feminism

My Aunts in Shining Armor

As I’ve been combing my recipes searching for something extra special to fix this weekend — just because — I’ve run across certain dishes that remind me of three extraordinary women in my life… women whose love and sacrifice have made me who I am today.

These women creatively acquired me through the bonds of blood and grit and good, old-fashioned love. These women took me in and made me their own. They taught me to know my potential and to believe in it. They taught me that women are strong. That women are powerful. That women are capable. They taught me that women have a voice and that we should use it. These women are my aunts — my three graces, my three fates, my three wise women. And the recipes that remind me of them are as deeply rich and provocative and inspirational as my aunts themselves…

First, there’s my Aunt Jan and her “Mrs. Norris’ Strawberry Pie.” It’s the perfect blend of glistening, syrup-soaked berries steeped in puddles of juice under clouds of whipped cream.

I have no idea who Mrs. Norris is, but I’m here to tell you that this pie is my Aunt Jan in a pastry shell. It perfectly parallels her zany, vibrant nature. She’s sweet and tart and sparkling with pizzazz. She’s never met a stranger and she’s never been ignored.

She taught me to make this pie during what I call “The Summer of Grandma” – a two-month stint during which my cousins and Jan and I built pie after pie in a humid, east Tennessee kitchen trying anything and everything to get my grandmother to eat. She was slipping away from us, but she still had a hankering for sweetness.

And so we built pies. Pecan pie. And Chocolate pie. And Lemon Meringue — so high and coiffed that women in Texas could likely haul pictures to their hairdressers as inspiration. And finally, Mrs. Norris’ Strawberry Pie – the Mother Superior of pies – just like Jan, our family matriarch after my grandmother passed away.

The baton was passed, and Jan became our pulse and our promise. She’s a talker and she’s a doer. If you want it coordinated and you want it done, call Jan. And she’s a lover. When she hugs you, you find yourself wrapped in clouds of pillow-y bosoms, which she inherited from my grandma (and which, I might add, skipped me in the gene pool). And you find yourself believing in rainbows and unicorns and holy grails.

Because Jan makes the impossible possible. She is quick-witted and confident, and she’s always been my biggest cheerleader. She pushed me and pulled me and pep-talked me into going back to school. Through her, I learned to trust in myself and the God-given gifts that she assured me I had and that I needed to hone.

Without Jan, I never would have trusted my mind or my voice. She taught me that what I think and feel matters. She pushed me to tell it like I see it and to hold strong to my principles. She made the impossible possible in me.

jan

Now, Jan’s twin sister Ann isn’t much of a baker. Instead, she sticks to main dishes, and she’s most famous for her tenderloins stuffed with apples and pecans and fragrant herbs – a savory, nourishing dish indicative of her steady, nurturing soul.

Ann and I have some sort of kindred connection. I felt it from the first time we ever sat down and REALLY talked – on my grandmother’s front steps after I was deposited there by a distant father in a diesel Isuzu and a feverish faith. Ann and I played with kittens and plotted the trajectory of my life on those semicircle steps beneath the crab-apple stone siding and cedar shingles of my grandmother’s house.

Ann embodies most closely who I truly am: intuitive and observant, reserved and resilient, capable and calm. Her eyes are still water on stone, are snow clouds at dusk – and when they meet mine, they see things. Things hidden in shame or for protection.

But with Ann, every trembling, buried burden or bruise is safe. It is better than safe – it is healed. Because she has a ministering nature that soothes and mends. It was her job. Literally. She is a retired ER doc, and I promise you, she did more than heal bodies in her years of service. She calmed hearts and settled souls – mine included. I wouldn’t be where I am today, without her.

annandpat2

And finally, there’s Pat, Ann’s wife, and my aunt by marriage. Pat is our family’s Tupelo honey. Her voice is southern nectar and so is her love. She never has a negative word to say to or about anyone. She sweetens the lives of all of us by spreading her joy and her sweet, sanguine good sense. Any recipe with honey, honey bun to hotty toddy, reminds me of my beloved Pat. Lover of animals and humanitarian causes alike, she is generosity and goodness with a smile carved from moonstone and a heart made of gold.

My fondest memory of Pat is when several of us piled into a car to take a little trek over the mountains and through the woods– in a snow storm– to visit the Biltmore House. The roads grew slushy and slippery, and Pat’s mother, who was ailing at the time, grew car sick.

When we pulled to the side (more like slid to the side) of the interstate, her sweet, ailing mama proceeded to lose her dinner, right along with her upper teeth. Pat sweetly swiveled her back into the backseat and then paddled through drifts of snowy vomit in search of the delinquent dentures.

That is Pat: unflappable, ever capable, and always willing to go the extra mile for family. She is as warm and soothing as Tupelo honey. Her love glows deep and rich, and she moths us all to hearth and home with her warmth. She has always encouraged me to dream big and to reach high, but to never lose touch with my roots – because family feeds the soul.

