Identity

Identity is a topic I've been thinking on quite a bit as of late. What determines who we are, or where we belong? My mom and I share a love of genealogy and in the past few years have found alot of different ethnic groups represented in our ancestors. Recently I've been finding more on my dad's side, too. See, I have found everything but African and Asian (Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc...). Seriously, I think you could name any European group and we've found someone in the rolls- including Spanish, Italian, Scandinavian, Belgian, Russian, and Prussian (and many more). As well as Romany Gypsy and Native American (Cherokee, Blackfoot, Mashpee Wampanoag, Aquinnah Wampanoag, Narragansett). I'm an anthropologist. I delight in rich cultures and rich heritage. I've always wanted to be a part of something, have a heritage I could be proud of. And I am. I'm proud of every part of my heritage. I love being all those things. Being able to look in the mirror and see it in my face. It's good to not be just one thing. Right?
I kind of feel lost sometimes, unsure of who I am. Being American is so obscure. We are indeed a melting pot. We have a culture- McDonald's. We are a young country and don't have a full-on rich culture. Hispanics have their heritage, African Americans have their heritage, Irish Americans have their heritage, and we're all united by our common American-ness. Being such a mix I feel connected to all of the cultures of the various peoples my ancestors came from, but like I don't truly belong in any of them. The Blackfoot would call me a "wannabe", the Roma would call me an outsider, to the French I'm not truly French, I'm not just Irish, or just Welsh. I know that who I am as a person is not dependent on my genetic heritage, but is it so wrong to want to belong somewhere. I wear moccasins and celtic necklaces and eat German food and drink wine like a true French jaune fille, but does that come across in a way that I don't want it to? You say: My Culture Is Not A Trend. But can I wear feathers in my hair and Irish sweaters and "Gypsy" skirts and Nordic prints anyway? What if it's my culture too? Just because my ancestor lived a hundred years before yours, does that make them any less real? Any less Scottish? Any less Cherokee? Any less Italian or Jewish? I mean, it makes my DNA less Scottish and Cherokee and whatever, but should that mean that I have less right than you to celebrate that part of myself? I love my heritage. I just don't want to be an outcast because those who came before me decided to marry very diverse people. I just want to have a niche. Somewhere people will be like me, but different. Learn about "our people", our language, our customs. But I can't change people's minds. Not really. When you look at me, I don't really look one way, if I tell you things I am, you'll say that you can see that, but one couldn't really say otherwise. Eh, maybe I'm just whiny and confused, but I wish I could belong to something- be it a clan, a tribe, a band, a group. I just don't know people like me. Anyway.
Love,
Belle

Yesterday, Meet Today. Shake Hands.

Oh, yesterday. Dear, sweet, yesterday...
Yesterday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day (as I'm sure everyone knows) and I, of course, had to celebrate. I'm very much a pirate. My ancestor on my mom's mom's side is the infamous Captain Kidd. And my name is Bellamy, as in Black Sam Bellamy. And my last name is Foley, which is Irish for "pirate or plunderer". Anyway, I decided that- as I had a full day of classes- it would probably be awfully disruptive of me to talk like a pirate. Teacher: "Bellamy, what did you think of last night's assigned reading?" Me: "Arrgh! It seemed that th' comedic style was jus' a mask fer thee underlying social and political issues o' the time, cap'n, arrgh." We are currently reading the Lysistrata. (Which reminds me *homework*). Messed up play from ancient Greece. Basically, women withold sex from the menfolk in order to stop the Peloponnesian War. Vulgar, Sexist, and Hi-larious. So instead I wore a pirate hat to school. Ahoy, Mateys! How the hell do you spell the plural form of "matey"?
...Back to yesterday...
After class I met up with the ever-charming Shananigan and we went to Goodwill. Now, I simply must relay the fascinating story of my wardrobe malfunction and reveal the secret to why I shall possibly never be wearing a certain skirt EVER AGAIN: It was a chilly September morning when I awoke to the sound of my mother's soothing voice shrilly barking commands from downstairs. "Oy, girl, git yer kaboose outta bed, ye mangy scum. Aaah." Choking back tears at her vicious reprimand, I realized with a start that I had slept through my alarm. By an hour! So I dashed outta bed (like mangy scum) and hopped in the shower for a ten-minute cleaning. I hurriedly dressed (as it was quite cold) and hastily jotted down a current event from this here computer. I was wearing a lovely short lace skirt-with-built-in-slip, black tights, a black tank, my favorite brown riding boots, a chunky oatmeal sweater, and my lovely and over-sized brown pirate hat. I looked dashing if I dare say so myself. And of course I dare, as I am QUITE daring. While walking from the SUB to my Anthropology class a kind man informed me gently that I was having "some issues". You know when backpacks cause your skirt to slide up your bum?

