Julie R. Enszer's Blog, page 19
August 27, 2016
Cincinnati
It seemed fitting that we spent the first night of our trip, from Michigan to our new home, in Cincinnati. The city is significant to me as a site of multiple struggles for LGBTQ rights–and significant for its homophobic laws and failure to repeal homophobic laws. This article is a good overview; if you google gay rights and Cincinnati, the results mainly herald she positive trajectory of hate to Obergefell. In many ways the city is a microcosm of what has happened in the United States in the past thirty years. Still, to me, the city is a site of struggle for queers and failure, which is why it seemed fitting for us and our pack to spend a night there as a part of our exile and flight.
The bald truth is six months after our marriage was recognized in every state in the Union, six months after we were free to move around the country, we were driven from our own home in the ostensibly liberal state of Maryland. We were driven out ostensibly because of our dog and his bad behavior of biting another dog. Yet, there had been many other dog bites in our hamlet. There have been many other loud and barking dogs. There have been many other dogs learning their way to obedience and happiness in our neighborhood. They were not driven out; they belonged to nice, straight, white people. The truth is neighbors felt comfortable organizing against us and found support from an angry mob for using an administrative procedure and board to drive us out of town and ensure that we could never return for a simple reason: we are an interracial lesbian couple and they felt comfortable targeting and bullying us.
Joining in the campaign of these bullies was the mayor and the entire town council. The mayor and our council person and another council person knew us personally and never ever spoke with us about the town’s formal opposition to Tibe, which the town attorney, a woman who lives a few houses over from us, delivered in person at the hearing. She, too, never spoke to us personally. None of the people had ever met Tibe. I can only conclude that they were comfortable being complicit in this process and not speaking to us because of their own comfort in bullying us because we are an open lesbian couple, because we are undesirable for their community, and unworthy of even basic, human regard. Yes, my words are strong; the past ten months have been difficult and harrowing. It is an experience I do not wish on anyone else, but it is an experience that I recognize and understand in profound ways because I have lived as a lesbian openly since 1987. Which is to say, I have lived with derision and hatred by a myriad of people, organizations, and institutions every day of my life since 1987.
Cincinnati reminds me of what it means to be disparaged, dismissed, attacked, dehumanized, and diminished as a lesbian. Cincinnati reminds me of what it means to struggle against homophobic and heterosexist treatment and what it means to struggle and lose. It does not feel good. It is painful. I would like to forget, but then there is the city to remind us, an experience to remember.
One struggle over the past months has been to not personalize the experience. Many people including me want to explain it away as not about homophobia, but about a particular dog, a bad behavior, and poor choices we have made. Many people want to blame us, the victims, and we in turn want to be complicit with that victim-blaming because it feels so familiar, because it lets other people off the hook. Blaming the victim does two things simultaneously: it holds perpetrators harmless and it makes others feel unafraid; it makes others similarly situated feel like it cannot happen to them.
Our attorney failed to deliver a robust defense, failed to imagine what a world might look like when bigots and bullies are confronted for their behavior and held accountable. We suffered because she felt more comfortable blaming us and blaming Tibe to assert that she as a lesbian could not be similarly targeted. She was wrong and she is equally vulnerable. All of us queers, all of us lesbians, are one incident away from being bullied, shunned, and driven from our homes. Blaming the victims will not lessen that fact.
While blaming the victim is an extraordinarily effective strategy, I have been moved and supported repeatedly over the past ten months by people who recognize the injustice we have experienced and acted in ways that they could in solidarity with us. Many lesbians recognize their own vulnerability but have not looked away from us to assert their own safety. I continue to appreciate the material support provided by Megan for me and Sinister Wisdom, by Claudia for my family and our household, by a merry band of former students, by my dear friend Kathleen, by La Shonda who helped in the final hours of moving out of the house, and by many many others. It is not easy to face vulnerability every day, but that is what lesbians and queer people have done for decades–and what we will continue to do in spite of some advancements.
