A
few days ago the wind was blowing so hard
the building shook. One particularly directed
gust seemed to come through the window right
up to me and shook just my chair. It's hard
not to anthropomorphize at times like that.
I've
had a similar feeling after watching three
movies recently. I'm about to give away
plots so if you don't want to know stop
reading.
Most
recently I watched Breaking
the Waves. I liked the way the film
was shot. I liked the way the story is divided
into four chapters and I liked the pictures
and music that established those chapters.
The acting was great. The story is about
a young woman who is ... I guess ... simple
minded. She is about to marry a man who
works on an oil rig. The wedding is sweet
and their life together is sweeter. He adores
her. She adores him. It's really rich with
tenderness.
She
is a member of a very restrictive church
and community and has her own very active
relationship with god. It's a very patriarchal,
disapproving god but that's how she learned
god. She asks and answers her own questions
out loud in prayer. When her new husband
returns to the rig she prays for him to
return. He is injured and paralysed.
So
now he's unable to make love (or anything
else) and he asks her to have sex with other
men and then tell him about it as a way
of keeping him alive. All of this is terribly
truncated and you should see the movie
for to get the complexity of how this evolves.
It is really quite dear, in a way. She comes
to believe that she can save him and puts
herself in progressively more dangerous
situations and dies as a result.
Everything
that happens to her is a result of her own
choices but all of those choices come
in the context of men. She loved for her
loved for her innocence, devotion and beauty.
When she is angry or sad she is threatened
with institutionalization. In the end she
is martyred and condemned and sainted. All
by men. It isn't so simple as bad men. It's
more about the ways in which meaning is
conferred. Meaning about gender roles and
love.
As
much as I liked the look of the film and
the acting and even the story I felt tired.
Tired of stories in which women are valued
because of the way they love and pathologized
when they get angry or have a need of their
own.
And
then there was The
Ballad of Jack and Rose. Great acting.
Interesting story. Thought provoking. Again
a young woman makes choices but she makes
them in the world created by her father.
And
The
Village. Which I didn't think I'd ever
watch coz I get too scared. But it was on
one of the Starz channels and I was surprised
by how much I liked it. I like how he uses
color. It was a very painterly movie. Great
acting. Interesting ideas about how fear
is used for social control.
But.
Again. The woman is valorized by her devotion
to the man she loves. And her independence,
strength, honesty threaten him.
I
try not to over simplify or take things
out of context. And I did like the movies.
I just want different stories.
SCARBOROUGH: You
know, Evan, I don't want to offend anybody here, but I've just got to
tell you a story. An undercover FBI agent was sitting around having
drinks, telling me that the greatest risk to America's safety was fat
women. I said, fat women, what are you talking about? Thinking he was
joking.
He
said, a lot of these terrorists team up with insecure women. They get
married to them, and then their entire family comes in and we can't do
a damn thing about it. Does he have a point?
I
went to see Kate
Braverman read at CWL
on Monday. Steven
told me to read her and then Sara (see, this would be
where I would link to your blog) told me that Braverman
had said:
So I read the National Book Award offerings, particularly Vollmann’s Europe Central which I loved, and Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking which I loathed. One is a revolutionary view and the other etiology of privilege.
(more)
and
then my
book angel sent me two of her books, which
I have been reading voraciously and loving.
When
you love someone's writing (or music, or art) that much
it can be a drag to meet them. And in the first few
minutes of the evening I was afraid I wasn't liking
her. But by the end I was enamoured. I haven't been
able to articulate why.
As a CA writer, as a writer without skin, I write on a molecular level
using my synapses as tools, the external landscape is a character for
me. I’ve been more intimate with certain landscapes than certain
husbands. My aesthetics have an errotic compoenent. I love landscape in
a profound way I can translate onto the page, which is a unique
kingdom, with its own unique rules and seasons, like a continent, vast,
mysterious, inexplicable and inexhorable.
She's
frenetic
and physical. She talks about inhabiting the page.
I asked her about the Didion diss and I wish I
could quote her response verbatim. I felt it in my body.
And yet, even though I got what she was saying and I
certainly know that Didion has privilege, I didn't feel
it the way she did.
