Happy International Women's Day. As is true of many struggles, the women's movement has inspired some amazing poster art. Enjoy.
Finally, not really poster art, but an amazing photograph. Hat tip to Elise Peterson.
By Rhea St. Julien “Can you hold my hand to cross the street?” I implored, my arm stretched back behind me to my two year old, Olive.
Her hands were crammed in her peacoat like a mini Bob Dylan. “Not today.” she said, not looking up.
My husband and I cracked up in laughter, at how serious of a refusal she gave me, and since street safety is important, I grabbed one of her little hands out of her pocket to skip to the other side.
We retold the story several times that day, of how adorably earnest she was about not holding hands at that time. But I felt a ping of guilt, as all the feminist texts I read about raising a strong daughter tell me not to laugh at my girl’s “no”s, but to respect them.
It’s good advice. In my life, I have had people be shocked, offended, and outright dismissive of my no. I had my share of experiences in the young days of burgeoning sexuality in which boys did not listen to my no. But in many ways, I was able to get through those body manipulations less scarred than the times my no has been rebuffed in educational, professional, and personal settings. The power of a woman’s no. What is it worth?
I know the world Olive will grow up in is not much different than the one I did. And despite the fact that people are often appalled when I say no, I keep doing it. My parents can attest to the fact that I was born with a certain strain of defiance, a gene from my father, a steely commitment to protection, of myself and my loved ones, when that is needed. I want to impart this to my daughter as well, though I think all I’ll need to do is nurture what is already within her.
“Mama, can you not sing that right now?” She looks up at me, a concerned look on her face. I was grooving, but she’s asking me, seriously and politely, to stop. I let out a chuckle, at how much it means to her that I stop singing my silly little song in that moment, but I say, “Okay.”
I’m trying to cut out the laughter, and skip right to either telling her, “I hear that you don’t want to wear your coat, but you have to, it’s cold out!” or saying “Alright, you don’t have to go upstairs yet. We can wait here until you’re ready.” It’s hard, since she’s so flipping cute, her eyes big and imploring, her unibrow knitted into an expression of concern, or determination.
Today, that meant not getting a kiss goodbye when she left for preschool. I wanted one, and asked for one, but when she said no, I decided, in honor of International Women’s Day, I wouldn’t steal one. I’d let her no be no. And off she went.
This piece is also running on Rhea's blog Thirty Threadbare Mercies today.
Dear Sibyl, As a new mom, I find myself HATING 'mom-talk.' I find it awkward listening to my friends tell me the new developmental leap their kid has taken. How do I respond if my kid has already been doing that (for months)? I hate how it makes me feel. If I disengage and reply with "That's great," I feel sad I didn't take that moment to brag about my own kid. BUT if I engage and be truthful about what my kid is doing, does that start an unintentional "let-me-one-up-you" war? I don't want to prove anything---I don't want to put that pressure on me or my little man who is just happy banging stuff around and laughing about it.
I hate mothers who are scared of germs---who won't let their kid play in a public park. I hate mothers who won't let their kid sit in dirt or GRASS (for crying out loud who cares if a dog peed there once a million years ago. . . and yes. . . I heard that come from a lady once). I hate them because they tell these things to me AS MY KID IS PLAYING IN DIRT. . . AS MY KID SITS HAPPILY IN THE SHOPPING CART WITH NO CLOTH PROTECTION. What do I say to them? (You are neurotic?)
Is there a polite way to disengage from this? I'm not into the 'mom-shop' talk. I don't mind talking about motherhood but I hate when it turns into what people’s kids are doing and when they did it and just you wait. . . and oh I would NEVER let him do that. . . you let them eat what? From the whole foods salad bar??? GERMS!!!! I especially hate when they talk to me as if I have no idea what is coming next. I find it patronizing.
For the love of all things---how do I deal with them?
Trapped in Momville
Dear Trapped,
You’ve got to take it all less personally. Let me explain, because believe me, I know what you mean---I’ve been there. And it never goes away. Parenting brings out a level of anxiety and neurosis in certain people that even that mom who is armed with antibacterial hand gel just to let their kid use the swing has never known before. That does not mean you need to get caught up in it, or identify yourself with that woman in any way.
New moms are trying to define themselves in their new role, and some women do that by getting very particular about everything child-related. These moms are unsure of how to be a parent, so they equate it with Getting It Right, and then work hard to shore up their definition of “right” by forcing you to feel their anxiety and agree with them about this worldview. You have to fight not to be sucked in to the crazy-making conversational dance about what food you introduced first to your baby and what that means about you as a person.
And that probably means you feel alienated, and lonely. Which is an uncomfortable space to be in, but a normal way to feel. What you've got to let go of is the hatred.
When I became a mother, I was shocked at the level of discourse of the mothers I encountered on the playground, at playdates, and just out in the world. The level of competitiveness was striking---moms even found ways to put down my child's early verbosity ("She's going to have quite a mouth on her when she's 13!") and would urge their kids to draw like my child was ("Hunter, draw a circle! You can do it, see hers? Just like that."), looking over at me to prove my kid was nothing special, after all. I was saddened that all they wanted to discuss was diaper changes and when to wean, while I had read three books and watched several documentaries that week that I was eager to discuss, but my attempts to shift the conversation fell on deaf ears.
From observing this pack mentality over several months, I realized a few things: I was going to find "my people", eventually, but these folks were not it. Therefore, I separated the moms I knew into two categories, "co-workers", and "friends". The co-workers were the moms I always saw on the playground but knew I was never really going to connect with, the ones obsessed with germs and growth charts. I delegated them in my mind to the annoying co-workers I once had in the professional setting---I talked to them when I needed to, stayed emotionally detached from them, and, if anything, found compassion for their exquisitely neurotic states. If they pissed me off too much to have compassion for them, I moved on to just pity their children.
The ones I found to be friends with were always slightly off. The moms who would plunk down on the park bench and say, "I almost dropped the kid off at the Fire Station last night. This latte is the only thing keeping me from doing it now." The ones who talked about their sex life, or lack there of, the ones who cracked wry jokes at their family’s expense, yet still daily inspired me with their devotion to their kids. Also, I found that I could often relate more to the nannies, who were invested but just removed enough from the children to have more of a sense of humor about all of it, and more likely to invite me out for a drink after my husband got home.
You are going to find your people. You will know, when you walk into their house and their homes are not neat as a pin with family portraits hanging everywhere and cookies baking in the oven, but rather, their home looks lived in. You will know, when they ask you how you are, and they really mean you, not how well your child slept last night. And they are going to make this wild world of parenting so much more fun.
