What Are You Reading (offline, that is?)

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Hilary Halpern's lifelong affinity with the sea took her to Santa Cruz for her college education. Here is where she learned how to sail and realized her dream of circumnavigation. Meanwhile, she is working on careers in teaching and writing in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can follow her writings of inner monologues ranging from dating to tales of her experiences on "the high seas" on her blog: hiladil.blogspot.com. Sailing and my love of the sea have quite the influence on the books I pick and the books that are gifted to me. Maiden Voyage and Dove have been my favorite stories thus far.

by Tania Aebi
Sailing around the world became a dream of mine a little over a year ago; however, I would prefer to do it in the company of crew, unlike Tania Aebi, who at 18 years-old embarked on her quest to circumnavigate the globe alone. Upon her graduation from high school, Tania's father gave her the choice of either a college education or a sailboat. He is an adventurous man and a seasoned sailor who already had accomplished more than one ocean passage with his daughter in tow; he wanted to give her the option of pursuing her own adventure. The catch: she had to sail it around the world by herself within 2 years and break the record as the youngest woman-sailor to do so. Tania picked the boat: a 26-foot sloop Veruna. She writes of her voyage in 1989,  four years after she set sail from New York Harbor. This true story is captivating for sailors and adventure seekers alike. Aebi peppers her exciting tale of close-calls, mile-stones (literally), romance, and self-discovery with tidbits of her dysfunctional upbringing and rebellious youth. Her writing is beautifully descriptive and relatable. I found it fascinating to read her reflections on how a life-changing voyage can bring bittersweet feelings of newfound wisdom as well as a nostalgia for her innocence. After reading her accounts I craved embarking on my own adventure.
by Robin Lee Graham
This is another autobiographical solo-circumnavigating tale and is the inspiration of a cheesy 1970s flick by the same name. I recommend Robin Lee Graham's personal account. In 1965 at age 16 Robin set sail from Southern California on his 24-foot sloop Dove - hence the title of the book. His enthralling voyage took him a total of 5 years. As he sailed from one destination to the next, he would often stop for as long as several months at a time to explore the land as he repaired his boat and collected provisions. It's interesting to get a young man's perspective of the world as it was in the mid 1960s. Robin gives insight to his thoughts on society in the United States and how being away from it has an extreme effect on the way he will live his life upon his return. During his laboriously long ocean passages, particularly in the Doldrums, he writes of the downward spiral his mind takes after being with only his boat and the eerily quiet sea for so long, and how easy it can be to waver on the brink of insanity. He writes of his care-free times in tropical paradise as well, allowing us to escape in his exquisite, euphoric descriptions of island life.
I read Heinlein's suspenceful novel soon after James Cameron's Avatar debuted in theaters. This fantastic piece of science fiction, written in 1961 has many similar themes to Avatar and makes me wonder if James Cameron drew inspiration from Heinlein's story for his movie. It was gifted to me by an acquaintance who warned me that "grokking" would soon become a part of my everyday vocabulary.
by Robert A. Heinlein
To "grok" something, is to deeply understand it. In the context of the story, it is to appreciate its role in the universe and realize how it relates to one's own role which is a huge part of this story. It takes place in some unspecified time in the future, as projected from the 1960s. World War III is over and life is discovered on Mars. On one of the early expeditions to this foreign planet, Valentine Michael Smith, or "Mike" is born and unfortunately orphaned as an infant by his space-exploring Earthling parents. He is adopted and raised by the Martians and as a result, acquires their psychic powers; the ability to mind-read and to make people disappear with thoughts alone. Another expedition 25 years after his birth brings him to Earth and in captivity of the government due to legal implications and planetary politics. This brilliant science-fiction novel begins with his escape by the aide of a brave nurse and a political reporter with a passion for social-justice. As the story unfolds Mike learns the good and bad ways of his physical counterpart and also tries to impart his own Martian wisdom on the human-race. Heinlein eloquently delivers an outsider's perspective of the multi-faceted behavior of humans and our social and political constructs. He narrates the plot in a way that creates a reflection of how strange it is that we are the only species with such an unquantifiable range of emotion . . . or so we think!
I'm sure this famous novel needn't an explanation for itself. It is one of the stories I have enjoyed reading more than once.
by Jane Austen
I first attempted to read this classic in high school and had a hard time getting passed the language that I now love getting lost in over and over again. I am fascinated by this time period of the early 1800s and how different life was for women and their relationships with men; yet how the love and tumult between them remains the same as it is between true loves today, some 200-plus years later. Jane Austen's words never cease to fulfill the hopeless romantic within me and fuel my own love of writing.
And finally…
by E.B. White
My Mother first read this book at age 8.  She has a vivid image of reading the final chapters late at night with a flashlight so as not to disturb her sister sleeping next to her.  All for loss as she sobbed along with Wilbur and the other farm friends in their grief of losing Charlotte.  Eighteen years later in my mother's, or rather Miss Dowd's first year of teaching, she still couldn't stop the tears from welling up as she read the ending of Charlotte's Webb aloud to her second grade class. The life and friendships between the animals on the farm Miss Dowd loved so much influenced her to create a similarly warm environment in her classroom. Every year of her teaching career she read E.B. White's story to her students. One year, after failing to control her tears at the book's ending yet again, one of her students walked up to her afterwards to comfort her and said, "It's okay Miss Dowd, it's just a story."

Lessons from Cabaret...

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Image Credit: Time Out London

Dear Clara,

I’m in London again for work; it seems like the opportunity is coming up more often these days.  I was able to schedule in an evening in the theater, courtesy of my best friend, for one of my most favorite shows, Cabaret.  While many musicals often aim to stay above any kind of disheartening fray, Cabaret introduces both social and political commentary, without removing any of the fun---in fact, I would argue the fun is even taken to a whole new level.  I absolutely adore the music and pace of the show, and I’ll even admit that I might have spent a Halloween or two as Sally Bowles.  The thing though, is that the Cabaret comes to an end, tragic every time.  It's getting harder and harder to watch, since you know inevitably what happens not so long after the show ends.  A few things always stick with me:

  • “In here, life is beautiful…”: Everyone should have a place, cabaret or otherwise, where life is at its best.  Whether it’s wine, song, dance or nature, quiet and tea, look for spaces that are the best representation of what’s good in this life for you.   Just remember that you can’t live exclusively in those places; the outside world will always come in and you need to be prepared.
  • “And it just so happens I do paint my fingernails green, and I think it’s pretty”: All of the characters have their eccentricities, personalities and even character flaws, yet for a time they all manage to be a cohesive group.  It doesn’t last of course, but focus on differences in people as something interesting, something to be learned from, and something that compliments those things that make you yourself different.  It’s a quality not many people have.
  • “I thought I should know something about the politics”: When Cliff arrives in Berlin, he immediately starts to read the literature of the day, much to the confusion of Sally, who is caught up in the moment.  Different travels and places offer us adventures, but we should also take the time to know something about the location, and what’s happening in current events and what that means for all groups that live there, not just the glimpses we are given when we’re visitors.  It might just change your perspective.
  • “A pineapple? I am overwhelmed”: I think one of the most touching scenes in the entire show is when Frau Schneider is gifted a pineapple by her gentleman caller.  Not only is it a tremendously sweet display of romance amongst two people who thought they would remain alone, but it also captures how something rare can really touch you.  Lately, I notice that people always laugh during this scene.  No one seems to realize that at the time, pineapples weren’t that readily available, were extremely rare, were a symbol of the exotic and were incredibly expensive.   Now you could walk into nearly any supermarket, probably one that’s open 24 hours and buy a pineapple anytime you feel like it.  It’s good to appreciate where our fruits and food come from, and how long they traveled to get there, and what a gift it is truly to have such fresh items full of flavor and vitamins for ourselves at any time.
  • “What good is sitting alone in your room?” Come here the music play . . . Make time for music and for enjoyment with others.  There is so much in life that can drag you down,  don’t waste your opportunities when times are better.

All my love,

Mom

Michelle Obama: First Lady. Political Powerhouse.

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Yes it may be a stretch to call Michelle Obama “historical” (as in, she's alive and hugely relevant), but I’m invoking my own executive privilege as YHWOTD president. Plus it’s timely. Plus no matter which way you slice it, Michelle Obama will certainly go down in history.

I was struck by this last fact as I watched Barack Obama take the stage for his election-night victory speech, accompanied by his ridiculously photogenic family: daughters Sasha and Malia, getting older every day, and wife Michelle. They waved to the audience; they turned around and waved to the back audience (you know, those randos who sit behind the stage and look awkward during speeches); they hugged and kissed; and then Michelle and the young ‘uns took off to leave the President to his important man task.

It struck me because, more than any other First Lady in recent memory, it seemed a crime that this was the only part she got to play. Just as it struck me during the debates when I would exclaim with delight over Michelle’s fabulous outfit choices, and then I would immediately feel conflicted about how this was all I had to say about Michelle.

Not that I’m denying her role as fashion icon—she certainly is one. But she’s also an incredibly accomplished woman, at least as accomplished as her husband: before Barack’s political career skyrocketed, she attended Princeton and Harvard Law School and worked several prestigious law jobs in Chicago. What’s more, she is constantly upping the ante about what it means to be a First Lady, running campaigns to promote healthier eating, making countless media appearances, and killing it at the Democratic National Convention with a pitch-perfect speech supporting her husband’s reelection.

Of course, Michelle is not the first First Lady to make that role more than a piece of set decoration in pretty dresses giving domestic tours of the White House. Notable precursors like Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton (herself a potential President—once and again?) have undoubtedly paved the way for proactive Presidential spouses like Mrs. Obama. Yet the very persistence of the office of First Lady reminds us that we’re still living politically in a man’s world (as if the countless “definitions of rape” debacle during election season weren’t reminder enough!). When will there be a First Man? (First Gentleman? First Husband? First Guy?) When will the whole idea of a “First Lady” stop seeming so patronizing? When will a family walk out onto a stage on election night, and the wife-slash-female-partner will stay?