I
wish I could articulate this thing that I get onto when
I'm reading her. She says that her new book is a compendium
of riffs and that's how it feels. It's manic and yet
exacting. It has scent and texture. It's of the body.
It just rocks.
I
was trying to find a way to write about her that would
tie into blogging
against sexism. Because she talks about the need
for women to inhabit the page and I'm trying to understand
the things I've been feeling lately. Nothing new. But
maybe deeper.
I
really hate when people say things like this but I'm
feeling like I don't want to blog against sexism. I
want to blog toward something. Something whole. Inclusive.
Expansive. Seems like such a good idea and yet ...
I've
had this experience before. It's like I'm between language
structures.
I
read Black
Like Me when I was in high school. It was one of
those transformative books. So, last night when the
young woman on Black
White announced that they were doing something that
had never been done before I grimaced. That was the
first of many moments of facial tension. What seemed
like a radical project in 1959 seemed dubious in the
reality TV format. Maybe it was the difference between
traveling in the deep south back then and being followed
around by cameras in LA now.
And
yet. There is something intriguing about the show. Moments
of awareness. Things to ponder.
I'm
not sure you can ever really understand another person's
oppression by wearing a costume. In fact I'm pretty
sure you can not. I do generally support the idea that
it's useful to try to understand other people's oppression
and, as long as it's clear that the way in which you
try to understand is limited, I think almost anything
goes. (Could I be more accommodating?)
But
really. The white family works my nerves. They are that
ohsonice, how-dare-you-think-I'm-racist-when-I'm trying-so-hard-to-be-good,
liberal, obtuse ... they just ... it just ... makes
my jaw hurt. And I can't figure out how they explain
the camera when the guy is doing a job interview, or
buying shoes.
I
think the show will get people talking but what will
the conversation be? Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe
any talking is a good thing. I have mixed feelings about
it. Today I kept thinking about it and wondering how
it might have been better. I don't really have any ideas
about that. I know that some of the same feelings happen
when I watch StirFry
movies but they feel more genuine. But why? There's
still a camera and a construct.
This
morning I read a comment from Beth
on my last post raising the people wearing a fat suit
and thinking they get what it means to be fat issue
and, of course, I agree. When Anita
Roddick did it I was particularly frustrated. I
may expect less from super models with talk shows than
I do from lefty politicos but I probably shouldn't.
Roddick didn't seem to get that she held and perpetuated
presumptive and negative ideas about fat bodies.
So
I agreed with Beth and I jumped to her blog to see who
she was. I got completely caught up in her story. The
intention of her blog is to chronicle her journey over
coming compulsive overeating and in that process she
writes about her weight loss. She writes well and she has a good sense of what I might call fat politics.
There is a part of me that wants to tell her to throw
away the scale and not pathologize her enjoyment of
food during holidays and vacations but I don't know
her. I haven't lived her life. It's very clear to me
that she is a thinker and a reader and engaged in a
passionate quest for her authentic self and I'm not
going to second guess her methodology.
Just
last night I was thinking about the choices I made in
my teens many of which were about my body. I read Fat
is a Feminist Issue and stopped dieting but I didn't
stop believing I should lose weight. I believed that
if I worked on my internalized patriarchal oppression
I would lose weight. Something similar happened when
the new age hit and I believed that if I changed my
negative thinking about food and my body I would lose
weight. I worked to identify my internal eating cues
and not do negative self talk and yadda yadda. I learned
a lot. I value it all.
And
I'm fat.
In
Orbach's book she asks: How will I be who I wish to be, if I look as I am supposed to look?
Interesting thing to ponder. After all is said and done
I wish to be someone who has lived with a commitment
to my own truth. But what is that? I'm fifty two and
I'm still figuring that out. The usefulness of that
question comes when you think about how much of what
you want from your body is compliant with an external
ideal.
In
some ways I don't have that much interest in my body.
I have been accused of living in my head and I do. So?
I do have the experience that my body can be a barometer
of truth. My jaw clenches when I watch entitled white
men talk about how words should have no power. (In the
show.) And I do experience the world with my body.
The flavor of berries from the muffin I just ate and
the smoky green tea still in my mouth. The sound of
the radio off to my left. The chill in my living room.