So, the way you deal with the new moms that are driving you nuts with the comparison-based mom talk is you don't hang out with them. You take out a magazine at the park when a mom you don't know is hovering over their kid and yours, and smiling crazily at you like, "Aren't you going to follow your kid around?!"
You decline the playdates to the houses where the moms have disinfected the bottoms of all their shoes, even though they never wear shoes indoors. You do this even if that means you are lonely sometimes, and just end up hanging out with your own kid. This will force you to go find the parents you can actually relate to.
You go find your people, and you try, really hard, not to talk shit about those other moms. They are fighting a terrible battle that they will never win, the battle to protect their kid from struggle, and from life. Leave them to it. Be your own kind of mother. Go play.
Love,
Sibyl
Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.
Julie Klam grew up in Bedford, NY. She has written for such publications as “O, The Oprah Magazine,” “Rolling Stone,” “Harper’s Bazaar,” “Cookie,” “Allure,” “Glamour,” “Family Circle,” and “The New York Times Magazine,” “Redbook.” A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Julie worked from 1999 – 2002 as writer for VH1’s Pop-Up Video, where she earned an Emmy nomination for Special Class Writing. She was also a Senior Writer on VH1’s Name That Video. She is the author of Please Excuse My Daughter, the New York Times Bestseller You Had Me At Woof: How Dogs Taught Me The Secrets of Happiness, Love At First Bark: Dogs and the People They Saved, and Friendkeeping: The Field Guide to the People You Love, Hate, and Can’t Live Without (all Riverhead Books). Along with Ann Leary and Laura Zigman, she is a co-host of the weekly NPR radio show Hash Hags. She lives in Manhattan.
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In college I used to read Vanity Fair’s Night Table reading column. Notable people, actors and actresses would tell readers the book that was on their nightstand. It was never Jackie Collins or Us Magazine, it was Proust or Wittgenstein or David Foster Wallace, something that told the world, I am smart, dammit! It drove me a wee bit crazy to think that anyone would believe that, that a Vanity Fair reader would run out and buy the complete works of James Salter because they thought Julia Roberts had done that. I always vowed if anyone ever asked me for a recommendation I’d be honest and tell them what I’m really reading: War and Peace in the original Russian. And the Old Testament from original tablets. KIDDING, I’m kidding of course! I used to read somewhat complicated “smart” books, but once I had a kid and got a smart phone I found my attention span dwindling to not-quite-fruit-fly. In the past year, because of a confluence of very difficult personal situations, I’ve only been able to read the most accessible of books. I’ve come to see my situation as something of a “reader’s block” and the challenge for me has been to find books that hold my interest when I’d really rather be playing online solitaire. These books were all published in the last year and all books that broke through my mental state.
Dearest Clara,
I mentioned last week that one of my regrets, if you can call it that, is that we discovered Mexico so late in life, despite it being so close. And a big reason for that was our trip to Tulum last year. In fact, we enjoyed it so much that we made a point of going back again this year when we attended a wedding, even though it wasn't exactly on the way. This little town, which no doubt has changed over the years, for us ended up being such a perfect hamlet, where the biggest decision of the day is whether you should have dinner on the beach side or the jungle side.
Here's what I've taken away from our two visits to this little unexpected paradise:
All my love,
Mom
A few Saturdays ago, I was sorting through a box of greeting cards when I came across a Bon Voyage note given to me by my two best friends a few days before I hopped a jet plane for Bangladesh. Inside, beside the typed hallmark message, was a hand written note and two signatures. ‘I hope you find your dragons’ it said. In the back of my head I had only an inkling of remembrance. Dragons. Why were we talking about dragons? I searched the encyclopedia of my life, otherwise known as my gmail inbox, and found what I was looking for. A list of quotes I considered adding to our new address/just-moved-to-the-other-side-of-the-globe card. On the list, among the profound and the spiritual was this quote:
“Always remember, it’s simply not an adventure worth telling if there aren’t any dragons.” Sarah Ban Breathnach.
So of course the question I’ve been asking myself is this: Did I find my dragons? While I did have a couple of close encounters with lizards, I don’t think that’s what my past self meant when she said she was looking for dragons. A dragon is a story to tell, something confronted, overcome, or experienced for the first time. It’s a quest of self discovery. It might seem scary or insurmountable if you look at it from afar, but once you’re there, it’s a grand adventure.
I’m proud to say I found many dragons during my year in Bangladesh, and each taught me a lesson. All the good dragons do. I came back more confident in myself; more sure of who I am as a person, more aware of my flaws and my strengths. I am more unapologetically me than I have been at any other point in my life. And that feels awesome.
Maybe it was the quiet or the new environment. Maybe it was the writing. I can’t identify the how or the why, which is a little bothersome. I would like to be able to map the changes, to see the shift on paper. Where did it occur, when did it start, what was the trigger? The daughter of a scientist, I like things to fit into boxes and graphs. I want to look back and point to a moment so I can say, ‘See that day, that’s when it began to change.’ Everything would feel more real if I could break it down into cause and effect.
But I can’t. I know how I was before Bangladesh. I know how I was in Bangladesh. And I know how I am now, after Bangladesh, but how one affected the next I have no hypothesis.
All I know is that I most certainly found Dragons.
By Magdalena MacinskaIllustration by Akiko Kato
The kitchen is home to an introvert like me. Perhaps because of the nature of cooking---as much as it can be a solitary, contemplative act---it connects me to the people I am cooking for. I feel excitement and anticipation as I wonder if my family will enjoy this new recipe and the relief that my cake will provide a safe and pleasant conversation topic at a party.
No words are needed in the kitchen. The bubbling sound of the water boiling, the rhythmic chopping of vegetables tells me that I am in a process that has a purpose and yet is beautiful in itself. If I want to, I can play in my mind the images of the dish I am making, or I can simply meditate on the texture of the slippery dough and breathe in the scents of herbs.
We used to have a big kitchen where, during the holiday season, the whole family would gather to prepare food for the festivities. Everyone was working on their own dish, at their own paces. I never felt as cozy and relaxed with my family as in those moments. I would listen to the happy hustle and bustle and feel part of something big.
Things changed after I lost my mother. I have a much smaller kitchen now. Even though I could still cook together with my siblings, I usually do it alone, and not just because of the size of the kitchen. Cooking has become about being in control, about coping with the fact that the person that used to whisper recipes in my ear is no longer there and I have to find my place in this new constellation. Sometimes it even turns into a quiet competition---the way introverts compete, with actions not words. I remember how one Christmas my ambition drove me to come up with a roasted goose for dinner, which meant figuring how the damn bird would defrost when it didn’t fit into the sink and how to sew the wings to the body before putting it into the oven, as the recipe said.
