jemcollections

First full day in Montreal

2009-09-02T23:17:00.002-05:00

I'm doing a Fulbright in Montreal for the year. After day one, I'm thinking that I really, really want to get permanent residency here. The pace is slower, the society more advanced than the U.S. - from recycling to health care to interactions to government organization, the Canadians are light years ahead of the U.S.

Today I did lots of practical things: parking permit, first class (Post-war Montreal culture), library card, returned the U-Haul, moved things into storage, unpacked about 4 more boxes, washed the floor.

I feel so at home here. I love the many people look and sound like my family. I love the more communal feel of the culture. I love that I don't have to fear being raped and murdered every time I step outside my apartment - beautiful, in the best neighborhood, the Plateau.

I want this to be a turning point in my life. The moment when everything came together.

jem

Holding trauma against us

2008-07-30T15:45:00.003-05:00

Here's the way it works: women experience trauma at a mammothly huger rate than men in this country, because of the normalcy of daily violence, aggression, hatred, and de-humanization of women. Not to mention the daily instances or rape and murder of women, and, the ever-present fear of being insulted, dehumanized, raped, and/or murdered. Many of us have grown up in households in which women are loathed, for instance. We are dehumanized on a daily basis. Our brothers have all the fun, we get to clean up and are told that we are fractions of who our brothers are.

Then we grow up. No one does an 'intervention' and prepares us for the fast-pace of this culture, no one apologizes for your past treatment and for what you are going to experience on a daily basis for the rest of your life.

We are expected to perform as well as everybody else. If we don't, we are told that we are inherently inferior to the men around us, who have experienced familial and societal love and encouragement, remember, while we were daily insulted and threatened. No one acknowledges that the trauma we went through would prevent any other creature from getting as far as we have. Prisoners of war, natural disaster survivors, on and on, they receive support and acknowledgment of what they've gone through. We don't. We get no help. Yet we persist, because we are expected to.

And if we do as well as everybody else, we are faced with hatred and jealousy: "What kind of woman are you?" they ask us, when we excel at sports and academics and everything. We are expected to be less than we are, to assuage the jealousy and feelings of inferiority of the men. Drop everything for the sake of coddling the men. Make sure you comply with how they want to see you, how they want the world to see you, for no reason other than that it feels better to them that way. To make believe they are superior - this feels nice to them. So let's do everything in our power to make women feel horrible about themselves, to mistreat and attack women, everything we can to make them believe that they are not human.

I think, too, that men see that women are superior - we are more analytical and detailed, more insightful and perceptive, physically stronger (how many men live as long as we do, even after we've been physically and emotionally abused our entire lives? How many men are in their athletic peak for 30 years or more as we are?), more loving and charasmatic...men know this, and so, they do what George Busch does when feeling a little threatened: they panic and lash out with violence.

Men need to learn from the masters: women. Men need to learn how 'to swim' as I did: by patiently, quietly observing the others and then trying it myself. They need to humbly accept reality: women are more evolved, we are their natural teachers, and watch and mimic us.

I will never join a religion unless it has as its head the common sensical and natual leader: a female god. Until that time, oh, I am a content atheist.

Silly men.

Men's hysteria about Hillary

2008-07-28T07:49:00.004-05:00

Dear friends,

Good god, I'm having a hard time post-Hillary. When Hillary had a chance of being our president, I felt a hope I hadn't realized I was capable of feeling: I realized, that for the first time in my life, *I* had a chance at being president, all girls/women did. I felt, for the first time in my life, that women might actually be perceived as being who they are, who they've always been - supremely capable, talented, smart, resourceful humans who were beginning to be perceived as people, as truly worthy of serious consideration for any position or achievement - and not simply as something to be fucked and flirted with and to make serve you and to cheat on and violate. This was a dream/desire that had been robbed from me/all girls at birth, because of mass-hysteria surrounding the possibility that women might actually be human and worthy of respect: that women are actually human and all those horrific things done to us on a daily basis hurt and are as insulting and appalling as had they been done to you. That is, nothing 'innate' in us prepares us or immunes us to the daily abuse and horror we are forced to go through on a daily basis.

When the only viable candidate - Hillary - was not allowed to be president, I began to feel the familiar grind of trying to survive on a daily basis, of knowing that my efforts would always be in vain. Yes, that's nice to have dreams, little girl...now get back to looking pretty and being quiet while the men go live life.

***

Almost without exception, every Hillary conversation I've been involved has begun with someone insulting Hillary - and I'm talking really horrible insults, which have nothing to do with her impeccable, superior credentials and everything to do with mass hysteria surrounding the fear that women might be human - and me very quickly interjecting that I was devastated when Hillary, the only viable candidate this election, was forced out of the race, and that I cried like a baby during her last 2 concession speeches. They usually don't get the hint - their terror about the possibility that women are human is so strong. "How'd she get the working class white-male vote? She must have been showing cleavage" (this at a "Drinking Liberally" event, from a woman adequately indoctrinated into the art of hating herself and anyone like her...and I'd thought I was safe here, I thought people would agree with me in this venue that women are human); "You're just voting for her because she's a woman!" (this from a 20-something boy [don't throw pearls at swine, I tell you] on whom I wasted the time explaining in detailed fashion why Hillary is the professional superior for the position - and who carte blanche is voting for Obama because he's a man.

God these are tame examples. I've seen man after man after man - journalists, famous, powerful men - betray their hysteria about *almost* having to admit that women are truly human. The latest was on "The Big Idea" with Donny Deutsch - what a pig - who was interviewing Jon Bon Jovi (a decent human). "I'm just not sure that the country" - this said while holding his glasses in a faux-sophisticated/professional pose - "is ready for a woman president. I'm just not sure we're ready to see a woman as commander in chief." While he said this, he looked at Bon Jovi with desperation - "Please, please affirm what I just said, please, please! Tell me that I'm still going to get all the unfair advantages that I'm used to! Please, please tell me I don't have to speak to my wife, daughters, sisters with respect! Oh, please tell me the time hasn't yet come!" - it was all over his face, his terror that he might now be forced to see women as human, that perceiving a woman as veritable authority, worthy of complete respect was possibly, possibly being asked of him...and he just didn't want to have to change his lazy-arse thinking, not today, please Bon Jovi?

It's everywhere and it's exhausting and violent.

jem

Scott Mcclellan's book

2008-06-08T17:40:00.000-05:00

Dear friends,

Scott Mcclellan's ridiulous new book tells us nothing new or insightful about a White House we already knew was corrupt, dishonest, and undemocratic. The book simply attempts to position Mcclellan as a naive and conscientious employee, who had no culpability in the disastrous reign of this administration.

Of course, Mcclellan is as culpable as the rest for the lies, the unlawful actions, the devastation here and abroad. He is scared, and now that he was fired and cannot go back to the White House, now that his buddies in the White House are increasingly being uncovered for what they are, he wants to strategically position himself in the public's eye, so that he can get a job, and so that he won't look as doltish as the rest of them in the history books.

Too late, Mcclellan - the time to speak up was years ago, when you were happily, willingly a part of the corruption...be an adult and take responsibility for your horrible mistakes. The sequel to the book should be _I Knew All Along_.

jem

Descents

2007-08-08T21:07:00.000-05:00

My last day in Fort Kent was good. Only spent about an hour that day, taking pics of my mother's mother's birth and baptism records. I'd stayed at a horrible B&B the night before, in Edmonston. I barely slept, maybe 2 hours. So, I was up very early, and finished everything I needed to do in Fort Kent.

The descent downward from Fort Kent to my home town, Biddeford, was very nice. About 6 hours. Lots of fields, and small towns. I finished listening to 'The Corrections,' on Cd...and am properly amazed by the book. So insightful, and wise, and moving. I loved it.

I got home to my parents' and showed them both pictures of their parents' hometowns. They were really impressed. My mother and I went to dinner at our favorite seafood restaurant.

That night, following a funny and unexpected episode with a bat in the house, my mother, who has a faulty heart, went into atrial fibrillation, which we didn't know until she was in outpatient. she knew something was wrong, and so i drove her, and long story short, she had an IV in her jugular vein, was on oxygen, and had had 3 ekgs within an hour. ('Are you okay seeing me like this, Jane?' was the first thing she said to me when I saw her.) i was up all night with her in the er. i think this was the least amount of sleep i'd ever gotten in my life - 2 hours in 2 days. she was admitted into the hospital, and given, the next day - today- a medicine that 'converted' her heart, finally back to normal rhythym. She's home again.

I cried for 2 days straight, when she was in the hospital. It crushed me to think of her not in control of her situation, panicking, uncomfortable, scared. It crushed me to come home to her house and spend the night here among her things, the things she likes to arrange and rearrange, and simply exists among, and for her not to be here. It crushed me to think of a life without her, and to know that was inevitable. I want her to always be safe, and comfortable, and in control. I love her so much, and want her to feel happy and safe.

Haven't, therefore, had much time to process my trip yet. I still have to drive back to Michigan, which will be the conclusion of it. Tomorrow, actually, I will go to city hall here in Biddeford, and look up my grandfather's birth certificate, and on Friday, I'll interview my last remaining great aunt.

in the er, when my mother's heart rate and blood pressure were dangerously high, when she was shaking from the medicine, when she had an IV in her jugular vein, she told me she was proud of me for taking this trip, alone.

Life is comprised of shifts, moves, changes. This can be difficult.

jem

Au revoir Quebec

2007-08-06T22:06:00.000-05:00

Spent another night in St. Simon, on the gaspe, because I really loved the people who were running the gite where I stayed. The gite was full, so they had me, both nights, staying in a mobile home thingy, which was really fun, in their back lawn, which basically was the beginning of about 3 farms that extended beyond their land – wheat and corn fields. Mountains in the distance. The shower was an outside shower, closed but for the back, so I could see the fields in the buff. Alain, the owner, has 3 kids, each from a different woman. One of his daughters is a contortionist in the Cirque de Soleil. His partner, Sylvie, works as a masseuse for the Cirque de Soleil.

They also own a private beach, which we had access to. It’s about 5km from the gite, and gorgeous. There was a writer friend of theirs tenting on the beach there. He just wrote his first book of short stories, and is going to work on his first novel…while doing his PhD in Philosophy. He’s about my age, maybe a bit older. He’s legally blind, which I had absolutely no idea about until he told me at breakfast yesterday. Amy, my new little Canadian friend from Halifax then got up (she lives/works there this summer, in a French-immersion program), and we talked a lot about her having quit school, and her trying to decide what to do next in life, etc. She was at the same school that Sarah McLachlan went to for a year – the art school in Halifax. She even sort of looks like a younger Sarah M., her hair and coloring. We made plans to go to a waterfall later in the day.

I then made an appointment with Sylvie for a massage on the beach, but went first to Parc Bic, a gorgeous park in Bic, not too far from Rimouski. Hiked on a few trails, took a few pictures.

The massage with Sylvie was wonderful, though I felt a bit stressed yesterday about all the plans I’d made, and having to rush around to fulfill them – the first time I felt this sort of familiar pressure on the trip.

Amy and I went to the waterfall, and we talked about Sylvie and Alain, and about school, and travel, and learning French, and which expressions or words messed us up. It was really cool to speak to someone going through the same phenomenon of learning French, and feeling the pain and exhilaration both of that. The waterfall was majorly strong – stronger, she said, than when she’d been there last – but we got in by a safe area anyway. It was freezing, but fun. We then got an ice cream and asked the guy working there about the difference in pronouncing ‘sel,’ ‘seule,’ ‘salle,’ and ‘sul.’ it was pretty funny, and he really seemed to like little Amy, who’s pretty adorable. I feel like she’s my little Canadian sister.

We then checked out this other beautiful lake – lac Mathieu – but it was dark and cold out, so we didn’t swim even though the water was beautiful and warm. We hung out at the gite, and had pizza from Alain and Sylvie, and tea, and Sylvie showed us her pictures taken with Delerium and Cirque de Soleil, and from the Dominican Republic, where she works in the winter.

