciate what you each are doing for the world.
Mad love.

(Please email your hours/donation amounts to: DrBevyn (at) Gmail (dot) com

Being the change VS Collecting change

The great thing about bumper stickers: they get your attention with a pithy statement that fits on a small piece of vinyl on the back of a car (or a Trapperkeeper strapped to the back of a cruiser bicycle...my hipsters).

The bad thing about bumper stickers: The Same. When we try to squish something profound into a small space, when it is actually bigger, it might get our attention...but we lose the full gravity of the thought.

                              Example: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." 

Honestly, I love this quote attributed to Ghandi. And I think it's something he would've said...in fact he did say it, only better, in 1913:

"We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do."

"Be the change" is certainly in there...and perhaps many people wouldn't have noticed we need to start with ourselves without the appropriation and sloganizing of a great person's words. BUT: the deeper meaning (which might actually get us to practice this idea) is absent in the bite-sized-bumper-sticker version.

                                                       

This is what has happened to me since I last blogged. I realized I was trying to squish a huge thing into a tiny space. Which is funny to me, because I have always been suspicious of grand gestures (you know, trying to convey more than what a single action can hold).

Here's the gist:

Days 1-9 Bald: "This is so weird! I'm very aware of my head! People are staring and I'm cold...but it's worth it. This is going to wake people up!!!"

Day 10 Bald: "This is so weird." Frantically checking Facebook and email. "Why aren't people waking up!!!?"

Day 11-17 Bald: In quiet moments, rapid cycling between "I need to be the change." And. "Damn it! People are never going to change."

Day 18-28: Doing really easy math (this is never good): "Wow. I haven't even hit the $1000 mark. This is going to take forever."

I realized I was trying to collect change (yes...read that with double entendre) instead of being the change. 

My unconscious wish is that in one fell swoop, I could change it all. 

I think I look like the change (hello...bald lady here!) but I haven't been living it. 

I have been waiting to see what the rest of you are doing. Did I inspire you? Please inspire me! Wow. Then I got humbled. 

And with that insight, I finally broke my $1000 mark (thanks to all! And to Laura Lawver who just sent in $98 worth of donations and volunteer hours). 

It may be a really long road to getting my hair back...but if shaving my head is going to transform anyone, it's going to transform me first.

Thanks for your love, support, donations, and for reading...mad love. -bkr
(Please email your hours/donation amounts to: DrBevyn (at) Gmail (dot) com

Donations Page 1

So it has begun! Donation inquiring and actual donations...yahoo! When you officially donate or sign up to volunteer somewhere, please let me know and I'll post it (either anonymously or with your name, just let me know which).

Unfortunately,  Blogger has some serious limitations, including allowing people to post lately. So for now, please either FB or email me (drbevyn (at) gmail (dot) com)

$/Hours                               Donor                                            Organization

April 2013 Activity  ($6658 as of 4/27/2013)

$200                              Me                                             Dress for FREEdom (Compassion Connect)


$100                              Me                                             Pro Bono Counseling

$300                              Nichole D.P.                               Maplewood Elementary Foundation

12 hours ($240)              Kelly G.                                     Wilson High School

$96                                 Cherolyn R.                                BSA (Utah)

$106                               Melinda B.                                 AFSB.org

$22/month                       Alyssa M.                                  Children International

25 hours ($500)             Alyssa M.'s Crew (5 people)       Doernbecher Ronald McDonald House (food prep)

$150                             Alyssa M.'s Crew (5 people)       Groceries Doernbecher RMD House

$50                                 Ted P.                                        environmentnorthcarolina.org

18 hours ($360)              Kelly G.                                     Wilson High School

$180 (Australian...should I convert?) Slyns Family             Cancer Research Fundraiser (Perth)

$150                               Me                                             Pro Bono counseling services for cancer survivor

$250                               Richardson-Blaine Family           Seattle Union Gospel Mission

$250                               Richardson -Blaine Family          Seattle Children's Hospital

$40                                 Chelsi R.                                     St. Baldricks

5 hours ($100)                Dragoo-Petrovich Family            Camp Nemanu

16 hours ($320)              Kelly G.                                      Wilson High School

