30 Days of 30: Sarah Berkowitz

Sarah Berkowitz is another one of those superheroes. Her contributions to the Wooden Shoe as treasurer, zine orderer, among other roles, have invaluably helped to make the collective what it is today. Sarah is one of the smartest and most inspiring activists I have met in Philadelphia. Hopefully one day we’ll carve out some time in both of our busy schedules to finally make that Hole cover band, that we’ve dreamed about for so long, become a reality.

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This weekend I went to the Chicago Zine Fest. I left Philly around 3pm on Thursday and I drove through the night with my partner, Ryan. I’m 29 now. I have been involved in zines for about half my life. Many of the things that were important to me when I was younger are still a big part of my identity. Feminism, anarchism, veganism, social justice, reproductive rights have all been a pretty big part of my life for the past 10 years. These have been my anchors when everything else was in turmoil throughout my 20’s. 

I have been thinking about turning 30 for about a year. It is on my mind a lot. Especially because a lot of the things I am interested in attract younger folks. It feels good to have experience and to feel grounded in that experience. But sometimes I crave more peers my own age that are interested in the same projects I am interested in.

When I was a teenager I never really thought about life after college. I had no specific goals of marriage or a full-time job.  I had little aspirations for life rituals. I spent a lot of my early 20’s crying and feeling sad. Things constantly felt hard- relationships, friendships, and jobs. I stayed in bad situations for too long. When I was 24 I got what I thought could be a dream job. I became manager at a Planned Parenthood surgical center. It was a nightmare. I felt lost. Every full-time job I had had after college wrecked me. I had no idea how to advocate for myself so I stayed miserable in horrible work situations. These patterns were mirrored in a lot of my personal relationships as well.

I spent the second half of my 20s making drastic changes. I quit my job, went to therapy, traveled, spent summers biking around and swimming in fountains. I started staffing at the Wooden Shoe. I took risks, put myself out there and learned a lot of new skills. Eventually I morphed into someone that was pretty sassy and assertive. 

I haven’t had a full-time job in 3 years. I’ve been taking classes to go back to school for nursing and working various part time jobs. I still feel weary about striving for a full-time career. I know that jobs are never going to be satisfying or fulfilling completely. I would choose not to work if I didn’t have to. What satisfies me the most are the projects I don’t get paid for. I like feeling connected to the things I have felt passionate for in my youth. I don’t want to give up my radical ideals. I feel a sense of pride that I am still connected to anarchism and feminism and vegetarianism. I have seen so many people give up on these things over the years. It can be really disheartening. 

When I was 18, someone told me that one of the members of the band Submission Hold got a circle-A tattoo when he turned 30. I thought that was so cool! Everyone gets punk and anarchy tattoos when they first get into it but to get it when you are 30 means that you have sat with these things and let them become a part of your life. You are in it for the long haul.

With that in mind, I have been planning to enter my thirtieth year with an event I have been calling 30 days of 30. I want to plan an event for my 30^th year for 30 days around my actual birthday on Sept 28^th. September tends to be a strange month and personally there have been some major losses around my birthday so I would really like to reclaim this time of year. I expect to use some of those days to get tattoos that I have been talking about getting for 10 years.

When I think about being 30, I finally feel like I am a grown up. I feel ready to buy a house and move in with a partner, to move across the country, and to think about having kids. When I was in college the first time I never cut class or took a lot of risks. I had a lot of insecurities.  I’m an adult now, so I’m confident that cutting class to drive to Chicago for a zine fest to see a Q & A with Aaron Cometbus and Al Burian is the right thing to be doing with my weekend. Cometbus zine also turns 30 this year. It was comforting to hear Aaron Cometbus say, “Some people have kids, I’ve been doing a magazine for 30 years.” It is ok to stick with what you know.

Release: Tami Devine

The first year I lived in Northampton I used to go to the Smith College library to check my email. One day in the early fall I was sitting at one of the computers when I noticed a familiar face two monitors. Well, I wasn’t actually confident about the familiarity so I logged into Friendster (remember that?) and did a search for Tami Devine who, sure enough, had just started a grad program at UMass-Amherst. I came over and whispered a one word question: “Bard?” It was that moment that we became good friends since, although we sat in the same row at commencement with the other D’s, we never hung out in college.  I miss Tami a lot. Her unique wit and elegance are almost from another era. Tami is one of a kind.

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For those of you Class of ‘99ers who are already thirty, I’m still 29, suckas! It will be that way until October, when I’ll join your pitiful ranks of over the hillers. The casual “checking people’s age out” and seeing where I stand has not left me. A lady on Judge Judy was a divorced mom of 3 at 22. My college buddy is a homeowner and mom at 30. My colleague is a 40 year old divorced mom looking for love on Match. My parents continue to evolve and seek enrichment in their employment and activities going on 60. These numbers, once so damning (remember the “old” Bard students who were like, 26?), now seem such useless measurements.

Thirty meant something different to our parents, who probably had babies + a house + a wedding ring and all that jazz. Thirty seemed to be the arbitrary “I’d like to married by...” date when I was a youngster playing Barbies. In my child mind, like that would give me a whole decade to spread my wings and establish a career for myself GUFFAW!!!! The cruelty of it all, if little me could see me now! I’m Masters degreed-out now, sometimes a caricature of the overqualified & mortified crowd. I’m working similar jobs to those I worked before my fancy degree. But you all know the story. We’re questioning it all. We want better. Some days I wonder why I didn’t go for my MRS degree ...hardy har. Like after all that angsty riot grrling, listening to PJ Harvey + reading bell hooks in coffeeshops, I like to think I’d make a pretty damn good SAHM.

A few years ago one of the issues I was struggling with was that I didn’t feel like an “adult,” and it was all tied up with how my parents kind of never let me be an adult. I won’t bore you with all that now. But I kept going back to that fetal position. While my friends were spreading their wings I was like just dipping my feet in adult life through sublets and vacuous pursuit of internships. There was always a feeling of “if I fail, I’ll just move back home.” I wasn’t really trying, I guess, the clicking life clock paralyzing me into a dull anxiety.

