*a poem from poet David Whyte, because it’s June (still!), and people are – traditionally – making vows to one anotherall over the place, and his words seemed right, and true, to me. The promises we make to ourselves are the most powerful. Loyalty to oneself is, to me, primary; without that, all relationships are potentially deeply tainted compromises and betrayals of the self. And, yes, vows we’ve made to ourselves too young to know any better – well, those need a little breaking. More on David Whyte via the link below.
*Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886) is a major 19th century American poet (or any century!), although she was not accorded this honor until well after her death. Only seven of her poems were published during her lifetime, and very few were published as originally written until the mid 1950s. The slow excavation, celebration, and re-examination of her work began when her younger sister discovered and began to share the verse that Emily left behind. A recluse who almost always wore white (really? I must research this!), Emily was born to a prominent Massachusetts family, spending the bulk of her life inside their home in Amherst. One of the first poems I memorized is hers, ‘I’m Nobody’, and I still know it, repeating it in my head on occasion, often inspired by hearing a big old frog! 😉
I’ve also been thinking a lot about what makes life worth living, which is different for each of us. My goals have changed, settled, matured, ever since I stopped striving and grasping and ‘ambitioning’, which was never really my style, just the accepted convention of the day and culture (“Greed is Good” ~ ugh). For me, a life well-lived includes fresh air, privacy, flowers, time to read and write and cook and talk to my friends, a furry friend, lots of nature, and love in all forms. Chocolate. Other good things abound – but, yeah, simple pleasures are the best. For me.
The photo I sent here as featured is one of Emily with which I was wholly unfamiliar. She’s younger, fuller in her face, less the tight-arsed spinster writer image that usually accompanies her work. And – she’s not wearing white – nor does she in any of the photos I found. Hm. Makes me wonder where that came from?
**Stolen from the Interweb. A random meme from a random feminist Fakebook page. Overheard: Being a woman is kind of like being a cyclist in a city where all the cars represent men. You’re supposed to be able to share the road equally with cars, but that’s not how it works. The roads are built for cars and you spend a great deal of physical and mental energy being defensive and trying not to get hurt. Some of the cars want you to get hurt. They think you don’t have any place on the road at all. And if you do get hurt by a car, everyone makes excuses that it’s your fault.
I has been seven years since I last ran for public office; nine years since I held office. I wish I could say that I am fully recovered from the experience of taking over a public role only a handful of months after a flood severely traumatized my rural community, but I’m not. My do-nothing predecessor (an admitted racist and homophobic old white man) left me such a hole that, along with flood recovery, it took a good year to see the light, any light, in the ‘all of our policies and legal due diligence is literally years out of date’ and my community has been traumatized darkness; the campaign of public bullying I endured left scars I don’t doubt will last another decade, if not more, but hopefully a lot less!
Not helping at all is that some local folks continue to harass, bully, or openly demonstrate that they hold me in contempt, viewing me, as I see and experience it, as a woman who dared step out of her lane by seeking and holding public authority. Let’s continue to publicly eviscerate her, is the sense I get from them. Let’s make sure she – and anyone watching – knows they had better not step outta their assigned, lesser lane. Oh goodie. Not.
This past month, I attended the re-opening of the local historical society, which added to their building several necessary rooms including one that is climate controlled for the preservation of documents. I was invited and attended as a donor to the project, as well as being a member of the society and community; everyone who lives in our town was invited because the building and its treasures are community assets. I arrived an hour after the ribbon cutting, primarily to avoid the majority of those in attendance because ^^^^^^^^^ (see above re: bullying, contempt and harassment).
As I walked toward the building, I was confronted by three men, standing together, all of them over 6′ tall, all at least 220lbs., who told me I wasn’t welcome because ‘Democrats weren’t allowed inside’. I said ‘I’d like to see you stop me going in’ and kept walking, but I was angry, and hurt. JHFC, just stop already. This open house was a community celebration, not a political event, and their ‘joke’, which I am sure they thought it was, wasn’t funny. Their words were totally uncalled for, and inappropriate for the day, and location, and what we were celebrating: our community’s collective history. Especially egregious was that one of these persons is a board member of the historical society and – it being a small town – another one of the three is his first cousin and the father of yet another board member, a Liberty U. grad who was home-schooled, and who shares his dad’s regressive tendencies and points of view (cue Deliverance theme music).
