The Things We Carefully Pack

The past week has been occupied with an onerous chore that seems to have no end: moving.  My roommate and I have been hauling several car-loads full of furniture, boxes of books, and random odds and ends from a second-floor apartment to a house.  There is no better exercise to teach one just how much stuff one has.  My clothes alone took up five large suitcases, and that’s not including the pieces I used as padding for fragile knickknacks.  I wouldn’t consider myself a hoarder, by any means, but our culture teaches us to surround ourselves with things.

Now, I could argue that I need most of these objects.  My clothes of course are necessary, as well as the twenty-five pairs of shoes I own.  Without my (large) desk, where would I sit to work?  Without my journals from the past twelve years, how would I remember my own development as a writer?  And of course I can’t throw away that file of old work—someone might be interested in it when I become famous one day.  That book of recipes I’ve copied by hand will someday be a family heirloom, though I certainly don’t plan on learning to cook any better than I do now.  Okay, yes, that stuffed yellow camel doesn’t fulfill any purpose to make my life better, but I won him in my first year of college, and isn’t he cute?

You get the idea.  We often make excuses for our things, because we get strangely attached to them.  Most often, though, our stuff is valued either because of its connection to the past, or its hope for the future, sometimes both.  Chairs that belonged to my grandmother, a fan that I bought on my first trip abroad, glasses given to me by my best friend—all of these things somehow make me feel less alone.  They remind me of people who love me, or pieces of myself that I might have forgotten.

I am lucky in that most of the things I own do have these associations tied to them.  They make me happy, and that is a perfect excuse to make the trouble to move them seven miles down the road.  You don’t really have too much stuff until you look around at what surrounds you and realize that most of it has no meaning, none of those fond shadows of memories attached.  When you own to possess, and not to appreciate, that is when you should think about cutting back.

Look around.  How many of the things you look at make you think of someone else, or of something that happened to you or others?  How many of your things have purpose to them, and how many are just taking up space in your room?

Why I Need Feminism: Sword For My Fight

The other day, I was having something of an argument with a guy at work. I don’t remember how we got onto the topic, but at one point he looked at me with profound suspicion, asking, “Are you a feminist?”  When I told him yes, he threw back his head and made a very loud noise of exasperation.  

I’m getting used to this reaction.  Feminism has a very bad name, among men and women alike.  This distresses me, because it shows me just how far we still have to go.  But I’m proud to be a feminist, and that’s not just the strength of my education at a women’s college talking.  Feminism is vitally necessary in this world.

Now, I don’t intend this post—or any other, for that matter—to be an attack against the men in my life.  I got the impression that that was my coworker’s real objection to the feminist viewpoint; he told me more than once that “not all men are like that.”  I know that very well, and if I ever come across as accusing, I apologize.  But the fact is, not all men have to be like that for one of them to kill me in an alley someday.

Yikes—that escalated quickly, didn’t it?  But that’s the reason that feminism is so important.  Violence against women is all too acceptable, and that’s what it comes down to.  The sexist comments, the disrespect—that’s all bad, too.  But it’s part of a system that enables more dangerous cruelty.

I read a line this morning that stopped me in my tracks.  “They’re girls,” said one of the characters in the novel to another.  “They were born in danger, and they will live their lives in that condition, regardless of circumstance.” (An Echo in the Bone, Gabaldon, p.228)  Now, this conversation was set in the late 1700s, but it chilled me that it still has the ring of truth to it, almost two and a half centuries later.  Every woman in this world grows up aware of the danger around her.  A girl learns, even if she is never consciously taught, that she has to keep her head down, that she shouldn’t make men angry, that she should be careful what she says and does.  She learns to restrict her wardrobe for her own safety.  She learns not to make eye contact with men on the street, and to avoid groups of them that she doesn’t know.  I’ve been in that position.  A few moments of unwanted conversation with a strange man has the power to terrify. 

Of course, in the book, the other character—who is a man—responds by pointing out that the world is dangerous for men, too.  And that is true.  It’s also true—you have to admit that it is true—that women are in more danger from other people than men are.  But yes, we are all at risk out there.

The quest of mankind, as a whole, is to work towards a greater peace.  We must, as a species, learn to be kind rather than cruel, to be understanding rather than close-minded, to be curious rather than insular.  We must learn to not only accept our diversity, but rather embrace it.  And I firmly believe that we are working towards that end, little by little, and someday we will reach it.  We’re a seething, chaotic mass, and there will always be some of us reaching back for the days of casual violence, but I have hope—no, I have certainty—that those of us who look upward and onward will win the day.  On that day, no one—man or woman—will walk out of their home with even a thought that they might come to harm at the hands of another human.  On that day, we will have no enemies.