Well, while I wasn’t looking all that kind of Adultness happened to me. I stopped blocking my own life joy. Volleyball - I’ve loved you since age 12 - but art school and glam rock emo boyfriends made me feel like I was a dork for loving you. I got the courage to get out there + play because I LOVE IT. I got two cats, recently a dog, and all that “responsibility” I used to desperately dodge from, I now seem to crave. I’ve met my “Ken” of sorts. That warm glow of family is hard to trade in for some of the ugliness of younger days. But I haven’t said “I do”; and maybe the absence of anything carved into marble is a relief.

One night last summer, I pulled my car over to the side of Route 9 to remove a cat who was struck by a car to its woodsy grassy resting place. That *choice* of putting my compassion into action and experience the grief of the loss of life - whilst blocking traffic- was a poignant moment of connection to my adult self. I’ve had the mildest feeling that something pure and organic was flowing out of me - I didn’t feel like I was trying to be someone else. I’m hoping for the next decade to put that feeling of connection to my true self - and what I believe to be REAL in this world- into action less seldomly. I don’t want to be the passer-by.

“Release” has been my mantra over the past year, and I’ve felt really strongly like I am shedding skin, shedding stale friendships that no longer nourish me, holding me back in their superficiality. There are those who will be left behind in a cloud of smoke, never to be seen again, except in facebook land. As will you too—left behind as people move on, past you.

We couldn’t have imagined it back then, but this is what thirty looks like. I think I’m doing all right...and so are you.

Falling Short of Fourth: Kristin Bott

When I was in fourth grade, my (fabulous) teacher, Ms. Dearing, had a "Shine On" board, which would highlight a different student every week. Everyone in the class would write a note, scrawling something positive about you and cover it in well-intentioned crayon. You would fill up the board with important pictures and "About Me"-type worksheets.

One of these worksheets asked you to draw a picture of you five, fifteen years from "now." In careful Crayola marker, there's a picture of me in my late 20s, which looks strikingly like the rendering of me when I was 15, which is closely related to "me now" at 10. Except: when I'm older, I am standing next to a marker-man, in front of a misshapen marker-house, and I feature a seriously pronounced butt. (Apparently I knew that girls' butts get bigger as they age. Dear fourth-grade me; they're called hips, please.)

By fourth-grade metrics - I'm quite behind on my timeline. I hit 30 next week - and unlike many of my friends and peers, I lack both house and spouse. (The hip-size predictions, though, are spot-on. We're a sturdy people...)

It has been a bit strange to watch the rest of the pack pull away in various senses, engagements announced and houses purchased, pregnancies heralded on the book of face and pictures of little wrinkly-old-men-looking babies triumphantly shared after the big day.

My peers have partners, kids, careers. I was always one of those kids who kept up with front of the class... and now there are days when I feel impossibly behind. All the loveable ones are married. All the serious ones have houses. All the dedicated ones have children. All the focused ones have Job Plans.

Kristin... you're doing it wrong?

But, wait. In between donning bridesmaids dresses and making plans for sewing baby bibs, I've managed to do some things. One and a half graduate programs and some number of stints as a research scientist (field and lab, both). I've been a science educator, labor organizer, non-profit Jill-of-whatever-you-need. Four states of residence since leaving my native Idaho; in each, I've gone from knowing nothing/no one to having community and some "sense of place."

Yes, there have been some number of honest attempts at long-term committed relationships (my own mother "can't keep track of them anymore"... thanks, Mom), with n-1 that have reached the end of their best-functioning term. And, not uniquely, one of the "ends" includes a messy Saturn's return timeline; just before I turned 28, I moved in with my guy-for-life and was teaching college full-time. Six months later, I had gone through a horrendous break-up/move-out and was concurrently working four part-time jobs - it was awful. By the time I turned 29, I had settled into one full-time job and fallen in with a new, fabulous partner (who is still around and still fabulous).

There are moments of panic, when I realize how behind I am - losing at the spouse game, the property contest, the job of producing and/or raising children, of having a single, focused career.

But there are also moments of satisfaction, sitting in my studio apartment, looking out over my home city and over at the mountains, or brewing beer/cooking dinner/gardening/traveling with my guy - where I can't quite imagine doing this any other way.

Hello, 30. You're huge, you're looming, you are impending doom and horrible bouts of navel-gazing. You are a reminder of all of the things I Am Not Doing That I Should Be Doing.

But... you also look suspiciously like other things I've seen before. Like other gigantic impossibilities, summiting Mt. Hood or running a half-marathon, job searching in a horrible economy or completing a difficult graduate program, that were overcome with a simple, calm, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-with-a-sense-of-purpose approach.

Maybe you're actually just another year, and your significance is an artifact of our base-10 number system. I'm with Pamela on this one - there's a lot ahead, and you're just the start.

Dear 30, you don't get to make me feel behind. Dear 30, I'm doing everything exactly as I should be, including all of the rough spots and bad episodes. Dear 30, I still don't know what I'm going to be when I grow up or whether or not a house, kids, dog, spouse is/are in the plan. But, dearest 30, that's how this is going to work.

And - dear fourth-grade me, I'm sorry to let you down. But, with all due respect, ten-year-olds have a somewhat poor track record of accurately predicting the future.

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Kristin grew up in southern Idaho, a land filled with sagebrush and Republicans. She's lived, worked, and studied in western Montana, southern Arizona, and mid-Michigan, where she met Pamela Roy. When not busily failing to produce children, land a spouse, or purchase real estate, Kristin rides her bike early and often, brews beer, reads books, cooks good food, and maintains a decent garden. She works at a non-profit in Portland, where she lives with three houseplants, four bikes, and multiple rain jackets; you can find her tales of bikes, beer, and breakfast at: http://bikingpotato.blogspot.com/.