In the meantime, kudos to Michelle Obama for being a strong, empowered, incredible role model who continues to make her husband look good. And for reminding us—every time she has to watch silently from the sidelines—that there’s still work to do.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

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Katherine explores grief and loss through her blog Helping Friends Grieve, which she founded in 2010 as a tool for friends and loved ones supporting someone in the grieving process.  Currently, as a graduate student, Katherine studies community healing in post-conflict environments.  Her work in international development and passion for justice and human rights has taken her to diverse regions of the globe, including the Peruvian Andes, Mexico City, Northern Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Katherine’s interest in grief, memory, and healing is reflected in her desire to explore the role of community and inter-connectedness in healing. When she's not working, you'll find her outside: rock climbing, hiking or backpacking. Grief, loss, and mourning take hold of us. They become tides that come and go throughout the day or rollercoasters that catch us off guard, plunging us into undiscovered emotional territory. Loss leaves us bruised and, yet, curiously open to the world as we re-imagine and re-create our lives. We mourn the loss of place, home, youth, loved ones, and ability; the mix of emotions and utterly human trials exist in a web connecting our individual experience to our community. Our country continues to experience and heal from the devastation of hurricane Sandy; a thread ties together survival, loss, and resilience within our individual stories and communities.  We seek safety, interconnectedness with each other, and real, literal moments of joy that anchor us to our everyday lives.

The world of grief and healing is full of stories. Stories that make our hearts ache and bring tears to our eyes. Stories that touch us deeply, resonating with our experiences, bring our losses closer to the surface, and in their own way, heal us.  A belief in the power of stories is why I share (link to Helping Friends Grieve) and encourage others to share. The stories I look to this week, offline, that is, weave together the personal and community elements of grief, mourning, and healing across cultures and experiences with loss.

this i know by Susannah Conway The moment I laid eyes on Susannah Conway’s subtitle, notes on unraveling the heart, the warm book cover beckoned me in. Yes, I thought to myself, that is what I have been trying to say, loss and grief unravel your heart. Susannah vulnerably shares her experience with layers of grief, emotions, and self-doubt, ultimately, leading to much deeper questions of identity.  Her journey becomes one of self-creation. Susannah began her journey writing about grief after the loss of the love of her life, through blogging (link here: http://www.susannahconway.com/2006/04/a-few-beans-to-spill/). This i know, her 2012 book, re-lives her beautiful, tentative steps towards healing, “When we survive a traumatic event or transition in our lives, there’s a point when the healing really starts to take hold and we feel suddenly invincible.”(pg 39) Beyond words, her camera lens captures grief and healing in a moving combination of self-portraits and the world around her, which she claims give us clues on how to re-create our own worlds after loss.  Her writing and photography show grief settling and her creative, passionate self-emerging from an unraveled heart. It is breath-taking and inspiring as we weave our own stories of grief.

The Long Goodbye by Meghan O’Rourke Why do we write about grief? Why do we tell stories about loved ones?  In a 2011 New York Times piece (link here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/weekinreview/27grief.html), Joyce Carol Oates and Meghan O’Rourke explore the public and private sides of grieving through personal emails that they later share publicly. In The Long Goodbye, Meghan O’Rourke jumps headfirst into her journey through the loss of her mother and openly shares its vivid, intimate details. She refers to grief as a nearly universal act with exquisitely personal transactions. (page 57) She opens up these personal moments for the reader to experience and grieve with her, thus blending their own stories of loss with hers.  In her own words;

I was not entirely surprised to find that being a mourner was lonely. But I was surprised to discover that I felt lost. In the days following my mother’s death, I did not know what I was supposed to do, nor, it seemed, did my friends and colleagues, especially those who had never suffered a similar loss. (page 12)

She bookends her story with chapters on love and healing, tying together childhood memories, anticipatory grief, the cracks in her relationships, the rollercoaster of caretaking, and the lack of rituals to shape and support her loss. She gracefully tackles the experience of saying goodbye, allowing the reader to join her and glean insight its messy mechanics.

Chicken Soup for the Grieving Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen The Chicken Soup for the Soul series pulls me back to memories of weekends as a young girl, curled up on the couch of my family’s cabin in Colorado, reading stories of teenage love. This scene was nearly repeated after the loss of my father, as I dove back into other people’s stories. Only, this time I found comfort in their stories of loss and healing. I wove their stories into a safety net around my own emotions, allowing me the space to experience my own loss and journey. Wrapped in blankets, sipping cups of tea, I cried over the words I wasn’t brave enough yet to put on paper - a father’s portrayal of the loss of his son, a young woman’s loss of her mother, and a wide variety of other stories written by people who, I assumed, once had also curled up on a couch, searching desperately for meaning in the throes of loss. Chicken Soup for the Grieving Soul, is a compilation of stories written by authors who have lost loved ones. It beautifully walks the line between sharing in grief and inspiring readers with stories of healing and understanding. It connects us, showing our resilience as humans.

Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder In the first few years after the loss of my father, I referred to my life, or rather the life I had known as the pieces. By pieces I meant little bits of strength, memories that let light into my life, and relationships with friends and loved ones that sewed me back together. During this time, I moved abroad and sought to re-create a sense of community spanning countries, regions, and cultures. During the months I spent a truly magical place, Mexico City, a friend gifted me Strength in What Remains. I have read and re-read this book over the past few years, scribbling in the margins and always throwing it in my blue backpack before boarding the next plane. I fell in love all over again with Deo’s story as I crossed the border from Rwanda to Burundi this summer. At 22, his devastating story of survival during genocide and his strength span his harrowing experiences in Burundi, his improbably escape to New York City, and ultimately the fulfillment of his dream – returning to Burundi to build a hospital. Through Deo’s journey, Kidder shows us the pieces of loneliness, pain, grief, and displacement from home, but ultimately the resilience of the human spirit that echoes within elements of our own narratives. The essence of Deo’s experiences are rooted in Wordsworth’s graceful words, which lend the perfect title to the book. From the poem, Strength in What Remains;

“Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass,

of glory in the flower,

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind…..”

…..

My experience with grief is no longer just a memory of my own experience, but a mix of the stories I have loved, savored, and wiped tears off my cheeks while reading. These are just a few of the stories that sustain me.

Curating the internet

Recently, I came across a brief news article offering up a study as evidence of what I’ve already known for a while: Facebook is depressing. The Utah Valley University study showed that of the 425 students who were interviewed, those who spent more time on Facebook were more likely to feel that life was unfair and that others’ lives were better than their own. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that we tend to curate the best pieces of ourselves on the internet. We tend to share the sweetest, most photogenic aspects of our lives, polishing them up before sending them out into the world. You’re more likely to share a photo of your puppy in the brief, glowing moment when she’s sleeping than when she’s simultaneously tearing up your socks and pooping on the floor.

And if you’ve ever drowned your sorrows in your Facebook news feed while you’re in a funk, you’ll know what I mean. As soon as you’ve broken up with your boyfriend, everyone in your feed seems to be blissfully in love. Circumstances or biology are preventing you from procreating as you’d like to, and suddenly it seems as if everyone else in your feed is popping out babies by the dozen.

The problem with the feed—which is not very nourishing, by the way, but often rather draining—is that it’s missing a holistic view of other people’s lives. When you bond with your real-life friends, you share in their triumphs and their sorrows. Most of our hundreds of Facebook friends are actually acquaintances or strangers, and although it may seem that they are sharing aspects of their private lives online, these glimpses have been selected from among many others for public consumption.

Of course, there are a number of ways to respond to a study like this: ignore it, cut back on Facebook usage, stop using Facebook altogether. My own experience of Facebook has been very conflicted. On the one hand, I find it to be so very useful as a directory and as a sort of social memory. I use it to look up contact information or to find a friend’s friend’s spouse’s name that I’ve forgotten. On the other hand, I arrive to look up a bit of information, and then find I’ve lost a couple of precious hours after having fallen down the rabbit hole of the news feed.

This problem certainly extends beyond Facebook to other social networking sites, Twitter, blogs, etc., and there have been many interesting responses to it across these platforms. Some have chosen to regularly prune their feeds by cutting back on people they follow. Others have taken a cue from Jess Lively’s “Things I’m afraid to tell you” post, sharing some of their own flaws and challenges as a balance to their otherwise optimistic and upbeat content.

For my own part, I’ve taken the “regular maintenance” approach to managing my feeds and overall internet experience. My Twitter bookmark is set to a list of people I actually know. I’ve trimmed my Facebook feed by taking some time to block updates from people I’ve lost touch with beyond Facebook. I’ve used Feedly to craft a reader of content that’s consistently thoughtful and inspiring. It makes sense that we curate our public personalities online, and in response, I’ve tried to curate my own window onto what I encounter when I first open up a browser. It takes time, but it feels like a method for encouraging healthy content consumption, without having to feel like I’m fasting or binging on internet “junk.”

So long, Vogue

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By Rhea St. Julien After several years of an admittedly tumultuous relationship, I am breaking up with Vogue.  My subscription is up, and I am finally pulling the trigger and not renewing.  If this blog were a movie, I’d segue here into a montage of me + Vogue in better times, reading sandy articles on the beach, discovering Claire Dederer and Cheryl Strayed, ripping out amazingly curated spreads by Grace Coddington and Irving Penn to create collage art.

But our relationship has not all been Happy Days with scissors.  Like everyone else on the planet, I was appalled by Dara-Lynn Weiss’s article about shaming her child into losing weight.  I have grown increasingly tired of the pieces on Connecticut garden homes refurbished by gazillionaires, and the lack of diversity reflected on the pages.  However, I was willing to overlook all of this, because Vogue isn’t pretending to be anything else than it is.  The magazine is sold as the flight of fantasy of a particular Manhattan woman, and if I don’t like their point of view, I can just skip those articles or join the conversation surrounding them to shift the culture.  Somehow, what pushed me over the edge from giving them a pass to writing CANCEL on my invoice was a subtle message in an otherwise innocuous, seemingly empowering article.

I was drawn in by their profile of fascinating congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a woman who manages to balance motherhood, congressional leadership, and extracurriculars such as softball teams and fundraising for cancer awareness.  The tale of her own breast cancer battle was riveting, but then they slipped in this absolutely ridiculous paragraph:

“By 2011, the only lingering effect of her treatment was weight gain brought on by the drug tamoxifen.  Having ‘never gained an ounce in my life,’ she found herself 23 pounds heavier.  ‘Like every woman who goes through weight gain, you’re just not happy,’ she says.  ‘You’re not comfortable in your clothes, you’re mad when you walk in your closet, you hate going shopping.  I didn’t feel good about myself.’  After a press event in her district promoting a small business called the Fresh Diet, she decided to sign up.  Seven months later, she had lost the 23 pounds and dropped from a size 8 back to a size 2.”