The kitchen is also the place where I learn to match expectations with reality. I might spend hours rummaging in the refrigerator or looking through cookbooks for a perfect recipe, but once the pot is on, once the doors of the oven close, I am with what there is here and now. Proportions will go crazy, tastes will get confused and dough won’t grow. In the end, the food becomes what I manage to make of it that day, not what the name says.
And then there are those moments when I open the cupboard and the comforting scents of tea and coffee lure me into the world of small pleasures. It is time to sit down, to stare outside the window and just be. Or better yet, call someone to have a cuppa with me, an introvert’s way of saying that she needs to give and feel some human warmth. . .
The first reason I wanted to write about Semiramis was because of her cool name, and the second was because I hadn’t written about an ancient historical woman since my first post on Hatshepsut. Lack of sources and all that.
But after just a cursory scan of her Wikipedia page, my interest was very much piqued, more because of what wasn’t there than what was. It’s true that with ancient figures, as opposed to modern ones, the lack of sources can be crippling. Photographs and phonographic recordings are certainly easier to interpret than crumbling papyrus scrolls. But even as far as ancients go, Semiramis’s life is a complete mystery. And yet, this hasn’t prevented a whole bunch of people—mostly men—from liberally inventing her life story in a whole bunch of ways.
The real Semiramis was probably actually an Assyrian queen named Shammuramat who, following her husband Shamshi-Adad V’s death, ruled as regent for her young son from 810 to 806 BCE. Her actual looks, personality, and accomplishments are shrouded in that aforementioned mystery—though, at the very least, we know she spent a few years in charge of the Neo-Assyrian Empire at its powerful height, with a rule spanning from Asia Minor to western Iran. The neighboring Greeks, Iranians, and Indians probably fueled the Semiramis legend due to their contact with the Assyrian empire during her reign. Average Greek/Iranian/Indian guy: “Those Assyrians are badass and they’re ruled by a woman? Man, she must be super hardcore, bro.” (It’s my theory that bros are not a new phenomenon.)
Beyond that, Shammuramat/Semiramis’s life gets murky. But like I said, a whole bunch of people over the centuries—mostly men—can tell you plenty about her. Here’s a brief rundown of the, shall we say, creative Semiramis interpretations:
Ancient Greeks and Persians believed her to be the legendary queen of king Ninus of Babylon, who oversaw the building of the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, who lived in the first century BCE, devoted a lot of ink (or stone chisels, or whatever) to Semiramis in his The Library of History. According to Diodorus, she was the daughter of a fish goddess (!) that was raised by doves (!!) and then married to the Babylonian king Ninus. When Ninus died, she pretended to be her son for forty-two years (kind of a more soap-opera version of serving as regent), and during that time commanded armies, conquered Libya and Ethiopia, built palaces, and waged an unsuccessful campaign in India which included an army of mechanical elephants (!!!). However, Dio S. refuted the popular claim that she built the Hanging Gardens, noting that these were built after her time by Nebuchadnezzar (owner of one of the best names any king has had, period).
Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman historian, claimed Semiramis invented eunuchs— yes—initiating the practice of castrating male youth. Others also said she invented the chastity belt. (I hear those words, my mind still goes to Maid Marian’s steel padlocked underwear in Robin Hood: Men in Tights.)
Armenian tradition depicted her as a harlot—in a traditional story, she killed the Armenian king Ara the Beautiful after he refused her hand in marriage.
Dante put her in the Second Circle of Hell, along with Helen of Troy, in his Inferno. Probably another one of those “harlot” things.
Alexander Hislop, the 19th-century Protestant minister, wrote about her in his The Two Babylons (1853) and placed her in biblical tradition. According to Alex H., she was the consort of Nimrod, builder of the Tower of Babel, and she deified herself as the Sumerian goddess Ishtar, mother of Gilgamesh. Later Catholic tradition was based on Semiramis’s Ishtar legend—including the Virgin Mary—which, essentially, allowed Hislop to equate Catholicism with paganism. (Which leads me to question, where does that leave Protestantism? But I haven’t read this masterpiece of theological inquiry, so I won’t judge, beyond the fact that I just sarcastically called it a masterpiece of theological inquiry.)
On top of all this, Semiramis has been the subject of silent and talkie films (Queen of Babylon, 1954; I am Semiramis, 1963), operas (Rossini’s Semaride; Meyerbeer’s Semaride), plays (Voltaire’s Semiramis, a brief mention in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus), and 18th-century paintings (both paintings shown here; Jean-Simon Berthélemy’s Semiramis Inspecting a Plan of Babylon), among other things. Now all that’s missing in terms of namesakes is a feminist pop culture website (a la Jezebel).
Like Jezebel, Mary Magdalene, Cleopatra, and a host of other ancient women, Semiramis has become synonymous with female licentiousness and sexual immorality, a symbol of woman’s role as earthly temptation. But she has also been attributed qualities of leadership, daring, ambition, courage, and empire-building. She’s even been called a fish goddess’s daughter---which sounds like the name of an Amy Tan novel.
So the stories are obviously all a little different. But for me, the striking common thread is, again, the way that Semiramis serves as an empty vessel, whether that’s for themes of sexual immorality, leadership, divinity, or what have you. Basically, she served whatever purpose the dude---storyteller, scroll-writer, Enlightenment playwright, or silent film director---had in mind, informed by the cultural context of the times through which her legacy was passed down. And these contexts tended to be supremely male-centric, Bible-obsessed, and probably Orientalist.
In this, then, Semiramis's story is not so different from the story of women today. Sure, we’ve come a long way. Yet women often continue to serve as symbols of societal morality, to be talked about with or without women’s participation. There are public debates about how women should dress, how women should behave sexually, how women should balance work and home life. There are political debates about rape, birth control, abortion. There are humanitarian debates about women in other countries---most recently, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s Half the Sky made a splash---and how their dress, rights, cultural roles represent the relative freedom and, perhaps, morality of their societies. (And maybe whether or not we should invade them.)
So as awesome as all the stories about Semiramis are, as an ancient woman of historical legend, I think the most interesting thing about her is that she has secrets. That, maybe, I can relate to.
I like things with lots of layers: neatly made beds topped with piles of sheets and blankets, chocolate mousse cakes, birthday presents wrapped in tissue paper first and wrapping paper second. It’s partially the discovery of peeling each layer back and seeing what’s underneath, and partially the recognizing that it’s parts that make up a whole. Where the city is concerned, the layers are practically endless. Scratch long enough anywhere and you’ll uncover another layer beneath you, traces of some other life, reminders of a backdrop to someone else’s story here.
