Heteronormative or Transgressive or a Word Yet to Be Invented

Yesterday we were going to meet up at the vintage motorcycle show in Dania Beach.  I would go to spin class and then stop at the park on the way back, which is equidistant between the gym and the house.  My spouse and his brother would ride their motorcycles over.

But our motorcycles wouldn't start.  So my spouse and his brother went to get a battery charger and set the bikes to charging.  We ate burgers and waited.  Eventually, the batteries charged, and my spouse and his brother went off--this time, successfully making it to show.  I stayed home to grade the work of my online classes.

Once that task was done, I picked up the latest book from my stack of library books, Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts.  The first several pages almost made me put the book right back down, but I persevered, and I'm glad I did.  It's a fascinating book, full of reference to critics and works that I read once upon a time, but haven't for decades (think Jacques Lacan and Judith Butler).  She's thinking/writing about gender in a way that feels groundbreaking, but that's probably because I'm not around people who are doing much of that--I still have to explain more than I think I should why I call my partner my spouse and not my husband, why I refuse to use gender when I refer to God.

At one point in the afternoon, I thought that I haven't seen the word heteronormative show up in a piece of writing so many times in the same hour--well, maybe ever, but certainly not since reading those books of critical theory that seemed so important in the late 80's and early 90's--so important, so often barely readable.

It was interesting to read this material against the backdrop of my own heteronormative afternoon--men off to a motorcycle show, woman left behind to deal with teaching tasks.  It's interesting to think about transgressiveness of all types; I think of the reactions in the spring when I told people about our motorcycle adventures, and I found myself quoting Whitman:  "I contain multitudes."

It's an interesting time to be alive, in the year after the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage more widely available--and how many of us stopped to wonder if that's what we've been fighting for all along?  After all, as a much younger feminist, I could have told you all the ways in which marriage was a patriarchal trap.  As an older feminist, I'm the first to tell you that my younger self was correct in many ways, yet also wrong.

We haven't done much reimagining of our primary units--when we say family, what do we want that to look like?  How would we need to redesign our living spaces?  How would our work lives change?

The most transgressive time of my life so far was when I lived with my spouse and 2 other adult housemates.  We lived in the Charleston, SC area, back in the early 90's, when it was much more conservative than it is now.  Most people simply couldn't fathom why I would want to live in that type of community, when I had no blood connection to the other 2 adults who weren't my spouse.

When I think about the most transgressive element, here's what bubbles up:  we ate dinner together almost every night for the first several years of living together.  Or maybe it's the vacations that we took together.

Transgressive and yet so very normal. 

I remember in 1992 when a friend at work said, "I am so tired of hearing about people's sex lives.  Tell me about your financial life--that's truly transgressive."

Except that she probably didn't use the word transgressive.  I'm the only one I know who uses the word transgressive on a regular basis.

There's something about the work of Nelson that takes my mind to the early books written by Susie Bright.  I always wondered if Bright wrote about real people--it was hard to tell if they were composites, if people could really live those kinds of lives.  How did they pay the rent?  While they were smashing the patriarchy and reinventing lesbian sex, how did they decide what to have for dinner?

I haven't finished reading The Argonauts, but I imagine Nelson's work will be short on those kinds of details too.  She's very coy about the gender of her partner, Harry Dodge, for example.  I've spent more time than I want to admit zipping around the Internet, trying to solve these puzzles.

In the course of my research/nosiness, I came across the Susie Bright's blog, which is so much like those early books of hers that I loved so much, those books about truly transgressive women, or so I thought back when I didn't realize how transgressive it might be to have dinner every night with people who shared your space.  I was saddened to read that Honey Lee had died.  I loved reading about her photography, what she hoped to accomplish, what she did accomplish; you can read it too by going here, but be warned, the pictures involve nudity in a way that seems more explicit (dare I say transgressive?) than some of the more common nudity that we see so much these days.