First of all, I’m sorry, the only lingering effect of surviving cancer was weight gain?  What about the scars from surgery, the months lost to recovery, the strain on your family, the emotional damage from confronting mortality in such a raw way?  If you fight cancer and win, and you’re worried about your dress size, CANCER WINS.  You learned nothing from your brush with death, and I just can’t believe that a woman so intelligent and powerful really feels that way.  I suspect they took her comments about her body image struggles out of context in their attempt to trivialize and glamorize the congresswoman.

Also, what’s so terrible about being a size 8 (ahem, ahem)?  The fact that they even put the sizes in there shows that it was a nod to diet culture rather than a well-rounded portrait of a woman’s experience with cancer.  I realized I needed to stop giving money to a publication that was insulting me.

It really bothered me that this blatant body-shaming message was slipped in to a profile of a political leader, a piece that was well-written and interesting.  The subtlety of it was what shook me, left me thinking about the lasting effects of such a paragraph, like when, in the 90′s, they found all those messages about sex in Disney movies.

Recently, my review of Peggy Orenstein’s Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches From The Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture was published on the Equals Record, and in my piece, I say that I’m going to try to keep my daughter away from the princess craze as long as I can, and to expose her to different forms of what it means to be a woman than the overwhelmingly narrow cultural ideal.

Well, if I’m going to do that for my daughter, I need to stop “playing princess” myself, and reading Vogue is a way that I, monthly, escape to a world where women are saved from the effects of aging (The Wicked Witch of Wrinkles) by state-of-the-art surgeries and creams (Prince Botox), I dream of having a Fairy Godmother that will bring me a $3,450 biker jacket for the ball, and my confidence is boosted by how modern day royalty (celebs) are really down-to-earth, just like me.

It’s time to put down the princess wand.

I am searching for a new way to be feminine.  Am I a woman because I paint my lips red, wear a dress on the daily, shave my legs and flat iron my bangs?  Of course not.  These are the ways I am fashioning my body right now, and I have chosen other forms for it throughout my life---letting my prodigious body hair grow in college (my husband and I got together, actually, when my leg hair was so long I could French braid it), wearing the same pair of dusty Carhartts for months, forgoing make-up even in the face of period zits.

Right now, my look is very traditionally femme, but, my love for fashion will not die with my Vogue subscription, and I could see myself dressing like one of my icons, Patti Smith, or Georgia O’Keefe, my hair a wild mass of black and gray, my pants pegged and baggy, my white shirt crisp enough to cut a fingernail on.

There is so much power in womanhood---this is one of the major reasons I chose to have my baby as naturally as I could---I wanted to experience that feminine power running through my body in the most primal way possible, to let it change me in the process.  And it did.  But now, despite Operation Rad Bod, I feel crappy about that amazing body that brought me a baby, about two weeks out of every month (if you guessed that those are the week before and the week of my period, then ladies, you are correct).

Vogue is absolutely not going to help me with my quest for a learned experience of the deeper meaning of femininity, beyond waist size and wardrobe.  So, I’m taking this whole experiment to the next level, and trying to limit my own exposure to damaging cultural messages about women, especially since I’m going to limit my daughter’s.  I can’t be wresting the Bratz doll out of her hands while I’m filling my own with pictures of Kate Moss’s wedding.

Perhaps, I’ll spend all the time once consumed with Vogue reading things like this, an excerpt from Dear Sugar’s column entitled Tiny Revolutions:

“You don’t have to be young. You don’t have to be thin. You don’t have to be ‘hot’ in a way that some dumbfuckedly narrow mindset has construed that word. You don’t have to have taut flesh or a tight ass or an eternally upright set of tits.

You have to find a way to inhabit your body while enacting your deepest desires. You have to be brave enough to build the intimacy you deserve. You have to take off all of your clothes and say, I’m right here.

There are so many tiny revolutions in a life, a million ways we have to circle around ourselves to grow and change and be okay. And perhaps the body is our final frontier. It’s the one place we can’t leave. We’re there till it goes. Most women and some men spend their lives trying to alter it, hide it, prettify it, make it what it isn’t, or conceal it for what it is. But what if we didn’t do that?”

So long, Vogue.  It has been fun.  But it has not been real.

Republished with the author's permission from Thirty Threadbare Mercies, Photo: Attribution Some rights reserved by JeepersMedia

A Note of Thanks

If you spend any time at all on Facebook, you’ve likely seen a new trend this November.  I’m not talking about political status updates---thank goodness. Someone, somewhere in the World Wide Web decided that each day in November, they would post a status about something they were thankful for.  The crusade was adopted and has become a certifiable trend.  And I couldn’t be happier. One of my best habits is saying thank you.  I say it a lot.  I thank cashiers, waiters, and people who hold open doors just like my mother taught me.  But I also offer up non-verbal thanks.  I’ve never cared too much about figuring out who I’m silently thanking, maybe it’s a higher being, maybe it’s the universe, maybe it’s the neurons firing in my brain.  Truth is, that part just doesn’t matter so much to me.  What matters is acknowledging my gratitude.

Every night and every morning I silently reel off a list of things and people I’m grateful for: My husband, my family & friends, my life, my health, the health of all the people I already mentioned etc.  I think it helps put me in the proper frame of mind and reminds me how incredibly blessed I am to lead the life I do.

Throughout the day I’ll send out silent shout outs for the things that make me happy---a letter from a friend, a particularly great cup of coffee, a snuggly blanket.  Acknowledging the joy or peace of a moment goes hand in hand with being grateful.  When I tell my husband how content I am to be sitting next to him and reading a good book, I’m also saying thanks; thanks for a perfect moment.

I haven’t hopped on the Facebook thanks train, at least not yet, but I’ve enjoyed reading notes of gratitude from friends and acquaintances who are thankful for their family, friends, freedom, jobs, spouses, and pets among other things.  Right now, I’m thankful that I have the opportunity to write this column every week, I’m grateful to Elisabeth and Miya for welcoming my enthusiastic email and inviting me in; I am continually awed by my inclusion as a contributor alongside women whose words paint pictures, tell stories, and inspire searching thought and I am always pleased as punch that anyone besides my parents would care to read my words.

In Thanks,

Renee

Fashion's Ethnic Problem

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I’ve been thinking about how fashion---which, side note, is one of my favorite things---tends to represent the worst in our superficial, looks-obsessed culture. For one thing, there’s the whole skinny, stick-thin, pound-obsessed, weight-watching, calorie-counting, only-one-body-type-is-acceptable thing, which marginalizes the beauty potential of all body-type-deviations.

For another, there’s the whole woman-as-canvas thing, where models seem to forgo personhood to become agency-less, blank-faced, silent background scenery.

And then there’s that whole ethnic representation thing. The continued premium on Eurocentric notions of beauty, and the exoticization of those outside of it.

Aaaand now we get to the subject of this post: racist fashion. Yes, there's such a thing, and it's such a thing.

It’s been almost two months since New York Fashion Week and its European counterparts, but there was more than enough fuel for some racist fashion ranting. There was Dolce & Gabbana’s “mammy” motif including some very Aunt Jemima-ish earrings. There was Jeremy Scott’s neo-Orientalist take on Arab punk. And there were the romantic adaptations of traditional Indian garb by Marchesa and Vera Wang, with Wang telling E! reporters she didn’t want to go too far with any of that “belly dancer” stuff. So much problematic-ness, so little time.

I’m not sure what made me think of this now---maybe it’s the way every major clothing store from Urban Outfitters to Target has suddenly been all over the Native American print trend. Navajo-panty-gate caused an uproar a while back, and yet the trend has continued to diffuse through all retail chains. You can buy bags, hoodies, or what have you emblazoned with traditional native-style prints, and UO even has T-shirts with skulls wearing native headdresses.

The prints are often beautiful, but they’re also an uncomfortable example of cultural appropriation. Meaning, the hegemonic culture, for all intents and purposes "white" though of course participated in by a range of backgrounds, appropriates the cultural heritage and imagery of a minority group without their consent or direct participation. Just this past week, No Doubt pulled its new video after a wave of complaints about its representation of Native Americans. For more on the issue, I recommend you check out the Native Appropriations blog, which does a great job of breaking down indigenous images in pop culture and even succeeded in getting an apology from Paul Frank for their “powwow” party a few months ago.

None of this is surprising, I suppose. Racism and sexism are embedded in our culture, and fashion is just another art-slash-entertainment form from which they can poke their ugly heads. (Favorite racist Project Runway: All-Stars judge quote last week: when host Carolyn Murphy asked derisively upon seeing one contestant’s design, “Where are we, Spanish Harlem?”) My only consolation is that noticing it and not simply accepting it, we recognize that those ugly heads are still a problem. And this is where my somewhat jumbled assortment of thoughts that is this week's post comes to a head.

I love you Fashion, but you can be a real jerk sometimes.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

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Ashely Schneider has slowly but surely made her way from one coast to another. Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, she left her hometown to attend college at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina.  A month after graduation and with her sights set on new territory, she ventured off to the wild west settling in Jackson, Wyoming, where she lived for 4 years. Currently, she and her husband live in Portland, Oregon. Ashely prefers bikes to cars, hiking trails to shopping malls, and she likes to document it all from behind the lens of a camera. 

Jim Minick, The Blueberry Years

Ever wonder what life on a farm is like? I daydream about it all the time!  After reading Jim Minick’s The Blueberry Years, that dream doesn’t seem so impossible. I was drawn to this book for two main reasons. First and foremost, it’s a memoir about organic blueberry farming, which for me doesn’t get any more idyllic. His pursuit of a simpler life is one I related to within the first few pages. Second, the book is set in Virginia, the place where I was born and raised. I couldn’t resist reading about life in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. Minick, both farmer and poet, writes about food, family, and the choices we make as consumers. He chronicles not only the joys but the frustrations of running one of the mid-Atlantic’s first organic, pick-your-own blueberry farms. While everyday brings him face to face with challenges such as weather and pests, Minick finds his work gratifying, and he focuses on the soulful and physical rewards it yields.

Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

I picked up Jack Kerouac’s Big Sur a few days before traveling to Big Sur, California. A little cliché, I’ll admit. I was familiar with Kerouac’s work and writing style, so I felt prepared for another alcohol-induced stream of consciousness narrative. That’s exactly what I got. Kerouac recounts his three trips to Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s remote cabin in Bixby Canyon, just south of San Francisco. There he seeks solitude after gaining fame from his novel, On the Road. But the wilderness takes its toll on Kerouac as he travels that road inside his head, and his mind and body begin to deteriorate. He struggles to identify with both his natural retreat and the city life he wants to escape. While there are lucid moments in between these struggles – during which he documents sights, smells, and sounds and their effect on his soul – Big Sur is the story of Kerouac’s emotional breakdown at the moment of his rising popularity.

Gabrielle Hamilton, Blood Bones & Butter

As a self proclaimed foodie and amateur cook, I had Blood, Bones & Butter on my menu of must-reads for a year. Gabrielle Hamilton’s memoir is a modern day success story.  Hamilton’s journey was an unconventional one filled with divorce, drugs, and theft. But after a tumultuous twenty years of what seemed to be personal and professional confusion, she returns to what she always knows to be right – cooking. Seeking some direction, she gets a taste of the restaurant industry by working its range of gritty jobs from waitress to caterer to line cook. Eventually she musters up enough strength and confidence to open her own kitchen. Her restaurant, Prune, proves to be difficult at times, but Hamilton recognizes that she’s exactly where she’s meant to be.

 Joan Didion, Blue Nights

Joan Didion’s most recent novel, Blue Nights, is a heartbreaking account of the unnatural order of things. Her daughter’s untimely death forces Didion to reflect on her role as a parent. She weaves together stories and memories of her only child, Quintana Roo, who died from medical complications at age thirty-nine. Reflecting on her daughter’s life, Didion struggles with decisions made as a mother, and she finds herself constantly dwelling on those things she might have done to make their time together more rich. At the same time, Didion worries about her own age. Blue nights – the long evening light in the sky that leads up to the summer solstice – serves for Didion as both a symbol for life and a warning that seasons are changing.

 

 

 

Frida Kahlo: Survivor. Communist. Mexican Icon.

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Everyone’s familiar with Frida Kahlo’s face, at least as she painted it. The dark, somber eyes. The brightly-colored dresses. That inescapable unibrow.

But Frida Kahlo is much more than that famous face, with its ugly beauty and its unconventional emphasis on female facial hair. She’s also a fascinating figure who lived through some of the early twentieth century’s most interesting events, who was attached to some of the early twentieth century’s most interesting people. And on top of that, she really put the “pain” in “awesome painter.” (Sorry. A stretch, I know.)

Frida was born in 1907 in Mexico City, just before the Mexican Revolution, to an immigrant Hungarian-Jewish father and a Spanish-Amerinidian mother. She suffered from polio at a young age, resulting in a permanently withered leg. But the seminal painful moment in Frida’s life was in 1925, when she was in a horrific bus accident that left her with spinal fractures, multiple broken bones, a crushed foot, and, the one that gives me the biggest heebie-jeebies, an impaling by a metal handrail. She wasn’t expected to survive.

But survive she did—albeit with an enormous amount of pain that never really left her. She went on to have over 30 surgeries in her lifetime, the last of which may have left her with the pneumonia that killed her at age 47 (though it’s also speculated she killed herself).

Despite the immense pain that was to haunt her and characterize her relationship with her body—or maybe, in part, because of it—Kahlo went on to do great things. She began painting while in bed, recovering from the bus accident, starting with her most famous subject: herself. “I paint myself because I am so often alone,” she said, “because I am the subject I know best.”

At age 22 she married famed muralist Diego Rivera, who was two decades older and two hundred pounds heavier than her (!). Their relationship helped her to develop her own work, while also being one of those Hollywood-style tumultuous marriages with tons of affairs on both sides and even a divorce thrown in the middle (after which they remarried, each other). Frida, for her part, had affairs with many famous figures, both men and women, including Georgia O’Keeffe and Leon Trotsky, whom she and Rivera put up in their home after his flight from Russia. (Ironically, after he was assassinated she became a Stalinist.)

Meanwhile, Kahlo’s work was feted in New York City and Paris, and she was the first 20th-century Mexican artist to be featured in the Louvre. I can just imagine her mingling in that most romantic of settings, 1920s Paris (think Midnight in Paris), at an art showing, being toasted by Picasso and Miró and Andre Breton, a Parisian anomaly in her long, bright, traditional Mexican dress.

But as it were, Frida rejected what she called those “artistic bitches of Paris.” Her heart remained in Mexico City, where she lived most of her life in La Casa Azul, the house she was born in (which today houses Museo Frida Kahlo-- a must on my world tour list!). She and Rivera were also involved in a movement called Mexicanidad, aimed at preserving an essential, traditional Mexican culture in opposition to the encroaching cultural dominance of “the West.”

Kahlo attempted to live this Mexican ideal in her dress, in the symbols and colors of her art, and, also, in her rejection of conventional beauty norms. In fact, it’s reported she even darkened her unibrow and mustache to emphasize a kind of pre-Columbian femininity— where in this case, pre-Columbian means “before tweezers.”

Because of this, Frida Kahlo remains to this day a shining symbol of feminism and Mexican culture, and her art and celebrity have been completely embraced by the mainstream. But it’s easy to overlook the ways in which Kahlo’s art, and life, were less about empowerment and more about suffering, about the visceral experience of bodily pain and the social and political difficulties of being a woman. One of her most affecting works, My Birth, was painted after her miscarriage, depicting a bloodied Kahlo-like head emerging from a woman’s body.

Additionally, it should be recognized that "authenticity" movements seek an essentialized, pre-modern, sometimes imaginary past; in this case, a pre-Europe Mexico. Kahlo's embracing of "authentic" Mexican culture must be understood as a kind of political statement, rather than a representation of the Mexico that actually surrounded her.

In my opinion, the complexity of her personal and political life and the tragedy of her experiences, as well as the diverse vitality of her influences—which range from street artists to Catholic votive paintings to images of disasters to pre-Columbian folk art—makes her work all the more fascinating. There's so much beauty in what she created. Beauty in the attempts at authenticity; beauty in the expressions of human suffering; and, perhaps most surprisingly, beauty in the ugliness. I'm not going to grow a unibrow out in solidarity, but doesn't mean I don't appreciate what that unibrow represented.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is?)

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Rhea St. Julien was absolutely certain she would grow up to be a Fly Girl, but had to rethink her life goals when In Living Color was cancelled in 1994.  Since then, she's been trying to find a comparable life goal, trying out teaching Pilates, becoming an Expressive Arts Therapist, and a work-at-home Mama/children's programming consultant.  In the process, she's become one of those wacky San Franciscans her grandmother always warned her about.  In her spare time, she can be found rocking out with her husband in their band Him Downstairs, shaking it in dance class, or reading a stack of library books.  Her personal blog, Thirty Threadbare Mercies, focuses on parenting, spirituality and pop culture.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches From the Front Lines of The New Girlie-Girl Culture by Peggy Orenstein

Just after my daughter's Where the Wild Things Are themed 2-year-old birthday party, I found myself sitting in a pile of pink, sparkly gifts, worried that perhaps I would be smothered by all the tulle and sequins. It hit me: the princess craze was right around the corner, and Olive had just been issued her uniform. I needed to heed my friends' suggestions, and read Peggy Orenstein’s Cinderella Ate My Daughter, before the fate the book's title warned became reality.

I was a charming toddler, and was told so often, by strangers as well as relatives, who made up funny nicknames for me like "Reebeedee", "Ribbit" and "Pumpkin", that they felt reflected my free spirit and but also my cuteness. However, I do not recall ever being called "Princess." It would not have fit my tendency to come home covered in dirt every day from the playground, or the way that I dressed, which was mostly in overalls or corduroys.

Since having my daughter, however, I have been disconcerted by how many people call her "Princess". Far from a castle, we live in a cramped urban apartment, and as the child of a pair of artist/social workers, she has anything but a royal pedigree. When she plays, she’s aggressively physical: running, jumping, dancing, singing. We dress her mostly in primary colors, rather than the ubiquitous pink pastels that take up the girls’ section of any children’s clothing store.

However, no matter what she’s doing or what she’s wearing, people say, “Oh, look at the little princess!” Well, why should it bother me that people are bestowing this moniker on her? Isn't it a compliment?

Orenstein, journalist and mother, breaks down why the princess title gets under my skin: “Let’s review: princesses avoid female bonding. Their goals are to be saved by a prince, get married . . . and be taken care of for the rest of their lives. Their value derives largely from their appearance. They are rabid materialists. They might affect your daughter’s interest in math” (p.23). She goes on to explain how the princesses-on-everything phenomenon was created by a Disney exec a decade or so ago, a marketing strategy rather than something girls started doing on their own, which led girls away from creating crowns out of felt and gave them perfectly scripted play to follow, word by word.

Don't get me wrong. Sequins, wands, and big dresses are attractive, and your child of either gender may be drawn to them. However, Orenstein’s book shows how girls today are being told that if a toy, like a toolkit, or a ball and bat, are not painted Pepto Pink and adorned with a picture of a skinny, smiling girl in a tiara, then they are not suitable for girls to play with, and if they do otherwise, then they are not really a girl but . . . something else.

For toddlers that are engaged in the brain-building task of sorting their world into categories, not knowing where you stand is not going to make you feel like a cool misfit, it is going to negate your existence entirely. So, young ones seek to proclaim their gender through engaging in whatever their culture considers appropriate play for either girls or boys.

This is not in and of itself a problem, but if all the options for girls are focused around how they look rather than actively doing something, they equate being a girl with looking pretty. And that creates a never-ending urge to define yourself as beautiful externally, which can lead to the myriad of problems women have with body image.