Cincinnati reminds me of vulnerability, of fighting back, and of failing. While we all remain invested in narratives of progress and success, we must also remember the struggle and the failure. Even in the success, John Arthur, Jim Obergefell’s husband, died before the victory. We failed at exonerating Tibe. We failed at defending ourselves from bigots and bullies and we lost our home as a result. Spending a night in Cincinnati as we wend our way to our new life and our new home was fitting. We are finding our way to a new life, but the defeats and the losses of the past year will forever shape the world where we live.
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August 26, 2016
Moving
Driving to Detroit Metro Airport last week, right when I got on I-275, all of the traffic started zig zagging around, weaving in and out of lanes, slowing, veering. Something was amiss. Thirty second later, I saw it: a huge four person sofa sitting on the road, eight cushions spread about across the four lanes of the freeway. One hundred meters ahead, a car pulled to the side of the road with a trailer and a matching love seat still in the trailer. I thought to myself, those people a having a bad moving day.
Is it possible to have a good moving day? I have had four moving days so far in this complex move of ours. I do not know that any are good. They are exhausting, backbreaking, and generally discouraging. If all moving days are bad, the owners of the sofa were having a horrible moving day. We are half way through the move and have, so far, had only bad moving days. I consider that positive.
For a brief period of time yesterday, Vita wanted to move in the box with the television. Then she thought better of it and decided to come in the car with all of us.
Here is what the immediate future holds: four days in transit (actual driving and moving about the country), two days in abeyance (walking through the new house, closing on the house), then, I estimate five days of moving in. I set the bar very low: may make it without losing a sofa on the interstate. That would make me happy. A little bit of joy along the way; that would exceed every expectation.
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August 25, 2016
A Creative Explosion
Yes, we are moving. We leave our mid-Michigan hideaway tomorrow morning and head south. Next Tuesday, I walk through the house we are contracted to buy (I’ve not seen it yet); on Wednesday, we buy the house and on Thursday, all of our stuff from Maryland will be delivered by the movers. Today, with the help of a cousin and his two friends, we loaded two uHaul pods of stuff from Michigan. It will reach us at the new destination, at the geographic cure, in the middle of September.
On this last night in Michigan, I am thinking about my last escape from Saginaw as a seventeen year old. It was the same week, the same time of year: I headed to the University of Michigan for my first yer of college. While I am thinking about the parallels of Saginaw departures, I know this one is quite different. Most simply: no homework this fall. And I will not be smashed into a dorm room, I will be in the new house.
The new house is actually two houses, or one house and a small “in-law suite.” For us though, there will be no in-laws or out-laws there, it will be my office. A space for a creative explosion. You can see the possibilities it presents in the picture. There are a number of things I want the creative explosion to include: new poems, a return to paper making, finishing the book on feminist publishing, continued invigoration of Sinister Wisdom. That is the easy stuff. Then there are the fantasies. A letter press? One could fit in there. Weaving? I have always wanted a loom. What else might I imagine? What else might come in this creative explosion?
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August 21, 2016
Bathtub
One of the things that I have missed the most from our Maryland house is the big bathtub. The Michigan house where we have hidden away for nine months does not have a proper soaking tub. This summer the swimming pool has fulfilled some of my soaking desires, but I still dream of a bathtub. I dream of soaking in a bathtub, refilling it when the water is tepid. Watching my skin wrinkle, exfoliating my feet, deep conditioning my hair. I want to soak then get out of the tub to a thick, clean towel, dry off and go lie on my own fluffy bed.
Have you seen The Big Chill? This film is formative to me. It is the story of University of Michigan grads (and there is the brief mention of buying property in Saginaw!). For years I studied the film and its characters trying to imagine how my own life would emerge. People who know me will not be surprised I landed on Glenn Close as my future fantasy. Lately, though, I have been thinking about the scene in the shower when Close is sitting on the floor of the shower crying after the funeral. She is alone, sobbing, as the water pours down. I love that scene. The pain of it, the solitude, the isolation, the loneliness. The water and the tears meld together.
At some point in the next month, I’ll be soaking in the bathtub pictured above and crying, alone, like Close. Tears of relief after our nine months of exile. I am looking forward to that day.