10 hours ($200)              Tanya L.                                      Invested.Org

2 hours/week ($160/mo.) Jessi M.                                       Big Brothers/Big Sisters Program (Indiana)

12 hours                           Sandy R.                                     Donating meals to a couple with Alzheimer's (Utah)

52.5 hours ($1,050)         Laura L.                                      Eugene Youth Program

$50                                   Iana A.                                       Oregon Humane Society

$365                                 Cath K.                                      OPB

$100                                 Carole & Wes M.                      Humane Society of America

MARCH 2013 ACTIVITY

$98                                   Laura L.                              Volunteer hours; donations for a therapy dog for a little on with Down Syndrome; meal service for a man with cancer in Eugene, OR.

$25                                   Rebecca Sue                                   Union Gospel Ministry

$100                                  Tiffany M.                                       March of Dimes

$100                                Carole & Wes M.            Michael J. Newton Esophageal Cancer Research Fund

$200                                 Carole & Wes M.                      OHSU Center for Health & Healing

$35/ month                        Rebecca Sue                                  World Vision sponsored child

$1                                     Rebecca Sue                                  Muscular Dystrophy Association

$35                                   Rebecca Sue                                  Oregon Public Broadcasting

$25/month                       Amanda R.                                        Vibe Portland

$200                            Bryan & Cherolyn R.                              Paws for Ability

$200                            Sandy & Robert R.                                 March of Dimes

Thanks!

(Please email your hours/donation amounts to: DrBevyn (at) Gmail (dot) com

My final thoughts as a fully-folicled chic: Musings on God, eyebrows, and other important things.

                                       (Me with an attached hair scarf the day before...)

On Friday, I was driving up Highway 18; the sun was setting and I was overwhelmed by a memory of the time I asked my mom “Who is God?” I was a tiny blonde 5 year old, sitting in the backseat of Tom York’s beautiful, white Cadillac—back when they still had real chrome detailing. The scent of the new wine-colored leather interior filled the air around me, and the seat was simultaneously engulfing me with its relative enormity and sticking to the back of my legs.

My mom turned around fully to face me, but all I could see was her head and neck above the massive leather bench seat that separated us. She struggled to explain God for a few minutes and would later present her black leather-bound King James with red-edged pages, when we got home to our Tualatin apartment. For the record, she really was doing her LDS duty to give me a KJ biblical explanation.

Still, not what I was looking for…

I remember being frustrated that my until-then-omniscient-mommie didn't know the answer to something. At 5, I didn't have the words to clarify that I really wanted to know: “Who is God to you? Where did she come from? What do you think she’s like?” Which I would ask my very religious grandmother Beverly a few years later and quickly be corrected that:

god is definitely a “He” who just is, and always has been, and don’t ask that again because there are just somethings we can’t explain but believe in anyways and your mother should have already told you this.

I bet LittleMom caught all heck for that.

That stretch of HWY 18 (the VanDuzer Corridor) I called “God’s Hallway” for most of my youth. A vivid child’s imagination of enormous bare feet attached to legs, which disappeared into the horizon of the tree line and sky above me.

So, I’m driving down God’s Hallway at 37 years old—which, like most things, seems smaller in the constriction of 32 years later—a magnificent changing sky of clouds and light ahead of me, obscured by the intermittent lenses of tears that had plagued my eyes for most of the drive. My best friend from high school Amanda Ryan Fear and I planned to escape to the coast for the weekend, so she could finish her dissertation and I could resume studying for the licensing exam. I brought Dexter and would arrive a day before her.

                                                          (Dexter at a viewpoint on Hwy 101 later this weekend.)

Having borrowed Wes Mackewich’s Wahl hair clippers, I had plans of my own for Friday. EPPP study avoidance? Possibly. But I was also aware I needed to get this project started.

Thee knot of my stomach and intestines cinched unbearably for probably the 20th time, this time as I swallowed whole the awareness that my tears were my ego’s vanity, being assaulted by the prospect of self-inflicted baldness. And I had a sobering thought:

“People fighting cancer probably cry for vain reasons too, but more intensely they cry about not being able to survive to see a sunset like the one spread before me, that, with the sunroof open, is a feast for the all my human senses. They cry for their mortality.”