Today, I collected my things – almost leaving behind my cell and pajamas – and had a long goodbye with Alain and Amy. I took some pictures of them. They were perhaps the hardest people to leave, though St. Cuthbert was the hardest place to leave. I really connected with little Amy, a braver, better adjusted version of the younger me. She’s fun, laughs easily and is into organic this and that, conscientious this and that. Made me wonder more, of course, about the paths I never took, and how my life would be different now if I’d done things differently. What if, at 21, like Amy, I’d done the sorts of things she’s doing, like I’d always wanted to, gotten it out of my system. Where would I be now? Would my life be better or just different? I need to live in a different culture now. It’s a burning need. What if I’d done this earlier in life? Would I be a French citizen? A Canadian citizen? Would I be a human rights lawyer?

Left the gaspe, then, and drove to New Brunswick, where I am now, typing this in a cool coffee shop owned by a cool woman about my age who grew up here, lived in Montreal, and traveled the world. We talked about that burning need to travel, and how staying put brings about agitation, and how this project – the coffee shop, which just opened up this week – is a new idea for her; i.e., the idea of staying put in one place.

It’s just that, why on earth didn’t I see traveling, living elsewhere as a real possibility before now? I was scared, horrified, was convinced I’d die if I did it. Where did that fear come from? Major depression in my late teens/early 20’s. But why didn’t I have faith in myself that I was strong enough?

Part of me feels like I waited until it was ‘too late.’ I’m as fluid and free as I was at 21, I suppose. No house, loans, etc. Nevertheless. Something about doing everything at 21 when I’m nearing 40 seems less something.

I think that’s convention speaking. And, I do know it won’t stop me from doing it.

I visited Fort Kent, Maine today, about 15 minutes from here. It’s where my mother’s mother was born. Going into the U.S. felt awful, industrial, harsh. In fact, it was the first time on this entire trip – other than in Marquette, Michigan – where I heard a car honking at another car. Loud, bossy, entitled, ignorant old U.S. Ah, yes, I remember you.

In any case, Fort Kent is gorgeous, quaint, an intriguing amalgamation of Canadian and U.S. Many people have dual citizenship there.

I am en route to getting out of the U.S. As soon as I get home, I’m sending in my application for Canadian residency. I really don’t want to be American anymore. It’s not representative of who I am, its violence, arrogance, ignorance, sense of entitlement, its lack of accountability to its citizens. I don’t know that I will give up my citizenship, but I want to move, get out of the U.S.

Will go look at my grandmother’s birth certificate at the Fort Kent town hall tomorrow a.m., and then will descend down to southern Maine to be with my parents. Long drive. 6 hours. I’m listening to “The Corrections” on cd. It’s truly brilliant, and flies in the face of all sort of obscene, useless rules about writing that are drilled into our heads in workshop.

I so hope I hold onto the things I’ve felt and learned here. I don’t want to be deluged by less important and more overwhelming quotidian stresses.

jem

The Gaspe

2007-08-03T22:33:00.000-05:00

I’m in a small town on the Gaspe peninsula, St. Simon. I wasn’t sure if I was going to do the Gaspe, but I didn’t want to go back to the U.S. yet, and I thought I’d do the very beginning of it. It’s very pretty – ocean and fields. Yet, still, my favorite place is St. Cuthbert. The topography spoke to me like none other I’ve ever been to.

Left Victoriaville today, and was a bit sad, but not really, to do so. I ended up liking my little B&B there. The woman owner warmed up to me, after a few funny exchanges between us. She gave me the name of a couple of places to stop at here in the Gaspe.

The ride was pretty, and I realized I’m also very close to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and am considering driving through one or the other of these. A girl who works here is from Halifax, and this made me realize the proximity of here to there. She’s cute, maybe about 20, with a nose ring like mine, and was very friendly. She’s doing an ‘immersion’ here, to learn French. When I arrived, I began to speak to her in French, and she began responding in a way that was very familiar – sorta flustered, stumbling, and then finally saying she didn’t really understand what I was saying, and then I heard her accent – English speaking. ‘Oh, you speak English!’ I said. We laughed a bit after about being able to speak English fluently, and how that felt after speaking French for so long. She told me about a waterfall nearby, which, because of my newfound love for waterfalls, I may try to go to tomorrow. Can’t decide if I like the place where I’m staying or not. I’m actually staying in a mobile-home thingy parked in the back of a B&B, a sort of extra room they have. It’s in a lovely field, and this sort of thing is exactly the quirky kind of experience I love. But, I actually met the woman who lives here – who’s a masseuse for the Cirque de Soleil in the winter – and she divides her time here and at another place like this right on the ocean. And suddenly I felt weird about staying in someone else’s ‘room,’ essentially. Anyway, I may leave tomorrow for either New Brunswick, or further up on the Gaspe.

Been thinking more about how I can’t believe that I grew up just hours from all this, and that I’ve never before seen it. The American dollar was very much in our favor for the years I was growing up – it was about $150 Canadian dollars per American dollar…and yet, not even once did my parents take me here. I don’t get it…truly don’t. I think it’s a matter of education, and of what is valued in life. I realized that I grew up just hours from the goddess herself, Sarah McLauchlan, who grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

I’m not sure why, but I can’t shake myself of the habit of ‘what it.’ What if I’d known of all these places, what if I’d known quebec was such an amazing place, and that I could realize my dream of living in a culture of full French immersion that was so close to home. Would I have made different choices? Not waited until now to truly see moving to such a culture as a possiblity? Would I have gotten this out of my system, so to speak, earlier, and now, be back living a different life? A better one? That is, one in which I feel like I’d done more of what I’d wanted to do, earlier in my life? Not sure.

jem

Last day in Victoriaville/St. Norbert d'Arthabaska

2007-08-03T21:00:00.000-05:00

I’m very happy I stayed a 2^nd night here. It would have been a bad idea to leave earlier than this. I was very, very sad to say goodbye to St. Cuthbert, which, is on the border of the Laurentian area, which, I just read, is known for it’s European flair. And the area I’m in, is in the ‘Eastern Townships,’ area, which is said to be ‘New England with a Quebec flair.’ So. I’d sized up these two regions exactly as the travel brochures do. Made me laugh. I prefer the Laurentian area, definitely. This area is nice, but feels too familiar to me, since I grew up in New England.

I want to move to Quebec. I’m going to try to get a grant to come study here, either a Fullbright, or maybe the third year award in the program I’m in currently. I love the feeling of living life in a different language. It’s not as hard as I’d always imagined it. Maybe it’s simply that I’m sorely ready for the experience. I don’t mind messing up in this language, because people, simply, understand. At least here they do, because there are 2 official languages, and many, many people in Quebec don’t speak English very well. They do speak, but not as fluently as they’d like, person after person has told me. They are humble, and seem to be very impressed that I’m an American who speaks any French at all. Often they want to know how I learned it. Most don’t seem to care/mind that I mess up all over the place. They are patient with me. I feel comfortable messing up, and being bold in the company of such humility. Perhaps, too, many people in France would be like this, too. I’ve always assumed the opposite, but I’m beginning to question my assumptions.

In fact, at this B&B this morning, there was another family from France, from Lyons. They seemed to be, perhaps, less educated than the other family from France that I met in St. Cuthbert. They were easy to talk to as well, though. They were less stylish, I’d say, than the other family, more sort of middle of the road mentality, though perhaps the two families earn about the same. It’s just that the family I met in St. Cuthbert was highly socially conscientious and intellectual. This family was more common. Anyway, this family here heartened me, because – and this is naïve – I just assumed that *everybody* from France was highly educated and perhaps had a chip on their shoulder (thought the other family I met wasn’t arrogant, either). This family felt like a family I might have grown up with in Maine; except, they’re from France. This was a wonderful experience for me to have. (Too, the man seemed to be very impressed with my French.)

I’ve warmed up to the couple who owns this place. The lawn/grounds are wonderful – gabezo, swimming pool (which I swam in tonight), little pond with many frogs and lily pads, many, many flowers, etc. The breakfast was wonderful, eggs from their farm, homemade creton (as in the other place too!), bacon, homemade jams, toast, fresh fruit before. It was incredible, the breakfast. They play classical music inside, quietly, throughout the day. There is a bathroom with a jacuzzi (I’m not so into jacuzzis), and in the bathroom, are many, many plants. They pay attention to detail here too; Louise and Francine’s home, simply, is perhaps more “worldly,” indicative of perhaps more education, etc. But this place is very much in line with the region/town. It’s very, very nice in general, and certainly, for the town. Extremely comfortable. I’ve laughed several times with the couple who owns it. I have a nice rapport with them at this point. I think it helps that everyone thinks I’m 10 years younger than I am. Maybe not.

Yesterday, I wanted to mention in yesterday’s post, when I first came in and was trying to ask some sort of question to the woman, and it was taking me *forever* to say what I wanted, and I was stumbling, the man, who was at the sink doing something, turned around to look at me, and stood staring, as if at a spectacle of sorts, as if to look at what his wife had just dragged in – something harmless, but very, very curious. It was as if I’d just said I’d perform some odd or impossible magic trick, and he watched on, skeptical but amused. His mouth was open a bit, in a half-smile, in wonder, amusement.

Whenever I think of this moment, I laugh out loud. The thing is, I always imagined such moments would be so painful, humiliating, that they’d prevent me from putting myself in a position where I experienced such moments…but actually, I find that I’m simply strong enough to weather the embarrassment of these, and that, in fact, I really enjoy having ownership of such moments; this is *my* learning another language, and I simply love it. I can join in with others who’ve had the same experiences, and who I’ve admired my entire life for putting themselves in that position.

Visited an organic produce/restaurant/alternative medicine little center in the mountains today. Was nice. I had just a soy ice cream bar (Soy Dream), because I’d already had lunch at a café that had wireless internet which was very, very expensive, but which I was dying to have, and went ahead with. Tried to speak a bit with the person working there, who looked at me in that familiar ‘what’s going on here’ way whenever I spoke, and so, I sat around, ate the ice
cream, walked around the gardens. Then stopped at a little park which, in the tourist map, advertised a waterfall as it’s big attraction. I began the walk, the beginning of which made me a little depressed – something about it feeling *so* familiar – New England all over again – and here it was being offered to tourists as something to see. But then, I found the waterfall, and then, I realized – truly for the first time ever – why people *like* waterfalls, something I never ever before understood (they seemed, again, sorta depressing to me, like ‘wow, look at the water fall’). The reason they’re so popular: the basins, where you can swim, wade, be refreshed (such as on this 95 degree day) by fresh, flowing water! It was wonderful! I didn’t have my bathing suit with me – oh that I had! – but I waded up to my shins, and let the water run over my legs. There were 2 small groups there, in their bathing suits, occasionally wading. How amazing, and now, I have a new interest in finding waterfalls everywhere, with large basins, and perhaps falls safe enough to sit under and have water run over you.

Then I went back to the cemetery by the church in my grandmother’s hometown…and I found my great-uncle’s grave! I couldn’t believe it. I really took my time, and I had a much better attitude today about being here, and I looked carefully…and there it was, not a crappy-ass broken, illegible stone like I was convinced of yesterday, but a decent, well-enough maintained stone, that, actually is shared by 2 other people, who have a newer, shinier stone (for the same other 2 people) right beside it. This was wise of my family; perhaps they couldn’t afford a ‘private’ stone for him, so they did the best they could, and got a respectable, decent stone with 2 others. He died young – 5 – years, of meningitis, my aunt told me. It was moving, and I wanted to buy flowers for him – I felt like here I was, maybe the last representative of my family to ever visit his grave (though I do intend to return), and I should mark this occasion, and take a picture of the grave with flowers for his sister, my one-remaining great-aunt. I couldn’t find flowers in the store across the street, but I did take many photos of the grave for my aunt.

I then tried to find the woman who works – on demand – at the church, Therese something or other. I asked for her at the store again (another woman working there), and this other, nicer, woman, showed me Therese’s house around the corner. She wasn’t home, then, or later, and so, I will try one last time tomorrow. I want to find out if my aunt Alice and Uncle Alfred were born here, or in Marquette, Michigan.

Then went for a walk, again today, in Parc d’Arthabaska. Beautiful. Went deeper into the woods. It’s a big mountain-biking park, apparently, with 18km of trails.