And thanks to my family — and particularly my three incomparable and beautiful aunts — my heart is full to bursting and my cup runneth over.

March 15, 2019 2

Who Cares What Men Prefer? You Do Not Need a Man to Translate Scripture or Life For You

I’m not a man hater. I’m not. But I also know (I’ve learned the hard way) that I have the freedom to decide for myself what I like and what I think and what I do.

I’ve written before about the Toni Morrison quote that compels me to write: “The function of freedom is to free someone else.”

Well, yesterday, while thumbing through social media, I came across a blog that slung me so far backwards that the bars of my prison-house were very nearly reinstated. It damn near set me back decades.

And that blog proved to me that I’m not done yet. That I need to keep fighting. To truly free myself from the side-effects of my childhood and to help free others still struggling behind the iron shackles of dogmatic religion. Not faith. Religion.

The blog was a recent post from The Transformed Wife. The title is menacing enough to me — the word “transformed” implying that the author was forced to undergo a dramatic, life-altering change to fit into the unforgiving mold of Wife.

But then there’s the title of her Monday blog: “Men Prefer Debt-Free Virgins Without Tattoos.” As if women should be driven and controlled by men’s desires. Our minds, our lives, our bodies. Controlled. By men.

Ugh. The title was frightening, but I kept reading.

The entire intent of the blog is to caution women about everything from advanced education to independent living and thought. She strongly suggests in the second paragraph that women be wary of attending university lest they learn to be “independent, loud, and immodest instead of having meek and quiet spirits.”

Are you kidding me?!?

My skin flinched; my lips curled; my eyes rolled. I was sucker-punched backward to my broken and bridled teen years, where I had this exact bullshit horsewhipped into my soul.

I still suffer from the aftermath. I am meek and quiet – at least in person. This computer screen gives me confidence and a voice. But in person, I tend to shy away when conversations heat up. Or when I do speak up, if somebody pushes back hard enough, I back down. I shut down. I was conditioned to avoid confrontation, to keep my head down, and to NEVER contradict a man.

And it pisses me the hell off. (I was also taught never to cuss. That it’s not ladylike. But I’m making pretty good progress there…)

I was also conditioned to believe my sole purpose in life was to submit myself to men and to fear my own thoughts and actions – a notion the author goes on to address: “The husband will need to take years teaching his wife the correct way to act, think, and live since college taught them every possible way that is wrong.”

Vomit. Convulsive. Bile-riddled. Projectile. Vomit.

My father’s church did not approve of women attending college either, despite Dad hailing from a family full of advanced degrees. (He and his brother have PhDs; his sisters have a Master’s and an MD.)

But no college degrees were in my future — only apprenticeship under some elder’s wife where I would learn “biblical womanhood” and how “to serve others” and “live in submission” to my husband.

That was my destiny.

Luckily, I was rebellious. I was really good at being a thorn in the side and a fly in the ointment. And after a long, exhausting struggle I was finally deemed an unfit vessel for husband and church, and thrown out of the fold and into to my grandmother’s arms.

She was headstrong and rebellious, too. And she taught me to believe in myself. Or she tried. And so did my aunts and uncles.

I spent a single semester at UT in a dorm room under their generosity. But the brainwashing from all the biblical bludgeon-ings was too deepset. I clung to the notion that being in love and in a marriage and with child was my one true calling.

I still believe motherhood is one of my truest and strongest callings. I absolutely believe in love and marriage and children.

But I do not believe in submission and ignorance and mind-control. And I never will again.

The author also states the importance and value of having young women remain “under their father’s roof until they get married.”

One of the biggest regrets of my life is that I never lived on my own as a young woman. I believe independent living is one of the most crucial life-skills a woman can glean. The ability to think for herself. Provide for herself. Trust in herself. To believe she is strong. And capable. And worthy.

I learned all of these things. But it took me a long time. I didn’t really absorb them until after I was divorced, when I struggled to survive on rice cakes and peanut butter and struggled to find my confidence and my voice. But survive I did. And more than that, I found my voice and I found my confidence (as confrontationally-challenged as it may be…).

But I am proud to say that both my girls gained independence and self-worth at a far younger age than I. They are strong, capable, autonomous women. One of my daughters, a surgeon with more advanced education than practically any person I know (and will continue her formal education for another four years), responded to the blog’s ridiculous restrictions with the following:

Well, I’m probably the most in debt of any woman out there. And I’m a 31 year old non-virgin. With a tattoo. It seems, based on this grammatically horrifying piece, I’m undesirable. But my brain is worth more than the 300,00 dollars I’ve invested in it, and I will never waste my heart on a man who teaches me how to think or feel.

Well said, my girl. Bravo.

And my other daughter, in honor of International Emoji Day, promptly posted a green vomiting icon. My sentiments exactly, my girl.