I stopped crying once I realized tonight was the night. I think I teared up a bit when talking to the camera and brushing my hair for the last time and haven’t cried since. Let’s see how long that lasts…

                                                                         (The first cut...horribly blurry, sorry.)
I’ll try to post the videos of my shearing on Friday night…but until then, check out my growing list of things I have learned/relearned since shaving of the locks:

What I've learned so far:

• People stare at bald ladies and not bald gentlemen.
• Even bald men stare at bald ladies.
• My eyebrows are very important. 
• Stubble makes hats incredibly uncomfortable (save for Iana Amauba’s gift…satin inside. Genius!)

What I've relearned:

• Anxiety is relieved once we do what scares us…but the GI problems may stick around until the neurotransmitter soup of the tummy re-calibrates.
• My friends, family, and therapist colleagues are awesome supporters of me (and my guano crazy           ideas).
• At minimum: God is in the deeply aware gratitude we have for life, beauty, and the sanctuary of each        moment we fully inhabit. 

(Please email your hours/donation amounts to: DrBevyn (at) Gmail (dot) com

So, this happened today

Ransom Instructions

So, I'm (t)-5 days until I reveal my inner baldness. 

Nervous? Heck yeah. 

Excited? Absolutely.

Curious? Off the charts.

Worried that because of how I designed this project, I will be bald for for a year or more?

Crosses my mind every friggin' day!

Freaked out that I may look more like Evan Handler than is comfortable? Hey you...get outta my psyche!!

I'm going to be bald until I raise $25,000 for charitable organizations.

See why I'm already planning my hat wardrobe for next winter?

Yeah. I know. Kinda crazy. 

Contours of the Ransom Drop:

• At the $5,000 mark, I will donate my very long locks to Locks of Love (http://www.locksoflove.org)

           Until then, the (n=100,000) x (30") of hair will be remanded to a Ziplock bag.

• I will NOT be growing my hair back until I raise another $20,000

People have suggested I aim lower.

No! (Though I appreciate the spirit of your concern for me in the suggestion.) 

I decided that $0.25 per hair is absolutely reasonable ransom (I have approximately 100k hairs). Actually, I came up with the figure by asking myself "What's the minimum amount of money I'd take if someone walked up to me and asked if they could pay me to shave my head." So the way I see it, $25k is a low bar, because I didn't take into account the indecent proposal of shaving my head and staying bald for an extended period of time.

Donation Station -OR- How I helped Bevyn get her hair back

Though I am inspired to do this project by survivors of the ravages of cancer and mental illness, I am also psyched to declare war on apathy (see previous post). To do that, I realized I can't mandate where people choose to put their energy/money/time.

Thus:

1. You may donate to ANY charitable organization that you believe betters the lives of humans, creatures, and/or the planet.
   
   Does World Wildlife Fund or ASPCA count? YES!
   http://worldwildlife.org/
   http://www.aspca.org/
   
   Surfrider Foundation or Greenpeace? YES!! Yes!!
   http://www.surfrider.org/
   http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/
   
   NAMI or Henry Street Settlement? YES PLEASE!
   http://www.nami.org/
   http://www.henrystreet.org/
   
   A Village for One or Called to Rescue? I'd be honored!!
   http://avillageforone.org/
   http://www.calledtorescue.org/
   
   (Research additional charities here: http://www.charitynavigator.org/ )
2. Volunteer! If you are unable to contribute monetarily or are inspired to do both, report your volunteer hours. Each hour of volunteer work counts as $20.
   (Research volunteer opportunities here: http://www.volunteermatch.org/ )
3. Report/email/post: If you decide you would like to participate in my project, note your contributions of time/money by posting a comment on my blog with the following information:
   
   Comment: Your first name, last initial. Organization. Amount of volunteer hours and/or $ dollar amount.
   
   If you would rather email me that information, I can post it for you. I will also honor requests for anonymous donations of time/money via my email account (DRBevyn (at) gmail (dot) com). It would look something like this:
   
   Dexter M.      $50                           A Village for One   (www.avillageforone.org)
   Anonymous    6 volunteer hours      at Henry Street Settlement

This is also a way for you to give a shout-out to a worthy organization. 