But it will take time.  We’re moving in baby steps, not always in the right direction, stumbling, sometimes falling.  All we can do is take what tools we have at our disposal and make what small difference we can.

Feminism is one of those tools.  It is something that can chip away at the massive obstacles and help us get closer to the larger goal.  If I can over time show a few men—or women, even—how important feminism is, then I have made a tiny bit of progress, and that is worth something. 

I define feminism as the acknowledgment of the need for greater respect between the sexes.  It is the awareness that we are all human, and that we as humans can be better than what we are.  It is the acceptance that there is a fight going on out there, a fight that happens in the mind and in the soul, the most important fight we’ve ever gone into.  It is for that fight that I arm myself, every day, with kindness, patience, and determination.  It is the fight for our brighter future, and if we’re going to win, we need everyone to be on the same side, men and women alike. 

Mind Over Matter

Back in the spring, I spotted something that intrigued me.  This happens often—I’m easily intrigued.  But often with such things, I make a note of the idea, or tear that particular page out of that magazine, and then never think about it again.  This, however, has stuck with me.  It was an article I found about a lingerie company, Panache, which had done a campaign entitled “Modelledby Role Models.”  The campaign brought to light six women, all with impressive accomplishments, and used them to showcase Panache’s lingerie.

It was the unusual nature of this that caught my attention.  We’ve come to expect lingerie models to be perfect: long slender limbs, skin airbrushed to a bright glow, hair perfectly coiffed and face made up and suitably sultry.  There are a few companies beginning to move away from that, but for now, that is the majority of the ads that I see.  (Not that I go looking for that kind of thing.) 

Naturally, being a feminist and approving of anything that moves away from the objectification of female bodies and the upholding of an unrealistic ideal, I clicked the link.  When I clicked over, however, I had a little voice in my head saying, they’re not going to seem pretty to me at first.  Much as I liked the idea, I knew that part of my brain was going to look for the cellulite, the lines, the stray hairs, the rolls.  Just because a woman is smart and strong, doesn’t mean she’s beautiful.

Yet looking back through it now, I realize again what I realized then: I was wrong.  These women are beautiful, and I say that without reservation, without needing to muffle that voice of judgment in my head. 

What I’m wondering is, how much of this conclusion comes out of what I know about these women?  Is that voice of judgment silenced by the admiration I have for their work and their vision?  Or is that their passion and success somehow make them beautiful?  You may have come across this phenomenon in your life: you meet someone, and you look them up and down and think, meh, they’re all right.  But as you get to know them, their attraction becomes real, even physical.  Or maybe it happens in reverse, where you initially find someone very attractive, but as soon as they open their mouth…

We like to think of mind and body as separate things, but the fact is, they really aren’t.  We are all stuck in the body we were given, and it’s very clear from all the body-image struggles I’ve witnessed that our bodies have influence on our minds.  It’s nice to know that it works the other way, too.

I Am Displeased

Being an alumna of a women’s college, there are any number of things in society that I can complain about.  Inequality is rampant, and I’ve been well trained to notice it.  This week, my greatest annoyance is with women’s clothing.

Don’t get me wrong: I love clothing.  There’s just something wonderful about finding that feels good, looks good, and makes me believe I can do anything, from the first moment I put it on.  The only problem is, this feeling is unjustly rare.  The industry seems to making it as hard as possible to find that perfect fit—in more ways than one.

Looks nice, right.  But wait...

Let’s start with sizing.  Why on earth isn’t there a universal sizing that all makers of apparel must use?  Some companies have numbers, but the same numbers between companies do not equal the same size.  I wear anything from 8 to 12 in pants.  Then there are those companies who use S, M, L, and from there add X’s as needed.  This is problematic because I am a small woman (5’0”), but I wear a DD cup, so I’m never sure whether to wear a small or a large.  Will the small be too tight?  Will the large look like a sack? 

While I’m on the subject of breasts, why is nearly every neckline I find low enough to be borderline inappropriate?  I have probably a dozen shirts that are scoop-necked, because most other shirts I find with more conservative necklines are hideous.  It often comes down to a choice between a cute shirt, or not having to worry every time I bend over. 