The spots on subway platforms where the paint’s chipped away are some of my favorite city layers. I look for them on the brightly-colored “I” beams when I’m waiting for trains and when I find them there’s often three, four, even five different layers of brightly colored paint exposed underneath. Ten years ago, those green iron beams were orange, before that they were yellow. It’s not exactly like finding out the age of a fallen tree, but its close enough. Evidence of other moments.
When I was about ten, my grandfather told me that he had signed his name in the crown of the Statue of Liberty. When he was my age, he said, he had scrambled to the top of the statue, lined up his nose with the nose of Lady Liberty and marked his name, or maybe it was his initials, just to the right of it.
When I went a few months later to see if I could see his handiwork for myself, I was dismayed to discover that my grandfather was not the sole person brave enough to scratch his name in the crown of the Statue of Liberty. Not in 1921, or any other year. The inside of that crown was covered with names and initials and odes to this fair city. I would never find my grandfather’s pen strokes in the mess of it all. But despite my initial shock at not being able to make out his name where he said he left it, I didn’t leave feeling disappointed. Underneath all of those layers of pen and scratched up paint, his name was there somewhere. He’d lined up his nose with hers, just like I did. He'd stood just where I did.
Comfort in layers.
"Bad news,” wrote my friend Natalie, in a g-chat a couple of weeks ago. “Mercury isn’t even in retrograde yet.” We’d had a conversation the day before about the challenges, the kinks and quirks, the general weirdness of the year thus far. We’d speculated that there must be some sort of cosmic explanation for all of it.
Apparently, we were wrong. “What does this mean for us?” I asked.
“Shit hits the fan February 23rd,” she replied.
“Maybe I’ll hibernate,” I wrote back.
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Two nights later, I met a new friend for drinks at a bar in my neighborhood.
We talked about traveling. Boys. The year ahead. I told her that 2012 had been the hardest year of my life, and that I suspected 2013 wasn’t going to be much easier.
Slowly, over the course of the next couple hours, other friends trickled in, pulled up chairs, joined the conversation.
Lily told us about her new job, selling shoes to Brooklyn toddlers. “Today, a child peed in the teepee at the shop,” she said. “And I haven’t sold a single shoe.”
Jamie recounted a conversation she’d had earlier that night with an ex-boyfriend. “I just don’t love him anymore,” she told us.
“I can’t stop crying,” said Megan.
In the back of the bar, a man played guitar and sang raucous renditions of what sounded like sea shanties. “What is this, a pirate ship?” someone said, nose wrinkled. The crowd at the table next to us stomped their feet, jumped up and down, clapped their hands to the beat. A chair fell backward, hitting the ground with a thud.
“Let’s start over,” someone suggested. “Let’s make tonight New Years Eve."
So at midnight (actually, for honesty’s sake, it was 12:06), we toasted the New Year. It was February 24th.
“Here’s to a wonderful year,” I shouted.
I thought of something my dad had written once: Life is worth celebrating, Every day probably, but every other day definitely.
Yes, definitely.
We clinked glasses. The pirate sang. Around us, everybody danced.
I saw the movie Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain just before my first ever trip to France when I was 16 years old. Amélie, the gamine of all gamines, is a kind of whimsical fairy, changing for the better the lives of her unsuspecting neighbors in her hilltop Parisian neighborhood. She works as a waitress at a café called Les Deux Moulins, and I am intent on finding it as my family wanders the streets of Montmartre during our weeklong stay in Paris.
Onscreen, Les Deux Moulins looks like a riot of color and polished steel countertops. The reality of the café, like most things in France, doesn’t measure up to my imagination — the place is old and shabby and smells like stale tobacco and sour drinks. Excepting the faded Amélie poster on the wall behind the bar, you never would have known the movie was filmed here. We have one drink to cool off from the hot July air and leave quickly.
Years after that first trip, I’ve decided to give the café a second chance and am once again seeking out Les Deux Moulins, this time by myself. On this early spring morning the neighborhood is mostly empty, only a few people wandering the small alleys before any of the cafés have opened. As I study my map, hoping to recognize street names, a group of men amble by, reeking of booze and probably still drunk from the night before. Even as I avoid their stares and try my hardest to fade into the wall behind me, I can tell they’re intent on getting my attention.
Why do you look so serious? barks their unshaven ringleader to me in French. You didn’t get laid last night?
The group guffaws with laughter. I turn wordlessly and walk quickly away, stuffing the map into my bag without folding it and ignoring their calls after me. When I calm down enough I sit on a bench and take the map out again, only to find a deep crease in the eighteenth arrondissement.
Our place is unfinished in a lot of ways. There’s the bed, for one thing, which, while perfectly cozy, is mostly just a mattress on a bare frame. Headboard, footboard, dust ruffle, duvet—who knew a bed would require so many different components in order to look like a real bed? The “decor” is simply a miscellaneous collection of our most essential and favorite possessions. The only common thread among the artwork on our walls is that most of it belonged to someone else before us.
Still, it hit me the other day that it really feels like home. Before we moved here last summer and made our little nest, I couldn’t have pinned down much about what “home” means, exactly, but I was certain it was possible and that we’d figure out a definition for ourselves, together.
I can’t say I ever really felt at home in the tiny house in the tiny town where I grew up. I used to think it was about finding something bigger one day—a bigger house or a bigger city or that feeling of being a part of “something big.”
In college, I felt like I was getting warmer. I felt more at home living with an endless selection of books at my disposal and among the kind and curious friends I grew to love so much. There’s something about an extra-long twin bed, though, that screams “temporary,” and even the greatest cafeteria on earth would be a far cry from a simple home kitchen.
As a desperate graduate student, I filled up pinboards with dreamy photos of whitewashed interiors, perfectly rumpled sheets, and artfully arranged craspedia. I felt buried beneath an impossible workload, and I directed a significant proportion of my frustration toward my hand-me-down Ikea furniture, drafty windows, and the beat-up wood floor I rarely swept. My space looked exactly the way I felt—wrecked.
You could learn a lot about us by poking around this little apartment we now call home. Considering the onion peels on the counter and the selection of knives in various states of sharpness, you could tell that we cook here, often. From the worn tabletop, you could tell that we eat here, and from the number of placemats, you could figure we are two.
From the state of the carpet, you could assume that a furry black pup lives here, but she’d make up for that by greeting you at the door and inviting you to rub her belly. You could tell, from the percentage of square footage devoted to bookshelves, that we like books, and from the condition of those books, that we read them too.
I am learning that home has a little bit to do with the things you put in your space and the things you keep out. But I think it has a lot more to do with intention. We care for each other in this space, and by extension, we care for our space too. We live here on purpose, and we are very protective of the cozy factor. This is why we once turned down a very lovely television but could never have too many teapots.