Princess play, and what it turns into in the tween years (The Hannah Montana/High School Musical/Cheetah Girls industrial complex), is largely focused on appearance, rather than accomplishment or inner growth. Orenstein asserts, "Girls pushed to be sexy too soon can't really understand what they're doing. And that, (researchers argue), is the point: they do not---and may never---learn to connect their performance to erotic feelings or intimacy. They learn how to act desirable but not how to desire, undermining rather than promoting healthy sexuality" (p. 85).

This is perhaps the strongest argument of the book, for me. I want my daughter to understand pleasure as something derived not from how others perceive her, but from actually experiencing it. If I praise her only for how she looks, she will become so used to objectification that she will seek it out in order to feel loved.

Reading Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches From The Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture (with its deceptively pink sparkly cover) on the playground while my daughter used dump trucks to push the sand around, led to some interesting conversations.

"LOVED that book," one mom intoned passionately, which quickly turned to sheepishness when her daughter, decked out in a pink-and-purple Princess gown, ran up to us to get a snack.

"Oh, I just finished that book!", a Dad covered in tattoos told me. "What did you think?" I asked. "It was great . . . but she doesn't really offer any practical solutions." So, several parents I knew and respected had read this book, but didn't feel like they were doing things any differently now.

However, that may be just what Orenstein wanted. She makes the case in her book for parents finding their own personal threshold for gendered toys and activities, but that, at the very least, it is "absolutely vital to think through our own values and limits early, to consider what we approve or disapprove of and why" (p. 182).

Which is why I suggest picking up a copy of Cinderella Ate My Daughter, as a good first step to figuring out what your boundaries are going to be around Bratz, Barbies and Beauty Pageants, before you find yourself in the toy aisle at Target, hemming and hawing about your child’s request. I recommend it for parents of both boys and girls, as Orenstein reviews the research on whether nature or nurture defines toy choice and play attitudes for children of both sex.

Orenstein’s tone is engaging, funny, and suggests a journey rather than a checklist of “shows to ban” and surefire ways to protect your child from materialism and objectification. Her book is an invitation to the conversation about girlie-girl culture, rather than a hard and fast indictment of it. I may not be able to keep my daughter completely from the lure of Princess play, but I am going to counterbalance it with stories of strong women, and relationships with adults who are non-conformist in their gender expression, so that she will have more choices, not less.

A Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling

Ever since the end to the Harry Potter book series, fans have been waiting with baited breath to learn what JK Rowling's next step would be. When she announced A Casual Vacancy, a novel for adults, her Goodreads page blew up with animated GIFs that expressed the internet version of a collective orgy of anticipation.

A fan of the Harry Potter series myself, I dutifully pre-ordered the novel to my Nook, and looked forward to being transported by Rowling's words once again. A few days before A Casual Vacancy was released, The New Yorker published a rather nasty portrait of Rowling, in which the profiler took cheap shots like saying she was wearing heavy foundation, or bringing up her troubled relationship with her father in revealing ways. My back went up: why can't writers be quirky and not exactly perfectly likeable?

But then I read A Casual Vacancy. And I realized, the New Yorker writer was simply furious at Rowling for wasting her talent and our time by writing quite possible the least redemptive, most depressing novel of the past decade.

To understand why Rowling wrote such a soul-crushing novel, let’s go back to where she left off with her readers. Personally, I was disappointed by the end of the Harry Potter series. Harry and his friends end up in safe jobs, with happy marriages, and everything is tied up with a neat little bow. It seemed like Rowling had really phoned it in, giving children an unrealistic portrait of adulthood, which was out of character with the series, which often showed adults as complex figures, capable of both betrayal and loyalty.

Perhaps she felt she needed to atone for wearing the kid gloves with Harry and co., so she wrote her characters in A Casual Vacancy with a razor-sharp lack of compassion for the reader, or for her storyline. She spends the first thirty pages describing all the characters, save one, as unspeakably ugly and savoring the death of what appeared to be last person with a soul in Pagford, the stultifying English small town in which the novel is set.

"It must get better. There has to be some emotional resonance and redemption in here somewhere. It's JK Fucking Rowling!" I told myself, as character after character that I thought could perhaps be an interesting anti hero turned out to be a baseless tweeb, only concerned with their own petty desires, which mostly centered on jockeying for position for the council seat vacated by the Last Good Person in Pagford, which is the outward premise of the novel.

I got the feeling that the hidden premise Rowling sought was to show the raw underbelly of life, to stick her reader’s noses in it and say, “THIS is real life! Not magical train rides and children defeating death with a flick of a wand!” But . . . the world that Rowling created in A Casual Vacancy was not that realistic to me. Sure, people are petty and small-minded and self-centered, but they are also capable of change and of sacrificial love.

The question begs itself: who did Rowling write this book for? Certainly not for Harry Potter fans of any age. And that is fine---artists should not have to pander to their past work as they keep creating. However, the new work she has presented is so unlikeable, so devoid of truth and beauty, that my only hope is that she wrote it for herself, because it was a story inside of her that just needed to be told.

Want to know what Rhea thought of every book she read last year? You're in luck---she reviewed all 58 books here.

What I Believe

Over the weekend I was talking with a friend of mine.  We had one of those twisty conversations that covers a million topics, to trace back how we got to talking about the movie Bull Durham would require flow charts and recording devices. But get there we did. I’ve never seen the movie, so my friend was telling me the major plot points and characters.  She said her favorite part was a speech Kevin Costner’s character gives, in answer to Susan Sarandon’s question ‘What do you believe in then?’  The speech covered Baseball, Love, Sex, Politics, Holiday Traditions, and more, and my friend had it memorized.  And at the end, Kevin Costner turns and walks out the door, having said his piece. Should the occasion ever arise, I’d like to be able to rattle off a list of my truest beliefs without consulting notes or stumbling over the words.  Here’s my first draft:

I believe in kindness, goodness, luck, and the importance of good juju. I believe in the Muppets, Gene Kelley, Fred Astaire, and Bing Crosby.  I believe in cozy sweaters and keeping the thermostat low to cuddle under the blankets. I believe in family, those gifted at birth and those chosen.  I believe in books, records, and hand-written letters whenever possible, but accept digital versions as well. I believe in love. I believe marriage isn’t right for everyone, but that everyone should have the option. I believe in laughing every day, trusting the universe, and marching to my own drummer.  I believe gummi bears are better with I vodka and the time vortex is a thing. I believe in back roads, sunsets, and stopping to take pictures.  I believe in coffee, glitter, red wine, and great shoes. I believe happiness is just as worthy of a goal as a corner office. I believe in saying I Love You. I believe that time spent together is never wasted. I believe everyone has their own truth, their own journey, and their own sources of joy.

What do you believe in?

 

What to Wear on Halloween

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I remember when Halloween was just a trip to the thrift store and some face paint. You get dressed up, your mom approximates some whiskers on your cheeks. You go out with your little friends. And then, more importantly, you end up with a plastic pumpkin bucket full of fun, fun sizes of chocolate and candy. As girls become women, however, the candy takes a backseat to the costume—and costumes ain’t what they used to be. Sure, you can still dress as the cartoon characters, animals, and superheroes of your youth; you just have to precede said costume title with the word “sexy.”

It doesn’t really matter how ridiculous the result is, either, as demonstrated by this collection. Sexy cats sit on costume shelves alongside sexy Big Birds and sexy hamburgers. The main thing is, it needs to be short, tight, or low-cut—preferably all three. For many women, Halloween is an opportunity to show off your body without shame. It’s like a one-time-a-year free pass for even the normally reserved and modest: no one will call you a slut in the morning.

More power to every woman who wants to jump on the sexy costume trend, but I think there are many women who are more like me: uncomfortable with the objectification that the once inclusive, innocent holiday increasingly promotes. It’s okay to be annoyed that this pressure to be sexy exists exclusively for women. Men’s costumes tend to be funny, ironic, gory, scary—no sexy Freddy Kreugers for them. So why are we women inundated with the Sexy Costume trend?

For those who are asking themselves the same question, I’ve come up with a few ideas for costumes that are fun, topical, empowering, attractive, but not demeaning. (Disclaimer: I’m no Halloween costume-choosing expert, so feel free to add your own to this list.)

A politician with a sense of humor

Hillary Clinton, Texts from Hillary-style.

To apply: Sweep your hair behind your ears (or invest in a short blond wig), put on shades, wear a black pantsuit with a large brooch pin, hold your phone in front of you at all times.

 

An Olympic gold medalist

Missy Franklin or Gabby Douglas

To apply: Slick your hair back tight in a ponytail or bun. (If you’re Missy, might be good to apply enough gel that your hair looks wet all night.) Wear a black bathing suit or red, white and blue leotard. Put fake gold medals around your neck (choose the appropriate number per athlete). Feel free to add tights or a towel to cover up. (If you’re going as McKayla Maroney, add perpetual scowl and folded arms.)

 

A kickass superheroine

Catwoman or Black Widow. Yes, they’re both super-sexy, but they’re also powerful and take-charge. And what do you want to bet that somewhere out there are “sexy” versions of their film costumes (read: shorter)?

To apply: Tight leather-ish black bodysuit, boots, gun belt, attitude. For Catwoman, add black eye mask and ears. For Black Widow, add a red wig.

 

A female fantasy protagonist

Katniss Everdeen or Hermione Granger

To apply: For Katniss, find gray, earth-toned winter clothes—a parka, sweater, khakis, and boots. Sling a quiver of arrows over your back and carry a bow around. Put your hair in a long side braid. For Hermione, just pick up a long, dark Hogwarts-emblazoned robe at your local costume store, replete with starched collar shirt and red and gold tie. Carry a wand. And if you’re doing old-school Hermione, make sure your hair is big and frizzy.

A Strong Female Character

There’s plenty of others to choose from, some of which I’ve discussed on this blog: Olivia Benson from “Law & Order: SVU,” Zooey Deschanel, Brave, Buffy (who I dressed up as in tenth grade using only a leather jacket, a hair claw, and a wooden stake). Don’t ever feel limited by what’s on the costume store shelves—the possibilities are truly endless. In fact, don't even be limited by your gender! Dress as a male character you like. You get bonus points for defying gender expectations and upsetting the patriarchy.