Permission Granted: Mary Tasillo

I met Mary Tasillo through our amazing mutual friend Johanna Marshall. After both growing up on Cape Cod, Johanna and I surprisingly discovered that we had become neighbors in West Philadelphia a couple years ago. I don't know Mary well, but from the various dinner parties we've shared in Johanna's kitchen I can attest that she is a genuinely good person. Mary seems to always have a really cool project going on too. I'm excited about checking out Soapbox, her new independent publishing center.

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I was a pretty early starter on figuring out a direction in life – not that I ever could have pictured present day Mary as 8-year-old Mary, or even 15-year-old Mary. Of course, 15-year-old Mary did not actually think she would make it past 20. She could not envision it at all. Perhaps this has freed me to feel right on target with everything I have been doing surrounding 30, since I had no notions of 30 at such a formative age.

But the pieces of me that encompass creativity, text, image-making, hand crafting, and a life surrounded by books were present early on, and coalesced after a fashion in college (by which point I’d figured out that life got better year after year and that I was definitely going to see life well past twenty). This sent me to graduate school at 24 to get an MFA in Book Arts and Printmaking. In a way this early clarity only delayed the floundering, because to pursue an arts degree is never to pursue any kind of clear career path. Which is how I found myself in and out of various jobs, interspersed with taking time off from working, throughout the latter part of my twenties, while continuing to make art, land the occasional residency, and present at arts conferences. At twenty-eight I landed a day job doing administrative work for an architect. Architects are workaholics. They don’t take any time off, and they don’t like it when you do (even though, as creative types, they like that you are an artist). By twenty-nine, I was plotting my escape from the day job for the architect. Of course, this was right after the economy tanked, and while I was very lucky to still have a job working for an architect, I was going to be hard pressed to get, for example, a job at an arts non-profit.

I’ve never been one to set practical goals. If I were, where would I be? You have to think about where you’d like to be and point yourself towards it. Thus, while working forty hours a week at a desk, and juggling occasional teaching gigs besides, I set a goal that at 30 I would make a transition into teaching and freelancing. Also, sitting at my desk one August day, I decided to start a community print space and zine library. I’d been talking around the idea with various folks for several years now, but had lost the conviction I’d had straight out of graduate school that I could be involved in making this a reality. I’m not sure what shifted that day in the late afternoon sun, but I decided that goddammit, I was going to make it happen, however that might look.

Low and behold, a few months later I met someone else who shared the vision of the community space. “Well,” we each thought, “I’m about to turn thirty so it seems like I can do something like this.” Permission granted. Permission granted to do big things and be taken seriously about it.

So at thirty, we bought a house together and started creating the groundwork for a community space on the first floor.

That same summer, at thirty, I landed enough teaching work to launch me out of the office job into the world of adjuncting and freelance. Maybe this is backwards, in certain circles, to be leaving stability and health insurance for something more piecemeal and unfinished, a choice of process over product. But in my view, the ability to keep the support under one’s feet while walking this path is a thing of beauty (if awkward at moments). Permission granted.

Thus, still early in Year 31, I find myself winding down after the inaugural event, a zine library opening and reading, for The Soapbox: Philadelphia’s Independent Publishing Center. Not even two years after that decision one August afternoon, the community print space is a reality – even if we are not yet 100% set up for community printing. My jobs consist of a combination of editorial work, teaching, book conservation, and art cataloging. And it is not the wisdom, but the permission of 30, that allowed all this to happen. (Sure, plus some leg work I put in through my twenties. The work, experimentation, and exploration I did created momentum.) Rather than serving as a benchmark, 30 has allowed me to let go of any notions of being finished, in terms of life planning and choosing a path. What a miracle to find life still getting better year after year, when 15-year-old Mary, who was finding life as an adolescent to be more difficult each year, could not envision life past 20.

Transporting My Dog on My Motorcycle: Brihannala Morgan

At the height of the gloomy Bush era, one year after the invasion of Iraq was launched, I found myself living in Madison, Wisconsin. This is where I met Bria Morgan. She had recently moved back to her hometown to work on the 2004 campaign against, well let's just say, Bush's re-election. Bria was one of the most committed activists I had ever met and was one of the people in Madison that helped me make sense of both an unfamiliar city and the chaotic world we were trying to change for the better. Currently serving as the director of The Borneo Project, it is no surprise that Bria has continued to tirelessly sustain her political organizing work since that dark period when we first met. 

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When I was 22, I set out a life plan: I was going to finish college, travel and work abroad for 2 years, come back to America, get my master's degree, and go work for the Rainforest Action Network in San Francisco. Strangely enough, that is almost exactly what I did. Yes, I dropped out of grad school a year early to work for the Rainforest Action Network, and yes, I traveled internationally for a year and a half instead of two years, but mostly I was right on the money.

Two things strike me now, about this plan. First, I seem to have stopped planning right around the time I was going to hit 30. Considering how detailed my plans had been up to that point, why did I stop? I wouldn't mind having that road map to follow right now. The other part is that I totally left out anything that had to do with relationships, marriage, kids, etc. And when I think about it, I have actually still only been to one wedding, and I have never been to a wedding of someone my age. Most of my good friends aren't even in long term relationships, which has to be an anomaly at my age. If I had planned a relationship into my life plan at age 22, would things be different now?

So, now I am about to turn 30, and it seems like a good time to take stock. Where has following my now 8-year-old life plan gotten me? I have had an amazing career, working around the world on forest activism. I now run my own tiny non-profit which I struggle to keep above water, but which I love. I have dated a series of amazing men, but none that I ever figured I would settle down with. I have cash, which is a blessing, and no debt, which is wearing down so many folks of my generation. In general, I have succeeded in those goals that I set out when I was 22. I am also happy to say that I have only gotten more radical with age, instead of embracing compromise, which I thought might happen.