So my freedom has resulted in the freedom of my girls. And I take great pride in that. But I’m not finished yet. There are still women out there who believe they can’t exist without the guidance of a man — someone who can translate life for them.

Because the part of the blog that rattled my soul and wrenched my girl parts the most was the sorrow the author felt for women who “have not read the Bible with their father or husband to explain it to them.”

To EXPLAIN it to them?

What. The. Fuck.

What the ever-loving, mind-blowing Fuck?!? (Told you that bridle was gone. I’m the only one who controls my mouth now, thank you very much.)

Let me tell you about the husbands and fathers who “explained” scripture to me. They twisted it. They tortured it. They twisted and tortured scripture and they twisted and tortured me.

And it is taking me a lifetime to free myself from the dogma and the dictators. Don’t let me be you.

Don’t eat the bullshit. Don’t learn the helplessness. Don’t believe the lies.

You are worthy enough. You are smart enough. You are strong enough. You are important enough.

To think for yourself. To govern yourself. To believe in yourself. To educate yourself.

To love yourself.

So do it. Be it. Live it.

And then help someone else do it and be it and live it too. That’s the function. The function of freedom.

July 18, 2018 4

Mother-Daughter Dynamic Duo: Shine a Life on Cindy and Meghan

I have an artist friend. She is quiet and still as mountains in moonlight. She is layered in the wisdom of the natural world. Her soul ripples when you speak with her. She receives you. She hears you. Actively.

Her hair is scalloped shale, flecked with silver, and her cheekbones are high, whittled planes. She has deep-set eyes and a deep-seated soul.

And she fills this world with rich, buttery warmth.

I can’t even remember the first time I met her. I’ve known her for over half my life. But I do remember her impact on me. How I felt instantly calm and at home. How I didn’t need to fill any silences or put on any airs. Because she is peace. She is acceptance. She is serenity and space. I feel settled in her presence. And loved.

And I admire her for these ways and for so many more.

I admire her for the way she lives her life, loves her child, and lives her art. I don’t know if I know anyone else like her. I don’t see her often, but when I do, I am reminded of what I aspire to be.

She is my soul mentor. She is who I want to be when my soul grows up. And her name is Cindy.

Cindy makes jewelry – handcrafted pieces of spiritual energy. And when I wear her stuff, I can feel the pulse of the cosmos in concert with mine. And it is sheer magic.

And it makes me want to know what she knows. I want to know her secrets. How she lives her passion and creates her world. Because I want to do it, too. I want my art to reflect my spirit and to pulse in concert with the universe. I want to fill this world with buttery warmth.

That’s what I want for my art.

And the way she loves her child — with a fierce and gentle love that listens lightly or moves mountains. She is soft and hard and silence and storm. She is Mother Nature, and she can be unruffled or unleashed.

And this magic mama has wielded an incredibly accomplished daughter.

And I want that, too. That kind of motherhood. That kind of energy. That kind of quiet.

Let me tell you about her daughter — her quirky, cat-like, wisp of a daughter: She has the high cheekbones and deep soul of her mother, but she is absolutely her own woman. And her name is Meghan.

I had the distinct pleasure of being Meghan’s girl scout leader in elementary and middle school, and her Brit and AP Lit teacher in high school., but it is I who was led and I who was taught by this slip-wisp of wonder and whimsy.

She is an artist, too, but she writes. Oh, my, how she writes! Her words are whispers, powerful whispers, that float out and settle next to you on your couch, encouraging you to find the magic in the world — whether it is the vaulting landscape of a national park or the purring kitten at your elbow. She prompts you to feel and to hear and to see miracles in all their myriad forms.

Her essays and blogs are the metaphysical equivalent of condensed orange juice. They are small slices that encompass ALL the flavors, ALL the energy, ALL the power of living life to the fullest.

This mother/daughter duo are gypsies, unfettered and unphased by society’s demand for conformity. They dance down the path less chosen. In the moonlight. In the moment.

They’ve tapped into the inner sanctums of transcendental living, prophets of essence and art. One hikes through the world with a sleeping bag and journal. The other hunkers down with soft metals and gemstones. Both spin ordinary into extraordinary.

And both inspire me.

I don’t see either of them often, but when I do – at a summer concert down at the railroad tracks, at a little shop down under the bridge — I feel restored.

They are both my spiritual mentors. They are who I aspire to be.

(Visit Cindy’s Lunatique Whimsical Jewelry page on Facebook and find you some handcrafted pieces of spiritual energy to wear ‘round your own neck and wrist!)

March 24, 2018 2

Pogonophobia: When you’re Allergic to Warm and Fuzzy

I have pogonophobia — the persistent, irrational fear of facial hair. It is far from unwarranted, however, as you shall soon see…

The propensity of beards these days makes my skin cringe and my teeth crawl. Solid visual, and no lie. It’s a systemic thing, beginning in the marrow of my memory board and sending out shock waves of revulsion to every fiber-optic channel of my being. My belly flips, my spine convulses, my shoulders pinch inward, and my lip curls upward. It’s a reflex — less gag and more fight-or-flight – and I don’t know that I’ll ever overcome it.