The warmth by the kitchen window. I think my body brings
me back into something. Something authentic. I love
when my mind quiets down. And I love when it revs up
again.
Anyway.
Beth makes note of one of the ten things (begins here
and works up) Pattie is tired of discussing in which
Pattie acknowledges me for my writing about food (Thank
you.) and a
thread on BFB in which the relative value of cake
vs oatmeal are debated. My first reaction was carbs
by any other name and I had that reaction because I
am mindful of carbs because too many carbs give me stomach
aches. So too much cake, too much oatmeal. Same stomach
ache.
The
whole good food/bad food thing is problematic for me
since I absolutely believe in good food/bad food but
not in terms of food that is healthy or not healthy.
My criterion are always around quality of ingredient.
I like a good hamburger and fries when the meat
is good and the fries are cut from potatoes and not
pressed starch. I'm not so interested in grease and
salt and starch sold by multinational
conglomerates.
I
think if you're craving a piece of chocolate cake eat
one. Chocolate is good for you. Pleasure is good for
you. Satisfying desire is good for you. But I only eat
compulsively once a month when there isn't enough chocolate
and salt in the universe and that doesn't even happen
as often these days. Because. Ya know. I'm fifty two.
Heh.
I'm
not trying to be dismissive about the concerns of people
with compulsive over eating issues. I get that
it's a real and serious and difficult issue. I support
people in their quest for a better relationship to food
and their bodies and their sense of self. I get tired
of discussing this stuff too sometimes but I still think
it's an important conversation.
In
the time I read through some of Beth's posts I clicked
to other people from her comments who are diet blogging.
And what feels to me like a constant measure of self
worth relative to what a person puts in their mouth
or the numbers on a scale makes me tremendously sad.
Beth writes:
But in a way, that’s a shame, because I think that the fat acceptance
movement would benefit from including those of us who agree that we
need to change the culture, change the way that people look at those of
us who are overweight, but who also want to change ourselves.
I
want to reiterate that I found Beth's writing compelling
and I get the desire for a self that feels more true.
I also think she has a solid critical analysis of the
way the culture talks about fat bodies. I think she
is already is a voice in the fat acceptance movement.
She's fat. She has the life experience. She has the
ire. And. I wish she would throw away the scale
and not pathologize what she eats on vacation or during
the holidays.
I
am not over weight. The weight that I am is my ideal
weight. Why? Because it is not useful or healthy for
me to think about my body in any other way. I live now.
In this body. In this moment. I live now at this size.
What I chose to eat today has nothing to do with my
commitment to that assertion. For me this is a critical
stance. Every moment that I spend indulging any other
idea is a moment in which I have chosen to reinforce,
for myself and the world, the idea that there is such
a thing as a good body. The only good body is the one
you are living in.
And.
I do get frustrated when people who talk about fat bodies
in less than positive ways want full status in a movement
committed to dismantling the stereotypes they reify
when they do so. Debate will be inevitable and it should
be. Parts of the conversation will be uncomfortable
and they should be.
As
I was writing this I wondered how many times I've written
my good hamburger and fries/bad hamburger and fries
riff. I get tired of making these distinctions and having
the same conversations about things that don't feel
like they should matter. But this morning I read through
a site in which a woman writes openly about her life.
A woman who left me a comment in which we meet. We start
there and see how it goes.
I
watched Constantine
last night. Long on special effects. Short on content.
I'm not sure why I put it in the queue. My expectations
weren't high so I wasn't disappointed. I wish that were
always true.
I
have a lot of faith in conversation. Maybe more than
I should. Conversation on the Internet is problematic.
I want to say that I don't react as strongly as I used
to but it's not true. I've been walking away from the
screen a lot in the last few days. I understand why
people get tired of having discussions and I understand
why people want to limit input. It's easier on the nerves.
The
pool is closed for three weeks, which makes me sad.
Yoga had become a few stretches before swimming and
now I linger a little longer in a pose. Do the poses
I haven't done in awhile. In the pool my body moves
and my mind is free to wander. Doing yoga requires more
of my attention and I guess that's a good thing. But
it's raining and cold and my joints ache. I want the
water. I want the release from gravity.
So
many forces acting on our bodies, hearts and minds.
So much clammer and distortion.
