An Exhausted Sigh

Of all the loaded words that I might ascribe to myself, "feminist" is one that I have become entirely comfortable with. I take pride in the history of the word and the women who came before me who also used that word and even some who didn't. It is no small movement and there are so many conflicting strands that I sometimes have to question whether there can be a single definition for such a broad and inclusive term. I have often been asked the question "Well, what kind of feminist are you? A Camille Paglia kind of feminist?A Gloria Steinem kind of feminist? What? What are you?" To shut people up I would usually say I am a post-modern feminist, which is, in a broad sense, absolutely true. But if I say that I am a post-modern feminist I may ultimately contradict myself. I'm sure I already have.

Let's take for instance, the topics of pregnancy, childbirth, parenting and breastfeeding. The bible tells us that the pain of childbirth was Eve's punishment and therefore the punishment of all women. When painkillers were first introduced for the purpose of use during childbirth, early (or earlier I suppose) feminists saw this as an escape to what had been assigned to them as a burden. A smear campaign was spread about midwives, painting them as filthy and unsanitary. Doctors pushed this message and by the mid-century almost all American women were having their babies in hospitals under some truly terrifying drugs. By this time women had been robbed of the sacredness of birth twice. First they were told it was a punishment then they were told that they should not even trust their own bodies and leave it up to the people in white lab coats.

I can understand why at this point so many women who choose to have children are terrified of the birth process. We have been told to fear it. We have been told that, like a disease, it is best treated in a hospital. And I can understand why some feminists now would see it as an unfair process of pain, and want to escape its associations with the biblical inferiority of women. But this feminist sees things differently. I want to take back what should have been ours in the first place and that is the right to a healthy, natural relationship with our bodies and the total respect for what the female body is capable of without medical intervention. I respect the right for women to choose for themselves whether or not to birth at home, in a hospital, with a midwife or without but I do believe that we would be a society more appreciative of women if we did not condemn or bodily processes to the sterility of the hospital unless absolutely necessary.

Something similar has happened with breastfeeding. In the 50s and 60s mothers were told that they should again trust advances in science over their own bodies and formula was forced on nearly all babies. Women were even given shots in the hospital to stop them from lactating. Then in the 70s the idea of "breast is best" became the new propaganda. The US hospitals seemed to do a complete 180. Instead of suggesting breastfeeding as a healthy and bonding alternative to bottle-feeding, pediatricians became forceful of pure breastfeeding. We can't win! For so many working mothers it is nearly impossible to exclusively breastfeed and yet they are told they are less of a mother if they can't.

My hippy ideals always seem to collide with my feminist ideals. I want to experience home birth, breastfeeding, growing and cooking my own food and a sustainable lifestyle. But I also want to be financially independent, have my own stable career and be a role model for young women who also want to juggle many things. I remember once, during a very terrible drunken night, I cried "I just don't know how to be a woman sometimes". Of course this got a few giggles but I really meant that I find it nearly impossible to live with all the restrictions and expectations put upon women. I sometimes find it exhausting to map out everything I want because it feels like such a man's world. So much is expected but so little slack is given. But I would never give it up. Never.

A little piece of land and a little peace of mind

In the past month or so my mother has been the lucky recipient of many earfuls of of hysteria. But ever the realist, she has been telling me non-stop that now is the time to really give some serious thought to what I want my life to look like. Maybe this is when other college students begin to give serious consideration to the maps of their lives but I feel as if I've always been thinking ahead, always planning, always dreaming. In the last year or so I've been formulating an even clearer plan. Some would say a pipe dream. I have always been interested in living a life of sustainability. But I've been very conflicted over my own hypocrisy. I drive a car and until Jake moved to San Diego I was putting more miles on it than I care to share. While I have drastically reduced that part of my carbon footprint I am still required to drive for my job. I hate this. Every time I push on the gas I feel a little dirty and selfish. I beat myself up about it maybe more than I should but in other areas of my life I am much much better. But this is a subject I do a lot of preaching about and I'm starting to wonder who's the pot and who's the kettle. The ideals that I preach require a radical restructuring of our current situation and quite a bit of sacrifice. This was all weighing heavily on my mind until we made that trip to Pennsylvania last year. At that point I was preaching heavily about seasonal eating (do not even begin to ask for a list of all the things I preach about) and when we got into Lancaster and saw all the small Amish farms and roadside fruit stands it all fell into place. I want to live on a farm!