But, call it age, or Saturn returns, or whatever the bejezzus you want to call it, I actually do find my priorities changing. I have no interest in “settling down”, but I would really like to set down roots, both in a home, a community, and in a relationship. This wasn't part of the plan at all, really, until less than a year ago. I really want a dog. But I also want to figure out a way to transport a dog on my motorcycle. Really, that is actually a perfect microcosm of where I find myself right now. I want a dog, but I want to carry my dog on my motorcycle. It's not easy to do (although it is possible... at least the in the literal sense). 

I wish I could set a plan out for my 30s the way I did in my early 20s, and stick to it. But I don't have the same closed-minded commitment to career and success that I did when I was 22. I do know that in my 30s I fully intend on continuing to work to save forests and protect the rights of the people who live on them. I fully intend to do whatever I can to topple capitalism, using all the tools I have, from direct actions to clothing exchanges. I know I want my 30s to be filled with dinners cooked with friends, as well as new endeavors that push me to be stronger, and more creative. I know I want to find a relationship that I can sink my teeth into, and I want a dog. And, of course, a way to transport that dog on my motorcycle.

The Big 3-0: Melissa Reed

When I lived in Northampton, MA I had a dear friend that wouldn't come visit me at the cafe where I worked. "I don't want to see you like that. I want to see you dancing," Liz explained. When I think of Melissa Reed, who I also met in Northampton, I imagine her in that state of freedom, dancing the night away. Melissa is one of the sweetest and most honest people I know. I'm excited for her dance into a new era of life; thriving, and free.  
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I feel like I’m getting younger and wiser.

My 30^th birthday is only two months away. It has been weighing heavily on my mind. The thing is I grew up too fast. I’ve been independent for a long time (or so that’s what people tell me). Definitely far too responsible.

I grew up in a small town in New Hampshire. My parents found God around the time I turned four. They sent me to a private Christian School from Kindergarten to 8^th grade. Then, thanks to my sister’s learning disabilities, we both got to go to a public high school.

Since I can remember, I was required to go to church every Sunday. Missing a week was not an option. “If you’re too sick for church, then you’re too sick to hang out with your friends,” my parents said. So I went. I didn’t always dislike church. It was something we did every Sunday, just like eating dinner together as a family. But over time I started to feel like a hypocrite. I didn’t want to go anymore.

Growing up, my parents never encouraged me to reach for my dreams, never encouraged me to go to college. I never even thought of it as an option. To be honest, I’m not sure my parents even believed that I could. Since I was kid, my parents have filled me with so much doubt. They never trusted me to do the right thing. Throughout my adolescence, my parents taught me to fear; to fear the world, to fear people I didn’t know, above all to fear the unknown.

In high school, when I had the option of choosing my classes, I always picked the easy ones. I didn’t apply myself. I knew that I was cheating myself by taking easy classes, but what did it matter? I didn’t know what I was good at anyways. What were my passions? I didn’t know that, either. I couldn’t envision any kind of future for myself outside of my house, but by that time I knew I couldn’t live with my parents any longer.

At age seventeen, in my junior year of high school, I ran away. My parents had given me an ultimatum: go to church or we’ll take away your car and your driver’s license. I turned in the keys to my boxy Ford Festiva and headed for Vermont. 

Dropping out of school wasn’t really part of my plan. I just needed to get away from my parents. I tried to enroll in a high school in Vermont, but that didn’t pan out because I was still a minor and not a tax-paying resident. The following months were very challenging. I survived mainly through perseverance and the kindness of strangers. I tried renting a room from a friend, only to have my rent money stolen. After that, I lived with my boyfriend at the time in a tent beside the Connecticut River. (This my parents really didn’t understand; my mom said, “if you like camping so much, why don’t you set up a tent in the backyard.") From there, I moved around more, worked anyplace that would hire me: gas stations, pizzas joints, supermarkets.

Since I left home, I have been trying to find my way in this big scary world that my parents taught me to fear. I have been living in Massachusetts for the last twelve years now and working at a supermarket, whose name I won’t mention, for eleven. I hadn’t intended on staying where I am so long. It just happened. I started off working third shift stocking shelves because the pay was good. Eventually I moved to days, and from there into a managerial position.

My job has it perks. I have sick days, personal days, a good health insurance plan. Starting next year, I’ll be up to four weeks of paid vacation. Over the years, I’ve been able travel to places like New Zealand, Spain, France and Guatemala. I have a 401K. I should be happy, right? I’m on the right track. I have a silver 2005 Toyota Matrix that I bought brand new and paid off in less than four years. I probably have enough money saved for a down payment on a house.

But my job doesn’t make me happy. It’s the same thing day in and day out. The work is repetitive, mind numbing. I don’t feel satisfied. I want to use my mind. I’ve been there too fucking long. I feel trapped. 

Recently, I realized that the only way to change my life is to believe in myself and make that change happen. So that’s why, just shy of thirty, I’ve been putting myself out there, trying new things. I’m taking Spanish classes. I learned to knit. I’ve made myself a resume and looked into career counseling. I’m even seriously thinking about enrolling in a community college, which is a really, really big deal for me. For the first time in years, I can see a future for myself, a bright one full of hope and possibility. Lots of people are intimidated about turning the big 3-0, but I’m excited! For me, it feels like a new beginning.

The Year of the Whale: Pooja Kanwar

I think anyone that knows her would agree: Pooja Kanwar has super powers. She possesses the uncanny ability to balance fun with responsibility, reckless abandon with fierce intellect, and charisma with modesty. A superhero that is also deeply human. To say that our connection was based around music would be a gross understatement. With about a dozen mixtape exchanges and a number of live shows shared together, music has become embedded in the language of my friendship with Pooja. Catching up with her always renews my faith in humanity. I could go on, but I will just let Pooja take it from here...  