I could have just pointed out to these petty bullies that the historical society’s executive director was a Democrat, or that I could see people, registered Democrats, already inside and outside the building – but I refused in that moment to get into a debate with these three assholes. And – you may not believe this, but it’s 100% true – I did not tell them to fuck off, or use any choice words to that effect. Look ma, I’m growing! They weren’t worth a debate, or my time. But, I did write to the executive director several days afterwards – letting her recover from the event – to let her know what had happened, that it was inappropriate and unacceptable, and that I deserved an apology, from the historical society’s board member at the very least.
Here’s the thing: I don’t care why they did it, joking, harassing, hahahaha, the opportune time and place to ‘have some fun with Moj’, blah, blah, blah. I just want it to stop. It is unacceptable, and in this instance, I can do something about it. I’ve told the exec. I need an apology, although I would prefer that the board member resign. We’ll see. I also made it clear that while I need an apology, I do not want Mountain Man showing up at my house. More than anything, how about the respect I’m fucking due? That, like my recovery, might take a while. I wonder, will I live long enough to see it? Deep breaths.
When people punish and harass women who have chosen to run for office (the hazing of Hillary Clinton is decades long) they are signaling to all other women what the consequences of stepping out of ‘our place’ will be. And to that, I say fuck all the way off. We need more women in all places and positions of power, and the sooner the better. I refuse to be bullied. I refuse to ‘stay in my lane’, dedicating myself to doing volunteer work, leading the auxiliary, for instance, or by in any way performing duties considered more appropriate for my gender, most of which are underpaid, unrecognized, unappreciated.
Stay in my lane? I dare you to even try to make me.
Once upon a time I was a catalogue shopper. I still occasionally am, but not anywhere near as much as I used to be. One of the companies I really loved was J. Crew. I had a lot of J. Crew sweaters and skirts and shoes; you name it, I had it. One day the new J. Crew summer catalogue came along – but, it was different? Something was off. What was it? I could not understand why I had such a strong sense that something significant had changed, but had it, or was I making it up?
I was not making anything up. J. Crew had made a commitment to using only authentic bodies, real women, as in models who were not – as had been the previous case – possessors of large fake boobs. As I recall, this move was made to be in step with their overall aesthetic of well-made, authentic and wearable lifestyle fashion that was wholesome, American, real.
The women were still tall and skinny AF (hardly authentically American, as the average woman in this country is around 5’3”), but what interested me was how my eye – my eye, the same eye of the same woman who by then had been examining all movie credits for women in various roles for at least a decade – had been trained to see big breasted, skinny models as the norm, so much so that when a clothing company stopped using them, holy shit – what’s off with this here summer catalog? My lil dedicated feminist eye had been trained – unconsciously – by what I was exposed to over and over, not just in the J. Crew catalogue, but everywhere women in bathing suits and every other type of clothing worn by our gender was displayed.
Similarly, nowadays, as more and more men and women of color, as gay men, lesbians, non-binary and all size and shapes of women and men but women especially are represented on multiple, different platforms and screens – there is a collective what the fuck is going on, a discombobulation, a wtf is off here, this is not what I am used to seeing, is it? And, of course, a sense of injury, outrage and even hate, not form everyone or everywhere, but when there is hate, much of it is directed at women and people of color, especially (heaven help us all) women who are – who dare – to be curvy or non-conforming. So, no, nothing is off, Virginia, but the world is changing. Thank Goddess.
This also manifests in my perception, more innocently, that any number of current newscasters and reporters are practically teenagers. That mis-perception is a normal part of aging, all of which moving parts I am attempting to manage with grace, mostly succeeding (but doesn’t that reporter look like a twelve-year-old, forchrissake?!!). This is particularly acute when I am listening to someone from, say, the Brookings Institute or within the State Department who’s got to be too young to know all that history and context. But, they do, because smart people of all ages can learn shit, including history and context. Ageism. Nobody said it wouldn’t happen to me, too. Sigh.
Representation matters, because as many have said before, if you cannot see it, you cannot imagine it, you might not believe it, and it sure as hell can make it harder to accept, as in accepting a new, broader, or more nuanced reality. I really hope to live long enough to see an end to ‘the first woman/Asian/Muslim/Hindu/ATHIEST/person of color/gay/lesbian/non-binary-trans etc., etc. of any hue or color to be elected/appointed/achieve…(fill in the blank)’, because all of that shit is old, and done with, already checked off – and it is possible. Possible.
Training all our eyes to see beyond what have been the accepted norms in all arenas, because yeah, the world is changing.
The last time I ran for office (so far, altho, TBH another run seems very, very unlikely) an acquaintance of mine, a woman about my age, sent me an email outlining the reasons why I should not run for office again, adding that while she recognized several of my better qualities, she also wanted me to be aware of my shortcomings with regard to my temperament, behavior, and character, or – to be more accurate – her impressions of same. She added – twice – that while she knew what she was writing to me in this message ‘would sting’, it was much better for me to face facts than to proceed with my plans.
