"Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life." -Rachel Carson
The cold snap of last week somehow led into a moody and sporadic wave of heat, and now this profusion of springtime life. As I pass the drainage ditches, I catch frogstreak splashes into dirty water and in the creaky grass just inches from where I sit on the docks, crickets take up their chorus and far across the park, where a local has taken me to play frisbee golf there is a fawn grazing undaunted and every little twig is budding and pouring forth grace and lusciousness. Grass is no longer just grass, but every lawn and stretch of roadside has let forth a rambling medley of minute wildflowers. Less than two centimeters in height, there are tiny bluebells, miniature violets, others resembling orchids, all that remind me of the obsessively detailed flowers such as those that are found at the feet of saints in Renaissance paintings. Spring is a cruel and lovely awakening. Spring is a cruel and lovely disguise.
Amanda wants bigger boobs. She is taking breast enhancement pills. She hands me the bottle to inspect. She is confiding in me because, 1) I am the only female around, 2) I have big boobs myself. She wants to know if mine are real. Like I might have some advice to offer. I wish that this were an entirely atypical conversation within the context of my Virginia life, but I am afraid to say that it is not.
The previous day I was visiting Amanda on her dad's boat as she sorted through a garbage bag of clothes that a "fancy" friend of hers had passed down. She was disgusted to find that Rocawear was plentiful. "I don't wanna look 'black,'" she told me, wrinkling her nose. When Amanda arrived at the marina a couple days ago, she had recently been discharged from an overnight stay at the hospital, where she was treated for an ankle swollen with fluid. She called out to me from across the small, curved parking lot carpeted in rust red pine needles. She was still on crutches, and still wearing her inpatient bracelet. Amanda is young and white, with a single braid crisscrossing her forehead, a volleyball player's build, and a put-upon expression.
She smokes and talks, sitting at the diner- style table that is the boat's centerpiece, surrounded by a light, non distinct clutter. Her eyes and words and themes of conversation merge and diverge and merge again. It's just hot enough today to give that rush of possibility that is summertime. And yet... I cannot get past the hard plastic sheen of her eyes or cheekbones or of anything she is saying. I have been spoken at like this before. There is a whole subsection of the population, a particular class of people within the social underclass who tell their tales to near strangers, unsolicited, in long, stringy tales of misfortune. I believe in this misfortune, I believe in her heartache. And I want to do something to ease these burdens, and I want to believe, that through my panic and claustrophobia, warmer feelings will come and settle upon my skin, as wild yeast will find its way to flour and dough, if all are left to their own devices.
My rising panic when confronted by the social mores I keep running up against here is not limited to my interactions with Amanda:
I hear kids using "faggot" as a putdown at the supermarket.
Women my own age and younger spark up conversations by asking me how many children I have; the peak of the conversation is when they get to complain about their husbands.
The owner of the boatyard is around my age, and when he comes to hang out with us with his wife and baby, he goes out of his way to made crude jokes about her, to her frequent humiliation.
I've set up a work station between the dock and the parking lot where I'm doing some sanding and painting to prepare for our sailing trip next month. The workmen and pleasure boat captains amble by in the heat of the day. They keep tabs on me, leer, greet me in overly familiar ways, and make condescending remarks like, "I see you've found a manageable project there, missy."
When I go to get my hair done, my stylist, who is black, spurs on a five minute salon-wide spate of "hilarity" hinging on how savage and weird Africans are. Apparently the stylists have a friend who is threatening to "run off to Africa," if her boyfriend doesn't hurry up and propose. The stylists have the time of their lives mimicking their friend as she "runs around in the wild" and "gets plates stuck up in her lips."
I am living in the state where Jefferson owned his 600 slaves. The state that has just legislated ritual shaming into women's reproductive choices. Living in the South, and living at a moment stamped in time that greatly resembles, if nothing else, a great crossroads in our national identity, I can't help but think, (every minute of every day), that with all our civil rights: for women, for racial minorities, and for gay and trans Americans, for everyone, we have come so far and yet all our rights now seem so utterly precarious.
I grew up in the generation of girls born into a world where women's rights felt mostly resolved. My predessors had battled for equal footing in society and had come out victorious. Certainly disparity and troubling attitudes remained, but we had reached a stage in which the issue seemed more academic than political. We had Take our Daughters to Work Day in elementary school, feminist books about puberty in adolescence and Gender Studies in college.
I confess that I don't know how to end this post. I find myself deeply troubled by the attitudes I encounter here, and deeply disgusted with the country's political landscape. I think of all the strong, smart, capable women in this country and I am furious that the Republican party in it's current state is even allowed to campaign for office. I think of the strength of women in Iran and Afghanistan and Syria, of the peril of their daily lives, and I'm scared for them and appalled at the thought of Obama's drones and U.S. armies (and U.S. contractors) taking lives. I draw strength in these times, by remembering the women in my own life, the ones I admire. I think of all of you, and all that you are and have become, about all that you stand for, and it's what keeps me going. I see you as a force for good, at my disposal. No need to deploy you, for you are already out in the world, making it more beautiful.
Big thanks are also due to all the men who set the bar high......
