A Poem for International Women's Day: "The Hollow Women"

I have spent the first few hours of International Women's Day grading papers for my online class.  My grades are due on Monday, and a new class starts on Wednesday.  I'm not caught up yet, but I'm feeling better about my chances.

On International Women's Day, I realize that I am luckier than many women throughout the world.  I have part-time work that I can do in the wee, small hours of the morning--or any time and place that I can get an Internet connection.  I have a full-time job that pays me a decent salary with decent benefits.  I am safe at both jobs, and my employers deposit my pay without incident.

I have a lovely house in a relatively safe neighborhood.  I have food in my kitchen and a way to keep it safe until I'm ready to cook it.

I have a bit of time here and there to do the activities that feed my soul:  reading and a variety of creative work.  I have time to see friends.  My family members are in good shape.

We are bombarded, day after day, with stories of women who have not been so lucky.  It's good to remember that we still have work to do.

It's also good to remember how far we've come. 

I'm thinking of the multitude of poems that I've written about gender and history and all of those intersections.  Here's a poem that I wrote years ago that says a lot about the life of a certain class of women in modern, capitalistic countries.  It's part of my chapbook, Life in the Holocene Extinction.

The Hollow Women


We are the hollow women,
the ones with carved muscles,
the ones run ragged by calendars
and other apps that promised
us mastery of that cruel slavedriver, time.

We are the hollow women
with faces carved like pumpkins,
shapes that ultimately frighten.

We are the hollow women
who paint our faces the colors
of the desert and march
ourselves to work while dreaming
of mad dashes to freedom.

At night, the ancient ones speak
to us in soft, bodily gurgles
and strange dreams from a different homeland.
We surface from senseless landscapes
to wear our slave clothes
and artificial faces, masks
of every sort. We trudge
to our hollow offices to do our work,
that modern drudgery,
filing papers and shredding documents,
the feminine mystique, the modern housework,
while at home, domestics
from a different culture care
for the children.

Ash Wednesday Journaling

I am tired, tired, tired today.  It's been a week of phone calls about home repairs, a week of planning a student event at work, a week of strategizing the writing of accreditation documents, a week of covering a class for an adjunct who got a full-time job, a week of 2 evenings at church, a week of feeling ever-more-behind with my online classes.

Let me focus on the joys.  Let me remember the students who were so thrilled that we grilled burgers (both meat and veggie) for them.  Let me remember the people who commented on the positive energy of the event.  Let me also remember Ash Wednesday, before it gets away from me.

I arrived at church last night with the makings of a dinner:  chili that my spouse made on Monday, brie cheese, 3 kinds of bread, and salad.  I was meeting with a journaling group that I'm leading for Lent.  I wasn't sure what to expect.

I was surprised by the turnout, although some of those may have been there as something to do before church.  We didn't have as much time last night as we will for other Wednesdays in Lent.

We ate our meal, while we talked about the logistics of the coming weeks.  We decided that we didn't want a meal to be part of our meeting.  We talked about the best time to meet.  We talked about whether or not we wanted to share (for the most part, we said no).  I asked about whether or not we wanted prompts in between the Wednesdays that we will meet (yes) and the best delivery method (e-mail, not Facebook or blog).  And then I passed out the markers and launched our first session.

I invited people to make marks with the markers and to see how the colors blend.  I also reminded them that the back of the paper might give them interesting insight.

For the actual journaling, I reminded people that they could work in markers or pen or pencil.  I invited them to use words, shapes, and/or colors.  I explained the principle of free writing:  just keep going, and if you have nothing more to say, write that until you have something more to say, until insight bubbles up.

I asked question #1:  What do you hope that the weeks of Lent will bring you?

Four minutes later, I asked question #2, which could be a variation of question #2:  During the season of Lent, what do you hope for when you think about your relationship with God?