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August 13, 2016
Tibe’s Front Door
When we first were forced out of our home in Maryland and retreated to our Michigan hideaway, the solid front door and thick curtains provided Tibe with a seemingly private den. Particularly in the winter, the house provided an environment where Tibe had little interaction with the outside world from inside the house. Over time, with the lack of stimulation and the normal process of growing older and being more savvy about the world, Tibe has come to understand that the flutter of the mail slot at the front door brings happiness to us, and the birds and squirrels that play on the front yard are our friends. Even the sweet little dog two doors down is less of a threat requiring barking by Tibe. Yes, I have at my feet a little gentleman. (It is hard to believe that less than a year ago, neighbors worked themselves into such a frenzy that they believed the only answer was killing Tibe. Their small minds show in every way.)
Now that we are in the heat of summer, as the sun sets it helps to have the front door open and situate a fan in front of the screen door. Tibe thinks that he is such a big boy that he can sit in front of the door and watch the world outside, generally birds and squirrels. Occasionally a car passes. We worry about him, however, and so we always sit with him at the door. I pet his head and pull out little seeds that he picks up in the garden and at the park and that get embedded in his fur. After a few minutes, he will step away from his perch and come to the back of the house and sit at my feet. While he seems satisfied, I think he wants to sit for hours in front of a door by himself, watching on his own, taking in the world.
Tibe has good news in his future. The new front door is all glass. He can sit in front of it and watch the world, his world, to his heart’s content. And when he is done watching, I can open the door and he can gambol outside on his own, with no leash, playing, sniffing, smelling and enjoying a world all his own. I keep telling him about the window in his future, but I do not think he yet understands. Believe, Tibe, believe: a front door with a window is in your future. You will see the whole world out of your window, and we will see all of the reasons we love you, all of the reasons we did everything for you, all of the reasons we chose for you to live.
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August 10, 2016
Some Fears and Some Truths
I have written before about being changed by the ordeal of this past ten months. Yesterday, I had a concrete reminder of how I have been changed. There is an upgrade for FileMaker, the database program I use for Sinister Wisdom. Now, I am a regular upgrader of all kinds of software. I set my Mac to automatically download updates overnight and in the background. I like to do it without even thinking about it. I also like exploring new kinds of software. Yes, there are unnerving moments: where is that function? Why does everything look so different? Overall though I like exploring new things. I embrace change in my life with technology operating as one small example of that overall mental orientation. Yesterday, however, and for the past week or so when I have been planning to upgrade my software, I felt overwhelmed by the thought of downloading the upgrade and encountering it in my daily life. I did not want to upgrade.
Another technology solution has been in my sights: a new email client. I hear great things about the software Polymail. (It is not as some might initially think an email solution for the polyamorous!) I would love to have the option to schedule email for a future send and Polymail offers this. It is also available for the iPad and iPhone. I am curious about it. I have had it on my task list to download it. I have shied away from doing it though, wondering, what if it totally messes up my email? What if I lose everything? What if, what if, what if? I was gripped by fear. Fear of change. I wanted things on my computer to stay just the way they were. And I wanted this so strongly the idea of downloading the upgrade to FileMaker or the new Polymail nearly made me cry.
The feeling was so stark and so in opposition to how I understood myself a year ago that it jolted me into a new recognition of how painful the past ten months have been and how they have fundamentally changed me. I have become fearful. I am afraid that the future is worse than the past. I am afraid that the best days have happened already and what lies ahead is bad. I am afraid of change. I am afraid of the future. I am cautious, tentative, and unable to trust my own perception, my own sense of judgment. This is not the person I was a year ago.
While contemplating the upgrade and the new software, another feeling washed over me in addition to the fear: courage. Yes, the upgrade may crash my computer. The new email client may muck up everything about how I organize my email. The new house may completely suck when compared to the house we leave in Maryland. I may hate where we are moving. I may not make any friends there. Tibe may continue to bark loudly at other dogs. The future may be worse than the past. I may have peaked and have nothing but sorry and pity ahead of me. All of this could happen. It also could not, particularly if I greet the future not with fear but with courage.