As for what NOT to wear: My only advice is, don’t do the ethnic costume thing. Besides exposing a lot of leg, Halloween also has the tendency to expose a lot of racism, poignantly argued by this Ohio University campaign. If you’re going as a historical or notable figure of a different ethnicity or nationality, that’s fine—just be aware of the overall impact of your costume (is it respectful or caricature?) and NEVER, NEVER paint your skin a different color.

If all else fails, follow Oscar from “The Office”’s example: dress as yourself and tell everyone you’re a "rational consumer." Given the cost of some Halloween costumes, that might end up being the best choice.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

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Trina McNeilly is a mom to a brood of four, a freelance writer and a self proclaimed style scout.  When she isn't wrangling or writing she dabbles in design and is always looking for the lovely.  Trina has been blogging for 4 years and writes daily at her lifestyle blog, la la Lovely where she shares her lovely finds.  She's learned that the most lovely things in life are not things at all, and well, she writes about that too.  In her, very few, spare minutes she is busy making her childhood home her now grown up home.  I love books, almost every kind possible actually.  I love the way books look, always adding soul to a home.  I love the way books feel, there is just something about turning each page that is rather comforting.  And most of all, I love what is on the inside of books . . . words.  Words that, on their own, might not mean much but strung together form a story; a story once lived sharing a life to learn from perhaps just a story to get completely lost in.  Truthfully, that is what I look for most in a book . . . a way to get lost, a way to loose myself.  And yet, almost every time, at some point in the story, I am found and find more of myself than I knew before.  And when I find that I have been found in a book, that particular story always seems to stay with me.  Sometimes it haunts me with its grasping tale when I see specks of the story in real life days.  And, sometimes it reminds me of a truth I’ve needed to know and am trying to live and other times it is a teacher that helps me to string my words into a story of their own.

 

My own reading habits vary (as life does with 4 littles) but my regular and most familiar pattern is to read a couple of books at a time.  I love to always have a story ready at hand to escape to and I always find the need to be reading a book to help better me as person (which can have vast range of topics from motherhood to business).

 

These are the books you would, most recently, find making their home on my nightstand:

The Flight of Gemma Hardy

By Margot Livesey

If you were to ask me my all time favorite book I would likely reply Jane Eyre.  No explanation needed.  Any retelling of that story sparks interest, but also skepticism.  While running through the airport last month, this title caught my attention and when I read that it was a new telling of Jane Eyre I was curious.  I continued on to read that Gemma was from Iceland and resides in Scotland on the somewhat mystical Orkney Islands and . . . I was sold.  I had never heard of the Orkney Islands but I had to know about it.

Although The Flight of Gemma Hardy, for the most part, followed the story line of the classic, Jane Eyre, I inevitably knew what was coming next, but I didn’t quite always know how, and I found myself looking for how the story varied and the differences and uniqueness of each story.

I found Gemma’s story, although very sad at times, to really be one of hope.  Hope that your story can end well.  That good can come of bad.  And that in the midst of trials, when you can’t seem to find your way, or even yourself, if you keep moving forward, choose to be brave in the everyday and pay attention to your thoughts, it is there that you will be found.  Gemma ran, only to ask herself “Why had I left if I was going to carry him with me every step of the way?”  Yet in the running she was found.  And she found the one thing she wanted so badly, “to be well regarded and well loved.”  And isn’t that what we all want?

 

The Gifts of Imperfection

by Brené Brown

This is the kind of book that ruins you in all of the right kind of ways.  But I should confess, I wanted to get ruined when I picked this book up.  The subtitle goes like this, “Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are.  Your guide to a wholehearted life.”   The truth is, I have a lot of ideas of who I think I’m supposed to be, and who others want me be but I’m still working on accepting and then embracing who I really am.   Brown starts off this internal journey by saying that “owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.”

It’s chapter after chapter of defining words that we effortlessly throw around in our daily lives without knowing the true meaning or implication of that word.  For example the original meaning of the word courage is, “to speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.”  And to become more courageous you have to practice courageous acts, “you learn courage by couraging.”  The idea that it takes courage to share what you really want or need or who you are, actually makes complete sense as it something most of us hold back from doing in fear of not being accepted.

The Gifts of Imperfection is a book that I’m sure I’ll reference for a lifetime.  If you aspire to live an authentic wholehearted life than I think you will enjoy getting ruined as much as I am.

 

The Tales of the Seal People

Scottish Folk Tales

Duncan Williamson

I have a thing for fairy tales and folklore.  I’m always up for anything that is a little magicky and requires a heavy dose of make believing.

After reading The Flight of Gemma Hardy and doing a little research on the fascinating Orkney Islands, I read that The Tales of the Sea People was a book that Margot Livesey used as research when writing her book, The Flight of Gemma Hardy.   When I read that these were a collection of stories from Scotland that were somewhat guarded and scared to the fishermen and people that lived by the sea, I was instantly intrigued.  My great grandma was from Scotland and I wonder if she ever heard of, or maybe even told, any of these tales herself.  Although these are folk tales to some, somewhere down the line they were very real happenings to the originator of the story.

The Tales of the Seal People is a collection of short stories, which are simply written and read as if someone is actually speaking the story. All of the stories are centered around Silkies (Seal People) who were part human and part seal.  Each story is an intertwined tale of a person who lived by the sea and their encounters with the Silkies.  It’s interesting knowing that these are likely common stories told among Scottish children and up until this point I had never even heard of a Silkie.  I love reading these stories to my children and I even love reading them all on my own.  I find that after I read one, I always want to read another.  And I’ll surely never look at a seal the same way again.

 

 

Lessons from Gone with the Wind...

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Dear Clara, I just returned from a few days in Atlanta last week.  I don’t think there is ever any possibility of going to that city without thinking of green velvet drapes and feisty tempers.  Margaret Mitchell’s penned classic and Vivien Leigh’s spirited interpretation of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind will remain always one and the same with that city for me.  It might be an old story by the time you’re my age, but it will still be a true classic.  Here is what I’ll always remember from it:

  • You can lose everything: At almost any moment.  Scarlett definitely knows a thing or two about loss, but in any story that spans a generation, I’m always taken by how privilege at the start doesn’t necessarily mean so at the end, and vice versa. We’re born what we’re born with, and some of us got it a little luckier, but that doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed.  Anyone’s fortunes could change either by circumstance or by their own foolishness---be prepared to mitigate against both.
  • Sometimes you have to create from what you have, not from what you want: Scarlett’s dress that she fashioned from her drapes is probably the best example in this story, but you’ll find that she does this over and over again.  Sometimes, if not most times, we won’t have as much as we want . . . as new as we want . . . as different as we want . . . at the time that we want it.  But people who are most resilient and most successful look at what they have, and make it fit what they need, not what they want.
  • Life is under no obligation to give us what we expect: When I read Gone with the Wind, I think I must have dog eared at least twenty pages of quotes and words to remember, if not more.  I was a great collector of quotes back in the day, and I think this particular one captures how much we have to be careful about expectations since then we are often disappointed. The one I remember most though, were Rhett’s words about mending what’s broken:  “I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken---and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I live.”  That quote did, and still does, make me nearly cry because I happen believe the opposite.  I think there is room for mending, and room for forgiveness, and I don’t believe that there are things such as permanently broken---but I think Rhett is just expressing the way that many people truly feel.  And you’ll come across people who believe in that strongly sometimes, and you’ll have to know when to keep fixing, and when to let it go because they will never see past the mend.  It's always best not to break in the first place, but we make mistakes, and not everyone will forgive us.
  • People always come back: There is something uncanny about the way characters unfold in Gone with the Wind, and it mirrors life very much this way.  Even though the protagonists go through all sorts of changes and life takes them on many paths, they always seem to run together at different points in life.  Always appreciate people as though you’ll never see them again, because chances are, you will.  When you do, you will be glad that you left on good terms to pick up from; when you don’t, you’ll be reassured that you left with your best foot forward.

All my love,

Mom

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

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Joy Netanya Thompson is a freelance writer based in Pasadena, California. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she holds a bachelor’s degree in biblical studies and recently finished her master’s degree in theology and the arts at Fuller Theological Seminary. Joy loves to travel, and spent extended amounts of time in Australia, Mexico, Norway, and Germany. Besides daydreaming about her next travel destination, Joy also spends much of her time relishing novels now that her graduate studies are complete, learning how to cook a meal in under an hour, and riding bikes with her husband Robert. She writes at her hopefully-soon-to-be-revived blog, Eeper (www.netanya.wordpress.com). Joy Netanya Thompson

The Gift of Asher Lev

by Chaim Potok

My husband and I have been devouring Chaim Potok’s books for the past few months. Our first exposure to him was about a year ago when I read My Name is Asher Lev for a class. The Gift of Asher Lev is the sequel, and focuses on the title character, a world-famous artist who started out as a child prodigy in a Hasidic community in Brooklyn. In both books, Asher struggles with his two identities—the Hasidic Jew who is loyal to his faith, family, and community, and the world-class artist who must create or die. Potok’s style is utterly mesmerizing—his are the type of books in which you become totally absorbed—and his stories are haunting, the kind you think about for days after finishing them. Reading his books, I not only feel more connected to my Jewish roots, but also to my own humanity. Over the past few months I also read The Chosen and Old Men at Midnight. They are all worth the read!

A Room Called Remember

by Frederick Buechner

I was introduced to Buechner last year through his novel Godric, which I also highly recommend. A Room Called Remember is nonfiction, a book of his uncollected pieces. It’s a hodgepodge of essays and articles, a few sermons and a few speeches. My favorites include “All’s Lost—All’s Found,” “A Room Called Remember,” and “Love.” Each piece in the collection is written in his lyrical style that sometimes includes seemingly endless sentences with all the words toppling over each other—but in the best kind of way. His insight into the human condition, and especially human spirituality, is piercingly beautiful. He is a truth teller and a wordsmith, an utterly powerful combination. I also just finished his novel Son of Laughter in which he fleshes out the story of Jacob in Genesis, with all of its scandal and betrayal and humanity; it’s also a fine work.