Came back to the auberge, took aforementioned swim and walk around lawn, came out of house to go to car and the woman owner, sitting on the deck, surprised me greatly, giving us both a good laugh. I then went to a real local-looking joint I’d seen en route to St. Norbert, in St. Norbert, actually, and indeed it was. Was awesome, real town-y. I’d noticed it was packed, when I was driving from St. NorbertàVictoriaville earlier in the day. Was great. Had a club sandwich – fresh chicken and tomatoes – with fries. Very generous.

The American dollar against the Canadian dollar sucks right now – worst time in my life I think – so I’m paying dollar for dollar…worst time in my life to take this trip, but hey.

D’accord. Je dois me coucher. A tout a l’heure. (Must figure out the french keyboard so I can do my accents.)

jem

The Real St. Norbert

2007-08-02T12:46:00.000-05:00

I made it. To my grandmother’s hometown. Fnally. It’s amazing, actually, because it took me forever to get here. 10 days. But really, 37 years. I only thought about visiting this place several months ago. only realized that it was actually within my reach. but really, from my hometown, it’s maybe only an 8 hour drive. What the hell. Why on earth did we never come here as children? Doesn’t make sense to me.

My feelings seeing it were muted, or eclipse perhaps, by my sadness over leaving St. Cuthbert, by far one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited in my life. This is in part, perhaps, to preference – I looooooooooove fields, and this was endless fields of corn, crops, and also, the heart of la region biologique – or, organic produce, farms, the simple, natural way. And the houses, the people were very European. I felt like I was in a small European town the entire time.

Here, there are also endless fields, and I’m not sure that my pictures capture the difference between the topography of the two places. Just that, here, there are many more trees, forests. In st. Cuthbert, there were no forests; just endless fields, open spaces. That’s it. Open spaces. That’s what I love. Open nature, with some trees, but fields. There are many fields here, but surrounded by forests.

Nonetheless, my grandmother’s birthplace is gorgeous. Truly. The people in her little town seem somehow less educated than the people in, for example, the little town of St. Cuthbert. Perhaps the difference is the proximity to Montreal, though, this is only about 1 hour further from montreal than St. Cuthbert. I’m not really sure. The towns surrounding St. Cuthbert – Berthierville, and Joliette, also, were not ‘very educated.’ Those towns felt economically depressed in at least some ways. Or, as much of the population was uneducated as educated. St. Cuthbert feels very educated – even if informal, the people seem that they are naturally curious and take initiative to educate themselves (like my mother’s father) – though it is very simple. Simple, natural, and deliberate in both these things. That’s it. Deliberate. This town, St. Norbert, and surrounding towns of Norbertville and Victoriaville, are simple and formally uneducated…and that’s just the way people are around here. They feel, perhaps, like this is the lot they were dealt, and that’s how they must live. In St. Cuthbert, it’s as if they intentionally set out to live as such, and are happy, fulfilled, proud of their choice. It’s as if St. Cuthbert were created intentionally to fulfill certain ideals, and St. Norbert is simply how things always were and the people, for some reason, don’t know or don’t feel like they have a choice. The people in St. Cuthbert are very aware of the beauty around them; here, they seemingly are not.

I found a B&B here, which made me sad because it’s not Louise and Francine’s B&B, which is truly the best I’ve ever been to. This one is fine, but the woman is “nice enough,” nothing extra. Perhaps simply more reserved, less aware of the beauty around her, I’m not sure. The difference between people here and on the other side of the St. Laurent.

I saw my grandmother’s street – le cinquieme Rang. Beautiful. Farms, farmland, more farms. Took many pictures. Went to the church in Norbertville, and the cemetery to the side of it. I looked for my great-uncle who’s buried there, but couldn’t find his stone – some are too old to read, and my guess is one is his since there’s no family around anymore to keep up the stones.

I wanted to find my grandmother’s birth certificate, so I tried to get inside the church to see if anyone might be there. I had a feeling it would be really hard to find someone to speak to, because these older churches in these older towns are no longer inhabited by priests…things are simply done habitually, on an as needed basis, with perhaps one or several masses per week.

So, after trying a bit, I went to le depanneur across the street from the church, and asked if anyone worked at the church that I could speak to. The woman said she’d look up who it was, and took out a little booklet and told me the name of the woman who worked at the church. She then looked her up in the phonebook and called her. I heard her say (all this, of course done in French, me stuttering hopelessly in my five-year old French) that an English speaking woman was here looking for birth certificates of her grandmother, and she spoke only a little bit of French. this embarrassed me horribly. The woman got off the phone and said the woman would be there in a minute. Turns out, the woman who’s in charge lives on the next street over; which makes sense…the town is so very small. Within, literally, 3 minutes, she was there, and I was introduced to her, and when I started speaking to her in French, apologizing for my French, she said to the other woman, ‘well, she can speak French.’ I was vindicated. But, as time went on in the church, I imagine she changed her mind. I have about a 20 word vocabulary and can conjugate simply in the simple future, passé compose, or the present. and about 5 verbs.

Anyway, I showed the woman the date of my grandmother’s birth, and all at once, she went to a back room and came back with an ancient book with my grandmother’s ‘birth certificate,’ or, an entry, simply, in the book, saying that Yvonne Roux was born legitimately of Napolean Roux and Annie Beacotte, etc. It was amazing. And in the margins, was information about her marriages. Even her 2^nd marriage, which took place sometime when I was a teenager. This caused that bittersweet feeling – this entry was made not so long ago, well, well within my lifetime – I was a teenager – and how removed from this beautiful happening I was. Somewhere in a remote French speaking town of Quebec, perhaps 8 hours from where I was living, someone opened an ancient book of birth certificates and noted in the margins that my memere was now married, for the 2^nd time, to a Monsieur Raoul Lagarde, as St. Andre’s Church, where I went to school, and to Church hundreds, thousands of times. I was truly moved, and saddened by my removal from such phenomenon.

I took a picture of the certificate. The woman hesitated a bit, but not much. I then found the birth certificate of my one remaining aunt, and took a picture of that too. I can’t wait to show her.

I did all this very, very quickly. Like I said, this all was shadowed, eclipsed by this feeling of being torn away from the amazingly lovely St. Cuthbert. In fact, I had it in my mind that I was leaving tomorrow, because fine, I saw this, did it, and now I wanted to go spend a night at the beginning of the Gaspe peninsula. But then I thought, ‘are you crazy’? You traveled how far to get here? And it *is * a beautiful region. Fine, the people aren’t exactly like those in St. Cuthbert, the land isn’t either…but this is *amazing.* Truly. And the region is lovely. There are tons of amazing parks, and bike trails, and views, etc. I’m staying another night…or so I told the B&B owner on a scrap piece of paper I left for her on her table…that I hope she gets early enough in the morning before someone else takes my room.

jem

Last night in Phantom St. Norbert

2007-07-31T22:00:00.000-05:00

C’est ma derniere nuit dans le St. Norbert qui n’est pas le St. Norbert de naissance de ma grandmere. I simply love it here. I feel like this place was created for me. Organic farms, farmland as far as you can possibly see, fragrance everywhere – flowers, plants, sun. Old quebecoise farmhouses. French speakers/non-english speakers abound. That is, I’m *forced* to speak French, which is exactly what I want. Everyone speaks at least a few words of English, but many speak only that, less than my French, so this is perfect.

I’m less intimidated speaking French here than in Montreal or Paris, because there, people can easily have an attitude about it, simply, I think, because it’s a city, and people in cities have attitudes.

I rode the Louise and Francine’s (the owners of l’auberge) bike again today, this time to Berthierville. Took the small roads, and then a not so small road. There’s a pretty river with old houses there. I took lots and lots of photos on my ride home. There are many houses here that have HUGE crosses on their front lawns. It’s so interesting. It doesn’t seem, however, nearly as gaudy or in-your-face as something evangelicals would do/say, even though I’ve never seen something like this before. It seems like simply something that is, and that was created way back (these houses are older), in a time when that’s simply what people did. I then took my car to Joliette, another city about 30 km from here. It was a medium-sized city, with some nice areas, and some depressed areas. I spoke for quite a while with a woman who lives in the mountains about 20 minutes north of there, and said I should definitely visit there. She barely spoke English, so that was good for me. She was cool, like many of the people I’ve met here – artistic, of the earth, invested in things natural, organic. She was funky too.

There’s a French family staying here. They’re from Bretagne. They are just lovely. It makes me sad, nostalgic for a time when things could have been different for me as a child. These parents are so clearly happy, in love, and the children have no apparent hostilities toward them at all. The teenaged daughter is gorgeous, incredibly smart, well-spoken, educated, just lovely. Their interests are attended to and observed. For me growing up, we were simply fed and attended to in an emergency. Our interests weren’t noticed, much less cultivated. My parents felt their job was done if they simply met our basic physical needs. These people provide so much richer an experience for their kids. The kids will be better people because of it, I think. Better adjusted, educated, better citizens. I do truly believe this. When people are raised like I was raised, it takes everything to just keep on track in some basic human way. So much energy goes into tending to humungous gaps that were left behind; whereas for these kids, those gaps won’t be there, and they can continue on a higher path of development. This is very clear in my mind, and is why I feel firmly that one ought never have a child if they don’t know for certain that they will support their children openly, love them openly, attend to them physically, emotionally, mentally, etc. as best they can for as long as they are dependants. Anything less is neglect.

I’m very sad this is my last night. Very sad. I feel like I found a part of me, and so soon after, an instant after, I have to leave it behind. It’ll soon feel as if I never discovered it at all, I fear.

I also fear that my grandmother’s ‘real’ town will be a dump. This will depress me. Vraiment. In any case, I can know that this is her land, her country, her region. And it’s just astonishingly beautiful.

jem

Here

2007-07-29T23:00:00.000-05:00

I am here. Well, 10 minutes from here, my grandmother’s birthplace, that is. All I can say is mon dieu holy cow wow wow wow. I’m ashamed. J’ai honte. Why have I never been here before? Why why why? This is my history. These are my people, through and through. The way they look, the French they speak, their mannerisms.

I’m staying in a bed and breakfast owned by two lesbians (whose lesbianism I didn’t have the courage tonight to confirm…tomorrow, bien sur). It is in St. Cuthbert, 10 minutes from St. Norbert, my grandmother’s, my great aunt’s birthplace. It is a different world up here. This is only about 6 hours from where I was born (southern Maine), but what a world apart in some ways, so alike in others. Here, is the most farmlandish I’ve ever been to. I’ve *always* longed for fields, to be in them, to run in a field of cornstalks, sunflowers: this is that. It’s quite possible I love fields more than the ocean, where I grew up; I’ve always longed for the smell of crops growing, the vastness of fields…is it possible my heritage was showing itself before I even knew a thing about it? My grandmother grew up on a farm. We’re talking farm farm. Tomorrow I’ll see her little town.

They pick chamomile on the side of the roads here. This is like the quaintest, smallest European village I’ve ever seen.

It’s so bittersweet. I have one remaining great-aunt left. My memere is long gone, and my other great aunts, who I adored, are also gone. Why couldn’t I have done this travel 10 years ago? I was certainly old enough to be interested. Two of my other great-aunts were still alive.

Yet, I have one remaining great aunt left: she’s still alive, and she was born in St. Norbert, where I’m visiting tomorrow.

One of the women who owns this has a friend who works at the Church in St. Norbert where all the birth records are kept. She got me an appointment with this woman for Tuesday morning, for an hour.

There’s a full moon over the cornfield which is just about 50 yards from this amazing old house. It’s almost surreal, mystical, this experience, like the entire family rose from the dead to greet me here.

We had a 4 or 5 course meal for dinner, just me and the women who own the place. Couscous, homemade ‘sausage’ (ham-like), asparagus, bread; followed by lasagna made from zucchini and with some ground meat of sorts, carrots and pea pods; followed by cheeses and crackers and dried fruit; followed by homemade fruit bread with strawberries; followed by hand-picked chamomile tea. We spoke in both French and English. One speaks some English, one not at all. We talked about Quebec separating from the country (they are for it…must confess, in a foreigner’s humility, that I am too), about conservative religious beliefs, about separation of church and state.

Good god I wish my French were better. I’ve regressed with it. The next time I come here, I promise myself to be much, much better. I wanna come back soon. Within the year.

So amazing this experience. So, so amazing. Better than I imagined so far. I feel at home here, in this little town. I do. I feel like it’s a home to me.

En Route, cont.