A few days ago, I was in a bit of a hurry, so I bought two new shirts without trying them on.  They were simple business shirts, one solid, one patterned, both very nice.  However, when I got them home and tried them on, I found a two-inch slit at the breast, for no reason at all.  This on a shirt whose neckline is already four inches below my collarbone, putting the slit squarely above my cleavage.  And I would swear that this shirt was intended to be worn at work.  How is this appropriate? 

What is this nonsense?

And oh yes, heaven forbid that I suggest trying to work in some of the things I’ve worn in my life.  Or indeed, do anything at all.  So much of the clothing I wear to look “nice” is so impractical, either by the way it fits, or the stifling fabric it uses, or the difficulties that go along with cleaning it.  There are some things in my closet that have never been washed.  Don’t judge me, I’m sure you’ve done it too.

I need an entirely new paragraph to mention pockets.  The one reason I chose my current phone when I upgraded was because it was the smallest one, and had the best chance of fitting in my pocket.  Even on my jeans, though, there is now a worn rectangle with rounded edges over my right pocket, because the fit is so tight.  And yesterday, I put on a new pair of dress pants and realized I hadn’t yet cut open the pocket.  I did so, and put my hand into the pocket, only to be stopped at the second knuckle.  Not even two inches.  I ask you—what is that going to hold?  People wonder why women have such large purses—it’s because we don’t have pockets to carry things! 

I wonder sometimes if designers know anything about women at all.  Do they know that there are women beyond New York and Los Angeles who are not six feet tall and 118 pounds?  Do they know that some of us have to do more than walk down the catwalk and back?  Can they understand that we would like clothing that will not only make us look good, but feel good?  Is it so strange to think that clothing should help you accomplish what you want to do for the day?

This rant is now over.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Notaphor?

I have a very fond relationship with metaphor.  As a writer, I enjoy clever wordplay, here defined as any comparison that makes me think, or forces me to look at an object or an idea in a new way.  

We are all serving a life-sentence in the dungeon of self. 

An actor is a sculptor who carves in snow.  

Life is a verb, not a noun.  (all found in Dr. Mardy Grothe's I Never Metaphor I Didn't Like) 

I admit, though, I also enjoy laughing at bad metaphors.  Sometimes they are more descriptive than the good ones.  

You got further plucking the chicken in front of you than trying to start on one up a tree.  Especially when the tree was in another country, and there might not even be another chicken.  (This one I got from Wretched Writing by Ross and Kathryn Petras)

And then there are those metaphors that have become so ingrained into our language that we never think twice about them.  

All the world’s a stage.  

Less is more.  

Food for thought.

By definition, a metaphor identifies something as being the same as some other thing, usually unrelated, in order to make a rhetorical point.  Metaphors, then, are concerned with identity, with what something is.  Recently, however, I’ve been wondering if there is another side to metaphor.  Can you play with words by comparing something to what something else is not?

Billy Collins seems to think so.  He has a lovely poem called “Litany”, in which he makes fun of senseless metaphor.  “You are the bread and the knife,” he says, “the crystal goblet and the wine. …  However, you are not the wind in the orchard,/ the plums on the counter,/ or the house of cards./ And you are certainly not the pine-scented air./ There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.”

This poem always makes me laugh (listen to him read it!), but I wonder if I could take this thought a step further, and look at it a bit more seriously.  Things are often defined by what they are not; not-being sets a boundary, making what is clearer.  And if we are looking at words in a poetic sense, it is just as interesting (to me, at least) to say that a person should not be a cobweb, or that a story should not be a yawn.  A woman is not meant to be hollow.  Words are not dogs—they don’t come when called.

Just thinking out loud, really.  But it does open up a lot of possibilities, don’t you think?

Hey, It's a Book Review: "Godmother Girl" by Johanna Lemon

Remember Johanna Lemon?  I featured her interview in my post on July 11, which you can find here.  For those of you who might have missed it, or just need a reminder, Johanna is a fellow alumna of Hollins University who is in the process of self-publishing her books.  Two of them, That Girl and Godmother Girl, are available now through Amazon.  I myself had the privilege to read the latter, Godmother Girl.  A godmother is meant to protect and guide her charges, suffering with them in their darkest moments.  For Corisande, however, it’s her own darkest moment that weighs heaviest on her heart.  Trapped by the past, she one day comes across two young people who are in the same situation: Vanessa, a teenager with barbed-wire-topped walls around her feelings, and Frederick, who is a fascinating mystery that Cori must unravel.  Together the three of them dive into a tangled web of secrets that reveal that the three of them are more closely connected than they ever believed, and that unless they trust one another, they will never make it out alive.

