*As I continue to deal with fallout and upset – personal and community-wide – post-reveal on a long time teacher grooming and abusing female children in my alma mater, it seems important to remember that predators, and all of us, have more than one face. Often, predators are respected, beloved community members, who in their private or secret lives are anything but. The brief essay below is from Rebecca Solnit, and is worth reading as we re-frame who among us is possibly more than the front facing affect they’re showing us, showing their immediate family and friends, employers and peers. A overwhelming number of cases of abuse do not involve strangers, but rather family members, or authority figures, trusted members of the community in close contact with the children (and family) they abuse.
From Solnit: It’s great to see this acknowledgment. If you’re white, male, straight, older (or just adult), rich, in a position of power, cis-gender, able-bodied, etc. you may be seeing people on their best behavior and should reserve judgment about whether or not they also have worst behavior they reserve for people who they think they can get away with mistreating. Get away with because they don’t expect those other people to have a voice that others will listen to.
I have had too many powerful people seem incredulous that there is more to someone than they have encountered, and as I have become more powerful myself, I have tried to keep in mind that a lot of people have two or more faces, and I may not be shown the ugly one. Which of course makes the Harvard professors’ letter in support of a colleague accused of mistreating women students exactly that kind of oblivious born of privilege.
I wrote about this a few years back, in a Harper’s column titled “Nobody Knows,” because those who are considered nobody often know what somebodies only will if they listen to the nobodies: All the world is not a stage: if you want to make theater a metaphor, offstage, outside, or backstage are an important part of the territories. There people let down their guard or commit acts inconsistent with their public personas, or workplace, or family personas, things done in the absence of the audience for whom they perform. They do these things in the confidence that the people with and to whom they do them are people who do not matter. Servants, children, women, and people of color are among those who know the secrets—you could say that nobody knows them means that the powerful do these things in front of those who are considered nobody. Nobody knows.
Perhaps inequality makes liars of all of us; perhaps only a democracy of power leads to a democracy of information, where we accept the same truths and know each other to the same extent. But the underlings know both versions; the powerful seem to know only one, or do not know they know the other. And one of the most peculiar aspects of all this is that they often seem to operate on the sense that these things have not happened if no one else of high status knows they happened. They deceive themselves as well as others.
As I write this, it’s twenty-six cold degrees out. I love it, and so does Diego the wonder dog; he’s playing on the lawn with a piece of ice he got out of one of my now covered garden beds. He’s an idiot, and completely adorable (generally speaking), running around in joy; the cooler, for him, the better. Me too, Diego, me too. Lately, I have been acknowledging that I prefer cold weather to warm, that summer, which I feel obliged to love (I am a summer baby, after all, and – it’s summer, we’re all supposed to be overcome with joy, right?!!), is actually my least favorite among the seasons, and there are very good reasons for that.
Summer is wonderful, don’t get me wrong. But. But bugs. But intense heat and humidity that melt me. But it’s too ‘people-y’. Once we get past mid-October things really calm down in my social life, which is laughably un-busy compared to many of my friends but, but, but summer is simply too much, dagnabbit!Bring on the darkness, the cold, the no events or trips or must-dos and must-sees, the annual carnival and multiple nights of fireworks, the farmer’s markets, the weddings, the visiting, the fucking picnics, which inevitably include bugs and sweating and discomfort in the heat and humidity. Staaaaahp! Please make it stahp, and the cold weather does it. Yay.
To dig a little deeper, I have always – all of my life – dreaded summer. It’s baked in, so that even fifteen years after my mother’s death, and over forty since I was stuck in the farm-house with her all the summer months and years of my childhood, there is still – still – a sense of physical dis-ease when the temperatures rise. I still, come June, feel ‘oh, no, not this again’, an emotional need to make the next ten or so weeks survivable, until my favorite holiday – Labor Day – gets me back in school (then), in a ‘fall’ month without celebrations (September, now and then), safe or at least safer, gratefully delivered to cooler weather, less sweaty, and free of buggage, free from that house and that woman, my mother. Yes, it’s true, I was stuck inside with her over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, but they were short, and I could go out, and I did – tramping through the woods and fields for hours. Our farm had over three-hundred acres, where I created a secret hide-out protected by trees and fallen branches, in whatever weather was occurring that day, that week, that long-ass holiday season. My mother was afraid of nature no matter how nice the day was, rarely if ever going beyond the patio or garage. Yay.
And, so. I am not a lover of summer. I am also a dread-er, which has ruined more time, foolishly so, for me in my life than I wanna contemplate. Dread-er, dreading social situations that often turn out to be fun. Dread-er, stomach in knots before the wedding, the baby shower, the fireworks, the party, the anything and everything… including summer. I try to beat the dreads of summer by scheduling time with those I love best and feel accepted by regardless of my occasionally curmudgeonly summertime affect, I crank up the central air, get me a pile of books to read, line-up my various streaming queues, plant a garden, and drink lots of water. And yes, I remind myself that – whatever the weather – I am safe, I am happy, I am whole, I am healthy, I am loved, and I am grateful.
This year, I planted sunflowers successfully for the first time. They brought me, along with my garden as a whole, so much joy. Summer is full of pleasures, and as each year passes, I dread it less and less – still, the body remembers. Bring on Labor Day, and cooler temperatures. Bring on forgiveness, of my mother in all her pain and complexity, of myself, the dread-er in chief, of life itself, which challenges us daily, week by week, month by month, and season by season. For example, winter and it’s emotional, symbolic equivalent, old age.