I'm sure half of you are choking on air from all the laughing you're doing but I am 100% serious. The rest of my dreams are still quite solid but I think they could really mesh well with a small, organic farm. I dream of a white farm house with a wrap-around porch and a huge tree shading it. It sits smack drab in the middle of a few acres of seasonal crops with a small winding road leading to it. In the winter pile of rainboots sits next to the front door and in the summer beach towels dry on the deck railings. I dream of time to make dinner while dancing to music, time to sew Christmas presents. There will be a few chickens and maybe a cow or two. I'll spend most of my days writing freelance and the rest of it I will make homemade yogurt and yummy soup. Ah, it will be the life.

My dreams must be fairly simple in relation to others'. But all I need to be happy is plenty of free time, creative outlets and a sense of progress. If I can earn money for writing, something I would choose to do without compensation, life will be peachy.

Untitled (any suggestions?)

Written rapidly a few days ago, quasi-edited today. It's probably a still a work in progress. But then again, what isn't?


I worry
That the streetlights flicker while I sleep
Speaking a luminescent code
And they're laughing
Laughing while I sleep
And I'm dreaming in Latin
Or maybe Aramaic
Of bagged lunches and scrapped knees
But I could,
I know I could,
Dream of smudged ink
And hands that smell of turpentine
But I fall asleep to the lull of the bread machine
Whirring and moving its parts
Against the night-silence of an old house

This poem will never be read
Or ripped to pieces
Only yellow between these covers
Grow old, distant, absurd
Climb into a chest of drawers
And when I come around again
Looking for a sweater
Or maybe this
It will be my turn to laugh
Not like the street lights
But like an arthritic cellist
With negligent hands

Nostalgia

Sometimes I make myself sick with nostalgia. Right now I am nostalgic for the summer between junior and senior year. We used to fancy ourselves so wise and jaded. Now I know that we knew nothing and probably still don't. Mary and I drove my 1987 Oldsmobile Firenza to Lake Tahoe that August. The rust-gnawed car, my first, hadn't driven more than an hour in a single stretch and it must have been close to 100. As we started to make the ascent up the mountains the temperature gauge needle crept over to the red zone and even I knew that was a bad sign. We stopped in Placerville and met my parents. They popped the hood, tinkered around a bit, refilled some fluids and told us that if it started to overheat again we would have to pull over and wait for the car to cool down before we continued.

Back in the car we drove the steep grade until the needle made its way back to the red again and pulled over. We'd fling our limbs out the windows and play hangman, or MASH or Lemons until we thought the car must be up for some more. I'm sure we were forced to stop a handful of times until the road leveled and the air thinned. And I'm sure I pissed and moaned about the sweat running down my face and the lack of air conditioning in my shitty car but right now I would give anything to be back in that car.

That week we stayed in a cabin that looked old on the outside and new on the inside. Mary lined up her earrings and perfume on the windowsill in our room. I remember looking at them, at the things women keep with them to feel beautiful, and seeing them as beautiful in themselves-the odd-shaped potions and gold jewelry, the floral smells and little boxes. I would watch Mary get ready before we went out. She would follow a ritual that she had been practicing for years, that she owned.

We took an unusual amount of naps. On the L-shaped couch, I would take one leg and she the other, our feet or faces meeting inches away from each other in the corner. She dragged me to the beach, even though she knew I hated it. I would hide my pale skin from the sun under an umbrella while she tried to catch it all in a tan. Salisbury Hill kept coming on the radio everytime we got in the car and we knew even then that it would always remind us of that summer.