Dear Sibyl, I am writing because I feel afraid. I got married in August to a man I adore and feel such a comfort with, but we are so different in every way (not the least of which being that I am a minister/chaplain and he is not a person of faith, and our cultural differences). We have had conflicts over the last four years that I would call "normal" for most couples but this weekend was one of those conflicts that left me wracked with doubts.
Doubts like "with this divorce rate what am I thinking?? Are we going to make it?? Is this rocky adjustment period a horrible sign or is it just the reality of marriage?"
He is a genuinely good man. My family loves him. I can be myself around him---except on nights like this when I am super defensive and analytical and miss my parents like a two year old does and cry nonstop. Then we have to go to separate corners.
Anyway, I thought that better than blogging about this would be writing to someone who seems to find the beauty and depth precisely in the imperfections of life and relationships. So I am wondering if you are someone who has somehow made all this work, against all odds.
I hope against hope that we can too.
Sincerely,
Newlywedded but Doubting Bride
Dear Newlywedded,
It's beautiful that you are allowing doubt into your relationship. Doubt is the creature that lurks at the door, and you fear it, imagining a dragon, when really you should let it in and set a place for it at the table. Once it's been well fed and seen in the light, you'll see its scales will fall off and transform into something more human.
My husband and I have been married for nearly a decade. We have had our share of bitter heartbreaking periods in that ten year span, but are now in a place that is so good, that we often joke that we should produce some "It Gets Better" videos for young couples who are starting out and wondering why on earth they should stick with something so tragically difficult. The fact that it is hard is the very reason it turns out to be so rewarding, as time goes on.
Everything gets better if you stick with it: the sex, the communication, the spiritual connection. Just this past weekend we lay in each other's arms, totally naked, wrapped around each other like ribbons on a May Pole. Our time together was brief---soon we'd have to hit the grocery store to get food for dinner, pick up our child from the babysitter, and be back to the grind of life. But that moment felt infinite, as we bared our hearts and bodies to each other.
So, what advice would I give to a newlywed, especially one with some big differences to overcome?
1. Let each other grow and change, even if it looks like you are growing in different ways. Lets go back to the ivy branch image from last week, as a metaphor for a relationship. As you grow, you branch out in different directions, but you also twine together in places, always coming back to the same root and source, which is your love for one another. Don't be afraid of his interests that are different from yours---encourage them. Give him time and space to explore those very things that you don't enjoy---but also take an interest in them, at the very least asking him to explain to you why they are so meaningful to him.
2. Learn to fight. One of the first lessons my husband taught me, when we were first dating, was that I couldn't curse at him and lose my mind in our arguments. It took some practice, but rather than saying, "Aw, forget it, I just won't talk about this stuff with you", I worked on it, and we found a way to talk about the hard stuff with respect. The biggest mistake I see couples make is avoiding difficult topics. I have seen that ruin marriages more than anything else. Marriage is all about getting in to those sticky places in life that you were hoping to just skate by, together. Try to have a sense of humor in the midst of it---my husband and I have found that being able to make each other laugh is the best way to defuse an argument and get to the bottom of what's really bothering us, without our defenses up.
3. Keep having sex. Just keep doing it. Sex is a huge bonding agent. Have you ever noticed that if your communication is just off, and you are snapping at each other more often, that just getting laid really helps? Yeah, that's because when you meet each other nakedly in the bedroom, you can see each other in kinder light. My husband and I have had major dry spells with sex, but in those times, we have never been okay with it. It's never been "Oh well, I guess I'm not such a sexual person". Sex is the glue of the relationship. So, even when it was infrequent, we were talking about it all the time, trying different things to get it going again. You have an entire lifetime to figure out each other's bodies, so enjoy.
4. Ask for help when needed. The early years of marriage are like resistance training workouts---you build the muscles of finding a way to heal what seems totally broken, again and again. You live in hope. And when things seem just too foggy for either of you to see the way through, you get help. I know a couple that goes to a therapist when they feel they need a "tune-up" or have a conflict they can't settle on their own, OR every five years, whatever comes first. I love this perspective, because it takes the stigma off of the desire to have someone help you with your issues, and creates space for you to allow things to arise between you that are unexpected. And please don't tell me you can't afford it. If you invest in making your home nice to live in, your car run well, or your body to feel good, you can spend money on your relationship.
It sounds like you have a good partner at your side, one willing to do the difficult work and share in the spoils of love and creating a life together. Hold on to one another, for when the really hard times come, you’ll remember that you sailed through stormy waters in the beginning, and came out afloat, doubts and all.
Love,
Sibyl
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Petya Grady writes about books, art and style at The Migrant Bookclub. The Eastern Europe of her childhood is a frequent point of departure as she explores issues of place, identity, memory and (un)-belonging. She currently lives in Memphis, TN with her husband. I am on a Jackie O kick recently. This comes as a surprise to me so, naturally, I want to talk about it. I grew up in Bulgaria and moved to the States for college in '99. I went to a small private school in rural Tennessee and even though I majored in Political Science, there was not a single thing in my life that ever signaled to me that I should be curious about the former First Lady. Heck, I didn't even care much for her style. Where I come from, a black turtle neck is considered the epitome of chic and although I don't think Jacqueline would have hated that, I did not think we would have much to talk about if we were to ever meet. Until.
About two years ago, I noticed that the New York Times was reviewing not one but two biographies of Jacqueline that focused on her years as a book editor. It came as quite of a surprise to my bookish self. Not only had I never even heard that Ms. O had ever held a job in her life but now I was faced with the very rare experience of having to choose between two books on that very same subject, coming out at the exact same time. What were the chances?!
I picked up William Kuhn's "Reading Jackie" because I liked the cover better. (Please tell me you do that too!!!) Kuhn is straight-forward about the fact that he never had any personal contact with Jackie and that he had very limited access to any of her personal artifacts and/or memorabilia. Jacqueline after all is notorious of her privacy. However, he makes the argument that when one looks at the books she worked on as an editor, first at Viking and then at Doubleday, one can learn quite a bit about her taste, her interests, and her personality. It's the autobiography she never wrote, he says! Reviewers have questioned the rigor of Mr. Kuhn's research and described his work as quite speculative, BUT, the book did leave me with this great feeling of wonder and surprise about its famous subject---a woman touched by so much sadness and tragedy and yet unchanged in her appreciation for beauty, literature and art. What books did she edit, you are probably wondering? William Kuhn's has shared the complete list on his website but here are some highlights: The Firebird and Other Russian Fairy Tales by Boris Zvorykin, My Book of Flowers by Princess Grace of Monaco, Secrets of Marie Antoinette by Olivier Bernier, Blood Memory by Martha Graham (Graham's autobiography). The range in format and subject matter is astounding and Jacqueline comes across as a woman of infinite curiosity and professional drive---so different from her rather vapid public image as a stylish {but somewhat ostentatious} woman.