I do.

So there I was, confidently strutting around campus in my pirate gear with my pretty lavender underwear framed beneath my tribal-print backpack for all to see. The situation was easily remedied and I simply held my skirt down when walking for the remainder of the day. Which only added to the ridiculousness of my appearance and my quiet yet poignant amusment at the situation. After class I met up with Shananigan, drove to Goodwill and found some bright (and lordy do I mean BRIGHT!) orange shorts overalls on sale for $1.05. Gladly I made the purchase and changed into them in a cafe restroom. The same cafe that I later performed in for open mic night, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
That, dear readers, is the story of why the heck Bellamy was wearing safety-orange overalls and a pirate hat.
My senior quote in the yearbook is going to be: "Take off the pirate hat. It's way too much with the orange overalls." Because there is definitely an air of mystery to it, yes? Well, there would be if you didn't already know the whole story. Yes?
I also had a knit yellow beret in my bag and put it on with my overalls and brown boots and asked Shananigan if I looked like a giant candy corn. She said yes.
There were alot of interesting characters at Calypso's for open mic night, one of my favorites was the nice drunk lady outside on the sidewalk who kept saying "you play that, yep. Be louder. Doin' good, girlfriend!" before being forcibly removed by her more sober-seeming family. Oh, drunk lady. No, you go girlfriend. Some other favorites were the coffee guy Shananigan bought a bottled water from and subsequently decided to marry, and the quirky fellow who played the banjo and screamed along rather odd lyrics. I decided that I would marry him. Along with the dude with the mohawk in my literature class, 'cause he's so cool.
I was the last act of the evening, and sadly my 15 minutes were more like 5 minutes as everyone else had been allowed to go overtime. Sad Bellamy. But I signed up for next week, earlier into the night, so I'll have plenty of time. Yesterday I sang "Lost in My Mind" by The Head and The Heart and "Jolene" by Ray LaMontagne (not the same as "Jolene" by Dolly Parton, though I love that song too). I also wanted to sing one of my originals but, alas!, I shall next week. Hopefully screaming banjo man will be there again. It's cool that my little group finally has an actual hangout, we've always said we should have one.
Today, was basically boring and the highlight will no doubt come at 9:01 p.m. when the show New Girl has it's first ever episode on Fox. I've been waiting with bated breathe all summer. I'm not exactly a TV addict, but I adore Zooey DeChanel (and her sister Emily, who plays Temperance Brennen on the hit show Bones) and especially want to see this show because the character is the only girl roommate in an apartment full of guys. And that's my dream. Ever since the movie The Roommate I'm kind of turned off to having a girl roommate. I don't know why... Besides, boys do tend to be cooler and more fun, in my experience. There are lots of wicked awesome girls in the world (me, my friends) but girls are often judgemental and snobby, whereas boys usually aren't. Fact of Life, readers.
Wow, writing felt good. Yay!
Love,
Belle

