shit's wack! (anonymous stories)

I use she/they pronouns, and I have lived in Southern Oregon about two years. There was a term where I went back home, but... yeah, about two years.

Could you tell me about an experience where you discovered something about yourself or your family that you hadn't known before? In 2021, both of my parents lost their mothers, and I found out after their passing that they both grew up on hemp farms! And that was absolutely insane to find out after they had passed. I'm first generation, and so my parents living and growing up in a different country during the war on drugs, because they were late teenagers, early 20s during all of that, growing up in a culture that I am not used to the reactions that they would give, if that makes sense. And then having grown up in the church too, I was always kinda shunned toward weed and drugs and hemp, and so then to find out that they both grew up on hemp farms, I was like, “um okay, it's kind of in my blood to be a stoner.” *chuckles* But yeah that was wack. That was absolutely insane to find out.

What’s a story you can’t wait to tell a new friend? So I had a roommate named Charlie. Basically, Charlie slept with someone that had a partner, and it kind of really ruined our friendship circle, and very much obstructed the vibes of our living situation. I was walking on eggshells and then shit went down. Basically, they found out, and Charlie asked me to give them tough love, and I called them out and they were crying and they got overwhelmed and I told them to stop crying because they asked for me to give them tough love… anyway. That was the most insane shit that I've lived through and I've... I've been in some crazy living situations. It was horrible. It was horrible. It obviously very much skewed my trust in her and completely obstructed it, it just... it was heartbreaking for a lot of reasons, because I knew that she fucked up, and honestly, she knew that she fucked up, but I think what was most harmful was that even though she knew that she fucked up, she continued to do it. And... I am a Libertarian right, I think that people can do whatever they want to if they're not hurting other people, (and I believe that this country is corrupt) but when having the attitude of like, “oh, I can do whatever I want to” but it's harming other people, I don't think that that is caring for other people. And in that same sense, like I consider myself a feminist and I am a person of color. For Charlie to continue to call themselves a feminist and align their thoughts with the ideas of feminism, but willingly take part of something that would tear down a fellow female presenting person, who is also a feminist, in the same way that... that just doesn't match. You can't fit… like you can carry the one, but it still won't add up! I think I learned that I also just don't take any sort of lying anymore. I have a very strong intuition. It's very, very much a double-edged sword. Because I had a feeling that something like that was going to happen, but I don't know. I guess I've just learned to trust my gut a little bit more because I know when someone is lying to me, but in the same sense, sticking up for myself because... I was put through that. I didn't have a choice. Like it was happening in my home, I walked in on it, I was put through that against my will. And so having the courage to speak up and be like, “hey, this is fucked up.”

Coming out of that, in your ideal life, what would a community of friends look like, and what would a community of friends do to support each other and lift one another up and look out for each other, and have you ever... where have you experienced that before, whether it was here in Southern Oregon, or maybe somewhere else that you lived? Have you ever felt that sense of community with a group of people? Yeah. I will say, it was harder for me to find my group of people down here, or at least... let me rephrase, it felt harder to feel like I had a foundation here, because I feel like I did find my people, probably around winter term of 2020, which was when I had found a place to move here, and you know, I made good friends. It's a little... well, I don't know, it might seem silly. This is so minuscule. But honestly, I value music a lot in friendships, I value... I really think that you can tell a lot by someone's music taste, like if someone listens to Queen unironically, you know that they were a theater kid. You know what I mean? But yeah, I made a lot of friendships that way, some of my closest friends, Sophie, Janessa, Otis, were some of the first closest friends I feel like I had here, and really some of the relationships that I still continue to carry throughout Ashland, have been some of my longest friendships, and so they were my safe spot during all of that. I think I also really value honesty and communication. I totally, totally understand if someone… I don't know, for example, if someone were to flake and be like, oh wait, I just am not feeling well, and it just turned out that they wanted to go out to get dinner with their mom or something, like... I just, I would rather not be lied to, and I think that's also something that I did learn too. Throughout all of that, I just, I value honesty and communication, I'm just like, let me know that you wanna go to dinner with your mom, that's fine! Or if you're tired and straight up just don't wanna get out of bed, I get that! Like we can schedule something later. I found that the people that I've surrounded myself with in Ashland are very understanding and accommodating to that, so I think that that's an important part for me... cause I'm a little funny in the brain, so I think having folks around me that understand that I'm a little funny in the brain, and everyone's got a little funny-ness, in the brain, everyone's got a little funny brain, but... Yeah. Yeah. Also knock-knock jokes.

Knock-knock jokes are what make a good community of friends? Heck yeah!

Alright, gonna keep it movin, could you tell me a story about an adventure you had out here?

I had a contract at a theater and it was my first contract ever, but it was also my first time being in a cast of people of color, which was absolutely insane. Just the warming up in a rehearsal space with a room full of people of color is just insane, just the energy that existed in that space, and to be able to know that I could speak Spanish and everyone would understand what I'm saying, or at least like 70% of the people understand what I'm saying, that was such a rare thing to have in Southern Oregon. Because I can count the times on my hand in the last two weeks that I've spoken in Spanish, which is unfortunate. I have reset my phone and all of my technology in Spanish so that I could still retain in practice as much as I can, because having that contract really reminded me of the importance of my culture and getting to know, and growing closer, to those people. It was an adventure because there was... there was a lot of emotions, a lot of tension, so being around that was an adventure. Definitely, yeah. It taught me my requirements as an artist, so...