2007-07-28T18:30:00.000-05:00

Still en route. Was supposed to stay at this hotel in a town of 1000, in the mountains, but woke up anxious about it, after yesterday's night in a town of 4000. I cancelled that reservation, and ended up here in Petawala, Ontario at a place that ain't so perty. Am longing for the place in the mountains right now, where the couple that owned it sounded lovely. I wanted to try to find a place to work out - my back is hurting from so much driving - and thought I'd have a better chance in a larger town. This is an army base town, apparently. That right about there describes it for you. I heard the army base had a great gym, which I excitedly went to, only to find it was closed. The male owner of this place creeps me out. But there are a lot of families staying here, etc., so I feel safe enough.

It's interesting how much this has come up for me on this trip: safety. I become more aware of my real or perceived vulnerability as a woman, traveling alone. I feel like a target, 'Are you traveling alone?' a lot of people, mostly men, want to know. This scares the crap out of me. I have an elaborate story about picking up a boyfriend in Ottowa tomorrow, if anyone here asks me. I feel safer having a fantastical male waiting for me, than not.

Looking forward to being in/around Montreal tomorrow. Traveling these parts has been interesting, but the anxiety of traveling alone really got to me today. Once I'm in a safe spot again - Montreal-ish - I'll be able to relax more. It's familiar, I feel I know the 'rules.' Here, I don't really know what's what.

The woman owner of the B&B I stayed at last night made me this awesome breakfast in her kitchen today. It was sweet. Her husband and their friend/guests played music last night - the violin and the guitar - and the women were singing. It was cute. One of the daughters of the B&B's owners lives in Maine. We got a kick out of this coincidence.

Will be happy when tonight is over, and I'm Montreal-bound. Send me warm wishes dear readers!

jem

En Route

2007-07-27T21:25:00.000-05:00

I left Marquette (Sand River, where I was staying outside Marquette) today. Drove westward toward Montreal, my final destination, and stayed in Blind River, a small town of 4,000 in Ontario. Crossing the border was no problem at all. I stopped in Sault St. Marie, on the U.S. side for lunch, and found a cute little café with great sandwiches and soup, and internet access – a jem when you’re on the road. Got great ice cream afterwards, and then headed for Canada, getting lost, and then unlost. From the Canadian border, Blind river was about 2 hours away. Let me tell you. This town is a small little economically depressed town with zero industry. And what made me especially anxious staying here was the B&B, which is someone’s home. So, here I am typing this in someone’s kid’s former room, B&Bized a touch. Some family friends, apparently, are staying in the other kids’ rooms.

This got me thinking more about the nature of a town’s evolution: fledgling, boom, steadying, and if businesses/industry dissipates, decline. That was this town’s fate, apparently. A saw mill existed here once, and now it is gone. A local whom I encountered on a walk I took – who was ‘grilling’ out on his porch and stopped me to talk, for which I was actually thankful – told me this. He called me ‘honey’ every other word, and said ‘eh’ a lot. It was cool. He invited me in for a beer or for a ‘shot of rye.’ I had to have him repeat this 2^nd thing, because I wasn’t sure I heard correctly. What is a shot of ‘rye’? I said no. (I would have liked to, for the mere experience of it, but out of pure self-preservation, and fear of safety, I said no. I have a feeling that everything would have been just fine, but still. This is the burden of being a woman. Were I a man, I definitely would have said yes.)

Anyway, this guy, John, told me that most people in this town are on welfare. He cleans houses for $10/hour. So, how do people exist? We create need – entertainment, health, way of life. We create a way of life that then leads to a need for a certain kind of health attention, for example. But more than this, I’m fascinated by the evolution of villages, towns, cities, now. It just seems to be the same; or, some succeed in perpetuating, and some fizzle out. But, ‘high culture,’ it seems, is nothing more than the perpetuation of a village with longevity.

I’m having a hard time grasping the idea that humans have only been around for so long, and that we’ve had a definitive, singular path of ‘evolution’; the European evolution of coming to a land, taking it from native Americans, clearing it, establishing businesses (i.e., mining it, taking resources from it), booming, persisting. It doesn’t seem more complicated than this, and it seems that sustenance on that path is finite.

I didn’t realize that human evolution was so quantifiable. That it is, scares me.

jem

Last day in Marquette

2007-07-26T19:58:00.000-05:00

Went to the Marquette County History Museum today, where I saw an exhibit on the earliest settlers of Marquette. Looked especially closely at the French Canadian stuff. Mostly, they were lumberjacks. I saw photos of what the lumber camps were like - crowded, sparse. Like prisons more than anything. My mother, who I spoke to on the phone, confirmed that my great-grandfather indeed was a lumberjack here. (Wish I'd talked to her about this before, instead of deducing based on research! But, was happy to see I'd guessed correctly.) Was cool to see the clothes the lumberjacks wore (fur gloves, long underwear, wool hats, etc.), and the tools they used. Yep, these people were cutting trees all day with little hand-held axes.

Also saw a bit about the culinary preferences of each ethnic group here, and one favorite snack among the French-Canadians, of course, was this maple syrup, brown sugar, butter concoction they'd cook and then place on snow to cool; the end result would be a taffy like candy. This started me thinking about how who you are - where you were born, who your 'people' are - affects your food cravings, your preferences. I thought warmly, fondly, of my mother, who LOVES maple-sugar candy, and, on pancakes, likes maple syrup AND brown sugar. She's a French-Canadian through and through.

Also saw from the exhibit, how the various ethnic groups here would have little festivals or societies to celebrate their heritage (the French-Canadians had a church - St. Jean de Baptiste - and church festivals), and that, eventually, over time, sometime in the 1900's, these societies, groups, etc., faded out, and everyone became sorta one big miscegenated culture. This sorta made me sad. I *like* being French-Canadian, and hate to see identifying aspects of that fade away. Food, language, cultural appearance...I guess these are the biggies. I like the idea of preserving these things.

Also realized that the European settlers - of course - took the land from the native americans who'd been here forever before, and that this only happened about 150 years ago...like 2 lifetimes ago. How horrible. Made me think about what we consider "advancement," and how such is actually quite violent and brutal, and these thoughts distilled after hours of thinking about it, make me think that status quo is actually good. We will never survive by pushing and pushing to "advance" and be bigger and stronger and more influential. We'll die off in a fraction of the time populations such as the native americans existed doing what they did.

The purpose of life? To exist. Persist. The native americans had it right. Just keep doing what works. European culture destroyed this notion. Anxiety over *not* doing better turned on them, us, and now, we have a world that will not sustain itself for much longer. We could have persisted endlessly, perhaps, but European settlers ensured a quick, anxious, wasteful demise.

I feel, slightly, like I've felt meeting some of my favorite writers: a bit disappointed. That is, now that I know my history a bit better, there are things I almost wish I didn't know. It was almost better to fantasize, than to realize how we participated in the destruction of a peaceful/better way of life, how my great-grandfather was participating in an archaic, brutal mindset toward women (getting a 13 year old pregnant...), etc.

Cool to have been here, seen this, felt all this, though. I definitely feel wiser, more informed.

Tomorrow, I begin my 3 day trip to their birthplace, St. Norbert, Canada, about an hour north of Montreal.

jem

Notes on Marquette

2007-07-26T10:15:00.000-05:00

Random notes on the area, from emails, etc. -

I'm in Marquette, michigan, which is in the upper peninsula, which is GORGEOUS. Amazing. on lake superior, the nicest of the great lakes, methinks. I went swimming in it twice yesterday. Cold (like ocean in maine), but nice.

I'm actually in this little town sand river, right outside of marquette. I drive into marquette every day, sometimes twice. It's a 15 minute drive. Marquette is very cool - at first it reminded me of Biddeford, Maine, but now, more like Portland - cool little restaurants, funky younger people - though a lot of sort of 'townies' too, uneducated folk who never went away - right on the water, which is GORGEOUS. Water everywhere you can see. i swear, it looks 'bigger' than the ocean.

jem

Discoveries

2007-07-25T21:18:00.000-05:00

So, I'm in Marquette, Michigan, trying to find out a few things about my family. When I first saw Marquette, this moved me very much; I imagined my family arriving, seeing this city (beautiful, on the water, a city) for the first time, and perhaps seeing it as a place for hope. The farm in Canada wasn't doing well; my great-grandfather had a heart condition, actually, and couldn't work it anymore. They went to Marquette for work.

From what I can piece together (though I'm not certain), they worked in the lumber industry. Most immigrants worked in iron ore - mining - here, but apparently, the French liked the independence of the lumbering, and the low-committment of it; that is, they could take off when lumbering season was done, and go back home.

One deflating discovery: my great-grandfather was 21 and my great-grandmother FOURTEEN when they had their first child. This makes me think of my great-grandfather as a rapist. I'm sure it's not far from the truth... Fourteen. I noticed this while looking at a 1930 census resport from Maine, which showed who was living in their Sanford house at the time. I noticed my great-grandmother was 56 at the time...and her oldest child, 42!!!! The youngest, my one remaining great-aunt, was 14. This floored me.

Likely, my great-grandfather worked in the woods during the week, and drank away the money in town on the weekends. This was suggested to me, but I'm not sure. I'd like to ask my great-aunt if her father drank much, but I'm afraid it may be too sensitive a subject.

I can't find any record anywhere of my great-aunt - Matante Rosilda (Rose) - or my great-uncle - Mononcle Alfred - who were supposedly born here. I looked in:

* City Clerk's office, for birth records - nothing.
* Baptism records at the French-Catholic Church of the time - the lady can't do the search for a few months.
* City and County Directories, like old phone books (when there were no phones), which listed every resident in town during that year, and where they lived, what their occupation was. I looked in 1899-1903.
* Census reports for those years. (1900 and 1910)
* Newspapers for birth announcements, on the few days following each's birth.

Nothing. But intersting discoveries:

*the newspapers advertized tons for women 'freeing up their time,' and 'sleeping better' by buying gas stoves, as opposed to cooking with charcoal. Never knew women cooked with charcoal back then, never thought about it. I imagine it was pretty bad for their lungs.

* In the city directories, there were listings of all the businesses in town at the time: tons. There were lumbering companies, mining companies, nurses, lawyers, midwives, etc. etc. There were many, many professions then that still exist today. For some reason, this surprised me.

jem

Collecting Data

2007-07-24T14:22:00.000-05:00

So, I'm on a research trip to the upper peninsula, Michigan, and then to Canada, to do research on how my family got to the U.S. from Canada, where they lived, what the French-Canadian migration was all about, etc. etc.

The first night, last night, I stayed in Mackinaw City, right before the Mackinaw bridge, which connects the lower peninsula to the UP. The town was pretty gross - middle america touristy, loads of families with loads of kids, white-trash touristy attractions, etc. I was miserable. My room, in some commercial strip, was quiet, though, and I managed to write and read. My suggestion: never stay in that city. Stop to get an ice cream or chocolate, but don't stay. De-press-ing.

The Mackinaw bridge is AMAZING. Gorgeous. Was built in 1957, which then made getting to the UP possible by means other than ferry.

Some thoughts so far on my family: as I was driving on roads in the UP - which were gorgeous: great lakes, woods, odd little trading posts selling furs the owners had hunted (gross, intriguing) - I noticed the train track to my left. I imagined myself driving alongside the commuter train that had carried my great-grandparents from St. Norbert Quebec, to here. It really moved me, imagining my pregnant great-grandmother on the train, feet from where I was driving, about to give birth in Marquette. This was 1902, and again in 1903. Amazing. I wondered if what I was seeing resembled what they saw. Likely in part, it did - there are still tons of woods, and the lakes, of course. This was touching, imagining these people, the parents of my grandmother, and imagining what it would be like to meet them now, and tell them that I travelled the same path they did when they were first coming to the U.S. I imagined how they'd treat me - would they think it was cool that I'd done this, or would it seem like an over-glorification of their struggle, some annoying celebration of hardship?

I can't wait to see the city where they first came to in the U.S. - Marquette - and to see if I can figure out anything about why the French-Canadians came here in particular.

More later-

jem

Insomnia

2007-06-23T03:52:00.000-05:00

Most nights, I'm up until 3. Sometimes I miss my window of sleep opportunity, such as tonight, when I was tired around 11:30, but read until 1:00ish...and now here I am at 5:00ish.