And then it was time for our first meeting to come to a close.  I didn't have time to journal with the group, but later, in church, I made this sketch:

Ruined Stars: An Ash Wednesday Meditation

Today is Ash Wednesday, the day in the Liturgical year that reminds us that we are dust, and all too soon, we'll return to dust. Those of us who go to Ash Wednesday services will have a cross smudged on our foreheads, a cross of ash ideally made from burning the palm branches from the previous year's Palm Sunday. We hear some variation of these words: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

You can call yourself a creature made out of the ruins of stars (true!), but you're dust all the same.

You say you're unfamiliar with Ash Wednesday? Are you one of the bajillion people who celebrated Mardi Gras yesterday or maybe you went further and had yourself a season of Carnivale? You have participated in the liturgical year without perhaps even realizing it. Those holidays arose as a response to the liturgical season of Lent, which begins with Ash Wednesday. In much earlier church times, Lent was a time of discipline, of giving up, of penitence. Many Christians, if they were wealthy enough to afford the items in the first place, gave up sugar and meat and fat and alcohol. So, as the season of Lent approached, they had to get all those items out of the house--thus, a festive party opportunity!

Yesterday, my campus celebrated Mardi Gras, sort of.  We had beads, but no festive drinks.  We bought charcoal grills the day before, and my boss, the executive director of the campus, spent the afternoon grilling burgers for all.  We had salad and veggie burgers, and two kinds of cake.  They were sheet cakes--carrot and red velvet--that one can buy at Costco type stores.   In other words, they were fairly simple, but some people acted as if they were eating the food of the gods.  It was a hectic day, and it took days out of my work week to plan and shop, but it was satisfying to see people having such a good time.

Some might ask why my focus wasn't more academic; some might wonder if I was avoiding the true work.  I have no idea.  I know that some of our students need the food.  I know that some of our students need to feel more stitched in to the campus.  I know that some of our students see the campus as their only source of stability.  These kinds of events help foster a good morale, and therefore, I have hopes that these kinds of events improve retention.  I have no way of measuring my theory, no measurable outcomes that I can definitively link to campus co-curricular activities.

They also bring me joy.  Let me not underestimate that factor.  The joy keeps me going through the less fun aspects of the job.

And now, the season of penitence.  It also happens to be the season of a lot of writing of accreditation documents.  This pairing makes sense to me.

Behold the words of ancient wisdom:  

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." We walk this planet for such a short time.  This high, holy day reminds us of that fact--viscerally. We are a marked people.

Later in the day, I will lead a journaling class at church before Ash Wednesday service.  Here's my favorite photo of ashes on the forehead, which happens to be my forehead after the 2014 service:

Here's a quote from Henri Nouwen to start your day. It's from A Cry for Mercy: "Our temptation is to be so impressed by our sins and failings and so overwhelmed by our lack of generosity that we get stuck in a paralyzing guilt. It is the guilt that says 'I am too sinful to deserve God's mercy.' It is the guilt that leads to introspection instead of directing our eyes to God. It is the guilt that has become an idol and therefore a form of pride. Lent is the time to break down this idol and to direct our attention to our loving Lord. The question is: 'Are we like Judas, who was so overcome by his sin that he could not believe in God's mercy any longer and hanged himself, or are we like Peter who returned to his Lord with repentance and cried bitterly for his sins?' The season of Lent, during which winter and spring struggle with each other for dominance, helps us in a special way to cry out for God's mercy."

Mardi Gras Meditations

Today will be an unusual Mardi Gras for me--although my usual Mardi Gras is fairly blah:  get up, go to work, come home, go to bed.  No festive drinks, no parade, no interesting foods.

In some ways, I'm more of a Shrove Tuesday kind of gal--but I don't celebrate that holiday usually either.  One year I did make pancakes, which led to a good poem, but a lonely meal.

Today our Meet and Greet fell neatly into Mardi Gras, so we broadened the scope of Meet and Greet to be a Student Appreciation event.  Our campus director will be grilling burgers, on charcoal grills we bought yesterday.  We will have salad and veggie burgers too--and all sorts of treats.