In living here as a person of color, obviously this town is a predominantly white town. Could you tell me a story of a time where you had to code-switch? It could be like a light-hearted story, or a more serious story... whatever you want it to be. So I have only ever worked in the restaurant industry. I've had a lot of experience, I'm good with customers. I would say I'm a fairly decent people person. So I've been waiting tables for a long time. When I first moved here, I worked at a local restaurant, and it was a smaller shop that didn’t have a lot going on, usually. There was this older man who had to have been at least 75, at least, and he was sitting by himself in one of the booths. He had a newspaper that he was reading, and I just, you know, grabbed my pen and pad to go get his... I don’t know, he looked like he probably would have had an Arnold Palmer, but I go over there and he still... I approach him and he's still reading... nose in the newspaper. And I was like, “hi, how's it going?” And then absolutely nothing. No response. I was like, “um… hi, how's it going?” And still nothing. And he just kind of glances at me, and so I was like, “okay can I get you anything to drink, any water?” And he goes, “no, but you can get me a white server.”

I immediately was like, “I'm sorry, what!?” There was another family that was at a table and they... I mean, that's a shitty thing to say, that's a horrible racist thing to say, and so I heard the person's fork drop on the other table and... and he goes, “oh, I'm sorry.” The time that this man actually looked up from his newspaper was when he saw how the other table reacted and he's like, “oh, that's not what I meant” and then he started making eye contact with me and he apologized and he's like, “I'm sorry that... that's not what I'm meant, and I just, I'm tired. I’d like some coffee please.” I told him that he could get the fuck out and that we weren't going to be serving him, and this was maybe my third week at this job, but I didn't care. I didn't know if I was gonna lose my job. If I had the right to kick him out, but that was just my first instinct, because again, that was a horribly racist thing to say, and so... yeah. It turns out that one of the owners knew him, so we for real 86’d him. He was starting to like, try to apologize and I was like, “I don't care, I need you to get out.” And at this point, two of my bosses who are like six foot three men that work out, like they were kind of lingering around, giving him the death glare, and then as soon as one of the kitchen managers started walking toward the booth, he got up and got out. He checked in and was like, “are you okay?” And I was like, “yeah, I'm fine, I'm just gonna go to the walk-in for a second” and then I was in there for 15 minutes just kind of processing and just angrily sitting in silence, breathing. It's hard when that stuff happens because you think like, I can't believe that this happened to me, but I'm not surprised anymore. And that could maybe just be my... I am a little bit of a cynical person, and that could just be my perspective, but it really just doesn't surprise me a lot, because this stuff... Look at the people that we have in charge. Look at that generation. If that guy was almost 75, and he was treating and talking to me like that in 2022, you know he voted for Reagan. You know what I mean, it... it's unfortunate to see that Ashland presents itself as a liberal cute town, yet there are hardly any people of color here, and homelessness is basically illegal and… yeah. Shit’s wack.

What makes you stay here and what makes you want to go? What made me stay here is something called student debt *bursts out laughing* I tried to give SOU a go, and I- my plans changed, basically. I stayed here because I was going to finish my degree, but all needed was two weeks away in a place where I could actually speak Spanish all day, every day (I found work in California). And I immediately fell in love and just was reminded that again, there's just not a lot of diversity in Ashland, and so being around that diversity really showed me that, yeah, even the education, or even the faculty and the staff at SOU is not diverse in terms of ethnicity. It’s all white faculty, and all white presenting faculty, and that was fine for me until I worked and until I was around more diverse places and was just reminded that I'm not married to this school. I’m in student debt but I can transfer or I can honestly just do whatever the hell I want to. I just realized that there were more options outside of Ashland. I will say the Fall in Ashland is one of the most beautiful things. One of the most beautiful seasons, and it feels like a fairy tale, but that's how it gets ya...

What's a memory from your time here that you’ll remember the most? This might be a little bit dark of an answer, but I think the memory that I'm gonna have the most is like, Ashland is where I was to mourn. In 2021 I lost five family members in the span of seven months, and I got out of a very long serious relationship. And so Ashland just felt like a place where things were taken from me. The closest family member is five and a half hours away from me right now, and so losing all of that was insane. But in the same sense, I remember the people that were there for me and the people that showed up, and I think that also goes back to the question that you asked earlier. That was what really set my people and how I knew that I found friends here, because that was the worst time of my life so far. Easily, that was the worst week of my life. To lose three in five days, so I just... I guess the sad one, but the happy one was that Ashland was the first place that I got to participate and perform in a musical after the pandemic, and that was... it was insane because I was an understudy. And so the first time that I went on, I blocked out in the first act, I don't remember... I don't fully remember the first three numbers, and then I was like, “okay, yeah, I'm here, I need to do my job.” That's what I think I remember. My relationships and my friends down here.

What is the biggest lesson you took from that year and something that you’ll carry with you as you move on from Southern Oregon? I think one of the biggest lessons that I've learned in that, is that... and again, maybe it's pessimism, but I try to consider myself as realistic a person as possible. That definitely helped me realize that life is incredibly short and can be taken away from you at any moment. One of my aunts that passed in the five day period, died of an aneurysm. There's no way that we could have known, and in that sense, I've tried to take that attitude into... I've tried translating it into what my own success is and into- life is short and doesn't- I don't know, I don't wanna say that life doesn't matter because of course it does, of course it does. But it's given me perspective of what I would like to be hopefully remembered by, and made me ask myself those questions, of what do I want to be remembered by? I've been wanting to do make-up, I've been doing make-up on myself and other people since I was a child, and so having gone through that, it's really just shown me... yeah, life’s really short, and I have to do me and I have to love people along the way, however that love might manifest itself.