 

Becky Still, Managing Editor and Senior Writer at Fuller Theological Seminary

How It All Began

by Penelope Lively

I liked this a lot; the writing is excellent. The book follows a chain of people whose lives are all affected (some of them significantly) because one older woman, Charlotte, is mugged. Her daughter Rose must rush to her aid, which ends up setting off a chain of events for the man Rose works for, and on and on. There is interesting commentary by Charlotte about growing old and the nature of one’s individual history, how it defines us. The whole book illustrates, in a delightful way, how interconnected we are.

Stone Diaries

by Carol Shields

This book is from the early 1990s—I randomly picked it up at the library and ended up liking it quite a bit. Again, great writing. It is the fictional “autobiography” of a woman named Daisy Stone Goodwill, tracing her life from birth (1905) to death in the 1990s, through diary entries written both by her and by various people in her life. Diary entries written by different people about the same event show how much we see things through the lens of our own experience.

 

Grace Farag, Writer

The Way Through Doors

by Jesse Ball

My "author crush" on Jesse Ball began when I read his novella "The Early Deaths of Lubeck, Brennan, Harp, and Carr" in the Winter 2007 issue of the Paris Review. The quirky strangeness of the plot, an odd formality of style, and lightly yet sensitively drawn characters hooked me right in—and at the (haunting) end of the story, I was simply, wildly jealous that I had not been given the privilege of writing it. After that I set out to read more of his work…and that's how I eventually got acquainted with his novel The Way Through Doors, which has become one of my favorite works of fiction of the past few years. I love the interwoven narratives that blend in and out of each other, and how you never know when and where one is going to begin or the other end. I love the underlying romantic sensibility of the story. I love the title. I love the poetry of Ball's prose, the musical rhythms of his sentences. (It was no surprise to me to learn that Ball is also a poet.) I love that he has a character who is a "guess artist." I love that I never quite knew where Ball was going, but that there was so much pleasure in the getting there. I just plain love this book! But I won't lie--not everyone will. And that's OK. That's the beauty of literature, of any art. So many doors, so many ways through them. Here's to the unexpected journey…

Celebrating the Everyday

A co-worker once told me about a trip she took with a girlfriend. I don’t remember where they went or when or even if there was a specific reason for the journey. What I remember about the story is that they didn’t have a camera (this was before the age of iphones).  As they stopped at noteworthy places or scenic views, they’d take a moment, pose, and say ‘Click! Took a Mental Picture!’ This story has stuck with me for several years, maybe because when I travel, I make it a point to put down the camera and soak in the place and moment as much as I can.  Of course then I pick up the camera again and take 150 pictures of really-cool-old-stuff (not even a slight exaggeration), but I make sure I see things outside of a viewfinder and imprint the memory to my brain and not just my SD card, I take a mental picture.

Surprisingly, as much as I strive to put down my beloved lenses while traveling, I’m becoming a total shutterbug at home.  The ease of having a camera on my cell phone means I can snap a shot at the grocery store or in my backyard. I can document a particularly awesome hair day or my current shade of nail polish.  My shoes are regularly photographed as one of my favorite subjects.  All show up on my instagram account. At first I thought it might be silly, I’m not a photo-journalist or an artist. I’m not taking pictures of Big-Important-Things; just snaps of my everyday life. But now I realize that’s the great thing.  These quick snaps are a celebration of the everyday.

Every day is fantastic.  Every day there is something beautiful or interesting to see.  Every day is a new journey and a new discovery. And that should be celebrated.  The collection of ice cream scoops that caught my eye thanks to the bright colors----the sunset over the cornfield---my current favorite pair of shoes---These things make up who I am. Like little happy puzzle pieces, these square snapshots build a bigger picture.

The great thing about instagram is my everyday isn’t the only one I get to experience.  I follow friends and relatives, and even a couple of folks I’ve never met in real life (like some of the wonderful contributors to Equals Record!).  I get to catch glimpses of other everydays without stepping outside of my own.  Roxanne’s views of Boston remind me that fall is on the way, I can’t wait to see the leaves change and snap some of my own autumnal photos. My cousin Andy’s photos almost always come with a thought provoking caption or interesting story and encourage me to think about the world outside of myself.

Equal parts inspiring and instigating, that’s what I love about the every day.[gallery link="file"]

Bridget Jones Syndrome: The Female Disaster in Romantic Comedies

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Recently, a piece in the Atlantic Wire criticized the pilot of Mindy Kaling’s new sitcom “The Mindy Project” with concern that it ends up reproducing “the most hoary of romantic comedy clichés, that in order for a high-powered female character to be relatable she has to be clumsy or bumbling.” There is a definite trend in the romantic comedy genre that finds our female protagonists overwhelmed, unable to juggle their professional, personal, and romantic lives. In Bridesmaids, widely hailed as a landmark in women-centered comedy, Kristen Wiig's Annie has a spectacular meltdown as her life falls apart around her. The story is sharp and smartly-written, and Wiig plays it well, but there is something a little alarming in her downward spiral over the course of the movie. We see her failing professionally (the closure of her bakery), personally (her jealousy of fellow bridesmaid Rose Byrne), and, of course, romantically (her hookups with self-absorbed jerk Jon Hamm despite the interest of totally decent good guy Chris O'Dowd).

 

Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that Bridesmaids is a major step forward for women in pop culture in that it boasts an almost all-female cast with a female protagonist, female writers, and a potentially chick-flick theme that still transcends gender enjoyment. As to whether that needed to include a protracted and extremely unladylike bout of group diarrhea---I leave up to you. Toilet humor is a matter of taste.

When it comes to female disaster protagonists, my mind always goes to Bridget Jones, the queen of messy, disaster-prone, perpetually imperfect heroines. Bridget’s whole shtick—played with admirable wholeheartedness in the film versions by Renée Zellweger—is that she’s full of insecurities and unfulfilled goals, and that everything bad follows her around like her own personal Murphy’s Law.

 

Compared to the often flawless actresses who play even the most accident-prone characters in major film and TV roles, Bridget Jones is a bit of a breath of fresh air. She’s slightly overweight, her hair is never perfect (properly inverting the far less realistic always perfect paradigm), and she falls on her ass on what seems like a regular basis. Most of all, she’s obsessed to Austenian proportions with finding the perfect husband, while sabotaging herself with meaningless relations with men like Daniel (Hugh Grant).

Bridget Jones is like a fairy tale where, instead of being presented as the ideal, everything in her life is seen through her eyes as never measuring up to an ideal-- that ideal perhaps arguably being informed by other representations of women in pop culture. Despite her often pathetic self-presentation, we find that Bridget is actually a fairly successful career woman with plenty of friends and no shortage of men (and, in the sequel, women) who find her irresistibly attractive.

So when Bridget waddles as she walks—when she unknowingly covers her face in red blush—when she, during a live news report skydiving, inexplicably beats the odds and lands in the one pig sty for miles around—there’s an over-the-top, every-worst-fear-and-insecurity-come-true effect. It’s almost as if we’re seeing Bridget through Bridget’s eyes, with her constant attempts and failures to become the woman she believes she should be. That’s relatable, even if it’s often executed in an incredibly over-the-top manner. (And my disclaimer is that I don’t know that this was the intent of the creators at all; in fact, I think interpreting it this way gets us into some weird mimetic representations of reality territory as we unpack the layers of interpretation through which the "actual" story is filtered, including the narrator and the audience---but let's not go there.)

I’m not saying there aren’t problems with these roles. In particular, when Bridget declares that nothing is more unattractive than “strident feminism,” she represents a definite rejection of feminism that buys into the worst kinds of assumptions about what “feminism” actually means. Moreover, if the Bridgets and the Annies are the only types of lead female roles we see in major films and TV shows, we risk depicting all women as love-obsessed, marriage-prioritizing, perpetually-insecure-and-occasionally-inept 20- and 30-somethings whose role as wife and mother can’t help but take precedence over all other roles in life. And that's problematic, if only because such ideas tend to get recycled, reinforced, and potentially relived by real women.

Back to “The Mindy Project.” I admit that I’ve wanted to like this show since first hearing about it, though I wasn’t sure it would live up to its potential. Mindy Kaling is hilarious, talented, and simultaneously strong and (hyper)feminine. Even better, she’s a non-white, non-twig-thin heroine in a TV landscape that is, well, white and thin. The premise is promising: a successful OB-GYN obsessed with romantic comedies who believes, over-optimistically, that she could have her own rom com ending one day.

 

Particularly with the second episode, I think we’re seeing the potential for delightful subversion in this premise. While echoing romantic comedies, and realizing that many women do, indeed, enjoy them and emotionally engage with them, it nevertheless acknowledges the illusory quality of those same tropes that most TV and film for women are based on. I enjoyed a moment in the second episode when Mindy meets a guy (Seth Meyers) who turns out to be an architect (see this dead-on Cracked article on stereotypical movie occupations). “An architect? No one is an architect in real life!” scoffs her ornery male coworker (and likely eventual love interest---yes, I still expect a lot of tropes to play out in the expected way).

Along similar lines, when we see Mindy meeting her now-ex-boyfriend (played by Bill Hader) in an elevator, she is thrilled to find their interaction playing out like a rom-com movie scene, down to her hair falling out of her ponytail as she bends over to help him pick up papers. Fast forward to their breakup several months later and one of those "hoary clichés"---Mindy giving a drunken speech at her ex's wedding. It's a playful mix of acknowledging and unsettling these clichés that, I think, gives "The Mindy Project" its potential and simultaneously gives it a chance at commercial success on a major network.

Let's not forget that every protagonist requires weaknesses—otherwise, they’re completely uninteresting and unrelatable. We should of course acknowledge that women, like men, have insecurities, and that, yes, we occasionally against our better judgment geek out and feel awkward and feel ugly and make bad relationship decisions. What’s important is that we realize that these insecurities might be, at least in part, due to fairy tales fed us by Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan and other romance-centric ideals of modern womanhood. And that the post-rom-com female characters---your Annies, your Mindys---should be more than an amalgamation of weaknesses and failures. As fun as she is, one Bridget Jones is enough.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

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Molly Bradley is US-born but France-grown, having lived in Paris from the age of six. Her reintroduction to her native country was through Oberlin College in Ohio. She's fairly certain that aside from having changed homes, schools, or countries every three or four years, juxtapositions like the one between France and Ohio are what have lent her an eye for cultural curiosities and a taste for travel. Over the past four years she has obtained degrees in English literature and creative writing, spent a semester in Senegal, worked as a pastry and line cook at a French restaurant in the Berkshires, learned Russian, handmade a lot of pasta, and become vegan (mostly). She has just moved to Portland to pursue a travel-writing internship, work at a food cart making waffles, and write, write, write.