I have spent lots of time in the past week getting ready for the event.  Yesterday I was hardly in my office at all.  I was the one buying stuff:  hamburgers and veggie patties, salad, frozen sheet cakes, paper products, sodas, water.  And later in the day, I went with the campus director to buy grills.

There are days when I think back to grad school, and I say, "I can't believe my professional life has come to this."  Some days I say it with a sense of wonder.  Other days, my emotions are different.

At the end of my work day today, unlike many people, I will not be heading to a bar for Mardi Gras drinks.  I will go to church.  Our assistant to the bishop will be with our church for a visioning session.  We've had an offer on our property.  We have 4 acres, unheard of in South Florida.  We've been approached to sell the 2 acres closest to the busy street, and then we could build on the back 2 acres.

As one might imagine, we now face many questions.  Should we sell?  If so, what should we build in the back?  Do we have a larger vision than just a church building?

My mind immediately goes to the absence of affordable housing in our county. Could we build a building that had affordable housing units along with a small worship space?

But we're a small church, in terms of humans--could we really be landlords to all the people who might move in?

I like the idea of a retreat center that makes up the bulk of the church: lots of small sleeping spaces with communal bathrooms with shower spaces. We could use the sleeping spaces during shelter weeks, where we give homeless people a temporary space. We could host retreats. We could do so much with a retreat center.

I'd love an indoor labyrinth--what a great addition to a retreat center. It would be protected from the elements--and the vandals that targeted our past outdoor labyrinths.

I love the idea of a better kitchen. Right now we don't have a stove because of code restrictions and the cost of retrofitting our current kitchen. It would be great to have a more industrial kitchen, even though we don't really need it right now.

I love the idea of artist studios. I would love for my church to become a center that studies the intersections of creativity and spirituality.

Of course, part of me resists the idea of taking on a building at all. Buildings do need so much care and attention--and money--as the years go on. But a building can be a blessing too, with space for lots of groups and various ways to care for the community.

The church building we have right now is very dated--it hasn't been updated much at all, and it shows it. It would be so wonderful to start over. It's a wonderful opportunity. But it's also a heavy responsibility. I'd really like us to get this right.

I'd really like to know what "right" looks like.

Installation Art for Transfiguration Sunday

Over the past several years, I've really enjoyed thinking about different ways of decorating the sanctuary--beyond paraments and banners and flowers.  There's a fine balance--I don't want the focal elements to be too distracting.  But I do want to see if I can create something non-verbal and non-musical that can add to people's understanding of the Gospel, that can help foster a different attitude.

Yesterday was Transfiguration Sunday, a festival day where we celebrate Jesus going up a mountain with a selection of the disciples.  While there, his clothes and face glow, and Moses and Elijah (dead prophets) appear.

I wanted to create some sort of piece that would speak to that.  I had shimmering gold cloth and gold ribbons and lights.  I had a vision for a piece suspended high, but I wasn't sure how to do it.

Then I saw my wedding veil, with its wired headpiece, and I had a plan.  I got to work an hour before the Sunday service started, and created this:

It's not exactly what I had in mind, but nothing ever is.  As I developed my plan through the week, I worried that it would evoke something different:  a ghost or something Christmas-y, or something from a wedding.

Here's how it looks from a distance:

I like that it evokes the crown that Jesus will soon wear after his transfiguring time on the mountain top:  the crown of thorns.  I like that I used Christmas lights and ribbons to end the season of Epiphany.

And then after church, I took it all down:  time to prepare for the much more somber time of Lent.

One Step Forward, Ever Sliding Back

I didn't write yesterday because I lost track of time thinking about what's left to do with home repair.  My spouse and I had a long conversation about the pros and cons of certain kinds of microwaves and the over-the-stove space where we'll put it.  It's interesting to think about having a convection oven as part of the microwave.  Would I use the convection oven part?  Would it be more energy efficient to bake a cake there than to heat up the whole stove?

Will I ever bake a cake again?