Here are some of the works that have inspired me this morning.  I loved this interview with Nelson at the Bookslut site.  Here's a great quote:  "Sedgwick herself has written movingly about how knowledge is not something one gains once and then moves on, but rather something one knows and then forgets, and then re-knows differently, and then re-knows or re-forgets again, and so on. The latter process is far more interesting, intellectually and spiritually."

I also enjoyed this interview with Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn at Bomb magazine.  It makes me want to do interesting things with film and grateful that there are others who do those interesting things. 

Now I must get ready for my own transgressive Sunday:  I'm headed off to church to lead voting on the church budget.  Unpack that statement!

Writing Report: Month 1, 2016

The month of January has just zoomed by.  Every week seems to just zoom by, so I'm not surprised that the month, too, feels zippy.

Let me take a minute to check in on my writing goals.  I spent the morning preparing two submissions to possible agents, so I have that on the brain--I was motivated to actually send those queries out because my goal is to send out 3 queries to agents each month as I work towards getting my memoirish book of essays published.

I have done a good job of submitting other individual works to journals this month.  I've also done a good job of writing new work:  I finished one short story and started another, and I've written at least two poems each week.

I'm intrigued by where I find ideas for poems.  Yesterday, I sent a poem to the Via Negativa site because it was inspired by two poems that were posted earlier on the site.  If you go here, you can read the poem, which seems an interesting combination of Epiphany and Ash Wednesday themes.  You can also find links to the poems that inspired my poem.

I've also picked up my Jesus-in-the-world series again.  So far this month, I have sent Jesus off to work on political campaigns in advance of the Iowa Caucuses and off to Fashion Design school.  Jesus does not do so well at Fashion Design school.

Here we are, the week-end before the Iowa Caucuses, the week-end before Groundhog Day, the week-end before Candlemas, the feast day on Feb. 2 that marks the true end of Christmas in some Christian traditions (for more on that holiday, see this post on my theology blog).  In honor of the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, here's a stanza from one of this month's poems:


Jesus understands this fever dream,
the appeal of those outside the Establishment
who dream of establishing Empire.
The scars on his hands and side throb
slightly, as they always do when the weather turns.

The Simple Joys: a Cup of Tea, a Petit Four, and Friends

--A friend had leftover petit fours, so she brought them to the office, where we enjoyed them with our afternoon tea.  She asked me to take the rest of the package, since she's not supposed to eat them.  Of course I was happy to help this way.

--On my way to the office, and then later, on the way home, I was stopped by several people who said, "What are you carrying?"  I said, "Petit fours.  Would you like one?"  And of course, the answer was "Yes."

--I have this vision of a performance piece kind of art, where I carry plastic packages of petit fours to various locations and see people's reactions.  Would it be art or sociology?

--It's an easy way to spread joy, these little cakes.  They're small enough that we can eat one without guilt.  They're rich enough that we might be able to stop with just one.

--I think back to grad school days, when we'd go to The Fresh Market, which had a great mix of extravagant products that we could never afford, fresh produce that was reasonably priced, and bulk products.  We would treat ourselves to petit fours, which cost a quarter a piece.

--I want to remember how simple joy can be:  a cup of tea, a petit four, time with friends in the middle of a work day.

--And I've had more profound joys:  we've got big changes coming in the way we do English--we're adding a mandatory lab component, which means that faculty will be spending 5 hours a week with students, not 3.  Our department's full-time English faculty have been good-spirited about it and helped to figure out the logistics.  I feel supremely lucky.

Slipping the Surly Bonds of Earth

Thirty years ago this morning, the space shuttle Challenger exploded.  I happened to be in a car and heard the news on the radio.  It wasn't until hours later that I saw the footage.

It was a different time, with many fewer televisions.  I lived in a college dorm, and very few of us had our own TV sets.  TVs were expensive back then.  You wouldn't mount them around a waiting area in multiple sets.  You wouldn't mount them at all, because they were heavy and bulky.