My Friend, my friend, and myself

This Monday started out like any other Monday in the life of Bellamy. I left for school at 8. Got there, was told by a security guard that a water line was having issues and the only parking was in the two open lots, and drove around looking for a spot that I- with my sadly sub-par parking skills- could worm my way into.
...so maybe not any other day...
I ended up parking 30 minutes walk across town in a neighorhood behind the public library. It indeed did sucketh, dear readers. And I am sore (*pouty face*). I also had to suffer through a disgustingly hefty load of books on the 30 minute walk to the college and my Literature of Western Civilization class (which I had apparently had an internet assignment for in the previous week that I had not done. You know, this class wan't even supposed to be internet-based at all. It is not what I was expecting, but I really love the in-class discussions so I kind of just grin. and. bear it.). Then I got out of my Computer class early for my lunch break and decided that, since I had alomst 2 hours to kill, I should walk back to my car and dump all the stuff that I didn't need. In all, it was an hour walk to my car and back to school. I enjoyed 2 more thrilling classes (Physical Anthropology and Intro to Literature) before meeting up with Shananigan (who is now attending NIC, too!) and once again trekking to my oh-so-far-away car. We drove it back to the school- thankfully the daytime classes were over and there were open parking spaces close to the school. We walked around downtown 'til about 6 then headed over to Calypso's for open mic night. Sadicus joined us later, and we laughed and enjoyed Shananigan's recent spiritual awakening and listened to second-rate singers and danced with wild abandon... on our asses... without leaving our seats. That still counts as dancing with wild abandon, right? Then walked back to our cars through the creepy nightime park and and parted ways once we reached the lot. Yes, I love my friends. Thursday I'm possibly attending the first French Club meeting of the year at the high school. But only if I have enough gas for the rest of the week. I'm spending Thursday night with Shan-Shan at my sister's apartment (to babysit her weiner dog) and we shall sing and write songs along with my lovely guitar. Friday we're going to go to the high school to meet this year's foreign kids, because we LOVE foreign exchange kids. I mean, foreigners tend to be so much cooler than the chaps of Northern Idaho, and I hear there is an Australian guy this year. Here's hopin' that he's cute.
Saturday my dad is hopefully taking me to see the wolf people, and Shananigan may come then too. We're making up for her antisocial summer working for the slave drivers known as Silverwood Theme Park. Sunday is a day for any residual homework from the previous school week, and Monday I plan to play Calypso's open mic night. I'm pretty excited!
Honestly, It's only Tuesday and this is looking to be the best week I've had in a REALLY long while.
Check out this youtube video on "unschooling". I love it. I think I'll "unschool" my future children.

My laptop has been experiencing major technical difficulties since we moved and this is my grandparents computer, so i can't post pictures from it. Hopefully I'll figure a way around that soon. But until then, bear with me and my text-only posts. I'll try to link to other sites and videos as often as possible to keep things interesting.

Love,

Belle

I rode my Firefly to a River of Serenity

Well...

Still moving.

You know the best part about moving? Being able to decorate the new room (or house, if you're the household adult). I just love decorating! This room is Moroccan bazaar themed, and I'm pretty psyched to make it all pretty... and have a clean, shiny, new room for a while!

You know the worst part of moving? Moving.

I camped this weekend- hence I haven't been around the blogosphere. It was a pretty wild weekend, complete with stumbling into the woods (1st night) at 11 pm and trying to put up Shenanigan's ridiculously difficult tent in the pitch black on a hillside right off the road, packing everything back up the next day to find a better camp spot, running back into town for batteries and water, partying like previously home-schooled college kids, and throwing up (That was me. I barfed in the campfire. Alot.). I was sick for the 4th because I was stupid on the 3rd. Jolly good.

I'm making stuffed mushrooms as I write and listening to Joni Mitchell with my dear mumsykins. That's an endearing way to say mom, in case you were wondering.

Now, without further ado I shall share with the world my undeniable love for Firefly and specifically the character River Tam. River is the mentally traumatized psychic assassin spaceship-dwelling teenager in the show Firefly (it and Alias are my VERY favorite shows). My 12-year-old nephew saw this part and said she reminded him of me. This was the greatest compliment of my life. I have the series on DVD and have watched it multiple times! I didn't include River in my previous post on fictional idols because I'm pretty much just like her. I guess I could just be my own idol. But that would be vain. Hhaha! Anyhoo, love this show!!! And love you too!!! Love,

Belle.