I've read parts of the book many times since and gifted it more times than I care to remember. I obsessed over it so much that it wasn't actually until I started writing this piece, that I recalled I never went back and picked up the second book that came around that same time---Greg Lawrence's "Jackie as Editor." I've been re-reading some of its reviews and realizing that it may actually be the stronger book of the two. It documents Jackie from the perspective of her co-workers and HER BOSS and is based on Lawrence's meticulous study of her in-line edits, letters and notes she sent to numerous writers, artists, photographers. It sounds so delicious (if a little gossipy) that I am fairly certain I will go ahead and order it as soon as I am done telling you about it.
The book that got me back on this track, however, is Alice Kaplan's recent "Dreaming in French: The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis". Kaplan draws a surprising group portrait of three of America's most memorable women and sets it in the beautiful, romantic, daunting, lush, and sometimes seedy city of Paris where all three spent significant amounts of time in their most formative years. Each part of the book is wonderful for so many reasons but Jacqueline, again, charmed me most completely for her earnest pursuit of PARIS and herself. Of her time there, she would write later in her essay for a Vogue student writing contest, "I learned not to be ashamed of a real hunger for knowledge, something I had always tried to hide." Which, of course, broke my heart a little bit but also made me so happy for her because I knew that after college, after Camelot, and after always being defined as some important man's beautiful significant other, she would grow old in a way that completely nurtured her constant hunger for knowledge without even trying to pretend it was necessary to hide it.
In the PBS Documentary that premiered this week called, Makers: Women Who Make America (about the history of feminism in this country), Marissa Mayer, President and CEO of Yahoo! and the 14th most powerful business woman in the world (according to Forbes) said that she does not consider herself a feminist. In her brief interview, she went on to associate feminism with a “militant drive,” a “chip on the shoulder,” and with a perception of negativity. You can watch exactly what she said here: Her comments came to my attention because my husband’s Twitter feed was all aflutter (also, aTwitter) with varied responses to her statements. I had intended to see the documentary the night before, but ultimately decided to save it for the weekend, so I hadn’t seen the clip. He asked me if I had heard what she said and wasn’t I outraged? My initial response was tepid — after all, I have heard women (and men) talking about feminism this way my whole life. I totally understood and in some way related to her desire to dissociate herself from the more “outlandish” or “angry” version of feminism, so dismissed by the mainstream. After all, this version of feminism is threatening and flips the script on men in traditional positions of power. The more we discussed it, the more I wondered if it was that Ms. Mayer had been so privileged in her career and social trajectory that she had truly never experienced barriers or that she had so internalized the narrative that women should “go along to get along” that she sincerely couldn’t empathize with “radicals.”
Marissa Mayer, you stand on the shoulders of the women throughout our history who acted out in a way that you might consider ugly. By all accounts, you earned the daylights out of the position in which you find yourself today. You are eminently qualified for your job in terms of your education and experience. You have a reputation for being an unapologetic workaholic. And yet, you don’t seem to realize that the reason you had access to your education, any of the jobs you have held or the resources and social sanctions to work as hard as you have is because of feminism … the bra-burning kind. Or, even worse, you are so disconnected from that struggle and have no sense of why women have been forced to be so reactive, that you don’t want to affiliate with that identity.
I want to say here quite clearly that I obviously don’t know Marissa Mayer at all. I don’t have true insight into what she was thinking when she said those words (that I now can’t stop watching on YouTube). I also haven’t seen the entire context of the interview, which might soften the seemingly cut-and-dried indictment of her sisters in arms. I do know that when you have achieved that kind of status (breezily climbing the ladder, she seems to believe), the public has a tendency to hang on your every word, particularly in the context of being interviewed about your extraordinary accomplishments in a documentary about FEMINISM.
This also comes on the heels of her establishing a company-wide ban on working from home. Flexible scheduling and telecommuting have been cornerstone achievements in establishing equality in the workplace. Introducing the idea that the work environments could and should be more flexible has boosted the careers of both women AND men in recent decades and allowed both parties to be more available for childcare, among other things. Many studies, including this 2009 study by major corporate employer Cisco found that people are actually more productive and satisfied with their jobs when they have this flexibility. This is particularly salient for women, for whom the traditional work structure is still punitive when they have children and prevents them from keeping pace with their male counterparts in terms of advancement.
And what about Marissa Mayer and her own, personal, work-life balance? She made history when she was hired by Yahoo! as the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company ever and immediately announced that she was also five months pregnant. Working mothers everywhere glommed on to her story, waiting with bated breath to see how this would all play out. She ended up working from home during the end of her pregnancy, took only two weeks of maternity leave and had a special nursery built next to her office at Yahoo! so she could be close to her newborn after her lightning fast return to work. I don’t have to tell you what a poor model this is for working women and how nobody else on planet earth has the money or power to build a nursery next to their office and bring their infant to work. Maybe Oprah or Martha. Maybe.
I write this on a day when Congress has finally voted to re-authorize the Violence Against Women Act. Shockingly, despite the description of what the act aims to prevent being right in the title, this wasn’t remotely a done deal. In fact, it was kind of a squeaker. 138 Members of Congress (Republicans, all) ultimately voted against it. It sort of makes me wonder where we might rustle up a bunch of feminists to demonstrate the appropriate level of fury?
I hope that as Marissa Mayer evolves in her career, she might reconsider her notion of feminism as negative. It is, rather simply, the entire reason she has a career. I get that she pictures feminists only as wearing combat boots and reading poetry about their vaginas. But, she is in a position of vast power and has great wealth and we could use her in the trenches. We could use another woman who fits all the classical norms of beauty and prominence to publicly recognize that there is still so much work to be done.
Over the weekend one of my dear friends gave birth to her first child. She and I grew up together and were nearly inseparable throughout grade school and junior high. Neither of us is at all biased, so believe me when I tell you her baby boy is pretty freaking perfect. I’ve had acquaintances from college start families, but she is the first friend to become a mom. So it’s understandable that I may have gone a wee bit overboard when it came to buying gifts for the new baby, including six pairs of shoes. But it was so much fun, and so exciting to think of that little dude rocking a pair of superman sneakers that I just couldn’t help myself. Now he’s here, and although I haven’t met him in person yet (his mom has been gracious enough to frequently text me pictures), that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about him, his parents, and all the great things life holds for him. As you may remember, I’m a fan of wishes, so here then are my wishes for little baby ACE.