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It was December 27^th, 2009. I woke up perplexed by the peculiar nature of the dream that had fogged my mind over. I remember it as vividly today as I did that morning: I was with my good friend Rose from undergrad, and we were hiking (in legwarmers mind you) to the highest point in Burlington, Vermont. We reached the top and from an eagle's eye view, could see Lake Champlain rapidly inundate the city of Burlington. There were waves crashing on to the land, but more importantly, there were whales…so many whales…everywhere. Whales stranded on top of semi trucks, washed up into beer gardens, and many frantically swimming through minimal depths of freshwater, confined up against one another as if they were salmon spawning. It was a very distinct and chaotic feeling that I immediately wrote about when I woke up, posted on my Facebook and various other blogs. This was during the first month of my freshly commenced PhD program at the University of Vermont. I was 28 years old.

A few hours after I had wrote out my dream and my curiosity behind such vivid imagery, my best friend Kate asked me if I had seen the latest news in New Zealand. I had not and this was the link she sent me:  http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Beached-Whales-In-New-Zealand-Rescue-Teams-Save-Two-Thirds-Of-Pilot-Whales-That-Swam-To-Shore/Article/200912415509184

At this point, knowing that New Zealand is 18 hours ahead of the states, I felt pretty strange; almost as if I had seen this in my dream prior to it happening. Okay, okay…I know this is starting to sound like some new age touchy-feely business but bear with me...it intensifies. As I mentioned, this was my first year enrolled in a PhD program. I had no idea what I was going to be researching, or why, and this was anxiety inducing to say the least. My Bachelors and Masters degrees were both focused on India, specifically in rural water supply and rainwater harvesting practices and I had been struggling on where to go next with my research. A few months later, after contemplating switching advisors or potentially even Universities, a project was presented to me. It involved working in a harbor in the North Island of New Zealand, examining ecosystem services, policy infrastructure and governance challenges. 

A few days after I solidified my avenue of research, I went out and sat at a bar to have a victory beer. The woman who was sitting by me had a blue patch on her purse; it was of a Blue Whale.

So, now we have the whales, and New Zealand both of which have me constantly thinking about the dream I had months before. Jump back to winter break of 2009: I was visiting my home in the great state of Iowa when I had the dream. Over the past few years I had developed a strong connection with my dear friend from college who has been a reoccurring, and extremely positive, force throughout various points in my life. I was, at the time, in a relationship with someone else and it had been in flux for a good chunk of time at this point. I see my dear friend and things, well…get complicated. With the chaos of love, school and the classic late twenties crisis, my best friend took me to a psychic for my 29^th birthday. This woman informed me that I had a slightly open third eye and was experiencing a distinct cycle in my life…Saturn Return (I refer you now to a wonderful post by Traci Yoder that can help explain what this means). 

During my 29^th year I: ended a long term relationship, moved for the 12^th time in 10 years, solidified my dissertation research, found the love of my life, lost friendships I by no means would have anticipated losing while being reassured of those solid and stable parts of my life that will never budge, gained incredible new family and friends, strengthened relations with my immediate family, and have the best understanding I have had yet of what works for me in my life and what does not. 

I am now 30. Am I married? No. Do I own property? Sadly no, long live wasting money on rent. Do I have a job? Nope. I have been a student for 25 of my 30 years of existence. Do I even have a dog?!? Ack! I wish. Do I want all these things? Well, sure. Although, I am unsure if I did have these things that I would have lived in the eight different geographical areas I have, or worked the in the nine vastly different sectors I have been employed by. Maybe I would not have obtained two degrees and started the third degree I have dreamt of having my whole life, or fallen in love the number of times I have and failed… I was living, learning, failing, loving and repeating this process over and over until now, and I have found what works in a magical, motivating way and healthy way.  

I believe the dream I had was the beginning of my Saturn Return. The whales in my dreams represented a time of frantic change and that of colossal magnitude. The disorder depicted was symbolic of the trials and tribulations that would be coming to an end as I thankfully exited my 20’s. It was a time of exploration, experiencing hardships and bliss, and coming to a greater awareness for myself about what works with whom I am and who I strive to be. Honestly, I feel confident that through all the sorting and filtering through my 20’s the best is definitely yet to come, and I welcome my 30’s with open arms. 

[On a side note, I am about 60 days into my 30^th year and I ironically find myself writing a paper about whales for a marine ecosystem services class that I am required to take to complete an Ecological Economic certification program at UVM.]

The Rocking 30's: David Meek

I don't remember the moment we met, but my first memory of Dave Meek is crashing on sleeping bags together in an empty office in Quebec City. That was 2001, and we were there with dozens of other Bard student activists to protest the dubious Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) meetings that turned the city into a walled off, feudal warzone. Since then, we have shared many other memories together, at Bard and beyond, and have been close friends for a full decade now. In 2005, I introduced him to another dear friend, Jo Weaver, and two years later I was a groomsman in their wedding. I continue to cherish my friendship with both of Dave and Jo. They will always feel close by, even if they are perpetually thousands of miles away.  

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Having turned 30 going on two years ago now, it's interesting to reflect on what at the time seemed like an ominous and exciting milestone. I very distinctly remembered all the excitement and buildup surrounding the passing of that day (and its unsurprising but still a surprise “surprise party”). And all my friends joking that I was officially over the hill.....

At the time, married, in the midst of a Ph.d. program, with a house, dog and mortgage, I wondered whether they were right....(was I over the hill?) and then I decided, and still believe, that the late 20's/early 30's sure feel like I'm dab smack on top of the hill. And damn the view is good!

For me, this time has been one about perspective. Not so much a perspective focused on the immediate moment as perhaps those heady early 20s were, but about a longer perspective in which the present is very much valued, as the best time one has available to achieve one's dreams. To begin with, each of those previously mentioned things, which some might see as artifacts of dreaded Responsibility, including our most recent decision to have a baby while living in India, I see as choices made explicitly in the present with a longer perspective in mind (check out our blog for critical ruminations on the intersections of family life and academia). While each of those responsibilities might be shied away from, they've all had incredibly positive aspects, such as having a house has given me the opportunity to tear up the front yard and set up a massive urban garden.