Nowhere in her email did she state ‘in my opinion’, or, ‘it appears to me’, or ‘from my point of view’, any version of which would have (slightly) mitigated the arrogance of her attempting to dissuade me from a course of action I – an adult – had already set out upon. My independent petition to get on the ballot was in process; my designated party petition had already been filed. This meant that regardless of her expert opinion and deeply felt insights, I was going to be on the ballot as a Democrat whether she approved or not.
At the time, I responded by thanking her for her opinion, and for supporting me in the past (she had voted for me twice previously). I told her I was determined to move forward, and that while I was aware of my many flaws as a person and candidate (because I was and am), I knew the job (I’d spent four years in the position), loved my community, and wanted to serve. Demonstrating the strength of Hercules and Apollo combined, I did not call out her arrogance, presumption, and fucking asininity; we barely knew one another and I doubt we’d exchanged more than 200 words by that point; during my four years in office, she had attended, perhaps, a handful of meetings, leaving once her specific business was done. I also wrote in response that my short-comings aside, I was determined to run, and hoped she would, ultimately, support me once more.
What I didn’t tell her was to fuck the fucking hell off, in general showing an immense amount of self-control. Thereafter, when seeing her in future small town situations after, yes, losing that election, I managed to refrain from both confronting her and the very natural (don’t you agree?) temptation to to rip her fucking ugly-ass head off of her fucking skinny-ass, ugly fucking body.
Instead, I walked the other way, or gritted my teeth giving her the smile of death, because – are you fucking kidding me? This is going to sting? How important do you think you or your opinions are to me, you stupid fucking I hardly know you and vicey-versy cow? Jesus H. Christ. Deep breaths. I eventually sent her an email – I’m talking a good eight years later – letting her know that her messages during that last run had offended and angered me deeply, and that I believed if I were a man, she would never have dared even attempt that kind of communication. Having done that, I can face her without contemplating homicide, but – we will never be friends, in no small part because we never were. Friends don’t give friends unsolicited advice. Friends support friends, including when our friends are getting on a train wreck of a ride, by shutting TF up and smiling, and being there when the wheels come off.
Acquaintances do NOT give advice if they want to live a good long life; only rude ass strangers do that with (relative) impunity because strangers, you know, like that lady on the train who says, oh, ‘you shouldn’t hold your baby like that’, or ‘were you aware your bra-strap is showing, should I fix that for you?’ or the endless seeming number of men who have advised me to smile. Fuck no, and fuck off. Mind your own god-damned business, or, in the case of being advised to smile for male approval, here’s my smile of death, y’happy now, asshole?
Advice: don’t give it unless it’s asked for. Assume that another grown-ass adult knows what TF they are doing, even if – to you – it looks like the worst mistake ever. Shut the fuck up and let it play out because no one, no one wants your fucking input. No One. This woman, in offering her advice, was acting out toward me with thinly veiled hostility, being a condescending, patronizing cow, insulting the intelligence of an accomplished adult (me), by assuming she knew better, knew me better than I did myself, that I lacked the self-awareness only she could relieve with her deep insights from her self-designated place on high, ‘this might sting’. Oh please. Sting? No, it enraged me, that you – or anyone – would dare to imagine you and your ill-considered, barely knowing me opinions matter! FFS, girl, no, no, no. But of course – she meant well. The road to hell is paved with (fake) good intentions.
Fuck That Shit.
Rebecca Solnit, in the following, nails it perfectly:
“How often advice, which is supposed to be friendly, is instead a form of hostility and condescension! Oh your little problem I have solved in an offhand sentence without truly listening first! Ah, I am assuming you are an idiot not to think of this perfectly obvious (but, actually, totally irrelevant and useless) remedy! Just completely abandon the job/political cause/family member as I am abandoning attention to the intractable intricacies of the issue and your ethical commitments! Here’s a quack cure I read about a long time ago on an unreliable site that surely you and your doctors have not considered over the past year of careful research, testing, and discussion! Since solving your nightmarish sociopolitical/ health/romantic/ familial/ professional/ spiritual problem is so easy, I have done it in my mind already and dismissed your suffering as optional and therefore your fault if it persists! And as a person who has never suffered your oppression/ illness / disability/ other situation, I am ideally positioned to shed light on it! And now, having proffered my glib instructions, I am moving on from your situation and think you should too! Surely in mentioning this you were soliciting not encouragement or recognition or support but veiled criticism! Bye!”