Some
time ago I bought a bag of brussel sprouts and let them
sit in my refrigerator until they were mulch. I get
so mad at myself when I do that. There was something
about the look Deb gave me in the store as I confessed
this crime and complained about how much work they are.
You hafta tear off the outer leaves, trim the stem and
make the little X cut in the thick part.
Since
most of my life was spent prepping a variety of foods
I do know how to do most things quickly and efficiently
so Deb's look was a kinda of droll dismissal. She said
she just cuts them in half, tosses them in some olive
oil, salt and pepper and roasts them. Feeling sufficiently
chagrined I bought another bag full.
Yesterday
I prepped the whole bag. It took seven minutes.
One
of the reasons for roasting anything is the smell while
it cooks. Brussel sprouts have a nutty, earthy smell
when they roast. I tossed them in some reggiano while
they were still hot. They were SO good.
Now
if I can just remember this mountain out of a mole hill
the next time I have something I need to do like, oh
I dunno, peel a carrot.
Kristina
and I talk regularly about the
show we love to hate. I stopped watching because
they were in rerun mode but today I tuned in and there
is a
woman who thinks she needs to lose weight. It doesn't
make a lot of sense to me since her goals are
about coming to terms with not having kids and starting
a business but I guess women just always need to lose
weight. If you watch any day time made for women type
TV you see every diet product ever created advertised.
Wonder why you don't see them during the Super Bowl?
So
the woman had already lost some weight before coming
to the house but doesn't want to look at the scale because
she was shamed with weigh-ins as a child. Despite the
fact that she has said this repeatedly she was at a
nutritionist's office today being cajoled into getting
on a scale. She did get on backwards so that she wouldn't
hafta see the numbers.
Later
in a sit down with Dr.
Stan he suggested that if the numbers really didn't
matter she would be able to look at them. So she needs
to "face them". When I watched her standing
backwards on the scale I thought about Marya
saying that she was weighed standing backwards so that
she wouldn't get caught up in the numbers.
Think
about that. Both women are being weighed to determine
something about their health and one is protected from
the numbers since knowing them might cause unhealthy
behavior, the other is told to "face the numbers".
But the facts are that both women react to the numbers
in ways that are none too ... healthy.
On
the show the woman went from her nutritionist to her
gym appointment. Her gym coach commented on how she
was obviously frustrated, or angry. Watching her move
was unnerving. She seemed tight and aggressive and out
of balance. She looked like she might hurt herself.
I
hadn't really thought about the horror of public weight-ins
for a long time. We did it in my grade school gym class
and it was always a day of shame and misery. I just
haven't thought about it in awhile. I only get on a scale
at the doctor's office. The numbers don't mean any more
to me that the numbers that describe my height.
This
weekend I read some things about the size acceptance
community that brought the clench back to my jaw. I
resisted the urge to argue. The community is like any
other community. We are made up of individual people
with individual perspectives. We do not all agree about
everything. I don't even like the word acceptance. It's
too passive. I like the word revolution. I like the
idea of a radical reframing of the way we talk about
size.
The
numbers are not a useful metric for health.
I
made the decision to quit dieting and not hate the size
of my body when I was really young. For the next twenty
years I held that commitment but I also thought my weight
was a pathology that would change when I got clear.
Clear.
What ever that means.
No
matter what I was eating,or how much I was moving my
weight was always a sign of something wrong with me.
I was always trying to hold to a principal but never
really getting what it meant. And I still work at sorting
through ideas about my body, my health, who I am. It's
a process.
But
that new American self help as obedience training that
forces some women to FACE the numbers and others to
ignore them doesn't really care about my health. It
doesn't care if I hurt myself as long as I'm controlling
my weight.
Well
I'm outta control. Gorging on brussle sprouts.
It
rained so hard and for so long last night I wondered
if I would wake up submerged in a deeper bay. At some
point in the night a neighbor took a shower or flushed
a toilet so there was water running inside the walls
and water pounding outside the walls. I felt disoriented.
I had been dreaming about space stations and Elis Wiesel.
Tonight is the lunar eclipse. I'm not sure what that
means.
I
heard an interview today with Kenji
Yoshino. Thought provoking. Of course I thought
about the ways in which his thesis applied to fat people.