Often I worry. Or stress. About something I'm obligated to do, and then I worry about not having enough time, or clarity of mind to do what I feel I must do: write, and work out, usually. These two things don't feel optional, especially not the first.

Or worry about whether my neighbors will wake me up in the morning.

I see my type of personality in others: it ain't perty. I don't want to be a stress-head case. It just consumes me, gives me no choice.

One good thing: I don't ever have to get up before noon these days. No work but my writing. My internship begins at 2:00pm. At the moment, this saves me, and many days, you'll catch me sleeping until noon.

Wow this is a boring post. All I'm capable of at the moment.

jem

And take that, evangelicals

2007-06-14T22:22:00.000-05:00

I recently heard an interview with Egyptian writer Ali Salem. He spoke of the Muslim extremists in his country, of the fundamentalism that incites violence. “They hate life,” he said, linking this assertion with the belief that true life occurs after death, and that certain violent acts would be rewarded then by God. Indeed, extremists in our own country – who have transmogrified Christianity into something that more reasonable practitioners reject – manufacture their own divisive and violent battles in hope of attaining a better life after death. Thus, our leaders encourage the production and irresponsible disposal of poisons that irrevocably damage our world, they work (tirelessly, pathologically) to force women into lives that may not be appropriate for them, they create an unsafe, hostile environment for people who love people these fundamentalists have never met, yet despise. My intuitive understanding that life – plant, animal, human – is valuable and to be respected, that it is the birthright of people to decide for themselves how they wish to live, shows me with unfaltering clarity that our country’s extremists are wrong.

jem

Burgeoning evangelical dis

2007-06-13T20:43:00.000-05:00

Some thoughts I'm forming for an essay on the misguided philosophies of the evangelicals.

jem

***

An American evangelical Christian with whom I once did volunteer work told me that people commonly turn to his faith following some major life crisis. I was surprised by the admission: it seemed to undercut the presumed power of the religion, positioning evangelical Christianity as something people turned to for relief, like a drug, a thing to ingest to make the pain go away. Indeed, listen to any evangelical radio station for very long, and you’re likely to hear the confessional of the former drug abuser, testifying how he left behind his substance of choice once he found Jesus. It begs the question, of course, whether the addict substituted one addiction for another.

But the phenomenon of turning religious in the midst of despair also brings to mind a truism offered by a wise therapist who once advised me on selecting a suitable romantic partner: one is more successful when she chooses out of interest and desire rather than desperation. I’m familiar with the monumental effort it takes to sustain a belief system acquired through means other than self-discovery and conviction. When you know something to be good, true – from experience, observation, from a feeling deep in your heart – but your faith-based belief system tells you it is wrong, evil, what results resembles a battleground more than a peaceful, loving mindset. Of my evangelical volunteer friend, I found myself wondering whether, before his abrupt conversion, he had ever gone to therapy.

Relationship reflections: a year+ later

2007-06-09T23:49:00.000-05:00

I've been reading some of my previous posts: Wow, regarding my lost relationship of 2005-2006. Since then, dear readers, I dated several more people, saw some familiar patterns emerge, invented some new relationship behaviors.

What I've learned in this time

Indeed, many of my relationship mess-ups have been related to fear of being alone. Hence, I've jumped into something that isn't right, just to avoid feeling the panic of aloneness; or, fear of being squandered, diminished into nothingness, therefore manufacturing conflict in order to avoid the intimacy, that in my mind, equates my disappearing.

Alone/Squandered/Still

I've gained some insights into these fears: fear of being alone is very much connected to my having been left alone as a kid, and therefore put in some quite precarious circumstances. It's all about recognizing this as old fears, and recognizing that I'm not that kid anymore.

Fear of being squandered: well, that diminishes the older I get, the more skilled I get at voicing my needs, desires.

I do still fear being alone. I fear something pursuing me, and successfully overtaking me. But, having made the successful move from Cambridge to Ann Arbor has helped. Moving was one huge-arse fear I had, and, I've seen now that a lot of my fears were not realized. This gives me confidence.

Moral

The bottom line was that I was stagnant for way. too. long. Taking a risk has necessarily made small shifts in me. If you can't make something happen, take action, and let it happen to you. This is a lesson re-learned.

Kisses.

jem

Lesbianism in _Mrs. Dalloway_

2007-06-09T16:15:00.001-05:00

And to prove that I'll keep in better touch, here's a prospectus on a paper I wrote recently on why I don't think that the novel _Mrs. Dalloway_ is about repressed lesbianism. I think that lesbianism is a significant aspect of the project Woolf undertook in the work, but, I think many queer critics have overcompensated by claiming that the entire novel is one big instance of repressed lesbianism. This undercuts, I think, the true lesbian desire that *is* apparent in the novel.

Voila. Tell me what you think.

Component Lesbianism in Mrs. Dalloway

Clarissa Dalloway’s onetime love for Sally Seton in Mrs. Dalloway is one of the novel’s most resonant instances of a larger theme that pervades the work: wistfulness over unexplored or imperfect intimacy. Mrs. Dalloway reminisces of her kiss with Sally Seton:

Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life passing a stone
urn with flowers in it. Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the
lips. The whole world might have turned upside down! (MD, 35)

Yet in reference to this, the most exhilarating romantic connection of Clarissa Dalloway’s life, we are also told of her current feeling: “She could not even get an echo of her old emotion.” (MD, 34) Clarissa Dalloway is never able to feel truly close to another person. She most successfully operates in the world by collecting partial intimacies from those presently or formerly connected to her – most notably Sally Seton, Peter Walsh, her husband, Richard – and holding these in her mind as a montage of affections.

It is my thesis that Clarissa Dalloway’s wistfulness is not a direct correlate of repressed homosexuality, as has often been argued; rather, it is an inability, or an unwillingness, to engage completely with any person. It does, however, seem eminently possible that were Mrs. Dalloway existing in a context in which homosexuality was fully sanctioned, she would live her life as a lesbian; that is, her fear of societal reprimand for her love of women is great, and stands in the way of any earnest pursuit of lesbianism. (The same can be said of the author herself.) I argue, however, that even in such a scenario, Clarissa Dalloway would remain the emotionally detached protagonist that she is. Mrs. Dalloway as a lesbian would as likely refrain from exploring love for an unforgettable boy of her youth as would the heterosexual (or asexual) woman of an unconsummated marriage refrain from pursuing the only expression of romantic love that she can imagine. Our heroine is most comfortable in a world frequented by loved ones who remain at arm’s length.

In my paper, I look at previous analysis of lesbianism in the novel, and offer an alternative to the common claim that Clarissa Dalloway’s characteristic wistfulness, melancholia, is due to unexpressed lesbian desire. I consider other sources for her longing and consternation: Peter’s compelling yet smothering nature; Richard’s trustworthiness and dependability, but, perhaps, his inability to measure up to an ideal notion of a husband; the jealousy she feels for her daughter’s attachment to a woman she both loathes and oddly admires; the irksomeness of this woman, Miss Kilman, for her showy humility, her devotion to an unimaginative religiosity, her piety to unhappiness; the blandness of people like Ellie Henderson, and their thorough inability to add vitality to her parties. All these people, all these factors impress themselves on Mrs. Dalloway, shape her experience of the world she presents to us. Finally, I discuss Virginia Woolf’s relationship with Vita Sackville-West, for further insight into the nature of lesbianism in the novel.

My project, then, is to show that lesbian desire is one component of many from which the consciousness of Clarissa Dalloway is fashioned. Mrs. Dalloway manages intimacy carefully, never advancing close enough to be squandered, nor straying so far that she cannot feel its peripheral comforts. This, if anything, is Clarissa Dalloway’s signature trait. And it is for this that she is a beautiful compendium of love, anguish, fear, joy, detachment, and transcendence.

Work Cited/Sources

Jensen, Emily, Clarissa Dalloway’s Respectable Suicide in Virginia Woolf: A Feminist Slant, Ed., Jane Marcus, (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1983).

Lee, Hermione, Virginia Woolf, (New York: Vintage Books, 1996).

Raitt, Suzanne, Vita and Virginia: The Work and Friendship of V. Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993).

Smith, Patricia Juliana, Lesbian Panic: Homoeroticism in Modern British Women’s Fiction, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).

Woolf, Virginia, Mrs. Dalloway, (London: Harcourt, Inc., 1925).

Hello Again!

2007-06-09T16:12:00.001-05:00

Hello World, I'm back! I've moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and am now getting my MFA in creative writing. The past year was filled with applying to 16 schools, dealing with a severe hip injury, moving from Cambridge, MA to Ann Arbor, and completing my first wonderful year of the program.

I've missed you, and will try to keep in better touch.

jem

Whites acknowledging cultural differences

2006-04-11T21:19:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine recently said something that could be construed as racist. I thought at first that it indeed was - an instinctual reaction as a white person, perhaps - and then I saw complexity in it.

The comment was made in response to an art piece made by a friend of mine, of south american descent, but born in the U.S. My friend looked at the artwork, which in my mind revealed no particular cultural aesthetic, and said, "It's so interesting how the latin american aesthetic is so vibrant." Attributing the fairly plain artwork to one's cultural heritage, in this instance, seemed rather ridiculous; there was simply nothing that screamed out any particular perspective or identity; much in the same way a photograph of grass might not reveal much about the cultural identity of the photographer.

I was quiet, but I was offended for the artist. I called up my artist friend and she laughed when I told her about the comment. I was relieved, but also apologetic for my friend, the art observer.

I've been programmed to think that any comment about non-white culture made by a white person - unless it lauds the discussed culture, or disses white culture in the process - is racist and suspect. This is bogus, I find more and more.

Doesn't every group make observations of people not in that group? What's different, say, about an older woman of Chinese descent generalizing about white people, than a woman of european-american descent making a comment about Chinese people? If, let's assume, the comment made by the white women is not informed by some racist paradigm that originated during a less-enlightened era, than, there is nothing different, I say.

Acknowledgment of difference is not bad. Yet, whites have been increasingly bred to think that it is, and to therefore be punished when making some innocuous observation to do with cultural heritage.

Lessons learned: these things are infinitely complex and layered. We must study things critically, and not be force-fed something just because it's delivered in the most socially acceptable or desirable form or ideology.

jem

Hogwash

2006-01-11T01:03:00.000-05:00

Terry Gross interviewed Paul Bremer on "Fresh Air" today. He made some half-assed argument defending his decision in 2004 to close Al Hawza, an anti-occupation newspaper in Iraq. He simply further revealed himself to be of an anti-democratic, imperialistic power. It was childishly transparent, his argument was.

That's it. No in-depth analysis of this, just a hearty acknowledgement of balderdash.

jem

Snippets * from * *

2006-01-09T22:41:00.000-05:00

In junior high, I found it fitting to deliver an assignment on Guy Fawkes day in verse. In college, I turned my biweekly Humanities seminar papers into creative writing exercises: my assignment on the di Medici family gardens became an attempt to evoke the sensory experience of a walk in a labyrinth comprised of rosemary trellises.

*
*

A short story, I've found, is fashioned from many things I love: the strategic juxtapositions of poetry, the sedulousness of academic writing, the character exploration of playwriting and acting; and yet, beautifully, it is its own medium too. When I am the reader, a short story leaves me with a haunting uneasiness, an ineffable longing - some vestige - more immediately than does just about any other art form.

*
*

And I loved thinking about how to cleverly use words and arrangements of words to do these things. I began to read more, and for new reasons: to figure out how the author had constructed her work - When does she introduce an anecdote about her parents and why? Why does she use dialogue here but not there? - and to determine which choices, detailed or integral, made a piece powerful.

***

I recently re-read Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body. What I find to be most remarkable about the book is that each of its sentences is as deliberate and well-crafted as the line of a poem. The arrangement of passages is strategic, enhancing the reader’s emotive experience. The narrative flow yields to lonely meditations on the body in the middle chapters, enabling the reader to more perfectly empathize with the reflective and solitary narrator, estranged from her love interest at that point. The narrative voice is witty, searching, wise, alive, human.

*jem*

Floral slippage

2006-01-03T20:59:00.000-05:00

Not sure why it works the way it does. When something is offered to me, why, in the past, I've felt afraid of it. And when it slips away, it reveals itself, or so it seems, as something I do indeed want.