I wonder if Mary thinks about that trip. Or my mother or father. I wonder if anyone is half as sentimental and nostalgic as I am. I can't let the past go forgotten. I feel this nagging pull to document it so it won't get lost in the shuffle. But if it doesn't matter to anyone but me, isn't it lost already?

Ode to Introverts

Tonight I had one of those moments when I ask myself "How the hell did you get here?". I am sitting in the back of a girl named Vicky's car, a million stuffed animals suction cupped onto the windows next to me. She cuts off two buses and is almost rear-ended by another.

"I hate buses!". The horns are blaring and I'm clutching my seat.

"Why are you so quiet, Jenny?" Why is she calling me Jenny?

"Uh, I don't know. I guess I'm more of an obser-"

"Oh, you bloody bus. I hate buses! They should be banned!"

At this point I am fed up with the scary British chick who is about to be the cause of my demise but even more fed up with myself for agreeing to come to Newcastle with Shraddha and a group of her classmates. I am not gregarious or outgoing and I've been told rather unapproachable. But one role I do fill is that of the dispassionate observer. Or if not dispassionate then at least an observer. But nobody ever lets me fade into the wallpaper. They always have to call me out on not talking. WTF?! I would never turn the question around on them and rudely ask "Why are you so loud? Pathological need for attention? Insecurity? Daddy issues?" Heck no! I am not so uncouth. It seems the world is unready to accept or understand introverts. If someone is quiet the automatic assumption is that there must be a problem. But if I am among strangers, and even among friends at times, I am usually quite content to watch the way people communicate, the way they fiddle with their jewelry or rush their words. People watching is not just a hobby but a serious academic pursuit. How can I learn to write fictional people if I do not observe the actions and interactions of non-fictional people? For a writer, living, breathing and being constantly conscious of it all is half of the job. I do not feel as if I live less because of my frequent silence. Many times I feel like I'm living more than others. I can take the simplest experience and assign meaning and depth to it that others wouldn't. There is beauty in coffee stains and gap teeth, in wet cement and old bicycles. And I am lucky enough to see that beauty. Even if I'm not loud enough to let anyone else know about it.

Worry Wart

I’ve gotten into the terrible habit of surfing the web until the wee hours of the morning at which point I become too exhausted to focus on a screen/book/bullshit so I succumb to sleep. I’ve worried almost constantly since I got here. Not that this is a new pastime for me but I’ve gotten rather obsessive. I am terrified of forgetting. The longer I live here the more it seems entirely possible to me that I could forget everything that made me happy back home. I am reticent to let myself become fully immersed in English culture (I’m definitely not going to replace ‘bathroom’ with ‘toilets’ any time soon. There are reasons for abstraction). What if I forget about Netflix and my held queue is deleted? What if I forget that I can sew? What if I forget my favorite park in San Diego where we like to go for picnics? Every time I try to explain this to people at home I get a verbal eye roll and a “what the hell are you talking about?”. But I can’t shake it. For Christmas my father gave me a small notebook as a stocking stuffer. I’ve been writing lists in it since I got here and the titles of these lists are getting more and more ridiculous. Before I left home I wrote “Things to Do in 2009” which looks fairly normal. Then there are lists for the cathedrals I want to see, the cities I want to visit…all pretty innocuous. But then there’s “Things to Do When I Get Back” and “Hobbies/Interests to Explore” and of course, “Things I Really Don’t Want to Forget”. Quite frankly, I am disturbing myself. I must subconsciously expect to be hit by a bus and sustain massive brain damage if I am making lists for nearly everything. Oh yes, there’s also “How to be More Ecological When I Get Home”. Maybe it’s a form of OCD. Oh god. That sounds entirely likely.