The
thing about being fat is that you can not hide it. You
can wear dark colors and baggy clothes but size is size.
But you can talk about your diet. You can make sure
people know you are one of the obedient fat people who
understands that they have a problem. In light of recent
conversations this may seem like a targeted statement
on my part. It isn't. And. It is.
I
liked his four axes.
Appearance concerns how an individual physically presents himself to the world. Affiliation concerns his cultural identifications. Activism
concerns how much he politicizes his identity. Association concerns his
choice of fellow travelers -- spouses, friends, colleagues.
I
remember when I believed that if I were with a friend
who was not fat people would see that I wasn't one of
those stupid fat people. Really. It wasn't anything
I said out loud but it was in my thoughts. If I could
have friends who were not fat I must be OK.
He
tells a story that I had not heard before.
The most famous instance of a blind
person who covered while not passing is Helen Keller, who insisted as a
youth on being photographed from angles that hid her protruding eye.
She later had her eyes replaced with glass, leading unsuspecting
journalists to comment on the beauty of her eyes.
The
beauty of her eyes.
I
watched The
Color of Fear. It's a wonder full movie about learning
how to treasure.
As
I type that I think of how that sentence feels to people.
Especially women. The pain in those words. And why?
I use the word fat often in an effort to de-stigmatize
it but I know the power in the word. I try not to use
it until I know a person has some sense of themselves
in relationship to their bodies and size. The process
of becoming a political fat person is difficult enough.
I never want to push.
When
I read about Karyn's experiences with doctors I get
so angry. How can you expect adequate medical
care from someone with such bias? I know fat people
who don't go to doctors because they
don't believe they will receive care.
The
other day Paul
linked an article about fat and politics and pulled
a quote about fat people organizing into a voting bloc.
Having met so many fat people with whom I share very
little politically I cringed. And I mean fat people
who are out and proud about their bodies. In many ways
we get more support from the right than the left. The
shared politic that we have is our right to non biased
medical care, complete access to public facilities,
no harassment in the work place and so on. Basic civil
rights.
Kenji
Yoshino was so interesting. He talked about how
the courts have dealt with discrimination.
Unfortunately, the law has yet to
perceive covering as a threat. Contemporary civil rights law generally
only protects traits that individuals cannot change, like their skin
color, chromosomes, or innate sexual orientations. This means that
current law will not protect us against most covering demands, because
such demands direct themselves at the behavioral aspects of our
personhood. This is so despite the fact that covering imposes costs on
us all.
He
gave one example of a woman being told to dress in a
more fem manner. The courts upheld the right of the
company to demand a certain appearance from their employee.
I've always believed that real change happens slowly
and in the hearts and minds of individuals. Or, as Yoshi
writes:
I follow the Romantics here in their
belief that if a human life is described with enough particularity, the
universal will begin to speak through it.
So
when I read a post like Karyn's I feel overwhelmed with
admiration. It takes so much courage to put it out there.
But that's how change happens.
I
do believe we need to work with the courts and the legislative
process. Organizing is a good thing. Having watched
so many attempts I'm not sure how that's ever going
to happen. But. There is great work being done. And
there's a woman in Australia who wrote a beautiful rant.
I
missed the premier of Top
Chef. Not a problem since Bravo replays
everything it does a gazillion times. It
was interesting. Anything filmed in SF makes
me smile. And I guess really whacky personalties
make for good TV. And foodies are whacky.
I didn't see anyone who didn't seem like
someone I might have met in a kitchen. Sadly.
Recently
PBS showed some old episodes of Julia.
I watched them with a smile on my face.
They shot those things straight out and
did not edit. All of her mistakes and foibles
were there. Everything coming out of her
seemed to say to the audience ... you can
do this. Be bold. Just try.
Now
chefs thump their chests and puff up and
vie for dollars and TV time. There wasn't
one dish that made me wish I could taste
it. Except maybe the risotto.
It was the energy of the
chef. She just loves to cook. I wanted
to have a meal with her.
I
like cooking shows. I like watching people
who love food and love the craft of cooking
cook. I even love some of the campy hopped
up competition
shows. But the Bravo stuff is always
so hyper and slightly mean. Wednesday night
is a night when I usually read or watch
a movie because there is nothing on. I wanted
to like this show.