From my perspective, those late 20's/early 30's have felt like a prolonged music jam session. Whether it is being semi-permanently nomadic, living in Brazil and now India as Jo and I conduct our Ph.d. research, or explore building community through urban gardening, it's been one exciting ride. Partially, these last few years have felt like an ongoing jam, because I made the decision that I was tired of wanting to learn to play music, and there was no time like the present to make good on that interest. Since going down the musical road, playing music has become an integral part of my daily life, and there is always three or four instruments within easy reach. All of those musings are to say, the top of the hill is great, but make sure you bring an instrument to provide your own theme song.

Demobilizing at 30: Ben Webster

I know Ben Webster through the Wooden Shoe. He has been the driving force for our weekly movie night, bringing his cinematic expertise and political savvy to the series. Ben is equally friendly as he is brilliant (as you will soon discover), and I'm sure one hell of a librarian too.
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It is worthwhile to reflect on life’s milestones, and when hitting the big 10-year intervals, it seems obligatory. Everyone approaching 30, as I did last month, is barraged with outside inquiries. I will pass. This personal reflection is valuable, but I have done it in private, so will try a different tack here. Perhaps a prejudice hardened over three decades is that against gratuitous public navel-gazing; I believe you used to be able to call it petty-bourgeois individualism. Instead I want to sketch a few thoughts relating the anxiety (or fascination?) of turning 30 to our particular moment in 21st century, postfordist capitalism. 

First, a common-place condition at 30 among people I know is a declining material standard of living vis a vis our parents. 30 is a convenient generational marker; it is generally the age when people are supposed to couple off, have kids, and take out a mortgage; it is often about the age our parents were when they had us. Much is made of the supposed moral failings of my generation, always referencing how many of us have boomeranged back to living in our folks’ basements. This is mostly bullshit. We can look instead on the sweep of capitalist restructuring from 1981 to today, in short hand, neoliberalism. This has meant the decimation of social services, stagnation or decline in real wages, rise of debt as a means of maintaining consumer spending and worker discipline, deindustrialization in the US, and the crushing and marginalization of people’s movements. If 30 is the new 20, it has little to do with immaturity, and everything to do with a political economy particularly harsh on young adults. Whereas stability could have been expected by a hard-working, educated 30 year old of generations past, now un(der)employment, crushing debt, and precarious living conditions are the norm. Many of my peers have desperately returned to the university or half-baked entrepreneurial gestures, usually only buying time until the next round of bills come due. The current global crisis has only tightened the screws. This obviously provokes anxiety when middle age is around the corner.

The ideological notion of 30 and of the 30 year old self may continue on autopilot, but the material content is probably gone for good. Yet the flip side (and, historically, one may argue, the root cause) of neoliberal restructuring is the expansion of alternative, autonomous strategies of social reproduction. We may include here collective and co-housing, subversion of the gendered division of labor, independent food production, alternative child-rearing, all-ages venues, etc. The left and its milieu continually elaborates and experiments with these practices, many of which insinuate within mainstream society. The barriers between age-determined divisions, ie 20's & 30's, “student “ or “parent,” tend to weaken. In other words, through the autonomous delinking from capital’s ascribed practices of reproducing labor, we decalibrate age from the standards of capital. 30 as a fetishized, anxious omen- a superego threat to remain passive and isolated, ie successful in capital’s eyes- is possibly weakened by collective rejections of capital’s structuring of our psyches, bodies, and lives. The categories (child, young adult, middle age, senior, 20's, 30's, 40's, etc.) of the life cycle read about in psychology and sociology text books, I conclude, are as much positivist suggestions for subordination to capital’s domination as they are physiological/psychological realities.

So although much of the significance of turning 30 has to do with individual perception, I also feel that it has a small ideological function and material relation to the world. My specific perception of turning 30 in 2011 is inseparable from the cycle of struggle which I began contributing effort to in high school. I suspect this is true of all those coming of age in a movement. Seattle went down my first semester in college, I reached drinking age in time to drown my sorrows during the invasion of Iraq. My participation in the dynamic cycle that is now commonly called the alterglobalization or global justice movement, its evolution and waning, is inseparable from my sense of adulthood, of communal fullness and isolation, of confidence and insecurity. Calendar age loses its hold involved in a movement in close contact with senior citizens and high school kids working for common goals. The waning of a movement hurts and drains, but new expressions of resistance always emerge. I’m no longer a student activist, but now a union member spoiling for a fight, to take one example; Seattle and Iraq are hazy memories, but Egypt and Wisconsin revitalize. If aging and its milestones are associated with resignation, cynicism, and declining expectations, then vigorous collective struggle for a better world may be an elixir of youth. Perhaps my optimism won’t hold up, but this is what I strive towards at the very least as I enter the cultural phenomenon that is one’s 30's.

Taking the Long Way Around: Colette Hall Vander Plas (formerly Ryder-Hall)

Colette Ryder-Hall was the first person I met in high school that did a zine. I'm pretty sure I didn't know what a zine was until I met her actually. One early issue of Looks Yellow, Taste Red featured a positive review of my sloppy 9th grade punk band PME, generously comparing us to my favorite band Dead Kennedys. Colette was also the first person I knew who dropped out of school on political/ethical grounds and, through her zine, taught me about Grace Llewellyn's classic The Teenage Liberation Handbook. This made Colette a mentor of sorts and definitely an inspiration, whether she knew it or not.

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First, I dropped out of high school. A year later, bored and frightened of enduring another Cape Cod winter, I went to college. After 5 years of enlightening but rather aimless higher education, at the ripe old age of 23, I graduated with a BA. I felt like a prisoner being let out of prison. I was terrified and I wanted back in. So I opted for a MA in creative writing. This involved moving to the middle of the country, discovering I hated teaching freshman comp and taking a job at a natural foods coop to cover the unexpected expenses of being a grad student (steep bar tabs and pricey plane tickets back home for major holidays, mainly). At the age of 25, I graduated again. I stayed at the coop job until I went insane at the age of 28 and realized I had to find a meaningful path in life (which did not involve the retail and merchandising of organic produce), or die trying. I quit my job and drove around the country in a blue Toyota Tercel for awhile, then returned to Iowa, where I went back to school (again) and got married. This is why now, at the age of 31, I find myself in the position of many 22-year-olds: about to graduate, broke and waiting on a Peace Corps application that has been in medical review for several months already.