Before I knew it, the morning had slipped away.  It was time for my afternoon hair appointment--but sadly, not before we discovered that the dryer wasn't working.  Yes, the dryer that's part of the washer-dryer combo that we bought 2 months ago.  Grrr.  One step forward, ever sliding back.

But as anyone who has a house or a car or a vehicle or a life of any kind knows, there will  always be the work of maintenance to do, the work of restoration, the work of planning ahead.  So, before I slip into despair, let me remind myself of what we've accomplished this week:

Below is the before shot, the empty space:

But these long shots don't show much.  Here's a close up:

We thought we'd leave the space by the stove empty (the lower right part of the picture), but our new table fits there neatly.  We have an eat-in kitchen!   We can move the table out when we entertain. 

I am in love with the color of the cabinets.  I am in love with the easy close doors and drawers.

I am interested to see how it will all look with a counter on top. I hope we can find a manufacturer who can do it:

 Here's the backsplash that we're thinking about:

Same pattern, different finish:

When I think about the disaster that our house was a year ago, I'm amazed at the progress we've made.  I am so hoping that it continues!

Women's History Month and Our Scholarly Beginnings

It's been a long time since I've been on a traditional college campus during the month of March.  I wonder if Women's History Month is still celebrated at all.  I realize that March has other appeals for traditional campuses:  basketball competitions and spring breaks and such.

When I was in grad school at the University of South Carolina from 1987-1992, the campus did a lot to celebrate March as Women's History Month.  The Women's Studies department put together a one day conference, in fact.  For me and my fellow grad students, we did our first presenting of papers at that conference.  From there, we went to both regional and national conferences.

I went back to my complete CV, where I keep a list of everything I've ever published or presented.  I need to sit down and do some updating--I am feeling like I need to take a week off of work just to get caught up on all the various types of updating I need to do.  But let me not get sucked into that spiral of regret.

The CV tells me that I presented my first academic paper at a conference in 1990.  Here's the title of the paper: An Early Portrait of Patriarchy: The Cenci.  My CV also reminds me that the Women's Studies conference was system-wide, so we had people from all over the state of South Carolina come to campus to present similar papers.

The following year, I presented Oliver Twist as an exploration of domestic violence, and in 1992, this was the title of my paper:  “We Wretches Cannot Tell Our Wrong”: Fallen Women in Gaskell, Barrett Browning, and Rossetti. I look back and see the outlines of my dissertation beginning to stitch together in my grad student brain.

Here's my dissertation title:  “My Relations Act with Me as My Enemies”: Domestic Violence as Metaphor, 1794-1850. My dissertation looked at 6 Gothic works or works with Gothic elements:  The Cenci, The Mysteries of Udolpho, Oliver Twist, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and . . . ?  How strange that I can't remember for sure.  My dissertation is packed away in a box, and I don't have an electronic copy, so I can't check.  Was it "Goblin Market"?  The Monk?  How can I not remember?  My dissertation argued that the authors were giving us important information about domestic violence and a realistic depiction of how violence operates in families, but they worked in the Gothic tradition because they couldn't speak about domestic violence openly.  We think of the Gothic as full of non-realistic elements, like ghosts and superhuman powers, but it was a way for authors to document real life too.

Well, it was twenty-five years ago, after all.  Wow.  No wonder my CV that contains all of my presentations and publications is so long.  I wish I had done more than keep a list.  I can't remember some of these conference papers from just the title, and most of them are probably long gone.

I'm also thinking of many of the pieces that I wrote for a website, Living Lutheran.  I foolishly assumed that I could retrieve them at any time from the site.  But the site has morphed several times, and they're no longer available.  Happily, I still have most of them.

I am the kind of person who keeps all sorts of stuff that will likely never be needed in the future, and that includes lots of drafts of lots of writing.  I have begun to trust electronics and the various back ups, so I no longer keep lots of drafts on paper.

On this first day of Women's History Month, it's been interesting to look back on my early days as a scholar.  I'm thinking about all the female scholars and authors and all that has been lost to history.  I'm giving thanks that we have as much as we do from our literary foremothers.