Forget the plump, white-haired, nameless mentor of Cinderella fame.  Johanna Lemon’s Godmother Girl will redefine the term for you.  Her created race of magical guardians don’t just appear when we need a ride to the ball—they are down in the trenches with us, acting as friends and bearing our burdens at our side.  Corisande, however, has more to worry about than just the normal struggles of a seventeen-year-old girl.  She herself has the weight of a tragic past bearing down on her, as well as a wicked plot to solve and a truly grade-A villain breathing down her neck. 

This book snatched me up midway through and would not let me go.  It is passionate, intricate, and compassionate.  Cori is a force of light in a very dark place, and proof that great adversity breeds great strength.  Her journey provides an honest look at depression, self-harm, and suicidal tendencies that can be hard to find.  And it is a wonderful story.  I would highly recommend it.

I'm Aware, I'm Aware

I’m sure you’ve seen that status before—it’s popped up on my newsfeed six or seven different times.  When I first saw it, it was humorous.  When it appeared the second time, I thought that my friends were just copying one another.  But around the fourth or fifth time, I started to smell a rat.  I commented on one of those statuses, partly because I wanted to know what was up, and partly because I wanted to be a bit snide about it.  Hey, I’m only human.  Well, I got my answer: no sooner had I posted my comment than I received a message in my inbox from the friend who’d posted the status.  

“So here’s the rules: For liking or commenting on my status, you must now post the same message as your status to continue the game for Breast Cancer Awareness (unless you’ve lost your sense of humor!).”

Awareness, huh?  Seems to me that just like the need to pretend to be a slug, that word is turning up everywhere.  People are all about raising awareness for one cause or another these days.  Video responses, hashtags, facebook posts sharing articles and photos—the social media world enjoys this game of “pass-it-on”.  Maybe a bit too much.

I know, call me a grouch, and maybe I am.  Raising awareness about bad things in the world is important, isn’t it?  Well, yes—people need to know about the problems that need solving, or they will never get solved.  But the fact is, after a certain point, raising awareness doesn’t help us very much.  Most of us don’t want to be reminded of bad things.  I never did pass on the slug status; I saw the “game” not as a necessary way of sharing information—which it didn’t, not really—but as a chain letter, daring others online to continue the trend or TERRIBLE THINGS WILL HAPPEN.  I deleted the message.

It’s easy to send out a chain letter, and easy to ignore one.  It takes a lot more than that to make a difference in the world.  The hard truth is, sharing information doesn’t really help, either.  You can spout information until you’re blue in the face, but most people use as little information as possible to make decisions (see note).  Even with the most compelling facts and figures, there are always other reasons for bad behavior or apathy.  Most people know they should eat well, but McDonalds’ is still in business, isn’t it?  Most people know that cancer is a terrible disease, so why doesn’t everyone contribute part of their monthly check to finding a cure?  People will do what they want.

That’s what it comes down to: wanting.  Brainy as we are, we humans as a whole are more reliant on intuition and emotion when it comes to making decisions.  I myself will usually make a decision based on whether or not it feels right, whatever the pros and cons add up to.  So raising awareness with a Facebook status or a tweet might make us feel better—and it does feel good, because it makes us feel self-righteous and accomplished.  But it usually doesn’t accomplish much, and sometimes it can even do the exact opposite of its intention, making someone like me roll her eyes in irritation.

To get a reaction, to make a change in people’s behavior or drive them to action, you have to make them want to change or to act.  Intrinsic motivations are the key here.  You need to get personal, to show rather than tell.  Instead of talking about the number of women trying to support their families abroad, offer the story of a woman named Noor Zia, who started a beauty salon in her home with the help of a small business loan.  Instead of listing facts and figures about why smoking is bad, use the voice of a young boy worried that his father’s smoking is going to kill him.  If you’re going to use a game, make it unique and fun, as demonstrated by the enormous success of the Ice Bucket Challenge.  All this takes a lot more effort than the moment it takes to post a silly status to “raise awareness”.

We all know the world has problems; we get it already.  There are so many problems that one person can’t possibly bear to know about all of them.  We can’t care about it all, so we try not to care at all, most of the time.  Raising awareness is important, but we have to do it the right way, and it will never be easy.  But you get out what you put in, right?  So let’s do a little bit more than make people aware—let’s make them care.

Note: This is an idea discussed in an excellent article by Jesse Singal, which takes a more in-depth look at the psychology behind raising awareness.  Find it here.