Life...One Damn Gift After Another

* Just weeks ago in this journal, I was lamenting the lack of a personal washer/dryer, which necessitated many undesirable trips to the Laundromat. I am happy to report the delivery of my new washer/dryer on July 4th at approximately 2:35 in the afternoon. A friend of mine who moved on the Fourth of July had a set, only a year old that could not be accommodated in her new place. She offered them to me on a “payment plan.”  Her two mover men brought them to my house, but of course there was a glitch. The dryer had a four-pronged plug. I have a three-pronged outlet. They offered to install the washer while I ran out to Lowe’s for a new cord. I paid them and gave them beer.

 

* Psssssst (she said, whispering). There are running water noises and hammering noises coming from the apartment next door. It’s been empty for a month. I wonder if it’s just a work crew or if someone’s moved in under my nose. It could happen. I’m so busy doing laundry.

 

* Several weeks ago when I was teaching the Religion and Feminism course, I went to “my” Starbucks before class to get my usual morning double tall soy latte and as I stood in line, dressed more professionally than usual, my co-workers and friends shouted from behind the coffee bar, “Hey Louise! Where you going all dressed up?”

And I responded, in a voice loud enough to hear across the five feet to the espresso bar, “I’m off to save the world…one feminist at a time.” The atmosphere changed- to a hush.

 

* I was at my hair salon the other day. It's a very intimate, small place. There was only one other woman there along with my hair stylist (who is also my friend). The other woman having her hair done was...uh, ok, I'll say it- she was as redneck as anyone I've ever seen. Her beloved daughter (about whom she is very possessive) has just gotten engaged to a Muslim man. Of course, the woman knows NOTHING about her own religion, let alone Islam. She just wants him to "believe in God and Jesus. They believe in them don't they?" I tried to explain in the simplest language I could about Islam. (I WANTED to say, "You know... there are BOOKS."). Anyway, I really do have tremendous patience and tolerance with ignorance, but THEN she said that sometimes she sneaks pork into her future son-in-law's food "to see if he'll notice." Yes, I can tolerate ignorance but NOT deceit and mean-spiritedness. I said to her, "Would you step on a Cross? Would you smash a Cross with your feet?" She said of course not. I said, "Well sneaking pork into that man's food is like someone sneaking a Cross under your rug to MAKE you step on it." And I THINK I saw a night-light size bulb go off. I think she understood. Like Nathan confronting King David (OK...not quite), she understood her actions when she was placed in the center of the story. When she left she touched my arm and thanked me saying, “There was a reason why we were here today.” Well, I don’t know about her, but  I was there was for a trim and highlights.  My friend needless to say, almost bust a gut trying not to laugh out loud.

 

* I went to the beach yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. I am drawn to it like iron to a magnet. It is my place of peace and calm. I walk and think. I think and sit. I write poetry here and ask questions. Odd, that someone who suffers from hypo-phobia should love the presence of the ocean so much. I don’t go in the water. I never go in the water. I will walk on the shore and feel the coolness of the water on my feet but that is not my greatest pleasure there. My greatest pleasure is the sound. There is no other place on earth that has quite that sound. And smell. And feel- the sand on the body and under the feet. The beach is a sensual place. I cannot wait to be back to the Rocky Coast of New England; to visit First Beach in Newport, so different from the South Carolina beaches.

 

* I can’t help it. I hate that the 7th inning stretch of Major League baseball games has become the “God Bless America moment,” instead of the “Take Me Out to the Ball Game moment.”

 

* I had a weird dream this morning. My daughter (she was a child again, not the age she is now) and I were in a two story, brown tenement house on the second floor. I don’t know why the color “brown” is important to mention except that I noticed it in the dream so it seems to be. We were awakened by a noise. The noise came from the complete collapse of HALF of the house; like someone took a knife and sliced it down the middle and one side of it began to fall. We found ourselves standing on the edge of the wide open, gaping hole of a second floor staring across at our kitty, still perched on the side about to crash down. Just before this significant part of the collapsing side finally went down, my daughter leaned precariously over the edge and grabbed the kitten to safety. My she-ro.