C'est la vie

So, I haven't written a new post for many passings of the sun. This is due to the fact that I am in the midst of a move. That's right, I am moving from this terrible neighborhood and this terrible house into a nicer neighborhood with a nicer house. My mom and I are moving into her parents house (we'll be renting from them for quite a kind price). My grandparents' house is coming along, but we'll still be living in the same house for a while till they're finished building. I'm not sure how we'll manage to escape alive. Someone is going to break before all is said and done. Obviously some family issues in my life. But that's okay! All will be well! I'll barely be there anyway because I'll be spending so much time downtown.
At the river: At the library: I could hang out around the skatepark and act cool..I just hate moving. The whole process is stupid! My grandparents get aneurysm-level stress about Every. Little. Thing. All. The. Time. I. Wonder. If. I. Could. Write. A. Whole. Post. Like. This.
Haha
Riotous laughter at a stupid joke.
How many moves will this be?
The 7th.
I had to count. Yes, definitely the 7th. That's actually not as bad as I thought it would be!
It's very likely that I'll be moving out in a year or so, anyway, so I'll only have to worry about my overbearing grandparents and being obligated to visit my crappy dad for a little while longer.
Aren't I a ray of sunshine today?! Geez...
Well...
Love,
Belle

Some of my fictional idols (except Guinevere- she may be real)

I've been researching women warriors lately. I often feel that that's what I am... and what I should be.

Had I been born in another time, I would be a wild woman, a pict, a pagan, a celt- living among the trees. I would live with the land protect my own with a sword and a bow.

I'd be like Guinevere (King Arthur 2004 version), strong and ferocious, wild and graceful.

Or I could be a medieval French noble, bravely working as a spy and standing up to the enemy (and falling in love with a Scottish archeologist from the future).

I'd be Lady Claire (Timeline), courageously defending my home and my people.

In my own time, I could still be a spy, but with more gadgets and kick-ass disguises.

Like Sydney Bristow from Alias (my favorite show), always ready for a fight.

Maybe it's because I've grown up in a martial arts family and been trained to be a fighter, but I feel like a warrior. Like that's what I'm made for. Not modern combat and all that, I'm not made for much of anything that's modern, but fighting to defend my land from the expanding empires. My body and mind is made for that.

Women have greater accuracy and aim (thanks to slow-twitch muscles: slightly slower reaction time, greater accuracy), a higher tolerance for pain, greater stamina (tolerance and stamina=childbirth), a lower center of gravity and higher flexibility (leading to better kicks, which I've noticed at the dojo- women tend to be better kickers, men tend to be better punchers). I'm not saying that women make better warriors than men, just that both have their strong-points.

My favorite historic women warriors are mostly Celtic, Pictish, and Briton. Though the Egyptians, Greeks, Russians, and Ethiopians had some very ferocious women.

For the ancient Celts, women warriors weren't so unheard of as for some other cultures. Cuchulain (a great Irish warrior [male]) was trained by a woman revered for her skills in battle and his own mother was a warrior. I've heard that there were women in the Fianna. There were quite a few Celtic queens who led armies into battle (Mebh, Boudiccia).

Anyway, I guess I'm just trying to say...

I need to find a place that willl teach lessons in swordfighting (probably with short-swords) and archery (non-compound bow!!!). My dad only teaches styles of swordfighting from Asia- which is beautiful and deadly... just not what I want to learn right now.

All of these women are deserving of individual posts in the future. I'll probably do a post on Lady Claire and her beautiful red hair (I wish I had her hair!) and another one on Guinevere and her fun outfits and awesome bow, too.

Yeppers.

Love,

Belle

World View Essay... just for fun

I wrote this a few months ago for my anthropology class and figured that some in the world might like to read it.