I hate this limbo. All I really want is some reassurance that when I get back my whole life will not have been turned upside down. It unnerves me that I basically just stuffed my shit into Chip’s attic and my backseat and left for another country. I didn’t even stop to think that I have to find somewhere to live when I get back not to mention find a job and unpack my stuff (for the 5th time in 3 years). I hate that I feel as if it is stuff that ties me to a place, that without that anchor I cannot seem to grow roots anywhere. But how deep can roots grow anyway in a matter of four months? I do not move on the breeze. I never have. Sometimes I fantasize that I am the wild woman who runs free and never stops to set up camp. But that only lasts so long and then I’m miserable because I gave up that tiny piece of home I had managed to create. I do not regret this. I needed to do it and I’m happy. I just hope there aren’t too many pieces to pick up when I get back.

Open-ended

Last night was Liz’s birthday and a big group of international students went bowling to celebrate. It seems as if I’ve been around other people almost constantly but I’ve been lonely all along. I sat on the long bench at the bowling alley, next to Isla. I was wearing this white sweater with eyelets in it, and when she sat down next to me, her hair touched me through the sweater and my body lit up all of a sudden. It’s almost as if it was reminded that once upon a time I used to touch and be touched. But for the past month I’ve been surviving on the dregs of involuntary human contact; a brush in the stairwell, a bump on the metro. I think of three more months without kissing, making love or even having my hair played with and they seem to stretch out infinitely before me, bleak and cold.

Today I saw a student production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. The actors looked so young, trying to look so old. I love the hyperbolic drama. I am twenty years old and somehow these kids that may only be a year or two, or maybe only a few months younger than me, looked like tender green peas. They smoked cigarettes, which I’m sure were herbal or, and exhaled huge exaggerated plumes of smoke. I’d watch them peter out into the air, a few of the thicker wisps would linger and whip themselves up, and fall lazily, avoiding their inevitable taper. For some reason it reminded me of the snow that hit Sunderland the day after I arrived. I would stand outside, trying to rationalize its behavior. But it wasn’t rational at all. The snow was not falling but flying in every direction: up, down, sideways. I’m sure I annoyed the hell out of everyone with how many times I exclaimed in wonder.

Half an hour or so into the play, I started to feel the effects of the diet pill and latte I downed before the show started. I know, I know. What the hell am I doing taking diet pills? Why am I also consuming large quantities of the faux sugary substance named aspartame? Yes, this is the same person who refuses to take birth control pills because she believes such hormones are unnatural. Yes, this is also the same person who buys non-hydrogenated peanut butter and only drinks organic milk. It is possible I have a subconscious cancerous death wish but I’m more inclined to believe that it’s all a matter of vanity. I should feel guilty but it hasn’t caught up with me yet. So anyway, I started getting that caffeine buzz feeling but it kept flapping around my body as if it had tiny wings and it would get caught in the strangest places like the glands in my neck or the undersides of my arms. I couldn’t stop fidgeting, rubbing my eyes and massaging my temples. My worst paranoid delusions center around me dying from a brain aneurism so I tend to worry when my pulse starts doing crazy things. But then it dislodged itself from wherever it was stuck and decided to make peace with my body. My scalp began to tingle and I felt just like I do right before a tab of Ecstasy really takes hold of me. This is the point at which I decide I am a philosopher and everything around me must be moralized. So I’m watching the scene in the play where Martha and Nick are having a raunchy dance together. It’s an old fashioned dance but they’re doing it with the same vigor that I’m sure they would if they were grinding on each other at some club today. And then the act of dancing makes complete sense to me. Dancing is an acceptable expression of the need, the desire to fuck. When else do we allow our bodies to go into total abandon and move only in the ways that feel best to us? While I rarely do anything without casting a critical eye on myself I am somehow able to dance as if no one is watching just about every time. Last Saturday at Independent when I heard a song I knew I’d throw my head back and move my hips and sing at the top of my lungs. Only the best kind of exhaustion comes after a night of dancing.