 

* This time next week I will be in Maine and three days later, in Rhode Island.

I cannot wait to see my family.

Note to Paulette and Roger: Fire up the hot tub and the blender!

Note to Ben and Sue: See you at Buddy’s!

Note to Bert and Liz: Don’t even TRY to get me on that golf course.

Postscript to "What's New About Terror?"

I am forever a student, even in my own classroom. It is an “epistemological irony,” through which, if the teacher allows it, she learns as much or more than her students. These moments are sometimes joyful surprises, on-the-spot revelations of understanding, creative connections that occur as one speaks, or crystallized awareness of the relationship between culture and religion. Teaching this summer course on Religion and Feminism provided many such moments for me. I learned as my students learned. I grew as my students grew. 

 

Through the course readings and class discussions I developed a greater understanding and appreciation of many things with these students but nothing can compare to the awakening I have experienced since exploring the historical reality of women’s terror. In the classroom, through my own reflection and in the words of this journal, I have begun to discover profound truths about how women and men experience the world and each other:

 

1) I am not alone. I am not hyper-paranoid, excessively anxious or fearful. My experience of terror has been affirmed repeatedly by my female students, by friends who have read my journal entries, by female co-workers with whom I discussed the issue, with relatives, and a young woman whom I consider to be fearless, who admitted to me that even she is not free of it. Over and over again the women in my life have confirmed it: they too walk about the world in terror of sexual assault and rape. It is ever near the surface of consciousness. It invades us, disturbs our peace and alters our behavior. One young woman, in her critical reflection wrote the following:

 

         A large part of my life includes fear. I recognize that every decision

         I make is informed by the understanding that I have to do everything

         I can to avoid being a victim of violence or rape. It is horrifying that

         as a strong woman who is relatively secure in herself, I have become

         so used to living my life in fear, always watching out, keeping the lights

         on, checking behind my shower curtains and in my closet before bed,

         feeling that drop in my stomach as I open the door to my apartment

         late at night, almost braced for the worst...

 

And another:

 

        While I have never been attacked in a dark alleyway walking home

        at night, I feel I am prepared for it. I put my keys in my hand and

        ball up my fist, waiting for someone to step my way. I never realized

        why I did it except that I was trying to protect myself… I have also

        been told throughout my life that I must dress in such a way as to not

        make men sin, by lust.

 

And another:

 

        Yesterday in class, we began talking about how we adjust our

        lifestyles to prevent or avoid any form of violent crime or victim-

        ization. After class, I drove home thinking about how it affects my

        life. I fear going to sleep at night because I have a horrible fear

        of waking up to someone standing over my bed. I do not go to

        the mall or grocery store at night by myself because of the horrific

        stories one hears of abductions. The list goes on and on…

 

I am not alone. The experience of terror is a universal, female one. What is amazing too is that (to a greater or lesser degree) women walk around with this terror, but never speak of it.

 

2). Men have no idea we experience the world thusly. Men have no point of reference for this experience even IF we shared it with them (which we don’t). One incredulous young man in my class expressed it best when he asked, “Y’all really walk around like that?” My female students and I confirmed it, “Yes. Yes, we really do.”  And perhaps this has been the most stunning element of exploring this issue in the classroom- that one half of the human beings in this country have a common experience that the other half of the human beings in this country  knows nothing  about. How does this affect our ability to know each other? To be relational? HOW can we possibly be loving, compassionate and understanding of each other if one half of humanity is ignorant of a fundamental way of being in the world experienced by the other half of humanity? How influential, important and crucial is the experience of chronic terror? And how does our silence contribute to the space between us?

 

3). The irony of this reality is that men are the source of this terror and they have no idea. And we have no idea that they have no idea. They know that they are fearful for sisters, girlfriends, mothers and women friends; they know the dangers to them, but they do not have intimate knowledge of the pervasive, internal terror itself. It was appalling to the young men in my class (gentle spirits all) that they might be the source of such terror as they sit at a bar or appear unexpectedly on a street corner. That, I would imagine might be a source of consternation to any decent man who is aware of women’s terror, i.e., that they might trigger it. One young man, in a remarkable moment of clarity asked, “What can I do to alter my behavior so as to appear less threatening, less fearsome?” And his question took my breath away with its potential and its compassion.