When
they eliminate the person they tell them
they do not have the qualities of a top
chef. For me, the number one quality of
a top chef ... heart. But I've worked in
professional kitchens. It just isn't always
true.
When
the pool closed I sulked for a week and
then my joints began to complain. So I did
a little more yoga and a little more yoga.
Yoga
rocks.
I
am always surprised by the same things every
time I renew my yoga practice. My joints
feel better. My range of motion improves.
I'm calmer. All the stuff you read about
in the sales pitch for any yoga product.
It's all true for me. I always have a hard
time slowing down so I pulled out the Yoga
Journal tapes. I still find them annoying
but if I use them a couple of times I get
a better sense of the pose and then I can do
it on my own.
I
should say that doing yoga right after you
eat a brownie and drink a cup of really
strong cup of coffee is not optimal. Doing
it in reverse works OK.
Heh.
As
a result of following a link from comments
on Beth's blog I read a
post that made me smile.
My learning curve about talking about fatness has been so steep lately.
Before the fat clothing thrift store idea, there were so few people I'd
talk about this stuff to. Now, I yammer on in beer gardens and library
lobbies and cocktail parties to boys my age and men my parents' age, to
friends and acquaintances and strangers. I find it delightful. The best part is that nobody disagrees. I have a theory that nobody ever
disagrees, that if enough people just speak flippantly about fatness,
if we are just charming and pretty and articulate as we consistently
talk talk talk talk talk about fatness as if we expect to be
taken seriously, as if no reasonable person could possibly fail to take
us seriously, public opinion (in the aesthetic sense) will begin to
change.
So
cool.
Beth
and I have had a good conversation, all
in all. She is a thoughtful
person.
I
don't speak for the size acceptance community.
I speak for myself. The community is far
from being a single mind. We are different
people with different perspectives. I think
the only thing we do agree on is the civil
rights issue. When it comes to health, sexuality,
clothes, we are all different.
I
wrote about the problematic nature of discussing
health in the fat community and 190
comment later it seemed I may have been
right. When I read a post like the
one I linked by Karyn I feel so strongly
that we need to have the health conversation.
I visit my
Neurologist every 6months, it's a routine visit. He said to me on
Tuesday "So what are you doing about your weight?" I just stared at
him. Then told him what he wanted to hear, agreed that "Yes, he was
only saying it for my own good, out of concern and interest in my
welfare.". Then I left. Today I'm angry and upset by the visit.
Two
weeks ago I visited my ENT Dr - as a follow up to the Ramsay Hunt virus
thing. (Honestly I had been waiting for someone to say that the whole
Ramsay Hunt virus episode occured as a direct result of being fat. On
this occaision the ENT Dr almost said it.) After checking my ear and
confirming, that Yes, I was indeed recovered fully. She said to me
"Are you on a weight management programme, do you need a referral?" To
which, I answered, ever the demure well behaved patient, "Yes I am
thank you, no I don't need a referral." Further discussion appeared to
be warranted, and she went on for about 10 mintues. I'm still annoyed
about it.
Fat
people need the strength and clarity of
fat positive ideas when they go to a doctor
and are treated with such rudeness. But
health is a problematic topic in any group.
Put a vegan and meat eater in the same room
and listen to the rhetoric fly.
I
wish I knew who she is but there is a nutritionist
who often gives the gives the example of
choosing whether or not pizza is healthy
or broccoli is. Many people think broccoli.
But if you were on a desert island and could
only have one you would want the pizza.
It might be funny to suggest a desert island
on which you could get pizza but the point
is clear. Your body needs different things
at different times. You need to make those
choices for yourself from an understanding
of your own body.
For
me it all comes back to what is useful.
Is it useful to make note of a person's
weight when they are being examined for
Ramsay Hunt? I don't think so. Of all the
things correlated with fatness, is useful
to focus on the weight?
Beth
made an interesting comparison between how
bisexuals are sometimes perceived in the
gay community (In the post that I linked
above.) and the way a dieter is perceived
in the fat acceptance community. In some
ways I agree. There is a kind of intolerant
purity that happens in any affinity community.
But Beth sums it up in a way that I don't
get.