I do feel old sometimes now. First, while most people assume I'm still in my early 20's when they meet me, I'm pretty sure they're not looking closely. I have collected a lot of white hairs in the past ten years. And I have officially moved past the time when wearing mini-skirts is a good idea. Second, it seems that in the Midwest people tend to get married and have families younger than was the norm on the East Coast. I got married at the age of 29 and while we plan on having a family, it's going to be a while. Being surrounded by people in their twenties who are far more "settled down" than me is weird and it fills me with irrational fear that I've wasted my most fertile years already.

Mostly, I am grateful to have entered my thirties. While the intense emotion and creative energy of my teenage years and early twenties made for a lot of excitement and productivity, it was hard. Everything was louder, brighter and potentially emotionally devastating. At the age of 31, I don't care as much and that's okay. I may not be producing a zine every five minutes or hand-crafting bizarre objects in my bedroom while listening to loud, angry music. I may not be routinely having intense heart-to-heart conversations with random people late into the night. I may not be full of righteous anger and a burning desire to assert myself at all times. Instead, I have an inner stability. I don't constantly wonder if I'm crazy. I don't blame everything on myself. I can rest assured that things generally work out, regardless of how much or how little I worry about them. I am becoming more comfortable with myself all the time.

So maybe my situation is a blessing - a chance to experience my early years of adulthood all over again, with the added bonuses of experience, confidence and inner balance. 

Climbing Up the Hill: Pamela Roy

It's funny how two people can start in different places, traveling separate routes, but occasionally end up in the same place. Twelve years ago(!), Pamela Roy and I arrived at Bard College on the same early August day. For the next 3 weeks, we were classmates in the Language & Thinking seminar for incoming freshmen. Pam was one of my favorite people I met at Bard that year. Since then, we have both lived in different parts of the Midwest and New England and, a decade after first meeting, we find ourselves both in Philadelphia trying to make sense of adulthood and life.   

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Looking through some old family photos, I see a picture of me, age 6, with my Uncle Bill. My uncle is wearing a plaid button-down and sitting behind a cake. I am standing to his right, in a pink striped shirt, arm around him, smiling. From behind his giant eyeglass lenses, his eyes also appear to be smiling. But on top of his head, cocked at an angle, sits a black paper party hat, with white writing that garishly announces, “Over the Hill”. 

It was his 30^th birthday party.

Now, approaching that same mark myself, I wonder what my 30^th birthday party will look like in photos, years later. It will be different from my uncle’s. I will not have any nieces or nephews in the picture, an ex-wife (or husband) under my belt, or a condominium in Providence. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether or not 30 is an appropriate milestone anymore. Maybe as a whole we are slowing the rush to “settle down”. 

Turning 30 does call for reflection about how I’ve changed in my adult life. Some of this recollection is not so deep. For example, I refuse to wear clothing with holes in it anymore, no matter how cute it once was. When before I could have been convinced to be outdoors all day long in the sun with no sunblock, now I cover up and slather that stuff on like it’s going out of style. There are also the bigger things. I still do not have a spouse, own a home, and have no offspring (nor blog). What do I have? A dog, a Master’s degree, and a job that is important and challenging. And, I have a clearer vision of who I am and what I want from life. Why allow myself to feel inadequate just because I am turning 30? Why does this age move us to a battle of the “haves” and “have-nots”?

You know “Over the Hill” – as in, “it’s all downhill from here.” How can it be? I am barely getting started. Perhaps this used to be and is still the case when, by 30, people have it all “figured out.” However, I know that even at 30, I still have many life decisions to make, some of which I will make more than once. I am not “Over the Hill”. I am still climbing up.

The Return of Saturn: Traci Yoder

It is my pleasure to introduce you to one of the most solid people I know: Traci Yoder. I wish Traci was in Philly when I first moved here. It took about a year of staffing at the Wooden Shoe for our paths to finally cross, when she relocated to this city and quickly joined the collective. Traci has saved my life during a particularly difficult period recently, and this is not unusual for her. She is that superhero of a friend that a number of people in her life count on for providing sanity, support, and masterful Tarot card readings. Traci is our rock, helping us feel better about the world and ourselves.  

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For those who know me well, it should come as no surprise that I choose to reflect on turning 30 by writing about Saturn Return. If you pay no attention to astrology, or have never heard of the return of Saturn, a quick Google search will give you all the details. To summarize- Saturn Return refers to the time when the planet returns to the place in its orbit it occupied when a person was born. It takes approximately 28.5 years for Saturn to make a full rotation, which means that the first Saturn Return begins around the age of 28 and lasts for two years. The thirtieth birthday, therefore, falls just as Saturn Return is coming to a close, and provides a sense of culmination and completion to the astrological process that is considered to be the transition from the first phase of life into adulthood.

Let me be frank- Saturn Return can be one of the most difficult periods in life. It forces people to define who they are, what they want to do with their lives, and to what degree their lives up until that point have reflected their own values and goals. For those lucky people who spent the years leading up to Saturn Return following a path that felt right for them, they will experience this process as one of solidification and success. For those who spent the first part of their lives following the expectations of others, this period will be less pleasant. Unfortunately, most people seem to fall in the latter category, myself included.

Two years ago, I was living in Gainesville, FL. I had a long-term partner who I adored and owned a beautiful house. I was well on my way to finishing my PhD in Anthropology and beginning my life as a professor and researcher. I had accomplished a great deal and had the love and support of family, friends, and mentors. Everyone, including myself, thought that my life was on-course.