But through the years I’ve learned to control my freak-outs over facial hair with deep-breathing and soul-searching. — soul-searching of the men who wear them, not my own.

These days, many men see them as the ultimate form of manliness. For me, though, beards are the ultimate symbol of oppression — of misogyny at its highest order.

You see, I was raised surrounded by men with masterfully maintained beards, charcoal gray suits, and ties locked in place with gold bars. They wore their beards as mantels of old testament stewardship over me and all the other women in our fold. They were unshaven shepherds, and I was supposed to be a sheep – or at least a docile damsel, wallowing in gender apathy and waiting on a bearded knight in antiquated authority and dogma to lord over me.

Yeah, that didn’t happen.

But lots of bearded bullying occurred. I remember one occasion in particular. There was a massive, dark study, a heavy oak desk, and many, many elders with dark, perfectly-trimmed facial hair. I don’t remember how many men. I know at least four. I also don’t recall the conversation. I deliberately locked myself up tight inside my chest wall — MY chest wall — no Adam’s rib to be found. These men had no right to spelunk around in my soul.

I do remember a phrase that echoed round and round that dimly lit, cavernous office… “We want change, not conformity.”

They would get neither.

I was supposed to be weak. And willing.

I was neither.

Back me into a corner and I become quite stubborn. That has never changed.

“Nevertheless she persisted” became my favorite rally cry from this past year. Why? Because that has been my philosophy for a long, long time.

Those men in their power suits and power beards tried in vain to squash my will. God may have given man freewill, but apparently that freewill did not extend to women. Not according to that bearded patriarchy.

Nevertheless, I persisted… and eventually broke free of their mutton-chopped mandates. And I will continue to persist. To rage against the wrongs still perpetuated toward my sex to this day.

No, I am not a fan of beards.

I am, however, a fan of many men who wear them. Like I explained before, I search the soul before dissing a beard-wearer. I may judge books by their cover, but I do crack them open and see if I’m wrong before writing them off completely. And I have found some very solid souls under bristly chins. I know several coaches who are mighty fine people. I know former students – some of my all-time favorites– who now wear whiskers. I’m not so irrational that I hate the fuzz AND the fellow. That fuzz tho…

Yes, beards are currently everywhere I turn: hipsters grow them as art forms, athletes as playoff totems, and celebrities as eye-catching photo ops. Even months are getting in on the action, with November dedicating its entirety to healthy beard cultivation.

So to all you beard-wearing boys of the world, I apologize for my visceral revulsion. I know that often times, you wear them simply because they are fun and antidisestablishmentarian. I know it’s often for the exact opposite of the oppression and hate for which I associate them. I know my fear is stupid. I know it is. But I just can’t quite get past it. It was a fear instilled long, long ago.

I just can’t become a fan.

October 30, 2017 0

Call Me Crazy, Just Don’t Call me a Crazy Bitch: Why I Teach Feminism

A dear friend of mine just brought to my attention a scholarly article called, Hysteria, Witches, and The Wandering Uterus: A Brief History: or, Why I Teach ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ by Terri Kapsalis, a professor at the School of Art Institute of Chicago. Among other things, Kapsalis discusses the Victorian diagnosis of hysteria – or the belief in a “wandering uterus” being the cause for basically any, and all, female physical ailments. If a patient was full of phlegm, or suffering from depression, or had a migraine — no matter what the issue — it was surmised that her wild and wanton womb had been creeping around where it didn’t belong again. Not kidding here.

And what, pray tell, was the reason it wandered? Why, it was hankering for a heaping helping of man juice, of course.

Of course. The God-designed purpose of the uterus. To receive man-seed and bring forth life. The only sure way to cure a “hysterical” woman was to keep her barefoot and pregnant. Jizz a day keeps the doctor away.

Such beliefs and diagnoses invalidated legitimate medical complaints of women from Ancient Egypt all the way up to the modern era. Everything was chalked up to hormones. And while diagnostic medicine has moved away from such ridiculous notions, public opinions about the psychological state of womanhood has not.

When we women get too big for our proverbial britches, when we become too intellectual, too political, too competitive, too driven, when we dare to do something beyond the roles society has deemed appropriate for our “kind” – you know, wives, mothers, maybe teachers or nurses – then we are seen as a threat. We are dangerous. So we are called deranged, out of control, hysterical.

And we are slammed right back into that whole wandering womb pigeon hole again. Obviously, we need to sip some more from that whole cult of domesticity Kool Aid again to get us back to our proper place – back on the path of the straight and narrow.