…radical fat acceptance seekers believe that women trying to lose
weight or be healthy are giving in to our fat-obsessed culture.
I
know of no radical fat acceptance person
who opposes a woman or a man trying to be
healthy. It's the problematic intersection
of health and weight loss as a goal at which
we come to conflict. So much unhealthy behavior
occurs in the pursuit of weight loss.
The
conversation will go on because the conversation
about health is going on all the time. We
have become health hyper. To be healthy
is to be moral.
Well.
I'm just as bad as I wanna be. Which really
isn't very bad at all.
Last
week, in the middle of our weekly conversation and apropos
to nothing we had been discussing, my mom started to
rant about the president and how she wanted the war
to end. I felt like I should run to NC and look for
the pod. This could not be my mother.
My
mom is old school Republican. She wants smaller government.
For awhile she told me she thought same sex marriage
was not normal but she still supported it. She wants
things to be fair. Recently she said she believed that
same sex love was possible. She wouldn't have an abortion
but she is pro choice. And she is very concerned about
the environment. She will always be socially conservative
but she thinks the government should stay out of our
business.
It
made me happy to have this moment of shared political
opinion with her, although I think our reasoning is
still a bit different. But it also made me sad.
For
years my mother has written letters to public officials
when she had something to say. She doesn't feel like
her current state
representative will listen and I suspect she's right.
I just hate to see her so disenfranchised.
I
don't think she's in the streets today but then again,
neither
am I. And I don't think she'll wear the
slogan (via Susan)
but she might like the idea.
I
was jolted out of sleep by a noise that
was so braided into my dream I'm not sure
what was dream and what was noise. I think
it was a car crash. I might have fallen
back into dreamland but there was quite
a bit of loud conversation happening.
Earlier
I had listened to a show about wanting to
be a super hero on This
American Life. I have wanted to be a
super hero. Fly in. Be strong enough to
do what needs to be done. Fly out. I wanna
be like Little
Lotta. She was born in 1953 Just like
I was. I read comics books in the summer
when I visited my grandmom and aunts.
Lotta's chubbiness was the
direct result of her excessive eating, which was always a main feature of her
stories. But her excessive eating also gave her excessive strength, and she
actually did a lot of good saving those in need and solving problems in a jiffy.
This made her a sort of heroine in the eyes of her peers. She was a far cry from
the stereotypical fat-kid-in-the-schoolyard who is normally the recipient of
cruel taunts and torments... in fact, Lotta even had a boyfriend - a shy,
bespectacled little guy named Gerald - with whom she had a slew of save-the-day
adventures dressed as Leaping Lotta. (More)
But
I am not a super hero. I just pulled the
pillow over my head and went back to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I've
watched a few movies this year that have given me much
to think about in terms of disability the last of which
was Murder
Ball. I didn't expect to like it because I'm not
too interested in sports and competition but it is a
fantastic move. Full of life stories. Another movie
was a documentary about a man with no legs who wanted
to get married and was denied by the Catholic church
in his small town. I just can't remember the name of
it. I loved The
Color of Paradise. And then there was Mar
Adentro.
The
first movies were affirmations of diversity and dignity
but so was the last. Ramon
Sampedro thought that other people with similar
issues could have lives that were fulfilled but he couldn't.
In his story the most life affirming choice was death.
I
love the body rebels. I love the people who embrace
their experience and stand in defiance of anyone who
wants them to me other than what they are.
Harriet McBryde Johnson isn't sure, but
she thinks one of her earliest memories was learning that she will die.
The message came from a maudlin TV commercial for the Muscular
Dystrophy Association that featured a boy who looked a lot like her.
Then as now, Johnson tended to draw her own conclusions.
Mc
Bryde's thoughts on Terry Schiavo were challenging
for me. I felt like I got the issue as she saw it. And
the Schiavo case was one of the times when I had no
opinion. It felt to me like a deeply personal thing
that should not have been politicized. Mc Bryde says
that killing is a public concern. And. She's right.
I guess I didn't see it as killing.