And then…THE RETURN OF SATURN. To be brief, the next two years went something like this: I left the Anthropology program, started another graduate program in Library Studies, got a new job in a university library, ended my five-year relationship, moved out of my house, quit my job, left Florida and moved back to my hometown, left my hometown and moved to Philadelphia to live with one of my oldest friends, started a new relationship, worked at a restaurant to pay the bills, ended the new relationship, changed roommates, left the dead-end job in favor of a slightly better job as a free-lance editor, and got back into radical organizing.

Why did all this happen? Honestly, there was no event or stimulus from the outside world that pushed me to change my entire life. Nothing but a nagging suspicion on my part that something wasn’t right…and that this feeling could not be ignored. Not everyone experiences such dramatic changes during their Saturn Return (I’ll admit I have a penchant for building and destroying things). However, my story certainly reflects how much a person’s life can change in a short period of time, and how those changes (which barely make sense at the time) can lead to a radically different path.

A few lessons I learned through Saturn Return, which hopefully will be useful to folks who are experiencing theirs at the moment:

You’ll feel alone most of the time. Learn to appreciate solitude and enjoy your own company. It may take a while. I can’t pretend I always handled my sense of aloneness gracefully. I’m not terribly proud to say that some days during this two-year period, I hid in my room all day, watching Lost or staring blankly out the window. However, being alone forced me to face the parts of myself I didn’t like very much and led me to eventually change them (after I ran out of Lost episodes).

Everything will seem less fun. Drinking, drugs, sex, partying…whatever it is people do to suppress their anxieties and emotions will no longer provide the same sense of comfort. I stopped drinking entirely during my Saturn Return. Being in rooms full of people no longer distracted me from my own thoughts. Focusing on relationships to avoid my own problems proved disastrous. Finally, I stopped looking for distractions and got down to working on myself and my life.

You will have to give things up. Saturn Return is a time when it becomes necessary to leave behind anything in our lives that does not reflect who we are. This period reflects a transition from the safety and security of the past to the unknown possibilities of the future. The first response most people have is to cling to what is familiar and try to ignore the increasingly strong feelings pushing them to make changes. Don’t do that. Relationships, jobs, and situations will pass out of your life at this time. Let them go.

During my Saturn Return, I felt like I was destroying the structures in my life with no guarantee that the future would be any better. I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and not sure any of the choices I was making were the right ones. I felt older, wiser, and not necessarily happier. It’s hard to write about Saturn Return without sounding grim, but  I don’t want that to be what folks take away from this essay. Saturn’s influence is serious, sobering, and sometimes devastating, but it serves an important purpose.

Which brings me to my thirtieth birthday, which took place in August of last year. My Saturn Return was over, I lived in a new city, and had a new job, new home, and new projects. In hindsight, all the painful choices I had made along the way finally made sense. At 30, I’m happier than I have ever been, and can clearly see that the life I was following up until my Saturn Return had always been more about pleasing my family, friends, and teachers than about doing what I felt was worthwhile. I destroyed and recreated my entire world, and now I can see that I didn’t actually lose anything by doing so…

How Fucked Am I (Approximately)? A Graph and an Extrapolation at Age 30

by Dan Barry

Imagine a graph. Time is the X-axis. The graph is my financial net worth over time, which hovers between $0 and $100 for the first 15 years of my life, until I attend an overachieving all boys school and unwittingly mortgage my future. I do this because adults tell me it’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re smart. This swift plunge into the red is followed by an even sharper dip at 18, when I enroll in college, which is a foregone conclusion if you attend a preparatory school. The last notable feature of the graph is a near-vertical plummet at 20, when my parents, who said they’d pay for college, stop. The graph takes its one, brief turn back into the black from age 21 to 22, when I sell my soul working seven-day weeks for the same high school. Total fucking mistake.

Welcome to Dan at 30! I just crossed the barrier into can’t-pretend-you’re-not-an-adult on February 23^rd. If you’re wondering approximately where the Y-variable of the graph is at this moment, I would say it’s in the ballpark of -$80,934.83.

I’m in my room, wearing my pajama hoodie. Most days I don’t leave the house because I can write my newspaper column—that’s the job tens of thousands of dollars worth of education landed me—from home, and then on Friday $125 magically appears in my checking account. I used to make a little more. In 2010 I grossed almost $8,000, which is spectacular for a freelance columnist. I also made about $1,000 as a first-year massage therapist, which cost another couple tens of thousands in education and equipment. So basically I made in a year what most people spend on a used car.

I think the thing that concerns me most about turning 30 is that I am essentially in the same financial situation that I was in at 22, engendered rather directly by choices I made when I was 15—and in all likelihood I will continue to be similarly indebted well into my 50’s, at which point I will presumably be able to start saving for a house.

By my mid-60’s, safe in my home, I will seek a wife to settle with me. We will insist on homeschooling our children, so that by my early 80’s they will know beyond all doubt that I will love and support them whether they go to college or not. We’ll give them time to make something of themselves, so I’ll probably be just shy of 90 when my wife and I experience the pleasures and sadnesses of having an empty nest. This will provide me with the perfect context for a mid-life crisis, which, if I understand the latest stock scripts correctly, now entails buying a fancy car and promptly losing it in the divorce. Back on my own, I expect to enter my 100’s buffeted by lovers, hobbies, and all the drugs I didn’t do in my youth.

Around 110, the AARP will start mailing me, and my pension, IRAs, and Social Security will enable me to move to a nudist colony in Florida, which I have to admit sounds like a hideous idea now, but I gather that the charm of these things grows on you. I hope to die a peaceful death somewhere around 120, surrounded by my divorce-embittered-yet-begrudgingly-loving children, whose own offspring will in a way make me kind of immortal.

[Thanks are due to Katsushika Hokusai, whose formula on aging I shamelessly copped for this piece. And thank you to Johnny Wander, who first brought the Hokusai quote to my attention.]

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Dan Barry runs the Dharma Liberation (Store) Front with his best friend Arielle and makes affordable meditation cushions out of environmentally responsible supplies. They're inspired by the Dharma Punx and the D.I.Y. ethic, as well as environmentalism. Check them out online at: https://dlsf.bigcartel.com/