Why the fear in moment of aloneness? When someone is gone, then there is danger? When someone is gone, then there is this diminishing sense of self? Existence doesn't persist in aloneness? Someone told me that if a baby isn't held enough, the result is an adult that feels very threatened by aloneness.

Can something that was offered for such a short time really be sincere? It betrays itself as my experience, as interest until interest is returned, and then, disinterest. She too, I think, feels the terror of aloneness. She too is terrified by feeling out of control. When the wound is opened, she needs to fill it with others, or else she may drown. Maybe I'm wrong.

When I was little, I was alone, always. I watched my parents closely as they preoccupied themselves with things other than noticing me. I think this is what I feel when I am left. I think I purposely make myself be left so that I can replicate this scenario, and try to get it right. It's hard to know what is right, who is right >>>>

>>>>>>someone who is patient and kind, who is not tricked by her own fear, someone who smiles in relief >>when the reversal comes, at last.

*
*

Another dozen roses.

A dozen roses

2005-12-27T20:50:00.000-05:00

While I was driving from Maine to Boston this morning, the light on my dashboard signifying that a door is opened was lit. Before I'd left Maine, I'd tried to open one of my back doors, and because of ice and snow on my car, the door wouldn't budge.

Apparently it had budged. Apparently I'd been driving with an opened door for miles on the highway.

I decided that when I reached the Maine Turnpike toll-booth in several miles, I would get out after I'd handed the toll-person my money and I'd close the door. This seemed safest, the best option for not getting smashed by a sleeping truck driver (which, by the way, happened to me in 1994).

The only problem was in my head. I thought that I may not get the permission of the toll-person to get out of my car and close the door.

I was right.

When I got to the toll-booth, I made the mistake of telling Mr. toll-man what I was about to do: get out and close my door.

"Your door's closed," he said.
"No, the back door, on the other side," I said.
"Well you can't - that guy is behind you." Mr. toll-man pointed to a big-ass truck behind me. "Pull to the end of that guard rail over there Ma'am, and do it there," fucker told me.

I acquiesced.

And I almost got hit. Mr. big truck came very close to hitting my car, me, as I was getting out to close the door that was indeed open. I was pissed. First at Mr. stupid-ass toll-man who had no regard for human life. What the hell? Just don't give me a hard time, dude, about getting out for 10 seconds tops and closing the door. This way I live and you get to spend the remainder of your days guilt-free about not having been the cause of a young woman's horrific death.

Then I got really mad at myself. What the hell? It's that old authority thing kicking in. The 'if I don't have permission to do something, then I can't do it' thing. Even if what I'm asking is permission to stay alive. Like, if my career choice, if my success, is somehow an affront to Dad, then I won't do it. The being trapped to do something you know is wrong for you because you don't want to disappoint someone else's expectation of you - even if that expectation is failure, pain, death.

This needs to stop. It's not okay anymore. The life I'm living is actually mine, and a good old fashioned confrontation is worth it sometimes. I don't owe anyone submissiveness. Sure, it probably saved my life as a kid, but now, things are different. So Mr. toll-booth may have called me a name. I would have then had the pleasure of a single-digit wave goodbye.

I wonder how many people's behaviors are automatic, unexamined reactions from damaged childhoods.

Are we really willful creatures?

***
I bought myself a dozen roses today.

jem

Restitution

2005-12-14T22:40:00.000-05:00

Even when I am alone, I am alive. I've felt this lately, and it feels nice.
My father has some kindness in him. He actually has a certain level of concern for my well being. I've seen this lately, and it feels nice.
There is joy in life, in the little things that are hidden until you stumble over them, until you do a double-take and lift them to your face for a closer look. I've done some stumbling lately, and I've encountered these quiet satisfactions.
George Eliot is brilliant. I've read her lately, and she shines.
My friend MM is a beautiful woman, faithfully offering me rare insight into growth, development, and being human.
Spring is on the other side of winter.
Even in the silence, there is something...life?

jem

Residue

2005-12-13T22:02:00.000-05:00

Panic.
That I've done something to take someone I love away from me.
Anger.
At myself for not just going forward and forgetting her, for wanting to be with her still.
Panic.
For feeling controlled by her coming in as feels right for her, for discarding me and my feelings as feels right for her.
Indignation.
For doing something healthy and feeling like it made her go away for good.
Anger.
For feeling controlled by my desire for her.
Vulnerability.
For feeling controlled by my desire for her.
Confounded.
For not moving forward when something feels so precarious so consistently.
Looking.
Around the corner, for a little light, for a glimpse of what I look like looking at it.

jem

jem controlling jem

2005-12-09T17:21:00.000-05:00

I've often felt ashamed for being a control freak. Control over my body, how big or small it is, control over health, control over when I speak to someone or not. The list goes on. Why the bad rap on being in control?

How I control
Control for me can get out of hand. If someone treats me disrespectfully, I feel like I need to control the situation. This can mean that I pull away so that they cannot have access to me. This can mean that I test the situation and create a conflict where there may have been none, so that I can kick some ass out of self-righteousness. Like, 'don't you mess with me - I have rights.' It becomes a need to create a situation where I am wronged, so that I can point out that I am being wronged. It becomes mastery over a situation in which I am being mistreated, abused, treated like crap.

If I feel out of control, it can also mean that I put myself in a victim position, a recreation of where I was as a kid, a position that feels familiar and in some really twisted way, comforting.

Pebble pebble
Control for me can be stepping on a pebble with my left foot, and though I've taken several steps past it, needing to return so that I can step on it with my right foot. What is this? My most recent feeling is that it is me feeling at my core something like, 'I need to control this so that nothing bad happens to me.' If I don't step on the pebble twice, I fear that the impulse to step on it will overtake me, will control my thoughts, my mind, until I come back and step on it twice. I'll be ruled by the impulse, it will invade me, I won't be able to go back to the thoughts that make me who I am.

I wasn't able to control all the scary shit that happened to me as a kid - the near death stuff, the parents leaving me alone sick stuff, the parents making me keep quiet and not allowing me to be a person with thoughts and opinions and passions stuff, the parents telling me I was a freak and not much of a person stuff. So, stepping on a pebble twice now means that this stuff won't happen again. (When I did it as a kid, it probably meant 'Maybe I can control what they're doing to me.')

Reality and hopes for now
Plenty of stuff can happen to me. Hopefully I won't ever live under the the type of tyranny and oppression I did as a kid. For now, I have relative control over myself, my life. But still, anything can happen at any time. I want to learn to be more agile, more flexible to handle the hard stuff. I think this would be helpful to me. Now when something 'goes wrong,' it doesn't have to mean that my life is at risk - it did mean this as a kid (if my parents just left me, I could have died). People can persist even though they deal with lots of stuff. I want to learn to be an agile, adaptable person.

jem

Unearthed

2005-12-08T00:08:00.000-05:00

If someone likes me, it does not mean there is something wrong with them, that they have a defect that will prevent me from being in a successful relationship with them.
If someone makes themselves vulnerable with me, it may be simply because they like me and that they feel safe with me and want to be close to me. It does not mean that they are weak or inadequate.
If someone wants to spend time with me, it does not necessarily mean that they are trying to control my mind, to prevent me from doing things I love to do.
When someone continually tries to connect with me, to be close to me, this does not necessarily mean that they are out of control and are not to be trusted. They may simply want to keep trying to be close to me.

jem

More on the past in my present

2005-12-05T21:38:00.000-05:00

So, I'm working on interpreting my past these days. I feel like I've come up with some really solid things regarding my problems with being in a relationship.

Why the panic?
One thing I've always felt when I sense that someone really likes me is panic. I feel a bit sick to my stomach, I'm aware of my heart beating, I can't focus on what is happening. The long-term end result of this is that I destroy the potential for a relationship. I find a reason to be unhappy with the person, a reason why they aren't right for me. I can't stand the panic, and so I make it stop. The short-term result is that I probably am not as attentive back to the person, or that I'm freaking out inside, wondering how to escape. If I don't escape, I feel that I will disappear, that I will be overtaken, that I'll have no sense of self left.

The source is clear to me now: my parents, of course. A relationship with them was painful and they did indeed take away my sense of self. It wasn't okay to be a person around them. I couldn't express an opinion, especially if it conflicted with their own, my own thoughts were completely forced out of my own head and filled with the things they told me about myself, and by my attempts to figure out what they wanted from me, what might prevent them from being mean. As I spoke about in a previous post, intimacy meant bad, harmful, painful things.

Fear of being dumped = terror
As well, though, I think that by avoiding being close to someone, I've avoided being dumped by them. To be dumped by someone (which I was in fact just recently) is to be discarded, to be labeled as inadequate, to be shoved to the side while the cool people, the interesting and happy people walk by without noticing me. But this is from the past too, these feelings. I was indeed treated as inadequate, as not quite right, but not by the woman I'm dating at such or such a time. It was by my parents, and that's in the past.

My fear of being left, and therefore my discomfort with getting close, also has to do, I think, with my many sicknesses as a child. I was given last rights at birth. And that was just the beginning. To be left alone when I was a kid could mean that I would die.

And I was very often left alone.

My mother worked nights, and my father didn't care. One night, after a tonsilectomy, my stitches came undone in the middle of the night, and when my teenaged sister went to tell my father that I wasn't well, he told her to go back to bed, that I'd be fine (he never came to see if his 5 year old daughter was okay). I almost bled to death. By the time my mother came home from work in the morning, I was vomiting blood everywhere, and I had to be physically carried to the car and rushed to the emergency room where I received a transfusion. My parents abandoned me in a really big way. I've tried so hard to avoid being left again by not getting close.

I'm rehashing all this because enough is enough. It's all controlled me for so long, but I refuse to let it do so anymore.

The plan
The plan: to stick with the panic when my next woman is looking at me with love and promises of caring and nurturing. The panic will pass. That's the nature of panic. The panic will be replaced with feeling the feelings I've always longed for.

And I will sit with the uncertainty. The uncertainty of whether she's right for me or not. I've been unable to sit with that uncertainty in the past, accelerating the relationship by sleeping with her too quickly, or by ending it because she wasn't this or that, when this or that isn't something I even care about! It'll become evident in time whether she's right for me.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy her smiles, her touch, her tenderness. And hopefully those will become mine indefinitely.

jem

I will be her kind

2005-12-01T23:34:00.000-05:00

I used to alternately blame my parents for my chaotic, confusing life, and berate myself for including them in the equation at all. Now, I see their role in my life, in my relationship life to be exact, in a new way.

Here's how it works: mom (a beautiful, wonderful woman) was overwhelmed with the 5 kids, and an alcoholic-ish husband who left her to raise a family alone while he watched hours and hours of television a day. Dad (a man overwhelmed by his own sad past, paralyzed by his own faults and fears) was constantly on the cusp of a violent outburst, but had a desperate need for my mother. My mother was overwhelmed, longing for a different life (for the Montreal of her youth, for a better partner, for less responsibilities), barely unable to keep it all together, prone to yelling outbursts that targeted and paralyzed each of us with fear. Mom was mad at dad for completely ignoring any responsibilities he had to the family, for abandoning her daily to keep it all together all alone. Dad was a zombie at best, a violent, angry, mean-spirited, and hurtful person normally. Mom sometimes showed us love, sometimes not. Dad never did.

A kid automatically gets fucked up from this. A kid learns what love is about from her parents, and associates what she got from them with what it is. A kid, like me, who usually got nothing, often was the object of resentment and violence, who had moments of affection, will grow up to give these things back to those she loves, to her partners.

Until she sees what's happened, figures out how it all happened, and resolves to fix it.

That's where I am folks.

I learned about making hurtful comments to your girlfriend from my parents. I learned about feeling threatened by her closeness (because her closeness might suffocate me with bad things - disrespect, fears of my individuality, jealousy, rage, abuse, all things my parents offered me in a close relationship to them). I learned about giving a few signs of affection, mostly because you were terrified to be all alone in life, because at your core, you felt empty and non-deserving of anything good, and hoped to hell people wouldn't abandon you to feel those things all on your own. I learned that closeness is about sadness, and feeling trapped, and thwarted goals, and a less desirable life, and about bickering, and making the person feel like less in order that you might feel like a bit more.