My World View

What do you believe? Sounds like a simple question, right? That is, until you realize how deep a question that really is and how far into yourself you have to look in order to answer it effectively. My mind has been coming back to this basic question often, and I decided that in order to figure out exactly what it is I do believe, I had to break down all of it. I went down to the very basics; the roots; the things that define me and stay with me consistently throughout my life. Once I had a clean canvas to start from, I started to build up three main points of my beliefs: deity, spirituality vs. religion, and civilization vs. wildness.

The first thing I needed to figure out was the religious/spiritual aspect of belief. I started with the beginning: creationism vs. evolutionary theory. I decided that I definitely believe in a higher power; a Great Spirit, if you will. Then, I thought “do I believe in the God of my parents?” and looked into that. My father is what I like to call a “Traditional Judeo-Christian Hypocrite” in that he attends church on a regular basis and spews religious doctrine at anyone who will listen, all in an effort to make himself look good. Though I don’t think he’s deliberately malicious- just understandably mentally unhinged- I definitely don’t want to be like him. My mother is more spiritual than religious- something that I really respect about her- but she has some rather strange ideas about the origins of life. They concern aliens, and that’s all I have to say on that matter. My father’s family isn’t exactly Lutheran, but quite close. And my mother’s family isn’t exactly Wiccan/Pagan, but more of a Christian-Jewish-Witch-transcendental mix, with some decidedly scientific qualities. So, with such an interesting religious background to draw from, I was thoroughly confused to say the least. I really examined myself on a deep level to answer this particular question, asking myself some uncomfortable things and even having a breakdown or two. There are certain parts of myself that I have spent a great deal of my life trying to get away from. So many people I care about would not approve of these parts and for a while I tried not to approve of them either. I realize this sounds like a segue into “coming out”, but trust me it isn’t. My mother’s side of the family has a long history of interest in witchcraft, the paranormal, and astrology. I have always gone to church and heard the Bible and felt that there was something missing. I see so many things in the religion that I was told was “the only right religion” from such a young age, that I honestly have trouble agreeing with and believing. It’s not a matter of faith- I have tons of faith in a lot of things- it’s a matter of values: my values. My values are puzzle pieces that will not fit into the religious puzzle. Any religious puzzle, not just Christianity. For me, for anything to really work it has to have balance, and where is the balance in the primary religions in the world? I believe that for a spiritual belief system to be balanced there must be female and male aspects. A God and a Goddess. And why can’t that fit in with monotheism? Christianity tells us that there is a divine Trinity- three aspects of one God. Separate and together. If God can be His own son and father, why can’t He be his own wife and Her own husband, too? Is that just too weird to comprehend? Or maybe my mom is right and they are separate, I don’t see anything wrong with that. To put an extremely complex topic into a relatively short paper, I’ll say simply that I believe that there must be a God and Goddess, that all of nature has a spirit, and that I share a lot of the beliefs of ancient Celtic Paganism- such as ideas about a fertility Goddess, sacredness in the Earth, and many other things. The biggest thing that I spent a long time trying to escape in life was magic. I believe in magic. I do not believe that witches are evil. And that has always been the thing that I couldn’t reconcile with Christianity and the “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” mentality.

On a similar but not the same topic, I also feel very strongly about spirituality being more substantive than religion. I think that spirituality holds more weight and that it tends to mean more. In my experience, God seems to mean more to spiritual people than to religious people. “Religious people” go to church to erase their sins and to feel better about themselves. “Spiritual people” go to church- or don’t- to feel closer to that deeper meaning of life, to feel closer to that higher power, and they tend to be less materialistic and judgmental. I don’t want to feel like praying, like talking to God, is an obligation- I want to want to talk to God. I don’t want my father to constantly be on my back to go to church because I won’t be saved if I don’t go, because I don’t think that’s true at all. I believe that God- or Goddess, or Great Spirit or whoever or whatever that power over us is- will forgive me for not giving into the institution that is organized religion. I believe that when I stand on the beach by the lake, pondering the meaning of life, and a gentle breeze stirs it’s nature telling me that it agrees. And that when I lose myself in the forest there is deeper meaning to it than just simply being lost in the woods, like it means something profound and metaphoric, like by losing myself I’m finding something more.

