One Chanter meeting, Darren, poet and self-described “internet fiend”, told me he knew about this blog. “You never update it,” he said. “Why?”

It’s a good question. Though I’ve been parked at this web space since 2004, I have never regularly updated this site. There were times when I updated often, of course, but consistency, in the broad sense, has never been a virtue of citizenb. And I have, without a doubt, lost readers for this reason, as well as a valuable opportunity to practice writing and get my thoughts out there. I even go so far as to promise more and more-consistent updates (case-in-point: the as-of-yet unwritten post on the RNC) and fail to deliver.

So, where’s my sense of commitment? Why don’tI update this thing? “I’m lazy,” I said to Darren. Even if that is true, it is too easy an answer. When it really comes down to it, I don’t know.

But it’s something I’ve been thinking about, even before Darren pointed out my lack of commitment. On a hike along the shore of Lake Superior this summer, Jaynin asked me why I write. Responding, I sounded like a politician: my answers were anything but straight. I always talked about being a writer in some future capacity, she said, blabbering on about how I could become one, as if it were some benchmark I had to fly by or some position I could get promoted to. Didn’t you become a writer by writing? Or maybe not even–all you had to do was identify, to represent. No one needed to give you permission. It came from within, not from without.

One of the most thought-provoking pieces of advice someone gave me when I was leaving high school was this: no one ever grows up. You’ll still always been who you always have been–mercurial, constant, good, bad, fast or slow. You do not reach some magical plateau where things are figured out, people behave, and life is more discrete. While some people may embody ‘grown-up-ness’, the process of becoming and being grown-up is something based on coercion and consent, an embrace of older age and identity or a tacit, unsaid acceptance.

In the same way, I am thinking now, you do not become a writer: you are or are not. It is a state of mind achieved through a sometimes subconscious handshake of interior thought and social life. And I am realizing more and more that I am not a writer. I talk about becoming a writer because I understand something intuitively: I cannot identify as a writer because I lack the confidence to do so. I lack the confidence because I do not write and I do not write because I am afraid: afraid I do not know what to write about, afraid that others will not like it, afraid I will waste my time, afraid, most of all, that I am not good enough.

This is how far the rabbit-hole goes. I realize now, to appropriate Pogo, that I have met my enemy and he is me. I write for other people. I write because that’s what I have been told I should do. I have to find my own voice. I have to write for me.

I suddenly have an ecstatic appreciation for my Macalester education.

There have been moments–many, in fact–in which I have regretted both the time I have spent while at Macalester and the fact itself that I chose to be at Macalester. Let me put this in no uncertain terms: Macalester is difficult. The schoolwork can be overwhelming, doubly so if you haven’t given up on completeness–if you’re a perfectionist like me (or like I used to be–I think I’ve recently abandoned that ideal) and want to do all the readings. But even more so, being at Macalester challenges being. It upsets the status quo, and makes you question your own actions, as well as those of others. Engaging with Macalester’s radical political identity (really, engaging Macalester’s interface with the leftist humanities scholarship) is like looking at yourself in the mirror, hard, for four years. Which is why life here can feel joyless, even if it is not.

But tonight, for the first time, I believe my Macalester education is wholly without need of redemption. I can accept it, affirm it, arms open. Earlier in the evening, when I was walking with Tyson, I passed a friend, Darren, engaged in a heated-verging-on-angry conversation outside the library. I walked past, almost thinking it was a joke, before I stopped a few steps down the sidewalk, hesitant, and turned back. Read the rest of this entry »

GardenWorks, the small nonprofit I’ve been interning with, is run out of a few messy cubicles at the Green Institute, an eco-enterprise clearinghouse in the industrialized Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis. Their offices are first on the left as you walk in. There’s an impromptu waiting area at the front. The bike rack is visible through the window. A poster reads: “The first step is admitting ‘White’ is a race.” The cubicles are laid out in a line, and to get to my supervisor Kirsten Saylor’s office, I have to take the narrow walk past each assembled office. The walls are peppered with papers, posters, tacked-up to-do lists, and people look up as I pass. It is hard not to look lost.

I have only visited once. GardenWorks is actually Gardening Matters now, and Kirsten, Ila and a slew of helpers moved out of the Green Institute a week back. The organization is going into hibernation in Ms. Saylor’s garage, and will reemerge an independent, incorporated nonprofit. I am not exactly sure when their winter will be over, either, though I am sure that it will long after my tenure is up. All of which leaves me unsettled, if freed. As the intern staying on even as the organization transitions, the problem of independence is unwaveringly, unashamedly present.

I cannot say I did not know what I was getting into. I knew what the state of things would be before I jumped. Part of the interest was the independence. Much of what I am interested in doing—research, journalism, writing—requires self-starting. This was a test. Another part was the project itself: I would be piecing together a history of community gardening for Saint Paul, building on research done by another intern, Kim, who did extensive work on the west metro area over the summer. I have always been interested in history, and this would be a chance to write it. The final part, the organization, was solid. GardenWorks, their website said, existed to “promote and preserve community gardening throughout the Twin Cities metro area by connecting community gardeners.” They seemed to get community, and gardening has been an interest of mine.

Read the rest of this entry »

I should be doing homework now, art history, but instead I’m thinking about the riot cops, free speech, the RNC, and Coldsnap Legal Collective as John McCain makes his speech in the Xcel Center. It’s been a wild couple of days here in Minnesota and I’d like to share some of my thoughts. Just not now. Maybe, in a few days, after the pieces of the Brawl in Saint Paul have settled out, and I’ve had more time to sift through my thoughts.

Speaking of settling out, the end of summer and the beginning of school has my head still spinning — there’s too much to do already, and I’ve still got to finish putting my house together, and find a new bike to replace my former steel steed who was stolen a week back. All this doesn’t mean nothing’s happening here: if you haven’t noticed, citizenb is back with a larger format. Pretty.

Updates soon.