 

I am fond of quoting the ancient Chinese proverb, “When the student is ready the teacher will come.” As a result of this summer course, I am inclined to reverse the order. And so, the course officially ends, but I will continue to reflect upon its lessons. Its impact will continue to affect the person I am and the person I will become. And for this, I have one more thing to say to that bright and delightful group of young men and women: Thank you. Thank you for being my fellow and sister students. Thank you for “hearing me into speech.”

 

What's New About Terror? Part III

We are instructed at airports to report “any suspicious behavior” and to be on the alert for any suitcase that is left alone. That is terrifying, isn’t it? A suitcase, left in the middle of the airport terminal, or on a seat in a subway car? A woman is taught to be on the alert when she is alone. And for many of us, this is often. We are taught to be suspicious of a man alone, or men in groups. The anxiety is particularly heightened on a secluded street, a park, a bar, a parking garage, a freaking Laundromat. We are taught not to GO OUT in the dark alone. NO place is “safe,” because every place has men in it and every man who is a stranger is a potential threat. And in many ways, for many days and nights, these cultural lessons curtail our activities.

 

But our activities are not the only things that get “altered.” Two young men recently moved into my apartment development. They sit on their stoop to smoke. Before reading Margaret Miles’ essay and before reflecting on this female condition of terror I didn’t realize how much I alter my behavior when they are outside. It is only through analytical hindsight that I see what I do; how differently I behave when they are there from when they are not there. And the alteration in my behavior is based on two facts; they know where I live and I do not know what kind of men they are. I find that as soon as I turn my car into my parking space I look to see if they are there. When they are not, I am glad. When they are, I walk like a “schoolteacher,” or how I imagine one to walk. The joyous lilt in my stride is gone lest it be interpreted as flirtatious. My walk is purposeful, with determined direction. I do not toss my hair, even if it is in my eyes, lest it be interpreted as provocative invitation. I say a quick “Hello,” but my eyes do not linger upon theirs, lest it be interpreted as interest. I must walk a tightrope between not-too-friendly, and cordial, lest I piss them off and they think me stuck-up and haughty. After all, if they turn out to be harmful, it will be my fault. When my door is closed and locked behind me, I breathe. I understand the risk of the confessional nature of these words; that there are those of you who will yet think I am paranoid. I exaggerate. I am nuts. But I assure you, this anxiety and these behavioral modifications are enacted by women in countless apartment complexes, in countless neighborhoods throughout this country (throughout the world) every day. As I think back to my interactions with female students and former students I cannot list all the reports shared with me of sexual harassment by male employers, of physical violence by building maintenance workers, fathers of childhood friends and boyfriends; of rape, physical brutality and intimidation. Failure to report is based in the same terror; that there will be violent retaliation.

 

And just in case we forget to fear; just in case we forget that international terrorists may lurk behind every bus stop or subway station or airport terminal, Homeland Security or the media will remind us. All of a sudden, without evidence for the need made known to us, National Security Alert will be elevated to “orange,” and the terror is in front of us again. Just in case we women forget that we live in an insecure and threatening environment, we are reminded. The majority of victims of the top rated cop/forensic/FBI television shows in this country are female. They are raped, mutilated and murdered every night in our living rooms. There is one program entirely devoted to “Special Victims,’ a euphemism for victims of sexual assault. Just in case we forget, we receive emails that contain in graphic detail the latest ploys and tactics of kidnappers and rapists who now lie under our cars, like  mechanics performing oil changes. They wait until we approach and grab our legs from beneath. They lie in wait between cars. They stalk in “unmarked” police cars, sirens ever ready to stop a woman driving alone. These emails invariably end with a plea, “Send this to all the women you know and love. It could save their life!” And the message is clear: you need only send this to the WOMEN in your life. Whether these emails  contain the stuff of urban legend or not, they perform the cultural service of inducing yet more internal anxiety and fear, if not for yourself than for your mother or daughter or sister. The fear might only present itself on the surface for just that moment, but it has done its job. And then there are the real stories, the ones that are not urban legend, but truth; of young women who are abducted in full daylight in Target parking lots and found days later in shallow graves; of pregnant wives who disappear, also found days or weeks later. The legends, the fear, the terror have their basis in fact. These all contribute to a culture of violence against women that Margaret Miles has called, “foundational in that they are built into the assumptions and institutional structures of American culture.” And they serve to ensure that I remember my vulnerability and so remember, “My place.”