Yes, courage brought the reminder that I shape what is and what is to be. What is and what is to be is dependent on me, my decisions, my choices, my responses.
This brings me to the truths that I have been thinking about since yesterday:
I continue to love Tibe beyond all reason and he reciprocates with such devotion and loyalty that it feels like a sacred bond.
The entire pack of Emma, Vita, and Tibe delight us everyday with their lives and their care for themselves, one another, and us.
This kind of love is so significant to our lives, that inevitably we will face the opportunity to adopt another animal and we will embrace it because we must respond to the love in the world and not to the fear and hatred.
Standing up for lesbians and standing up and being open about being lesbians is still not easy. There have been many significant changes in acceptance of GLBT people–and I celebrate them–but hostility remains and bigots are happy to exploit it. Countering it, standing up to bigotry, standing up on behalf of lesbians is hard. After twenty-eight years, I still do not know how to do it effectively. I still think it is an worthy goal.
Happiness is elusive, but still worth seeking.
So there you have it: some fears and some truths. Oh, and one more truth: sometimes we all need to growl, to bear our teeth. Sometimes we need to bite back and refuse to let the world bite us.
Photo Credit: Dmitry Stepankov via Flickr.
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August 8, 2016
Cedar Chest Redux
When I departed Saginaw as a seventeen-year-old in the late 1980s, I wanted a cedar chest. Honestly, I wanted a hope chest. Like the women in the Laura Ingalls Wilder stories, I wanted a cedar chest to hold household linens: embroidered napkins and sheets, hand knit throws, a homemade quilt, and crocheted pillow cases. I wanted linens that would last a lifetime and go with some mythical china and crystal in my future.
I left Saginaw with a footlocker from K-Mart, a set of cotton/poly blend sheets for an extra long twin (what was in the dorms at Michigan) and navy blue towels, all purchased from K-Mart. My mother said the footlocker was just like her cedar chest (shown in the photograph below). I knew that it was not. Moving every year for the next five years, at least, however, I did not miss the cedar chest. There is little from those early days of my young adulthood that is still in my possession. I would like to think that I would have carefully moved that cedar chest during those tumultous years. Still, it seems unlikely.
When I leave Saginaw at the end of the month (we will begin our trip on Women’s Equality Day), my mother’s cedar chest will follow in the portable uHaul storage container. It will be delivered down the ridiculously long driveway in mid-September. I will have in our new home my mother’s cedar chest and my grandmother’s cedar chest.
The cedar chest seems like an anachronism. Does anyone still receive one as a gift in her young womanhood? Do young women gather sheets and napkins and table cloths and quilts and save them for a future family? Does anyone embroider? Crochet? Quilt? Sew? In truth, sheets and napkins are more disposable than they ever were for my grandmother and my mother. Who has a quilt that lasts a lifetime?
Am I yearning for a time that has passed? A time that will never turn? Perhaps. The cedar chests will not carry the linens of my future. I do not know where they will sit in the new house (I have not seen it yet; it is hard to imagine occupying let alone decorating a house I have never seen), nor do I know what will be inside them. I do know that they will be some type of a connection to my past.
I can appreciate that the era of cedar chests may be over. Young women may not have them; they may not want them. That is fine, each generation deserves its own talisman, its own objects to fill with hopes and dreams and desires. What vexes me is: who will care for these two cedar chests when I am gone?
My mother’s cedar chest with some of Tibe’s toys beneath it.
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August 6, 2016
Tibe’s Yard
The rumors are true. While I have not wanted to write about it for fear of hexing it, we are scheduled to close on a house at the end of August. Yes, my friends, Tibe and Emma will have a fenced yard again to gambol about. Yes, Tibe will never have to walk on anyone else’s property again. I have held back my excitement for fear of things collapsing in a shower of shit, but we are now less than three weeks from departure from the mid-Michigan hideaway, and so it seems I should acknowledge: we are leaving, the possibility of our new life becomes more tangible. This photo? The driveway. Beyond it the giant fenced yard for dog play, romping, running, and walking. I am excited. Cautiously. Carefully.
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