Gratitude is the attitude. It really does help, which is annoying AF (or was, I’ve actually grown!!!?!!), but, yes, the truth is being thankful, focusing on the abundance around and within me, within us all, is healthy, is happy-making. Glass half-full, y’know?
THANK YOU for reading and following and being here and for being, period. We’re in this together, whether we know or ever meet one another, or not.
My favorite prayer of thanks is from Anne Lamott: “Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, Help Me, Help Me, Help Me.” I love it because the longer I live, the less I know I know, and the more I know I need help, help in being patient, open-hearted, and in getting to a place of love and forgiveness, especially of myself.
When the adorable big pup Diego wants to play, and I am distracted, he does this thing, leaving his favorite toy on one of the various chairs where I am most likely to sit. I find this very cute, because I love the beast, even though he is a LOT: a lot of work, a lot of dog, a lot of hair I am currently cutting for him, a lot of ‘to-dos’. And, it’s all worth it. Once we get through hunting season (soon!), both he and I will be happier, as trucks gunning up our short rural road are a trigger to Diego’s double genetic inclination toward guard dogging it, leading to BARKALOOZA. As you might imagine, the larger the DOG, the bigger the BARK. Oy vey. Still, he’s adorable, days are short, and hunting season is winding down fast…
Drazen’s was a big department store in Binghamton, New York. I never went there, (it’s been closed for years), but I own a gorgeous wool winter coat from them that I have never worn, largely because it’s styled right out of 1967, and red. I could not resist buying it, from a thrift shop at least ten years ago, for ten bucks. The shock of recognition I had when I looked at the label – holy shit, Drazen’s!! – was intense; I had to have it, and – it fit, irresistible!Drazen’s, you see, had a TV show, Drazen’s City of Fashion, Monday nights on WBNG/CBS, the only station we got at the farm, wedged between Walter Cronkite’s and Gun Smoke. I didn’t like Gun Smoke, but it was what was on, and I really, really didn’t likeDrazen’s City of Fashion, but again – it was what was on, the only thing that was on, and there was something truly fascinating about it, like witnessing a fight between strangers, or slow-moving train-wreck.
Bruce Drazen sat at a desk as the show began, announcing the news from the store that week: sales, specials, new lines and brands on offer. Bruce was the third generation of Drazen to helm of the family business; he looked like he hadn’t slept in a good twenty-years, sallow skinned with deep bruises under each of his eyes. He was hunched over, in his dark suit with a narrow tie, and made his pitches in a flat, nasal, upstate central New York voice. I was a bit fascinated by Bruce, because he looked so sad, so tired and put-upon, and because the entire enterprise was utterly ridiculous. A half-hour TV show about a store in Binghamton, featuring amateur and deeply self-conscious models in awkward poses, and atomic age clothes? Bruce described each outfit in glowing terms; I had to admire his dedication to detail, inane detail but there y’go, diff’rent strokes for… The teenaged girl models were of especial interest because they were slightly older versions of me, and some of them were actually younger, in clothes for toddler and just a bit older set, but – why is this poor guy who looks like that sad hound dog of cartoons talking about hems and bias cuts and what the new material is for fall and winter? It wasn’t a question of him stepping out of conventional gender roles, it was the entire enterprise, and my general frustration with being stuck with this nonsense. Why? Why? Who? What? What is this Drazen’s shite, and why isn’t there anything good on??!! It was pre-cable, and many of us stuck in the rural vastness ‘suffered’.
I have only visited Binghamton twice, both times as an adult and in my capacity as a local librarian; the centralized library system is headquartered there. The city is ninety-miles away, but has a lot to offer (so I gather) but because of my very strong feelings about the horrors of growing up with WBNG (can we be honest, my love for Walter Cronkite aside, CBS was and is a network geared toward old people), I determined at twelve that I hated Binghamton and would never visit. Hee hee hee hee hee. And speaking of hee – Hee Haw was a staple of WBNG and oh my if you’ve never seen Hee Haw, you are blessed beyond measure. Yes, Glen Campbell and even the Smothers Brothers were on it, once or twice, but no, just no. Although I do think, in my incipient old age, I might wear a hat like Minnie Pearl’s (look it, and her, up). Hee-Haw was the Grand Ole Opry but watered down, I assume, for wider consumption as could the Grand Ole Opry be this bad??!! The jokes were achingly horrid, the music good, sorta, occasionally, but too twangy and hokey-pokey for this little pop and folk aficionado, and why don’t I ever get to see the Partridge Family or The Brady Bunch like everyone else? So unfair! Why isn’t there anything good on?
Now, of course, I have the opposite challenge: there is so much good content out there I feel almost overwhelmed by my endless lists of ‘must-watch’, ‘must-listen’ and ‘must-read’. One thing I did read this week, when I started this, was Bruce Drazens’ obituary. In the photo and comments accompanying it, it was made clear he was a beloved figure, father, grandfather, employer, and community member. I couldn’t find out when the store closed exactly, but did read it had a seventy-plus year run, from approximately 1915 to 1985, when Bruce, who passed away at the age of seventy-six, would have been fifty years old. Family businesses are tricky, are a blessing, are an all-consuming passion, like fashion, I suppose. Bruce was only in his thirties when I watched him, frowning, in the late sixties and early seventies, the poor guy. Y’wanna know the best thing on TV back then? Warner Brothers’ cartoons, dammit.