 

And yet, we deny. We delude ourselves into thinking that these crimes are committed by individual men with abnormal psychological pathologies. We never see the violence as rooted in a systemic, institutionalized, cultural evil grounded in an ideology of national and global misogyny. But we must awaken from our sleep, like Snow White from the poison apple. My future and my daughter’s and the futures of any granddaughters I might have, depend on it.

 

So the man seized his concubine and put her out to them; and they raped and abused her all night until the morning. And as the dawn began to break, they let her go. As the morning appeared, the woman came and fell down at the door of the man’s house where her master was, till it was light. In the morning her master got up, opened the doors of the house, and when he went out to go on his way, there was his concubine lying at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold. “Get up.” he said to her, “We are going.” But there was no answer. Then he put her upon the ass and the man set out for his home. When he had entered his house, he took a knife and grasping his concubine he cut her into twelve pieces, limb by limb and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel.   Judges 19:25-29

 

And he sent her throughout Israel in outrage, that the men had been so disrespectful to him and to his property. He dismembered this body that had served him and sent the pieces throughout Israel because he had been insulted. Had he loved her, he would have bathed her body in oils and wrapped her in a shroud of linen. Had he loved her, he would have buried her in the tradition of his elders. Had he loved her, he would have wept. Of course, had he loved her, had he even considered her a human being, he would not have handed her over to be gang-raped and murdered.

 

I do not know how this woman felt as she was betrayed by her master. I do not know how the women of the enemies of Moses felt when they became the spoils of war. I do not know how it felt to be a virgin of Shiloh, abducted and raped as strangers in a strange land. I do not know the terror of the captive woman who mourned the death of mother and father wrought by the hands of her captor who became her rapist. But I do know what it is to be a woman living among a people who consider the treatment of these women to be a part of their glorious and holy inheritance.

 

So what’s new about terror?

Ask any woman and she’ll tell you-absolutely nothing.

 

 

 

What's New About Terror? Part II

In 1985, Elayne Boosler recorded a stand-up comedy routine entitled “Party of One.” I didn’t remember the year (I looked that up), but I remembered her and I remembered the title of the TV special, because I have never forgotten a joke she told that night. Of course, I don’t remember the joke verbatim, but it went something like this. She and her live-in boyfriend were living in New York City. Very late one night, he suggested they go for a walk in Central Park. She asked, “Are you crazy? Don’t you know how dangerous that is?” He said, “Don’t worry. Don’t bring your purse. Leave your wallet and keys here. If you don’t have anything valuable with you, you’ll be safe.” She paused dramatically, looked to her audience as if to her boyfriend and shouted, “But I have a vagina!”

 

Jokes “work” best when there is an element of truth to them. In Elayne Boosler’s Central Park joke there is a truth that the women in the audience understood in a New York second. It is a truth that her boyfriend had not even considered; a truth that probably took the men in the audience longer to “get.”

It is a truth conveyed in Margaret Miles’ statement, already cited in this journal’s pages, that “the threat of assault and rape is enough to make us rearrange our lives, reflecting our constant state of terror.”

 

Margaret Miles did not exaggerate. As I reflected on her statement and her particular choice of the word “terror,” I could not help but find analogy in the atmosphere of rhetoric and control that has gripped this nation (indeed, the world) since September 11, 2001. What the men of this nation have just begun to experience, women have always known; lives characterized by the vulnerability to unexpected assault; lives subtly haunted by terror.