These things, of course, are horrible. It's not the me that is me. It's the me that I inherited, and that I really have no interest in anymore. I'm willing to do the work. I'm doing the work.

I see glimpses of my future: a me happy, fulfilled, at peace alone. A stronger than ever me. A woman. A woman who is fun and loving and happy and strong. A woman who may choose to be with someone if it feels like a good thing. A woman who will not try to anticipate what her partner wants and then ignore her own feelings in order to meet her partner's desires. A woman who will fulfill her own needs, and in so doing, will be a better partner to her woman. A woman who will love to be with another woman, who will feel gratified and happy by it.

I will be her kind.

jem

Over uneasy

2005-11-30T23:01:00.000-05:00

It's over.

We tried it again for a little bit, and she just couldn't shake my past behaviors. Who can blame her? I was a selfish, self-righteous, egoist, who believed I deserved infinite praise and love - while being a total bastard.

And this is the thing: what is it that makes me feel unloved when someone is loving me so very thoroughly and tenderly? I become forever needy and demanding and test test test, believing that I deserve to be treated better than she treats me.

And I wonder why I've failed in love.

I want to get to the bottom of this. Enough is enough. I've been hurt enough times, and I've hurt enough people. This is the fresh start, the slap on the head that pushes one toward another path. I'm a millimeter along the new path. I'm reading books, I'm working on my anxiety, I'm talking to those wiser than me on this. And I'm feeling the terror that is me alone.

Alone. Quiet. Pursued. Overtaken. Controlled.

I don't want to be alone. Even more, I don't want to feel alone. Even when I am alone. I want alone to feel not alone. Or for alone to be, in the very least, neutral territory, maybe even welcomed territory. I want for silence to not equate terror.

Kindly push some cosmic wisdom my way, would you?

jem

Patterns

2005-11-04T06:33:00.000-05:00

Patterns of people, that are geographically based: thus the christian fanaticism of the south. Every other radio station here offers something about Jesus as remedy for anything, everything. People's thoughts and actions are controlled by an obsession that the invisible Jesus has something to say about this moment. These people frighten me very, very much. They are anti-human, they are pro-hysteria. They deny their own human qualities, the ones that make people kind, decent people. What is their fulfillment in life? They seem so miserably vapid.

Patterns of self: chronology and participation, farer reachings, fear and panic, rejection.

Patterns of future: chronology and participation, farer reachings contained in the current safe realm, growth, inclusion, smiles all around.

jem

Loving wounded

2005-11-03T23:14:00.000-05:00

I'm loving wounded. But I'm loving a memory, and she's loving a someone new. This is nearly unbearable. She's with her now at this exact moment and I'm here knowing it.

A friend told me today that people who are attracted to the chaotic side of love are so because they have learned that pattern from childhood: that love must be gotten from a struggle, or from conflict. Thus, when love is given easily it seems unimpassioned and is unable to hold their attention, and they, the conflict lovers, reject this freely, beautifully given love. When love comes in the form of one who is inacessible, they are all over it.

This rings true for me, and my miserably failed efforts in relationships.

Fair reader, I make the pledge here and now to end this pattern in my life. It is not one that has brought any level of joy to me. To the contrary, it has taken people from me, or made me thoroughly agonized, this inclination has, and I have hurt people when I've meant to do very much the opposite.

I want to trust someone enough to feel safe in life. It will be worth the risk. I want what my friend here in the south has, a safe, mutually respectful connection in which each helps the other. Life with two is happier and more productive than life as one.

This is my pledge: the next person that I love, that loves me back, that is available and sincere, will receive my full openness and warmth. Goddess bless her, she may be washed away with years of damned up emotion. But, I will swim after her - after all I can swim the length of Walden pond - and I will bring her back to me, and tell her she is safe. I will give her something warm to wear and an animal-shaped flotation device for the next time I need to go on out after her.

Forgive me my fixation on self these days. I hope to soon again be consumed by the stupidity and incompetence of the conservative right.

jem

Panic and travel

2005-11-03T09:59:00.000-05:00

Panic: What makes me panic most these days is the fear that I have an inability to keep what I want most: a loving partner, cute and sweet, of the earth and of the mind. I did it this time, pushed away a little bit of sun who was offering me everything. Everything. Yet, I panicked about not loving her enough, not being able to give her enough time, or enough of me, feared that these things would hurt her and I would feel loss over it.

What happened: Just that. I kept my distance so well that she became too hurt to be around me.

Distance: I am traveling through several states in the south, and have seen and heard people give themselves over to something they cannot see or feel or touch. They holler, they rhythmize their judgments and confessions, they inspire others to do the same. I don't even know what the point of entry is, what everybody agrees on to call themselves a group. To simply say that you love Jesus? I don't really get it, but it is both intriguing and frightening to see how impassioned they are. This is the most close-up view I've ever had of a cult.

Why: Can't I feel that passionate about something that is real, that is right before me, so sweet and cute, that I can feel and that is smiling sweetly at me? Why can't I holler out her name and ask that she do the same for me and together we'll be our own little fanatical group? What holds me back? Certainly not anything worse than the loss that results when I do hold myself back.

Please: Fortuna, laws of nature, science, teach me to be present and calm, especially, most certainly especially, in the face of someone I love and want to be with.

jem

Questions on love

2005-10-31T14:17:00.000-05:00

Why are there so many rules against loving? External, certainly, especially in this country since the religious fanatics seized power, but even more frightening to me are my internal limitations.

People have loved me, and I've loved them; and yet, my manifestations of love have been so very inadequate.

Why are there rules?

Why do fears win over excitment and curiosity?

Surely, this is not who I am.

I met a woman, and she was all sunshine and krinkly-nosed laughter. She moved me so, and I could have kissed her little face all day. More lovely still, she would have wanted me to. I didn't, not nearly enough. This woman found herself a new woman and who could blame her.

Jeanette Winterson asks "Why is the measure of love loss?"

Is it though? Not for everyone. For my little krinkly-nosed wonder it is not. For her, the measure of love is laughter and warmth. Why are some of us drawn to the darker side of love? Those of us who are should be shipped off to a little island of our own (no, heavens no, not the same island reserved for the exiled American religious fanatics), where we could work out our little issues in some sort of labor camp and then neatly reassimilate into society so that we do not hurt the good and the healthy, the little sparkles of cuteness that actually want to perpetuate joy.

"Why is the measure of love loss?"

Is it though? Even for me, in my safe little world of retrospect, where fears do not prevent me from feeling the love given to me in the past, I remember the tenderness most vividly: the smell of her ear, the coo turn small snore in her breathing at night, though she insisted she was no snorer. These memories are my measure of love.

And I want it again.

Perhaps, though, loss is a potion that snaps us from a dreamy detachment, a fear of loss that prevents closeness when it is being offered.

I want to drink that potion while there is still hope, and not when it is too late. Please tell me if you have such a potion.

jem

Religious right, please leave this free country

2005-10-29T17:08:00.000-05:00

It's almost impossible for me to think about anything else these days other than the immoral, unethical, obnoxious, arrogant, irrational, violent, anti-intellectual, anti-cultural, misogynistic, homophobic, base, and corrupt conservative right wingers in this country.

These people (illegally) came into power several years ago promising to bring 'honor' and 'dignity' to the presidency and its administration. Instead, it put into place a moron, former cocaine addict and alcoholic who has the inability to speak a coherent sentence or to have an original thought. Instead, he leans on his invisible friend, whom he loves and allegedly entered his heart and changed his life. (My god these people sound homosexual - why can't they just admit it and just leave all the blessed homosexuals in this country alone?) These people - among them, Karl Rove, Tom Delay, Alan Keyes, Lewis Libby, Dick Cheney, Bill Frist, Pat Robertson, etc etc - are the basest, most shameful examples of life on the planet.

Many members of the administration supposedly belong to a certain sect of Christianity, a cult really, that believes that they are predestined to being saved and that their actions have no reflection on this truth; that is, no matter what they do here on earth, they're going to be with their man, Jesus, once it's over...so, they can expediently, stupidly, do whatever they wish here on earth and they'll still be wearing the white robes afterward.

And they do in fact do whatever they wish without regard to anyone or anything but their little adolescent endeavors. Really, I think they're all developmentally stuck at about age 13, and are reliving the times when all the pretty girls rightfully shunned them and called them names. It's over guys. Go to therapy if it still haunts you - stop attempting to destroy the quality of life of the people who want to remain free in this country.

Abortion will be illegal soon in this so-called first world country. This is my official prediction. These people are barbaric and repulsive. They will put me and my friends in jail for taking adult responsibilities over our bodies, for expressing free will and intellect. This country is the least progressive, most violent, least intellectual so-called first world country on the planet, and it's all because of these bozos.

Listen guys, some of us here actually like people, and think they're pretty cool, and enjoy cultural differences and really don't like it when you make it impossible for the good people of this country to travel and have intellectual exchanges with other cultures. I always say I'm Canadian when I travel, because, in part, the fanatics in power have made being American overseas an impossibly dangerous thing. In part, I am so ashamed of being American right now.

And some people - um, the sane people in the country - actually have respect for life right here and now, and don't follow your little fantasy story line about this life not mattering. So please get the hell away from here and go establish a little island far far away where you can all go beat each other up, sleep with each other (you're doing it now after all), take your illegal drugs, and make believe your fantasy friend really matters. And leave this (albeit diminishingly) free country to those who actually want to live in a free country, where religion has nothing to do with being a decent, caring, loving person, where art and intellect are respected and nourished, where women are seen as people, where homosexuals are left alone to be the normal, healthy (perhaps more evolved) people that they are, where life is actually a thing to respect and treat kindly.

As one literary critic said recently: my holy book is any book that is written with gorgeous, deliberate artistic attention; literature.

Agnostic in America

2005-10-20T22:42:00.000-05:00

Being agnostic in America is tough these days.

Even when you live in Cambridge, Massachusetts...but maybe that's just because my mother is still only an instant message away. "Do you go to church?" her purple text shouts above a calming pink background.

I don't have anything against churches. Well, maybe just a tad against those that interpret my natural curiosity and intellectual skepticism as proof of certain damnation. Call me sensitive, but it's not a pleasant vision, my friends and I the seasonings for a stew of globulous primordial slime forever nearing boil. Plus, I've grown somewhat fond of my recalcitrance, offering it as a slightly more matured substitute for the Betty Boop curls and bright red lipstick I wore when I first moved to Boston 10 years ago.

There's this belief among the country's most conservatively religious, especially those in leadership positions, that nonreligious folk are immoral. And yet, there is Tom Delay indicted on a conspiracy charge; there is Bill Frist under investigation for a shady stock trade; there is Pat Robertson suggesting we kill another country's president. My agnostic friends and I, we're low-key in comparison.

My friend Meghan went apple picking recently, and spoke to me of the guilt she felt in sampling the apples that had fallen to the ground. "I went out of my way to find ones with worm holes," Meghan offered in an attempt to assuage what was eating away at her. I absolved her of this dubious transgression as best I could: "Some four year old might have slipped on it," I said. "He would have had to go home early and miss the hay ride."

I am of the mindset that morality comes with natural human development. You learn many important things early in life: if you see that you have hurt someone, you will commonly feel uneasy for doing so; when you are kind to someone, when you visit an elderly person in a nursing home, when you raise money for a community in need, you feel happy, alive. Just as we learn to breathe, we learn to love and care. The assertions of the conservative right that only those who believe in God know right from wrong have endlessly been disproved not only by their own subversions of the belief system they advocate, but by the beautifully compassionate and selfless actions of all the nonreligious people I know.

Several years ago, I was a volunteer at Ground Zero in New York City. I chatted daily with a certain construction worker who would come to the food tent for lunch. Once, he stopped on his way out of the tent and asked me, point blank, "Are you a Christian?" I hesitated to answer, afraid that I would be asked to leave - the organization I was volunteering with was evangelical Christian. Finally, I told him that I wasn't. "What motivates you?" he asked incredulously. I was incredulous in return. How could desire to bring comfort, to help, be overlooked as the universal reality that it is? "You can't leave with more than one orange," I said, resorting to the authority I held during my shift as food guard.