Look at Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, even Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Palin. They’ve all been called crazy bitches. Hysterical females. Because, as the article so wisely notes, “hysteria is a bipartisan weapon.” A powerful woman is a dangerous woman, no matter the party. I, myself, have been guilty of labeling a couple of these women with the same blasphemous insults that have been used against my favorites. It’s an easy trap to fall into. And every time I trip up, I empower the status quo.

And the status quo is white and male and always eager to see women fail. Sexism is a bullshit topic, according to them. Made up. And feminism is a dirty word.That’s definitely the mentality in certain branches of my family. And in certain corners of my classroom.

Not with AP students, at least not most of them. Most of them love to explore social and political movements. They find counter culture stimulating. They yearn for wider understanding than simply their daddy’s dictums, their pastor’s politics or their Uncle Johns’ world views. They long to balance and counterbalance their minds. To glean understanding from all walks of life. To broaden their understanding and to embrace empathy. They want to absorb, not only with their minds, but with their hearts and souls, too.

But in my general education classrooms, feminism receives eye-rolls. Books with female heroines get groans and barely touched assignments. We don’t want to read a book about a girl, they say. Sexism is imagined, they say. Glass ceilings are made up. Rape statistics are exaggerated. Sexual discrimination is the hashtag of the moment.

And as a teacher, I ask myself how in the world can I change such mindsets? Such opinions? Such blatant denials and refusals? Is it even possible to help someone overcome a prejudice they don’t believe exists? How do you help someone see when they refuse to open their eyes?

Now usually it is the white males in my classroom who refuse to explore the possibilities of inequality — of any kind, but especially sexism. But sometimes it’s the females, too. And that blows my mind even more.

But then, it also gives me hope. Hope that maybe these young women don’t understand that discrimination exists because maybe for them, it hasn’t. Because their fathers and grandfathers and churches haven’t preached weakness in women the way I had it preached to me. They didn’t grow up the way I did. And that gives me so much hope. Hope that the times, they are a changing.

But most of the young women in my classroom, they get it. They know the discrimination. Because they’ve seen it with their own eyes and they’ve felt it in their own skin – not necessarily in terms of business and politics, not yet. They are still young. But when we talk about their bodies, about body shaming and slut shaming and the shame that comes with sexual assault – the floodgates are opened. These girls have seen this. They know this.

And I know without a doubt that every single time I bring up that infamous 1-in-4 statistic, that someone in my class has been there. Odds are more than one someone in my class. These numbers, sadly, don’t lie. And as teenage girls soon to go off to college or careers or military service, my students are squarely in the demographic most at risk. They could become – or already have been – part of that statistic.

I know because I have received private notes from students who were victimized by family members, or by neighbors, or by so-called friends, or even by teachers. I have had students stay after class to say it aloud for the very first time. I have had students bravely tell their stories in class to everyone present. As a teacher, I have read about incidents of sexual abuse. I have heard about incidents of sexual abuse. And I have reported incidents of sexual abuse.

So, yes, even though the topic of feminism gets eye rolls and zeros in the grade book from students who refuse to learn about or acknowledge that sexism exists, I will continue to broach the subject. I will continue to present and discuss literature like “The Yellow Wallpaper” and The Handmaid’s Tale. I will continue to wander off the path of the straight and white and narrow-minded. I do it because of those students who have been touched by sexism. And for those students who deny it exists. I do it for them, too. Call me crazy, but I believe I am helping empower women and eradicate sexism one book, one student, one semester at a time.

So go ahead, call me crazy. But don’t you dare call me a crazy bitch.

June 29, 2017 1

I Won’t Sit Still and Blog Pretty

One year ago, today, I published a blog for the first time. Yesterday, I was told I should be quiet for the first time (with regard to my blogging, anyway…)

Inevitably when I write about something hard – whether it’s the death of innocent children or the dearth of wisdom in the White House – someone disagrees. Someone challenges my voice.

And I know that’s the nature of communication. People will inevitably disagree with you. And they have that right. That doesn’t mean I still don’t have the right to explore my thoughts and opinions and to voice them.

I write this blog for myself. It is therapeutic. It is cathartic and healthy. It is a way for me to use my voice. Because there was a time – for a very long time, actually — when my voice was silent. It was too squashed and maimed to be used.

It took a long time to build up my vocal chords, so to speak. So much so, that now, when I say something that I feel is important and needs to be said – and it strikes chords or nerves in others — I don’t know how to react; how to respond. If it is acknowledgement, I feel embarrassment. I was taught to be a wallflower. To blend into the background.

And if it is a challenge, I shut down. My brain immediately crackles and hums with the static and white noise of learned ignorance. I was taught that my thoughts weren’t thoughts. They were emotions. I was a hormone-fueled woman driven by emotions; I was unbalanced. And because of that unbalance, I should just still and look pretty. Don’t stand up, don’t speak out, I was warned.