I
had a lot of conversations about what makes quality
of life during that time. It's a shape shifter. Just
when you think you've gotten a handle on it someone
comes along and demonstrates a life that challenges
the lines you've drawn. I have my bias about it all
but opinion feels like drawing too hard and absolute
a line. Sometimes you need to do that or sometimes you
just have an opinion. But sometimes I feel like things
are context dependent and ... personal. In those times
I don't want to have a line between me and another person.
I want to allow for the discomfort and ambiguity.
Mc
Bryde doesn't support legally assisted suicide. I haven't
read or heard her opinion on Sampedro. Maybe I get what
he did because I get the notion of being terminally
sad. I don't think he was saying he wanted out of his
disabled body. He just wanted out.
The peculiar drama of my life has placed me in a world that by and
large thinks it would be better if people like me did not exist. My fight
has been for accommodation, the world to me and me to the world.
As a disability pariah, I must struggle for a place, for kinship, for
community, for connection. Because I am still seeking acceptance of my
humanity, Singer's call to get past species seems a luxury way beyond my
reach. My goal isn't to shed the perspective that comes from my particular
experience, but to give voice to it. I want to be engaged in the tribal
fury that rages when opposing perspectives are let loose.
As a shield from the terrible purity of Singer's vision, I'll look to
the corruption that comes from interconnectedness. To justify my hopes
that Singer's theoretical world -- and its entirely logical extensions --
won't become real, I'll invoke the muck and mess and undeniable reality of
disabled lives well lived. That's the best I can do.
I
forgot my own birthday. Blog birthday that
is. It was yesterday. I posted my first
post five years (and a day) ago. I
felt then, and I feel now, that keeping a journal on
line is a kooky thing to do. Calling it blogging morphs
the feel a bit. I write less of a journal and more of
a ... I dunnowhat these days. I had my very own troll
who from time to time came into my comments specifically
to smack me. It's not like I might not need a smack
from time to time but using false names or commenting
with no name makes it a little hard to bear. It did
change my writing somewhat.
There
is a purple plastic bowl in my kitchen in which I keep
fruit. In the summer the smell of peaches coming from
that bowl stops me in my tracks. I need to linger and
take in that sweetness. But it's still winter so today
it's filled with apples and tangerines and a bag of
dried cranberries. Something about the shades
of oranges and reds in that bowl makes me smile every
time I see it.
I
like having a place where I can write about that bowl.
Actually
it's spring. My second favorite season. A time to believe
in possibility. My first blog post was an attempt to
believe in possibility. I wasn't sure what was possible.
I'm still not.
Kate
Braverman did a
reading at the library. I walked over early so that
I could press my face against the window of the pool
and pout. Both pools are empty now. It's the saddest
thing.
Well.
OK. Maybe not THE saddest.
Braveman
spoke while her husband played music. It was very cool.
Kinda beatnik. She is endlessly self promoting. No doubt
because she has to be. There weren't many people there
and I was the only one who had read the book. I'm pretty
immersed in her writing these days. Entranced.
Earlier
in the day I heard Jane
Smiley on the radio pitching her new
book. I like books like that.
Braverman
and I had a bit of conversation the other evening. She
asked who had read the book and I was the only one who
raised my hand. She asked me some questions about it,
one of which was did it make me sad. I thought for a
minute. There are certainly sad things in the book.
But it made me mad. In all of her books there are stories
of the lives of men and women in which it's apparent
that sexism contorts our lives. All of our lives. It
makes me mad.
I
watched The
Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio the other day. Per
Kristina's
recommendation. Woody Harrison does a wonderful job
of portraying a man who loses his sense of self and
feels displaced by his
wife's success. His portrayal is both frustrating
and sympathetic. The movie has a fifties commercial
feel to it in the beginning which adds to the portrayal
of how sexism worked then. The banker doesn't think
she needs to sign the mortgage since her husband is
the bread winner despite the fact that she won the money
to buy house. The priest and the police minimize her
husband's alcoholism. The milkman shames her. It's goes
on and on and her response is a relentless, committed
and yet fully conscious optimism. So much of what
went wrong went wrong because of the way women were
not taken seriously. Despite the positive message of
the movie I found myself angry through it. It's a movie
based on a memoir written by a
daughter. Very moving.
For
some reason I keep thinking about the TV we had when
I was a kid. It had a rotary dial with little grooves
where your fingers