Love a charity or know a great place to donate time? Post it! Or email me and I'll post it!

Finally: there's nothing wrong with taking satisfaction in being public about your donations.

(I believe that the pride in doing something good for the world is a healthy thing and deserves to be acknowledged. You may differ from me on this, and if so, please ask me to post for you anonymously.)


One of the powerful things about donating "out loud" is that it creates an awareness that guides our own behavior; it's called Social Norming. When we see others do something, it changes the way we see it and impacts what we do. For good or for ill, it does. And when we give exclusively in quiet ways, other people miss out on the chance to see modeling of care-giving behavior to the world.

Just a thought.

Anyway, I promise to post photos of my baldness as shortly after I shave as I can.

Thanks for your interest, willingness, support...even your thoughts that I'm guano crazy. Attention getting is the first step to consciousness raising.

Mad love.

-bkr
(Please email your hours/donation amounts to: DrBevyn (at) Gmail (dot) com

Apathy Gravity

In a beautiful missive to her friend circle, my mother (LittleMom) announced that I was "declaring war on cancer and mental illness..." This is true. But I'm discovering that this project is about more than that.

I realized I'm declaring war on apathy.

Yes, here is where I do that thing writers do and tell you what you already know...the definition of a word. But to spice it up, I'll give you the definition from one of my favorite books (Webster's Unabridged, 1913): 

Apathy Anx*i"e*ty (#), n.; pl. Anxieties (#). [L. anxietas, fr. anxius: cf. F. anxi\'82t\'82. See Anxious.]67

1. Concern or solicitude respecting some thing ovent, future or uncertain, which disturbs the mind, and keeps it in a state of painful uneasiness.> Ap"a*thy (#), n.; pl. Apathies (#). [L. apathia, Gr. ; priv. + , fr. , , to suffer: cf. F. apathie. See Pathos.] Want of feeling; privation of passion, emotion, or excitement; dispassion; -- applied either to the body or the mind. As applied to the mind, it is a calmness, indolence, or state of indifference, incapable of being ruffled or roused to active interest or exertion by pleasure, pain, or passion. The apathy of despair." Macaulay.

A certain apathy or sluggishness in his nature which led him . . . to leave events to take their own course. Prescott.

According to the Stoics, apathy meant the extinction of the passions by the ascendency of reason. Fleming.

As a person and a therapist, I define apathy as a marker of human helplessness.

When I began announcing that I will be shaving my head for this project, the responses I got varied more than I had anticipated...and shook out pretty cleanly into 3 groups.

•  About 1/3 displayed genuine excitement and (to the pleasure of my ego) a little bit of awe. 
• Another 1/3 displayed serious concern (as if perhaps I hadn't thought this through, or worse...that maybe I had finally lost it).

It was the final third, who really caught my attention. They were people I know and love, who gave a cursory, "good for you" and then changed the subject. At first, my feelings were hurt. How could these people who know me be so indifferent to something so important to me?

Quickly, the answer came to me: Apathy. 

The answer came quickly because I knew the uneasy, heavy, inertia of apathy well. 

We are all familiar with the "Fight or Flight" response, right? A creature is faced with a threat and based on an appraisal of the likely outcome, the choice is made to either fight or fly/flee. In my work with trauma survivors, I noticed the 3rd "F" = "Freeze." (Which, by the way, I learned from Johan Rosqvist and Rachel Lowenthal.) If our appraisal is that neither fighting nor fleeing will ensure survival, we freeze.

Apathy is the emotional equivalent of freezing. 

When I looked at the vastness of my helplessness in the face of The Terrorist (cancer) and The Tyrant (mental illness), I succumbed to apathy. Lulled by the refrains you probably know well: "There's nothing I can do. The problem is too big." Or maybe worse, "How arrogant am I to think I can make a difference?" Every so often I would be jolted from my emotional paralysis by anger...but soon anger would deteriorate into frustration and then dissolve back into apathy.