Senator Elizabeth Warren was famously silenced on the Senate floor this year. At her workplace, where she rolls up her sleeves with nineteen other women and eighty men who were elected to ensure that all of America’s diverse voices are heard. Ironic, don’t you think?

But Senator Warren doesn’t play nice when the patriarchy puffs its chest. She has fight in her. She breathes fire. And if they try to snuff it out, she just flares up somewhere else. So when they silenced her on the Senate floor, she took it outside. (Isn’t that what men do when they get pissed and want to fight? They take it outside? Isn’t that the euphemism?) Well, Elizabeth Warren got pissed, was determined to fight, and took it outside. She fought the establishment. She fought the patriarchy. Even when she was warned (as the majority leader so infamously stated), nevertheless, she persisted.

Today is my one year blogging anniversary and I, likewise, will persist. This blog helps me. It helps me process my opinions into words on a page. Words that help me stay the course and press forward. Words that help me work through my overwhelming feelings of inadequacy. And as I write out those words I edit and edit and edit. I am as careful and calculated as a baker. I sift and weigh and measure and adjust – until I’m confident that what I’m saying is what I truly want to say. What I truly believe. And that it is as palatable as I can possibly make it – even though I know it’s not going to suit everybody’s taste.

Now I won’t lie and say that it doesn’t bother me when someone criticizes. Nor will I say that it doesn’t feel good when people approve. It feels nice to have my opinions acknowledged. my passions and feelings accepted. (Yes, I voice those, too – because I have learned emotions do not make me a weak, hormonally-imbalanced woman; my emotions do not invalidate my opinions). But I do not blog for the “likes” or the comments, or to try to “go viral.” If that were the case, I would be failing miserably because I am a far cry from viral, let me tell you. I have no cult following – or really much of any following. But none of that matters to me.

What matters is that I have a voice. And I have the right for that voice to be heard. And I do my utmost not to offend people. I really do. (Remember that baker’s analogy?) I have been rash at times, though. I admit it. Particularly in the days following the election. Several of those blogs may have cost me a friendship or two. And I wish that were not the case.

But that still won’t change how I think, and why I think, and the fact that, yes — in spite of all attempts to program me otherwise — I think. And believe me, I think long and hard about what I’m going to say on my blog. Because voice is powerful stuff. We all know the pen is mightier than the sword. So I try really hard not to wound.

There’s a poem by Eavan Boland I love called, “It’s a Woman’s World.” It fights female stereotypes in many clever and determined ways. And it argues that “as far as history goes, [women] were never on the scene of the crime.” We’ve never held the sword. As a result, “no page scores the low music of our outrage.” Boland goes on to argue, however, that despite the attempts to conquer and control our tongues, we women are fire-eaters. Our mouths are burning plumes, and we will be heard.

Elizabeth Warren is certainly a fire eater, a flame thrower. She knows the fight will be hard. She admits “there’s going to be a lot that we will lose. But I guarantee, the one thing we will not lose, we will not lose our voices.”

I believe we all have been given gifts from God, gifts we are programmed from the depths of our genetic markers to use, regardless of our upbringings and hardships. I believe mine is my voice. And although mine is not necessarily an audible one, it is a voice meant to be heard. And I will project it through written word.

I will not lose my voice ever again.

June 6, 2017 0

Surely Some Revelation is at Hand: Why We Should Read Dark & Twisty Literature

“Reading is stupid!…I never read books!…Nobody reads books anymore… I haven’t read a book since first grade.”

Kids say these hurtful things in English class every semester. It breaks my heart. And it’s hard for me to convince my students that reading really is a worthy pursuit. They are a generation of movies and music, not books and poetry. They watch and listen; they do not read and write They don’t believe in the power of the written word – unless the word is in a text or tweet. Then it can be powerful. But by golly, it better be quick — 140 characters or less. Our kids take pride in being fast and ignorant.

And so does the president of these not-so-United States (less than half of our population elected him, after all). He once bragged in an interview with Meghan Kelly that he doesn’t read, he only scans “passages… areas, chapters, [because he doesn’t] have the time” to read an entire book or article.

And to be perfectly fair, our fearsome (not to be confused with fearless) leader may be averse to reading, but he is not averse to words in general. He says about himself, “I’m highly educated. I know words. I have the best words. I have the best, but there is no better word than stupid. Right?” And when he’s talking about himself, I tend to agree.

Now some of you would argue that the president wouldn’t have time to read – that he is telling the truth, for once. That as the world’s arguably most powerful tantrum-thrower (could be North Korea’s Kim Jong Un), he very likely doesn’t have time to read. Hell, with all that tweeting, he doesn’t even have time for intelligence briefings. And, the presidency is a big job. Huge. Tremendous (to use a couple of his favorite words). And that is true. But both President Obama and President George W Bush held the exact same job and were still avid readers. Obama used to publish his summer reading list and W. would participate in friendly, annual reading competitions.