The last thing I wanted to write about was wildness and animal instinct versus civilization, and my convoluted ideas on that matter. Humans are animals with instincts and weaknesses just like every other animal, but the most distinguishing characteristic that humans do not share with other species is the absolute obsession with escaping those animal instincts and weaknesses. People want to feel special, like we’re better than other animals. But why are we the best? Because we can build cars and atomic bombs and we live in cramped cities and many of us live in consumer-driven economically successful societies? Those are surely shallow and ridiculous things to measure our success and evolutionary progress by! I once told a few classmates that I think that dolphins are smarter than humans, and they were so offended! They made comments along the lines of: “yeah, well, when I see a dolphin make a computer then maybe I’ll believe that” or “when I see a dolphin drive a car I’ll think about that a little more seriously”. I couldn’t really accept their refuting arguments as adequate and told them that maybe the reason that dolphins don’t have computers and cars is because- other than the obvious physical restrictions- they are smarter, and know the possible problems that computers and cars could bring them. My classmates just laughed at me. I didn’t care. The point of this anecdote is simply to illustrate that most humans are incapable of even entertaining the notion that other species could possibly be anywhere near as important as they are and that all life is sacred. Civilization at its most basic root is just the attempt by people to further distance themselves from the wild, because they are afraid of it, intimidated by it. Modern humans- with the exception of mountain men and a few others- have evolved into helpless children that, should civilization as we know it crumble, would be left utterly defenseless. I look around at the paved roads and skyscraping buildings filling this fair country and am struck by how completely different from the rest of the animal kingdom humans appear to be from the outside. But on a deeper level, at the basis of existence we are not so different that we should rule this world while we limit other animals to culturally acceptable places and force them into fear and submission. I may sound like a ranting hippie, but honestly I’ve just been trying to break free of the bonds of societal ideas and form my own which is extremely taxing. This is where the convolution comes in. I sometimes wish that I could escape this place and go live in New York or somewhere that I could be surrounded by things to do, because I have this crazy thing with freedom and options and feeling trapped. Of course, New York is just about the paved road and skyscraper capitol of the United States, so how can I want to live there if I see that it is full of things that I see as the downfall of American culture and most of the human species? Who knows? Other times I just want to live alone in the forest, living with the Earth and no one else, bathing in a clear creek, and being completely self-sufficient. I never think that I’d be bored with that, but I’m often bored to the point of depression in the middle of the two extremes because I’m just an extreme person, I guess. I honestly can’t tell you how I will ever be able to reconcile the two extremes in myself that I have mentioned in this paper or the opposing viewpoints of the two different sides of my family. But maybe that’s the point of being human: being a contradiction not only to the nature of what we were born to be and what we are shaped into by our culture, but also to ourselves, and spending our entire existence trying to come to terms with the crazy fact that the magnetic poles of who we are as individuals must- by their very nature as polar opposites- be on opposing ends of our personal worlds.

There is no one “right way” to do anything, there are many. The Earth is an example of this phenomenon. The Earth is full of people who are nothing like each other and other animals who are nothing like each other and nothing like us. We are all individual; no one being believes exactly the same thing as another. This world is full of so many different ideas and beliefs that how can anyone ever think that they are the only one who is right? This paper cannot hold my beliefs. No one will ever understand my beliefs completely, and I will never understand theirs completely, because something that complex cannot be confined to something so simple as ink and paper, nor can it be fully expressed through words in any medium. I can only ever hope to do my very best to understand my own ideas as completely as possible; I can only try to understand myself and strive to understand others as much as humanly possible and accept that they are right, as much as I am right.

Thanks for reading! I really enjoyed writing it and thought that by posting it, maybe it could inspire... something in someone out there, or something... or maybe my readers will understand me a little better after reading it. Haha! I know that can be difficult! I am a mystery even to myself...