 

It is a difficult analogy to express out loud. I discovered this when I began in my classroom to explore and articulate women’s experience of terror. I was very hesitant to describe this rearrangement of life; the things we will or will not do; the places we will go and not go, and the psychological rearrangement as well. I was hesitant because no one speaks of it. I was hesitant because although I suspected my own interior experiences are common, I did not know that they are. I was hesitant because I feared that the way I experience the world is unusual and unique, and that I would be judged hyper-paranoid, or neurotically anxious and suspicious. And yet, I know that I am not any of these. The experience of terror from the threat of rape and sexual assault does not consume or obsess me. I do not walk around in the world in a heightened state of panic or fear. The suspicion and anxiety surface only when I receive certain signals from the world around me. As I tentatively began to express this experience, slowly the young women in my class began to nod; one by one they each affirmed what I suspected- that we do indeed walk about the world in a constant state of terror, women alone, in a hostile environment. And to echo Nelle Morton’s oft-quoted dynamic, they “heard me into speech.”

 

In the aftermath of 9/11 this country’s government invested manpower and monetary resources in the cause of internal security as never before. The number of casualties was a little less than three thousand. The fatalities were human, but the targets were symbolic; the symbols of American culture, economic and political. Need I supply here the national statistics of domestic and sexual assault against women? According to the FBI, every day 4 women are murdered in this country by partners or spouses. The total number is higher than the number of soldiers killed in Vietnam. In 2005, there were 93,934 reported forcible rapes, not counting those unreported, not counting unsuccessful, attempted rapes and not counting consentual sex with a minor, or statutory rape. One in five women will experience attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. Twenty years ago, when Miles wrote her essay, a woman was raped every 6 minutes in this country. Today, rape occurs every 4 minutes. And yet, rape crisis centers and shelters for women and children must beg, borrow, write grants for funding, sell purses at auction and hold fundraisers to stay in business.

 

The behavioral tactics of international terrorists are unpredictable and often arbitrary. There is no discernible, attainable goal. The acts are fueled by hatred and rage and self-righteous rationalization. Rapists are unpredictable, though often their victims are not arbitrary. Most occurrences of domestic and sexual violence against women are committed by someone they know. The goal of rape is not sexual, though its weapon is. Rape is fueled by hatred and rage and self-righteous rationalizing of entitlement.

 

The Department of Homeland Security instills a false sense of security. Airport searches, clearly visible to the public, allow us to feel that diligence is in charge, that the terrorist is being weeded out and identified. We hand over our Bic lighters and shaving creams and hair gels and buy into the illusion that we are “safe.” When in reality, there is no such thing as security against terrorism and we are already its victims, because its purpose is fear. And we as Americans are willing to sacrifice more and more of our civil liberties in the face of that fear. Women and men set up a false sense of security against the potential occurrence of rape. We make ourselves believe that rape happens only to certain types of women, in certain places, at certain times of day. And we think that if we don’t dress “that way,” or go to bars alone at night, or walk in the dark, or in stairwells, or enter elevators that contain only one man, or lock our car doors from the inside, etc., etc., etc., then we will be “safe.” Unfortunately this misconception is a double-edged sword because when a woman does get raped, we jump to the conclusion that it was her fault because after all, she didn’t follow the rules. Women give up liberties and freedom of movement, living captive in a “free” society. And when a two year old baby or 90 year old woman is raped we console ourselves by thinking they are the exceptions.

 

We prepare for travel in an airport, or train station and we are asked, “Have you been in sole possession of your luggage since you left your house this morning?”  Who will say “no?” One knows that the result of answering this question negatively will only bring delays and extended searches. Unfortunately for us, women are always in possession of our vaginas. Much to Elayne Boosler’s chagrin, we cannot remove them and place them on the dresser when we leave the house.

 

We are instructed repeatedly over loud speakers bellowing throughout the terminal, “Do not leave your luggage unattended.” I suppose the fear is that some terrorist will slip something into my bag that will be detonated in the air. The science and technology of terrorism has become more and more advanced; tiny detonators hidden in cell phones, bombs no bigger than a hip purse, plastics that avoid metal detection. Women are instructed not to leave our drinks unattended. Let me say that again- we are instructed not to leave our DRINKS unattended.  The rapist too has concocted new ways to make his task easier. And what he will slip into our drinks has a name; it is called “the rape drug.”