It infuriates me that Trump’s got legions of impressionable young minds idolizing his idiocy and his twitter rants. I know this is so because I hear them sing his praises in my tenth lit classroom every day. (In my AP classroom, however, I’m proud to report the exact opposite :))

So how do I counter that kind of attitude? Because, honestly, why SHOULD we read? What’s the point? How do I put into words the importance of putting words into stories or poems? Why does reading – particularly literature — matter at all?

Now some of us read for escape. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes a beach read or a rom-com can be so-very-good for the weary soul. But that’s not the type of literature I teach, nor the type of answer I need to give my students. Because the books I teach aren’t designed for vacations or hammocks. They’re not page-turners or bodice-rippers. They’re temporal, occipital, and parietal lobe-slappers. They rattle you to the core and shake things up a bit. A lot, even. These books demand attention. They demand a lifestyle audit, a reevaluation of tenet and truth. It is literature designed to promote participation in life. It is literature written to educate, to motivate, to activate. It doesn’t form readers’ opinions, it informs their opinions. No, the literature I teach is not escapism. It is activism.

Good literature models life – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Most often, the ugly. My AP Lit kids – and my kid sister, too — always ask me why we read such dark and twisty stuff. Why all the hearts of darkness and the second comings and killings of mockingbirds, all the Conrads and Yeats and Lees of the literary world? And I say because they model all the dark, twisty turns that hopefully (with wise choices and some divine intervention) they won’t have to go through. But if they do meet the dark and twisty side of life, that they can better ride out the storm — or even battle and defeat it.

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That’s why we read Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Because after reading Macbeth, we are far better able to recognize a tyrant when we see and hear one. Perhaps if enough Americans had read the Scottish Play in high school, we wouldn’t now have MacTrump in the White House. And those of us who have read Shakespeare’s most unappealing tragic hero, are now confidently and not-so-patiently waiting for the rest of his thanes to fly from him (they’ve dropping like flies this week), and we’re waiting for the Woods to come to Dunsinane, (or should I say DUNCEinane), and we’re waiting for a Man not of Woman Born (translation, C-section babe) to purge our nation of this tyrant and restore it to sound and pristine health. (And there are certainly a whole lot more likely candidates than merely MacDuff these days, as C-sections have been on the rise in recent centuries.)

And that’s also why we read Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale — a cautionary tale against what can happen if faith becomes entangled with politics. If morality dictates law. If women’s rights are threatened and then eradicated. And while it may feel like our nation is a far cry from the control and manipulation of women and their identities and bodies (and a world undone by environmental degradation and pollution) that we see in HT, I am here to say we are not. Since Trump has been in office, the widespread access to contraception, legalization of abortion, and growing female political influence have all fallen under attack. As has the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Parks Service. If these attacks are successful, if our rights begin to topple, then the return to traditional gender roles and subjugation of women cannot be far behind. Nor can widespread environmental disaster. Atwood’s prophetic work reflects the ugly truths of our time. By its very nature, it’s designed to frighten, to warn, and to demand action. It reflects social and political tendencies and demonstrates the horrors that could – let’s say WILL — occur if Trump’s power is allowed to reign unchecked.

And that’s also why we read The Kite Runner – a coming-of-age story about two young boys struggling to belong and to be strong amid crumbling relationships and a crumbling homeland. And it just so happens the story revolves around two Muslim schoolboys in Kabul. But it could just as easily be between two white boys is Atlanta, or two Asian girls in Singapore, or two Latinas in Los Angeles, or two German frauleins in Dieseldorff. The point is, we read this novel to know that we are all fundamentally the same. We all need love and understanding, connection and communion, forgiveness and redemption. This book demonstrates the universality of the human experience. And right now, more than ever, we need to remember humanity.

Yes, the literature I teach is tough. And it’s tender. And it’s smart and searing and aggressive and wise and passionate and compassionate. It’s all of those things. It has to be. It needs to be. And so do our citizens. Not just America’s, but the world’s. We all have to be tougher and smarter than what we’ve been thus far. Because there’s a rough beast in our White House and he’s got a cold, corrupt soul and a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun. And twenty centuries of stony sleep have birthed our worst nightmare.

If Yeats were alive today, the beast slouching toward Bethlehem would be orange and have a comb-over.

(I borrowed heavily from the prophetic poem of the masterful W.B. Yeats this week. Read him. He tingles your spine and torments your soul.)

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February 21, 2017 0

My Aunts in Shining Armor

First, there’s my Aunt Jan and her “Mrs. Norris’ Strawberry Pie.” It’s the perfect blend of glistening, syrup-soaked berries steeped in puddles of juice under clouds of whipped cream.

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And thanks to my family — and particularly my three incomparable and beautiful aunts — my heart is full to bursting and my cup runneth over.