I think of how much news I've gotten from the radio.  On September 11, 2001, I was listening to NPR before I headed off to teach at the University of Miami.  I assumed a plane had gotten off course, and headed to the car.  It was as I made the long drive down I 95 that I heard about the second plane and  third plane at the Pentagon.  I kept driving, although I was tempted to drive home.  I didn't see the towers collapse in real time.  I was still in the car.

In many ways, I'm glad for the times that I heard the news on the radio and then saw the footage later.  I had time to process the news before seeing the pictures that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

I didn't hear President Reagan's speech in real time.  Have I ever heard the whole speech?  I can't remember.  I do remember chunks of it, so I looked it up this morning.  It's an amazing piece of writing.  Reagan was blessed with some wonderful speech writers, like Peggy Noonan, who wrote the speech that he delivered after the loss of the Challenger.

The whole text of the speech can be found here.  It's a masterful work, from the beginning to the end.  He talks directly to the family members of the crew and the other NASA workers.  He talks to the nation's schoolchildren, who would have been watching when the first civilian teacher in space was lost.  He talked to the nation, with stirring words about exploration and the continuation of what's been started.

I continue to be in awe of the conclusion of the speech:  "The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'"

It's a speech that both inspires and comforts, an interesting rhetorical task.  It makes me think of various writing assignments that I might give to my students, if I was creating writing assignments.  It would be interesting to read the speech on paper, and then to see the footage.

It would be interesting to task students to create a piece of writing that strikes the perfect notes in the perfect combination, notes of comfort and courage and inspiration. 

I wonder how many of my students would be familiar with this incident.  How many of them would have opinions about Ronald Reagan?  I'm certain that most of them wouldn't know the speech.

It's hard to believe how long ago Reagan gave that speech.  It's the kind of event that makes so many people wistful for the politics of long ago.  We forget that the politics of those times were ugly too.  But tragedy does have a tendency to make us forget our differences, if only for a moment.

Today I'll move through my mundane life, the surly bonds that keep me tethered.  I'm old enough now that I'm grateful for those bonds.  I'm hoping that my loved ones also stayed anchored to this earth for awhile longer.  I'm grateful for days when those bonds are not blown to bits.

Dickens and Me: Literature from an Alien Homeland

I have just requested my copy of Hard Times from the public library.  One of my friends at work was reading A Tale of Two Cities and loving it.  She talked about how she wished I was reading it too so that we could discuss it.  I suggested doing that with a different book, and that's how I have come to be putting a hold on the book at the website of the public library.

It may or may not surprise you to learn that I am first in the hold queue.  What?  You mean that no one else wants this book? 

I was surprised at how many different copies the library has.  I chose the Norton critical edition.  I want something that will be easy on my eyes, with the luxurious paper that Norton uses.

I first read Hard Times in undergraduate school--probably for a Victorian Literature class.  I remember writing a paper about it--or do I?  Once I would have been able to tell you exactly what I wrote, the thesis and the main points and the outside works I used.  Of course, that's 30 years ago now that I first read the book and wrote about it.

My first Dickens text was A Christmas Carol in the 8th grade.  We had to read it for class, but I was happy to do it because I loved the TV versions.  I remember loving that text and trying to read Great Expectations, which was on my parents' bookshelf.  I couldn't get through it as an 8th grader.

Hard Times was the next book, in undergraduate school, and then I read Bleak House and Oliver Twist in grad school.  When I first taught the second half of the British survey class, I assigned Hard Times.  I thought that students might relate to the education issues in the book.  When Norton included the complete text of Frankenstein in the anthology, I switched to it, and students liked it better.  When I taught an undergraduate section of Victorian Lit, I assigned Oliver Twist.  One class loved it, and one class was indifferent.

I haven't read Hard Times since 1993 or so, and I haven't read any Dickens at all since 2001.  I'm looking forward to returning to Dickens, and I'm thrilled that my friend will be reading it too.  She'll do the audio book, and I'll read the paper copy.