I wish for you grand adventures. Whether it’s travelling the world or getting accidentally locked in a closet (ask your mom or your Uncle Jason about that), adventures make the best stories. Decades later the memory of a great adventure will still be worth telling, and re-telling. And adventures always teach you something, it might be a philosophical truth, or an as yet-undiscovered aspect of your personality, or it might be something less deep, like the fact that some closet doors lock from the inside. Regardless, have adventures, have lots of them, and tell me stories.
I wish for you a sense of humor. Both of your parents are hilarious, so I don’t think there’s any danger that you won’t have a great sense of humor. Your dad is laugh-out-loud funny and your mom has the patience to wait 45 minutes for the perfect moment of comedic timing. I hope you laugh together as a family, I hope you laugh with your friends, I hope you laugh at yourself. Just never at someone else’s expense. Be kind in your humor and laugh often.
I wish for you a questioning mind. The world is full of people who want to tell you what to think and believe; people who know with all certainty that they are right and others are wrong. The truth is things are more complex than these people would often have you believe. There are shades of grey and degrees of truth, and what is true for one person may not be true for another. I hope you learn to take it all in and think for yourself. Beware of anyone who claims to know everything. Except your parents. They really do know it all.
I wish for you best friends. I wrote a couple weeks ago that there is nothing in the world quite like a best friend. They’re simply amazing. Best friends will have your back in the hard times and be there to laugh and share adventures in the good times. They (along with your family, and if you’re lucky their family) will be your rock. I was lucky enough to have your mom as a best friend, after meeting her in first grade and immediately engaging in a philosophical discussion about Crayola colors. As we grew, our families became friends, and all five of us kids played together all the time. Your mom and I went to school together for eight years before attending different high schools and then living in different states. But we stayed friends; we were bridesmaids at each-other’s weddings and when she called to tell me she was pregnant with you, I couldn’t possibly have been happier (unless of course she had told me at the beginning of the conversation). Never underestimate the power of a best friend and don’t take them for granted. You’ve already got a best friend ready made in your pal Liam, I’m sure you two will have lots of fun playing together and causing mayhem. Be kind to one another and try not to give your parents too much grief.
I wish for you a fantastic imagination. I hope you create games and characters. I hope you run through the back yard with your friends, screaming about invisible lions hiding behind trees or dragons in the sky. I hope you read books and fall into the world’s they create (this one’s a little selfish, as I can’t wait to give you books), I hope you color (I’ll send you some crayons too!) and draw and dream vividly. An imagination is the key to so much in life, it can serve you later on as an adult in ways you wouldn’t expect, but for now, I just wish for you to have play and have fun.
Finally, I wish for you kindness. I hope the world is kind to you and I especially hope you are kind to the people you meet. The simple act of showing kindness to a stranger or classmate has far reaching consequences, not the least of which is it’s good for your soul. Don’t be mean. I know it’s easy to do, especially once you get older and into school. But kindness shows strength and character. Think of other’s and be kind. And while we’re on the subject, be nice to your parents. They’re crazy in love with you. Even when you’re a teenager and you could swear that they’re out to get you or just being mean, remember how much they love you and be kind.
Grow big and strong baby ACE. I can’t wait to meet you in person
Hugs, Renee
Dearest Clara,
Traveling to Mexico has been one of my most wonderful discoveries since returning back to the US. After going for the first time last year, I can’t believe that it’s taken me so long into my adult life to discover the richness of this country that’s but a couple of hours flight away.
This year, we went beyond just the beach and the coast to head into the interior jungle and stayed at a Hacienda as a home base, while we explored throughout. Initially, I had been worried that maybe it wouldn’t be as exciting as the beach, but so quickly, we realized we could have easily stretched out our days into weeks. The peace of the overall experience is something I will always remember, and the grounds had just enough touch of the mystical that explains so much literature from this part of the world.
In just a few days, I also learned at the Hacienda:
All my love,
Mom
I am excited to present to you the trailer for Jen Larsen's forthcoming memoir, Stranger Here: How Weight-Loss Surgery Transformed My Body and Messed With My Head. Written and narrated by Jen Larsen, music composed and performed by Jared Holdaway, animated and directed by me.
Bloopers reel:
Behind the scenes:
Read more about the book here: jenlarsen.net Read about how the montage in this video came to be here.
The title of this post most definitely does not reflect my personal relationship with my own body, oh no of course not, though (as we will discuss) I wish it did. It’s a line from a Regina Spektor song (“Folding Chair,” from 2009’s Far) that rolls through my head sometimes, which I absolutely love:
“I’ve got a perfect body / But sometimes I forget / I’ve got a perfect body / ‘Cause my eyelashes catch my sweat”
I love how this little sentiment subverts our expectation as to how one’s body should be judged. What is the “perfect body” anyway? Who is it for? Yourself, or everyone else?
Last week I visited the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, a dark and morbidly fascinating collection of medical specimens and wax models of human oddities housed in a physicians’ college. Most of the specimens date back to the early twentieth century and have that curio cabinet look about them, though they were ostensibly used for legitimate research purposes.
A lot of it was interesting—all of it left me feeling a little queasy. The models and specimens were, for the most part, divorced from the experience of the human who was afflicted, and were presented as isolated parts (syphilitic skulls, tumored eyes). Cold, scientific. But one exhibit I found to be sympathetic and particularly heartbreaking.
This exhibit showed a series of photographs of a boy who lived in the middle of the twentieth century. In the first photograph, he is a beaming 5-year-old boy who has just recovered from a fractured leg bone and is standing tall in his little 1940s shorts. In the next photograph, he is about 7, and we can see that something is wrong with his leg—it’s growing a bit crooked, skinny, weak. The photographs continue over the years, and soon we see that the malformation of his leg has also affected his posture. He can only stand with his head stooped forward, one shoulder collapsed, as he shoots up over six feet with one healthy leg and one long, crooked, bone-thin leg. In each of these later photographs he stares straight at the camera, stoic, defeated, with an air of despair. He died when he was about 40.
This was someone who would not be able to walk through a crowd without attracting strange looks, revulsion and/or pity. This was, I suppose, an imperfect body, one that had trouble functioning, one whose skeleton (or a facsimile thereof) was placed on display in a goddamn curio cabinet. Because of one long, pronounced flaw.
On the other end of the spectrum is the story of the Ukrainian Barbie “trend” that’s been circulating on the Internet—girls who are quite literally striving for physical perfection. Through plastic surgery and hardcore makeup regimens, women like Anastasiya Shpagina and Valeriya Lukyanova attempt to achieve the exaggerated proportions and pert, doll-like features of Barbie dolls and anime characters. It’s alarming and simply cannot be healthy, physically, mentally, or emotionally—yet this is their choice. This, according to their interviews, is what makes them happy and comfortable. Including possibly having ribs surgically removed to get that perfect tiny waist.