I read as much for writing itself as for story. Not that that’s unusual, but I’ve come to realize that the writing makes all the difference. I am perfectly willing to read a story that is anywhere from unimpressive to downright unpleasant, in terms of plot---as long as the writing enthralls. It doesn’t have to be beautiful, necessarily, though that can help.

Proof that most readers can be bewitched this way: Lolita. That’s the novel that, for me, triggered this realization. You can describe it briefly as a book about an old geezer with pedophiliac tendencies, and thusly dismiss it---or you can say it’s about a man with yearnings toward his past, unfulfilled sexual desires, an undeniable draw toward the most innocent form of beauty he knows, and a girl too young to know what it means to even pretend to fulfill all that. You might also mention that, while reading---though you are aware of the boundaries and where they should not be crossed – you do not, and cannot, villainize him. And that is entirely the doing of Nabokov’s words.

Lolita is not a particularly recent read for me, but it has guided many of my subsequent choices in reading (and writing). Here are a few things I read this summer that, if not astounded me, at least tickled me: both as a human being with emotions to be strummed, and as a writer with tools to be sharpened.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera If you have ever traveled---especially often or long enough to feel out-of-place in any given place---this is something you should read. I can’t promise it will solve any of your existential crises on the road (play-on-words sort of intended---see third book down this list), but it will be a companion of sorts. That’s largely due to the delight of Kundera’s style: it is always accessible, inviting, and impossibly intimate.

He writes the novel in two ‘modes’: in one, he tells the story of Tomas, Teresa, Sabina, and Franz. In the other, he talks directly to us: about distance, love, desire, responsibility---even about the unique consciousness of animals. In these sections, I found myself stopping after almost every paragraph. Every musing made me want to tell someone in particular, or tell someone anonymous, or at least write it down to tell myself, again and again. Or to write it back to Kundera in a letter.

He also deals delicately (and accurately, it feels) with the subject of unbalanced relationships, or unequal loves. If you’ve ever experienced this, the novel will be at once heart-breaking and -healing.

Living by Fiction by Annie Dillard This one gets a little technical, but as an English and creative writing major, it was right up my alley. Even if you don’t think you’d like a book about the nitty-gritty of technique and form in writing, what fascinates is how Dillard gives fiction a tangible place in the real world. Too often fiction is dismissed as no more than escape or fancy or, at best, a noble yet disconnected and isolated art. It may be somewhat isolated, but Dillard not only places writers beside all other kinds of artists, but places all of those artists in a room with the rest of the world. She answers the questions that most professors, students, and critics alike only have vague answers to: questions about the whether fiction can interpret the world, and how it can allow you to better understand reality. If you write, her answers may make you feel, suddenly, that you have taken far too much responsibility on your shoulders---but shoulder it you should. Someone’s got to.

The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac There’s nothing like reading Kerouac to make your speech and writing both relax. That is, assuming you aren’t being too hard on yourself for not being able to achieve that casual tone while still spinning out spectacularly singular turns of phrase and cadence.

As  much as I love the classic On the Road, what I love about The Dharma Bums is that it wasn’t On the Road. Kerouac, as Ray Smith, is at once more and less focused on himself, and at once more and less perfectly embodies the way he thinks it best to live. In Dharma Bums, he is very earnestly trying to live a simpler and more spiritual life, largely fired and inspired by his friend Japhy. The greatest part is that while he does a lot better than most of us could, he still screws up sometimes just like anyone would. It’s a hopeful and reassuring thing to see someone mess up and achieve, in equal measure and equal beauty.

At one point, Ray feels he has achieved some kind of enlightenment in the woods near his home. His first thought upon achieving enlightenment is to tell Japhy; he can’t wait to put it into words for someone who is something of a mentor to him. But when he tries, Japhy dismisses him promptly, saying that to appreciate such an experience is not to blab on about it. Ray is subdued, but it remains unclear who’s really closer to enlightenment.

Back to his style: its simplicity is deceptive. One the one hand, it’s reminiscent of those plain, easy pleasures that make you think you could live a far humbler life than you do. It reminds me of my dad talking about the brown bread, mustard, and sardine sandwiches of his youth: those three things were all he required to feel nourished.

Particularly in Dharma Bums, the great thing about Kerouac is that his easy style works to describe his vagabond’s meals of cans of beans just as well as it does to talk about becoming a Buddha, and other more complex matters of the soul.

Souls, sardines, Sabina. They’re all sort of related, and they’re all equally worth reading (and writing) about. It’s all the way you phrase it.

Sojourner Truth: Ex-Slave. Activist. Hardcore Feminist.

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A few months ago, sci-fi writer John Scalzi published a blog piece that went viral entitled “Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is”. In this article, he attempted to make “privilege” understood to an audience of gamer geeks by translating it into their own language—basically, that SWMs go through life on the “easy” (or “very easy”, depending on your game) button, while various minority identities increase your life’s difficulty setting. “The player who plays on the ‘Gay Minority Female’ setting?” he writes. “Hardcore.”

Our Historical Woman of the day was not, to my knowledge, gay, nor from an era that would necessarily self-identify as such, but I’m pretty sure she was still living life on one of the highest difficulty settings possible. Sojourner Truth was black, she was a woman, and she was born a slave. She lived a life that spanned from a childhood on the plantation to the difficult Reconstruction years following the Civil War. And today, due to her lifelong campaign for both African-American and women’s rights, she has become a symbol for the intersectionality of race and gender—how minority identities can overlap and how struggles can be experienced both separately and in tandem.

She was originally called Isabella “Belle” Baumfree; she changed her name to the (beautiful and rather inspiring) Sojourner Truth decades later. Belle was born into slavery on a Dutch New York plantation around 1797, and spent a childhood being shuffled from owner to owner, separated from family, mistreated by the masters and mistresses of the estates, and marrying a much older slave to whom she would bear five children, though there’s speculation that some were fathered by her white master. All part of the common experience of being a slave woman in America; but that doesn’t diminish its tragedy.

In 1826, an emancipation law was pending in New York—within a year, Isabella would likely be freed. However, she took it upon herself to exit the evil institution a little early. She took one of her children and literally walked off the plantation, finding refuge with a Quaker family and escaping the slave life forever. Later, she fought in court for the recovery of her other children, one of whom was illegally sold to a Southern plantation, and won. This was only the beginning of what was to be a long and fruitful activist career.

What Truth may have been most famous for, not unlike the firebrand anarchist Emma Goldman, was her public speaking. Illiterate throughout her life, she nevertheless had a remarkable gift for language and, from the 1840s onward, went on several speaking tours with both women’s rights groups and abolitionists.

Her most famous speech was apparently entirely improvised. At a women’s rights convention, at which Truth had agreed not to speak in order to avoid making harmful associations between the “Negro” cause and the cause of women, it happened that several men were shouting down the beleaguered women speakers. “Women expect rights? They ask us to help them down from carriages and over puddles!” cried Manly Man #1. “Women can’t even do manual labor!” exclaimed Manly Man #2. (I’m guessing at their names.)

Sojourner Truth couldn’t hold it in anymore. She marched up onto the platform and launched into an impassioned counterattack.

“Nobody ever helped me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gave me any best place—and ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have plowed, and planted and gathered into barns, and no man could head me—and ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man (when I could get it) and bear the lash as well—and ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children and seen ‘em most all sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard—and ain’t I a woman?”

Truth then pointed a bony finger (according to her histories, something she was fond of doing) at a nearby preacher, and demanded, “Where did your Christ come from? . . . From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with him.”

The crowd erupted in cheers. The manly men were publicly shamed. The white feminists who had objected to her speaking felt guilty. (Or so I like to imagine.)

If this all sounds a bit too good to be true—if it sounds like the ending of a '90s family movie—it may be because, it’s not entirely true. Sojourner Truth holds the transcendent rank of symbol in our histories, particularly feminist histories, and symbols often diverge from reality. Much of this speech was recorded by a white working-class woman named Frances Gage, who even wrote it in “plantation dialect” (see above quote, replace every “the” with “de” and “children” with “chillern,” etc). Historians have noted the potential motives of contemporary white feminists for uplifting Truth to the status of symbol: her rootsy plantation background was an ideal metaphor for the need for women’s own emancipation, and her illiteracy meant she could do little to contest the narratives of her white recorders.

Yet I like to think there was at least some truth in this landmark piece of feminist expository, even if it wasn’t quite as movie-scene-y as all that. There are many recorded instances of Truth’s resounding voice echoing through convention halls and touching the hearts and minds of all who attended. She spoke alongside Frederick Douglass—famously asking him “Is God dead?” as he enumerated the injustices being committed daily against the American Negro—and diffused tense situations with unruly, antagonistic crowds—another potentially apocryphal story arises in which she bared her breasts to an Indiana audience who questioned whether she was really a woman. (Probably because she was six feet tall and deep-voiced. And she also had the balls to challenge men.)

She even staged some proto-public transit sit-ins in Washington, DC, storming onto the “white” segregated horse-drawn carriages and challenging the conductor to throw her off. The by-this-time somewhat elderly woman ended up in a scuffle with one driver, whose company she later successfully sued. Hardcore.

Sojourner Truth settled in Battle Creek, Michigan after the Civil War, where she advocated for a Reconstruction that would address the injustices done to black America by slavery—which, by her estimation, could never be fully forgiven, but at the very least the government could begin to make amends. She died in 1883, roughly eighty-five years old, fighting for this elusive justice to the very end.

Despite the nearly insurmountable challenges set out before her, and whether or not some of the accounts about her are apocryphal or idealized, the former Ms. Baumfree built a life that became an inspiration to every seeker of social justice of the last 150 years. It's hard to imagine the difficulties she faced in her life; her status as both black American and female American, not to mention former slave, informed her experience and drove her impassioned demand for equality and justice in an often ugly American century. And so Sojourner Truth, like her name, embodies a struggle that continues to inspire, that continues to matter, that we are still fighting today.