The problem with apathy, is that like with most physical bodies, once we become emotionally inert, a sort of gravity occurs which makes it SOOO much more difficult to break free into action or a different emotional response which could bring about action. (No, I will NOT be spouting Newton's classical mechanics...it's not like I have a SLIDE from my motivation and procrastination workshops or anything...)

So here's my mission and I invite you to join me. Let's get "ruffled and roused to exertion" to move toward what is important to us. 

And, what is important to me DOES NOT have to be important to you. I've redesigned my project to reflect this...which will be the topic of my next blog entry. And for those of you wondering: I still have a full head of hair...and I'll be shaving it off by the end of the month. Pictures to be posted ASAP!

Please check back...follow...leave comments. Mad love to you all.

-bevyn

(Please email your hours/donation amounts to: DrBevyn (at) Gmail (dot) com

Ransom Note

Soon:
I'm holding my hair hostage. Until demands are met, all 29'' of my long locks will be held and kept from returning home (AKA growing back).

Recent Past:

You've gone through phases. Maybe recently you noticed that all of your friends are getting married--or divorced--or aren't legally allowed to get married so have beautiful ceremonies or gnarly breakups equivalent to marriage/divorce, or: they're all having children...or difficulty conceiving...they're adopting, or are getting crap/unwelcome sympathies for being of a certain age and NOT having children and collecting a menagerie of pets or worldly travels instead. Buying (or losing) a home...The things we share with those we love on this gorgeously complicated sojourn of life. They seem to come in waves.

Myself: I've really loved those kinds of phases. Ridden the waves with joy. I have a closet full of bridesmaid dresses to prove it. And an appropriate degree of residual LDS guilt for not having started my own family...yet...in my tiny rescue house that I recently purchased in the Pacific Northwest.

However, in the last 5 years, I've been going through a new kind of phase: people I love are being terrorized by either the Tyrant Mental Illness or the Terrorist Cancer. Sometimes both. And I am being traumatized both vicariously and directly.

Those of you who know me, know that my father died by suicide after 60 years of rotting away in a metaphysical prison, sucking on a bottle of spirits. This February will be the 4th anniversary of his death. The Tyrant (mental illness/addiction) robbed me of a father long before 2009.

On April, 29, 2012, one of the most figural men in my life thus far, died, after being stalked by cancer--he (like my father) died by inflicting a gunshot wound to his head. The terrorism of cancer left a person I loved and respected, profoundly defeated by hopelessness. And another that I love in shambles, trying to manage the grotesque confusion and pain of loving him, finding him, trying but failing to resuscitate him, and losing him in his last moments lit by dusk, on a now-forever-ruined-grassy knoll in the West Hills of Portland.

(Johan Rosqvist in 2009 on the set of TLC: Hoarders)

Now, onto the Terrorist (cancer). My friends, clients, and students are fighting for their lives back from the ravages of the disease and its effective but destructive treatment. The Terrorist is also silently eating away at the (albeit illusion of) safety and security of more people than I can even count.

Right Now:

So, this seems to be my "everybody's getting married, or pregnant,...or cancer...or killing themselves" phase. I'm down with the prior...not the latter. Instead of being paralyzed by the pain of this incessant message (yeah, repetition is a great teacher, I'm just trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be learning here...) I have decided to do something someone close to me called "so drastic." 

In February, I am going to shave my head. Hold my long locks hostage. Until a specified number of US Dollars are donated to 2 national charities (one funding cancer research, the other benefiting mental illness prevention and treatment).

This blog will be the place to get more information about the fundraiser, my journey as a bald girl, and maybe  a place to get inspired, get sad, get pissed off, alloftheabove or something else. 

Right now: I'm sipping a 2006 Barolo. The Italian regional wine that Johan and another dear person I miss, and  I used to imbibe over some pretty amazing conversations. The year (I didn't realize, until I got it home from John's Market (http://www.johnsmarketplace.com/) was a particularly good year for me. When it was only weddings, and IVF, and babies...not chemo, and shotguns, and little boxes of ashes.

And all of us were alive.
And had hope.
And had hair.

I still have hope. That's why I'm doing this. 

Thanks for reading. More to come. 

bevyn k. rowland

(Please email your hours/donation amounts to: DrBevyn (at) Gmail (dot) com