"No mom, I don't go to church," I reply in some mundane default text. Lying to my mother just doesn't seem necessary; heck, it's not even an option. More importantly, I have no interest in becoming a member of a church. And in my mind, the values I very consciously try to follow are accessible to everyone, whether they bite into some prohibited apple or not.

jem

Success doesn't have to hurt

2005-10-17T19:54:00.000-05:00

You know, there's the mindset in this country, certainly in New England, that success follows only from grueling efforts. One who is calm and happy and takes it easy will not succeed. I see this fallacy everywhere, experience it firsthand: at work, in creative writing workshops, in the media. I wonder if this has something to do with the seemingly miserable 'founders' of the country. They set about their hard work of killing and rebuilding wearing their puritan and religious shackles - all in the cold weather!

At work I see it in the culture established by the founders of the company. They are MIT folks who believe that it is obsessively rigorously detailed work - work that never ever ever ends - that has brought the company success. Thing is, there is so much wasteful effort that goes on there too, so much sloppy managing, so much overlooking of the obvious. Everyone is too busy trying to be stellar in their own little compulsive way, in their own little gray-walled cube devoid of any pretty or soulful decoration. What's really annoying is that everyone is trying to outdo each other with just how 'picky' or 'anal' they are. Really. People boast about such things. People win awards for working through sickness, sacrificing their weekends, for neglecting their family. Truly.

And you see the impact such fanatic and compulsive attention to detail has on people: many of the people I work with look much, much older than they are. They are out of shape, they are prematurely bald, they are unsociable. Most of them look like they've never been out in sunlight.

Why can't we do a really good job and call it a day, and - um, here's an idea - be happy! Why do we have to 'destroy our competitors' and become a 5 billion dollar company? How about this as a goal: fostering a mutually supportive, friendly, happy, and productive environment. The rest is garbage. It really is. It breeds unhappiness and unhealth and spawns a mutant breed of people who nature can't quite recognize. For every obsessive, neurotic, hypo-diligent person out there, surely there is some quiet, perceptive, empathetic and peaceful soul harmoniously doing her thing. How's about we call her in for a 9:00am Monday morning meeting and learn her secret to success?

I saw a bit PDiddy's show this weekend, the one where he's trying to make a hip hop star out of some unknown young woman. First off, the man doesn't sit well with me. He's just arrogant and obtuse and a disrespectful traveler. ("We're gonna rock Paris like it's never been rocked before!" By this, he meant sitting in an expensive hotel room and drinking until he vomited his camembert. Real multi-cultural.) In it, he insisted on working the women until they were exhausted, on throwing insults at them, belittling them, strutting around with some faux-power, on reminding them that when they were famous, they'd have to put up with this or that drudgery so you'd better get used to it now ladies!

What delusion.

You know what, I highly doubt that as 'a famous person' one faces constant drudgery. Nor would one have to. One could actually enjoy one's greater freedom, money, recognition. One might actually be able to control her life a bit more than when she need no longer concern herself with mundane worries such as rent and car repairs.

This fanaticism with 'toughness' (and I certainly wouldn't call it that - unsophisticated is more like it) and sacrifice is some gross mixture of some brute gross maleness thing, and some self-flagellating god thing.

Really now. We can do better.

jem

Still, women can't be themselves

2005-10-12T21:11:00.000-05:00

I'm always amazed as what passes as acceptable attitudes about women. I truly think that hatred towards women is one of the last fully acceptable forms of discrimination in this country. Even, thankfully, hatred towards homosexuals is discouraged by the well-educated and moral folk. But hatred towards women is celebrated among almost everyone - even women bond over frightening attitudes about themselves.

For example, the Holloway teenaged woman who was raped and murdered recently in Aruba by (it seems too horrifically obvious) the 3 boys who left a bar with her early one morning while she was vacationing there. The boys admitted to having sex with her, but not to murdering and raping her, which they surely did. One of them, Deepak Kalpoe, described Holloway:

"To tell you quite frankly, (she) dressed like a slut, talked like one, too. (Who) would go into a car with three strange guys, and her mother, claiming her to be the goody-two-shoes. Enough with this BS already."

What the hell.

So, as the old belief goes, if a woman dresses a certain way, she deserves to be tortured and to die a gruesome death at the pleasure of a disgusting pervert. That's belief number one.

But really, everyone expects straight women to dress in a way that is sexually appealing to men - whatever that may be at the present time. So, women are trapped. If they don't dress a certain way, they are not considered by the men they want to partner up with. If they do dress a certain way, they are called names, hated, raped, and murdered. Women are, should be, at the whim of men, whatever that whim may be at the moment - attraction, or violence. This is buried belief number two.

I've heard women perpetuate this belief system: "She dressed like that, so what do you expect?" What do I expect? I expect that she'll actually be treated like the human being that she is. And this is it, isn't it? Women aren't really perceived to be human. They are sub-human. They are less than their supposed counterparts, men. Every religion says this (fashioned out of a man's rib, obedience to men, a brother kills a sister because she is acting in discord with the 'holy book' and shaming the family, yadda yadda).

Yet another reason to reject religious ideology.

I am always, and I mean that literally - ALWAYS - touched when a woman is treated with the respect and dignity that is automatically handed over to men. When a women shows her intelligence and her ideas are considered sincerely; when a women comfortably shows off her comedic talents (how many funny women does Hollywood allow us access to?); when a woman chooses to be single and to not have children, and she is considered cool, admired.

I think the clincher is this: many women (thankfully not all) want to be with men. The men in this country, all countries, are raised to perceive women as inferior, raised to treat women disrespectfully. For a woman to catch herself one of these fellers, she has to buy into this belief system, she has to suppress many of the wonderful and powerful things that she is. To not do so is, in her mind, in this paradigm, to be alone, and I can't say I blame anyone for not wanting to be alone forever. But, maybe as glimpses of women's talents, brilliance, true nature continue to surface from time to time, in those beautiful moments of respect and encouragement, then maybe these thuggish, violent, aggressive, terrible attitudes will be forced to change, as men will have to select from a growing number of genuine women, not women in hiding.

We can hope.

jem

Common sense, good, fanaticism, bad: Part 2

2005-10-10T09:24:00.000-05:00

So, as I was saying: the evangelicals.

They say that without their god, there is no way to know what is right or wrong, how one should live. Poppycock.

Right from wrong - it's easy!
Most people I know, thank us, do not have a belief system that is religiously based. Yet, we do not kill, we do not steal, we do not try to hurt people, we think it's a bad idea to cheat on your partner, and we even feel guilty about getting too angry when someone cuts us off in Boston traffic (well, some of us).

All this is more than can be said about the evangelical christians who are trying to take over the country, the right-wing conservatives.

The idea that this country will become a chaotic hellish mess if there is no god is just plain insane. They say that without dictate from above, we will be reduced to the basest, most violent, selfish way of behaving. You know what, maybe they would - in fact, even when they're supposedly in harmony with their god's wishes they are - but that's simply not the way things work for decent people.

The most socially conscientious, caring, kind, compassionate, upright people I know are atheists and agnostics. And guess what? We figured out what acceptable behavior is all on our own! In fact, so could a 10 year old. You learn many important things early in life: if you treat people badly, it is more likely that they will treat you badly; if you see that you have hurt someone, you will commonly feel uneasy for doing so; when you are kind to someone, when you visit an elderly person in a nursing home, when you raise money for a community in need, you feel happy, alive. These things, for most of us, come with healthy human development. They just exist, they just are; just as we learn to breathe, we learn to love and care.

And for those for whom healthy human development is disrupted or thwarted, for those who turn violent and mean spirited, there are reasons why this is the case, and the world of psychotherapy along with the encouragement and love of people has proven to be redeeming and healing.

No gods needed.

Look at the more progressive nations of the world, where religion is not an obsession - Canada, Norway, The Netherlands. These places are much safer places to live than the US. Women and homosexuals are not attacked for existing.

Bad evangelical, bad!
The war in Iraq is an evangelical mission. How many innocent people have been killed as a result? Alan Keyes, republican Illinois senator and former UN Ambassador, abandoned his teenage daughter who is a lesbian. A parent rejecting their child??? These are the morals he so fanatically screams his head off about? And if the child, in Keyes' twisted ideology, is corrupted, and in need of help, how doubly horrific that he is leaving her on her own! Tom Delay is a thief, and a mean man. These people have 'found god' and made our society hate filled, corrupt, and more violent as a result.

jem

Stay away evangelicals: Part I

2005-10-08T17:58:00.000-05:00

You know, I'm just not willing to accept that the beliefs of the 'faithful' are exempt from rational scrutiny. If the evangelicals are going to go ahead with their little plan of taking over the country, if they are going to purport to be public servants, to make the claim that they carry out the will of the people, then sit down for a while, guys, you're under the lights.

For the next few days, I'm going to look at a few of the evangelicals' most egregious offenses.

Today: a consideration of the idea that beliefs arrived at by faith are equal to those arrived at by reason.

Faith and reason are not equal
There's been a historical emphasis on the divide between faith and reason. Fine, Saint (I'm being polite here) Thomas Aquinas decided in On Faith and Reason that certain beliefs could not be arrived at with the use of reason. Thus, the Christian notion of the Trinity is understood only through 'the mystery' of faith. It is inaccessible through rational exploration. To believe it, you need to take the leap.

Similarly, the evangelicals believe that Jesus is a god, and everything the historical figure said (though altered repeatedly over time) translates into types of behavior. Of course, plenty of people disagree about what behavior is implied from what Jesus said (like, 'love thy neighbor' might actually mean 'don't try to dehumanize homosexuals simply because you're too hate-filled and violent to see that homosexuality is acceptable and normal behavior'). But in any case, the laws of the United States should reflect the supposedly immutable laws of this historical figure.

Um, and this is okay with everyone?

We all agree with Thomas Aquinas and the evangelicals that faith is an adequate means of arriving at truth, and from that, at a country's laws?

In my belief system, Sarah McLachlan is a goddess. Before the day begins in elementary schools across the nation, children will be required to sing the second verse of Sweet Surrender. Oh, and those of you who have a hard time understanding this dictate, don't try - you just wouldn't get it.

What the evangelicals ask of non- or variant believers is equally peculiar; creating laws based on their very unique, commonly unshared, and speciously arrived at belief system is repressive, aggressive, arrogant, and hurtful.

The illogical leap of faith that they've made, that informs their beliefs, is just plain odd, in my view. All you have to do to accept any set of beliefs is to suspend reason long and persistently enough, and truth shall be yours? Creepy. Glad if it brings you some comfort, but that sort of defiance of a more reliable means of gaining information is not something I can rightfully or comfortably participate in, especially since the belief system being adopted thereby so consistently lashes out at innocent, peaceful, decent people. Any belief system that advocates such behavior cannot logically be accepted as an adequate one.

The bottom line
What the evangelicals want is for everyone to act in a way they find acceptable. What they want is christian fascism. This is not okay. I don't believe in christianity, and don't want to. Even if their god spoke to me through the heavens, poked me on the shoulder with a giant finger (which, by the way, would have nail polish on it) I wouldn't be interested. I don't want my life to be as limiting and boring as it would be if I were to follow some uncritical, diluted set of rules that don't fit my unique set of experiences and interests. Stay away from me, evangelicals - your reality is not mine, thanks Fortuna.

jem

Hello world!

2005-10-07T17:36:00.000-05:00

Hello world!

I am THRILLED to have my own blog, and perhaps now, my friends and family will have some relief from my incessant need to analyze, critique, pick apart - OUT LOUD - the country's various political happenings and embarassments.

I'm a woman in my 30's, work in technology, have a passion for the arts, do some creative writing and theater, and think that the U.S. is experiencing an ideological takeover not unlike Iran's Islamic revolution of the 1980's...it scares me to death, the Bush administration's inimidation and stifling of the media, that is, to the extent that most mainstream news sources sound ridiculously insipid. Where's the courage to tell it like it is???

How many uncritical 'analyses' of the disastrous and bungled U.S. invasion of Iraq can we listen to? NPR I love you, you are my best friend, but stop presenting the few sane voices on the issue as the 'alternative' perspective, will you? And stop interrupting those callers that try to remove the mass muzzle that's been placed on reporters, commentators, independent thinkers.

Voila. Visit me often, fine readers, and enjoy.

jem