February 14, 2017 0

An Inspirational Inaugural Weekend

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My heart, such a blue, bruised, tight little ball in survival mode on Friday, has been warmed, replenished, and reopened this weekend by the outpouring of women’s voices and women’s marches — not just in our own nation’s capital, but the whole world over. Seeing my sisters spilling out of their homes and into the annals of history has been a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Women have always been my heroes and my leaders. I come from a matriarchal family, where the women are strong and outspoken and they get the job done. My aunts and grandmother showed me – after sixteen years of living beneath the shadow of misogyny and the dominance of patriarchy in a cult cut straight out of the cloth of the caveman days – that women are a pretty, big deal. They showed me that we can speak up and we can speak out. And what we say matters. And how we feel matters. And what we need matters. My matriarchs taught me that we can and should stand up against injustice – alone or together. Either way, we are a force to be reckoned with. On Saturday, that force rose together in tsunami fashion – a storm surge that flooded the streets of cities across the globe with a moral mission to preserve and advance the rights of women and other minorities whose voices are being threatened, whose rights are on the chopping block. I am so proud to be a woman.

I always have been. I’ve never, ever wished I were a man. Being female is the greatest. I love almost everything about it. I love dressing up. I love smelling good. I love putting on make-up and curling my hair. I love soft, fuzzy sweaters and soft, fuzzy kittens. I love carrying babies – both in my arms and in my belly. I love chocolate kisses and passionate kisses, Disney princesses and the princes that come with them (although my favorites are definitely the most recent ones – where the princesses orchestrate their own rescues and the princes play supporting roles). I love the color pink and big, white wedding gowns. I love rainbows and unicorns, peace signs and freshly baked cookies. All of these things fill me with warm fuzzies, as do romantic comedies and super bowl commercials. I get all the feels almost all the time. I don’t see that as a character flaw or a genetic glitch. Just because I’m soft, doesn’t mean I’m soft. And just because I’m soft-spoken doesn’t mean my voice can’t or shouldn’t be heard.

Yes, I embrace all my girly girl traits, but just because I love being a girl doesn’t mean I love everything that comes with the territory. Period cramps and labor pains bite. And glitter and leopard prints can go back to the ridiculous drawing board that first designed them. High heels hoover and handbags are too high priced. But the thing I hate most about being a woman is the disrespect and condescension that is served up from people – male and female alike — who refuse to recognize and appreciate a woman’s worth as equal to a man’s. Which leads me to my most-despised term in the English language: Ladylike. Them’s just fighting words.

But this weekend, we brought our fighting herds, which is what I choose to focus on during this oh-so-inspirational inaugural weekend. Yes, inspirational. And no, not due to an orange man in a white house. Nope. The inspiration comes from the outpouring of support by and for Womanhood, the subject that has most profoundly shaped who I am today, how I live today, how I love today and even why I am today.

I use the word SUBJECT here with absolute intent and purpose. As an English teacher, I teach sentence structure and semantics. I know the importance of word order and connotation. In grammar, the subjects are in control of their sentences. They are the ones doing and the ones being. They own and they control. For centuries and centuries – for entire histories – the subjects that are doing the doing, the owning and the controlling, have been men.

Objects – direct objects, indirect objects,…SEX objects – they are not in control. They are not doing and they are not being. For centuries and centuries – for entire histories – women have been the objects that were owned and controlled. We were wives or mistresses or prostitutes. We were the objects of sentences written by a patriarchy.

But we women have made tremendous progress in rewriting our destinies. We are currently at the highest point in our grammatical and sexual evolution. Not all of us, but many of us, are the subjects of our own sentences. We own and are in control of our options. Our decisions. Our bodies. Our lives. Our selves.

And this weekend, we poured onto the streets to protect and advance our rights. Do not doubt us. Do not denigrate us. Do not sandbag us, or coddle us or condescend us. Do not fault us or foul us or fabricate lies about us. Do not undermine us. Do not underestimate us. Because, as Maya Angelou prophesied in her poetic call to action:

Out of the huts of history’s shame, we rise…

up from a past that’s rooted in pain, we rise…

we are the black ocean, leaping and wide,

welling and swelling, we bring in the tide.

I am living in a heart-wrenching time to be a woman, but it is also a heartwarming time to be a woman. Yesterday, as Gloria Steinem said, we saw the upside of the downside. We saw women by the millions taking to the streets in support of autonomy and equality. In DC, in Austin, in L.A.; in Atlanta and Nashville and Chicago and Nome. In Berlin and Rome and Sydney; in London and Dublin and Ipanema — and even the Antarctic peninsula — we rose up and we roared. 673 marches across the globe, we rose in a sister solidarity to connect continents, challenge conventions, and change policy. And it won’t end there. We will continue to rise for as long as there is terror and fear and injustice and inequality.

For as long as these evils exist, We Will Continue to Rise.