I miss many aspects of grad school, but what I miss most is the reading community.  If I read a book for class, there would be at least 12 other people reading it too.  I sought that kind of community by forming a book group a few years ago, but it was frustrating because we all liked such different books.  I have so little reading time that I don't want to read books that aren't important to me.

And yet, I remember the group fondly, and I don't really regret the books that didn't appeal.  They were important in their way too.  Maybe it's time to form a new group.

Or maybe it's good to proceed with a simpler plan, a reading partner who loves British Lit as much as I do.  If I didn't have my friend at work, it would be a lonelier place.  She's the one who understands this strange passion for literature from a homeland that isn't mine, literature from an alien homeland.

Lenten Resolutions

Yesterday, I went to this wonderful website to think about coloring my way through Lent.  If you'd like to try something similar, this part of the website will give you templates to download.

And then, startled, I realized that Lent is just 2 weeks away.  I'm not quite ready to accept the fact that Christmas is over, and now it's time for Lent.  It seems like such a short time ago that I was reading my way through Henri Nouwen's Show Me the Way:  Readings for Each Day of Lent.  And now it's time to begin again.

I just made my New Year's Resolutions/Plans--now it's time to think about what I might do for Lent.  For possibilities, see this post on my theology blog.
This year is already zooming by.  Sigh.  And January is almost over.  If I'm going to fulfill my plan of sending out 3 queries a month to agents and publishers, I need to get started.  I've done a good job of writing new material and sending out material.

In terms of my other goals, I'm doing a mostly fine job.  I have read my 2 books and my volume of poems for January.  I've eaten a good amount of fruits and veggies.  I've done more strength training and more teeth brushing.  I'm feeling more connected than disconnected.  I've not gone in the pool at all.  It got cold, and it's hard to make myself take that plunge.

I've been thinking about how my plans go astray.  At what point in the year do I get off track?  It's often tied to work upheaval, at least since 2012.  That knowledge has spurred me to do more in these weeks where I'm not feeling overburdened.

Musings by and about the Fireplace

My sister lives in Maryland, where they have wintry weather most years.  I live in South Florida, where the lowest temperature I've ever seen was 38 degrees, and that was once since 1998.  We usually get a week or two of chilly weather, with one or two nights when the low dips to 45 degrees.

I have a fireplace in my house, and my sister does not.  My house is on the first plat map of Broward county.  I think of that person(s) who built these first houses here.  Did they not understand the climate?  Were they so dependent on fireplaces back home that they couldn't imagine not needing one?  Was the climate different then?

The system that brought the blizzard to the east coast has also brought us some cold weather.  So last evening, my spouse suggested a fire.  But all our wood was wet from the record amounts of rain that we got on Friday.

Off I went to the grocery store, while my spouse stayed home to complete his mandatory training sessions at one of the schools where he teaches Philosophy.  I picked up some good deals on food and coffee, and 4 bundles of wood at $5.49 each.

I tried not to think about the rural areas of South Carolina where I've lived, where I could have picked up a bundle of wood for free, where I could have bought a cord or a truck load of wood for not much more than I spent last night.

We had a fire in our fireplace that has no damper.  It seems to work just fine, despite not having a damper.  Is that a design feature or a flaw?

I thought of past years, long ago, when a grad school friend would occasionally find an apartment that was part of an older house, an apartment with a fireplace.  I remember envying them, writing their grad school papers by the fire--meanwhile, I shivered in my meager grad school digs.

I thought of the changes of our approach to the fireplace at our annual family gatherings at Lutheridge.  We used to have the fireplace going across the week-end.  But now, with 7 little children, we haven't had a fire in almost a decade.  Those sharp-edged stone hearths frighten the parents, and the children get into enough trouble without a fire going.  We've also noticed that we all breathe better without a fire burning.

Last night, we did no work beside the fire.  We sat with our backs to the TV, enjoying music and wine and the chance to unwind.

Today as I move through my day, I'll try to take the spirit of last night with me.