What is perfection? I think it’s worth asking ourselves that question. Whether or not we admit to it, there must be some idea of “the perfect” that we consciously or unconsciously believe in. If there was no “perfect,” there would be no such thing as flaws. Or if there were, they would be things like a malformed leg that made walking difficult and required medical attention---not a bit of cellulite or ears that turn out too wide.
In a recent Jezebel piece, Tracy Moore points out that it is often realism, not insecurity, that informs women’s reluctance to describe themselves as “pretty” (or, when they do, to qualify it with their numerous flaws or non-normative traits).
“For them, it wasn't that they couldn't think they were pretty. It was that they all knew, after lifetimes of being shown images of what is pretty, cute, beautiful or not in staggering detail, EXACTLY what kind of pretty they are or aren't, to what type of person they were most appealing, to what degree their prettiness abounds. Just saying they were pretty without acknowledging the exceptions seemed to be like admitting that you didn't understand how pretty works. And ‘pretty’ isn't a permanent state, either: it's a complicated, evolving assessment, discussed with a detached, almost economic appraisal.”
I get that “pretty” or “beautiful” are extremely abstract signifiers that we never like to imagine ourselves as fully qualifying for. But if not us, who does? Hypothetically, what would the erasure of all these supposed “flaws” get us to? A fake Barbie?
Whether it’s insecurity or realism, I don’t think there’s any problem with celebrating the body and face you have. It’s not perfect in the literal sense, but it’s not supposed to be. If it works, for the most part—if you ever feel good about yourself—if anyone has ever paid you a compliment—you might as well have a perfect body. The women who started and/or participate in The Nu Project, a photography blog of female nudes who embrace and celebrate their bodies as they are, seem to know this. (Warning: NSFW.) What I love about this project—besides for these women’s bravery in bearing all despite deviations from supposed “perfection”—is the sheer diversity of their bodies, the oft-needed reminder that there’s more ways to be and to look and to appear than the narrow parameters of beauty presented to us in the media.
Maybe all of us are perfect. Or maybe none of us are perfect. All I know is, it's a waste of time to feel shame---whether that's shame at feeling unattractive, or shame at feeling attractive and expressing that confidence aloud.
But also, I think it’s important to remember: we have bodies but we are not bodies. We are more. Accept the physical reality, then concern yourself with more important things, like being an awesome person. Right?
The end.
We first met when I was on the cusp of nomadism and she was on her return voyage. I was about to embark on my first true field work in conflict management. I did not know it then, but that year would hold memories of Egypt, Uganda, Colombia, and Guatemala. Her journey stretched from Liberia to Indonesia and Boston to the Hague. We both swam in the pool of conflict management professionals, spoke with our hands, loved every baked good we met, and shared a passion for wander and wonder. In many ways, she inspired my own path with her courage, whimsy, curiosity, and attachment to service and to making impact. Meeting her kindled my faith in humanity---and sparked my consequent overuse of the term.
We are now sitting at her dining table in Washington, DC, five years later. She and her loved one built the bench atop which I am perched, and everything else in the house too. Even if she hadn't given me her house number, I would have picked it out among its companions. It is the most colorful house in the street. Everything in it is a colorful product of love too, carved with care out of wood, nailed together, splashed with the hues that matched their personalities. "We built the bed in which you are sleeping," she says smiling. People dream better in home-made beds. They ought to.
She is a different kind of adult than I am, I think to myself. A whole other league of adulthood, the kind that comes with one's own photographs hanging from her walls (in frames, I should clarify, since my own amateur photos hang frameless and in disorder). I scratch her cat's belly, as we talk about the conversations we used to have when we first met. We are still connected by those same threads, by conflict management and service, by a wanderlust for Iceland and the Bolivian salt flats alike. We joke about our loved ones' addiction to cycling, we revisit talks about neuroses that field work in some of the world's most active conflict zones could not mitigate. Peeking into her life makes me nostalgic for permanence and leaves me longing to caress wooden surfaces with an appreciation for the art that transforms them.
I used to live here too once, but the girl I was when I lived in Washington is different from the girl who returned to it now. It was the before era: before field work, before I knew that a lot of my life would unfold on the road or in conflict zones, before I grew attached to cameras and stories, before I had discovered much of what I now consider my life's work---in many senses, before I experienced what I now consider my life's many blessings. When I left Washington, I left with excitement, not out of frustration with its admittedly elevated sense of self-importance, but out of a craving to leap to the next phase of life and the novelty it had in store. And much as my memories of Washington were full of light and merriment, I did not consider it the kind of home that would inspire nostalgia.
Teetering in heels outside the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, I recognize bits of the self I was then: I was an obsessive list-maker, and I still am. I was the kind of girl who could write down thirteen to-do items, and cross them all. Part of me still enjoys ticking the boxes, literally and allegorically. In other senses, I have shed layers of skin since I left Washington. I have embraced uncertainty and developed a new comfort for it. I have appreciated vulnerability; in brave moments, I have deliberately put myself in vulnerable places with an understanding of their merits. I have marveled, marveled ferociously, demanded marveling. I have made more room. I have not carved furniture, but I have carved out space for loving, dreaming, and marveling.
And now that I am back, this time for a career trip with fellow graduate students interested in conflict management, I am marveling at a home that inspired more nostalgia than I thought it could. In between career panels and site visits, I duck into my old neighborhood bookstore. I used to stop there every single day on my walk home from work, even if nothing in the shelves had changed. The bookstore was a ritual I kept, a nostalgia-inspiring ritual that planted the seeds of marveling. Between a lunch and an informational interview, I pop into Teaism, wanting bubble tea. I giggle when I remember that they call it 'pearl tea' here. My memory had edged this lexicon out. Taryn and I sit side-by-side at Hello Cupcake, devouring cream cheese frosting. Dan and I have breakfast at Busboys and Poets. Halle and I share an almond croissant and cappuccinos at Dolcezza, which was not there when I last was. Some of the women by my side have been constant presences, on email and in teahouses, at a distance or side-by-side. Some of them are new to this memory, having sprung from shared field experiences, correspondences, school orientations, or serendipity.
This marriage of the worlds feels less foreign than I had anticipated. I practiced nostalgic eating, nostalgic bookstore browsing, nostalgic walking, nostalgic subway riding. Life was not Instagrammed when I had left Washington; all of it looked less romantic. It was not yet possible, as Cheri Lucas would say, to "enhance the mundane", "to disguise the mediocre." Surprise nostalgia is a privilege because it is as though a former home springs from the depth of your memories to claim its place in your life, to demand to be remembered lovingly. Or, at the very least, to be remembered---which, in my life, is by definition a loving act.
