Julie R. Enszer's Blog, page 22

Herstoric

It is Tuesday night at the end of primary season. I am glued to the television, excited for election returns and analysis. Given that last week I saw Hillary Clinton on the The View and wept openly, I expect that there will be tears tonight. I expect joy and ecstasy. Particularly because I am in the home where I first imagined a woman president when Geraldine Ferraro was the Vice Presidential nominee in 1984. There is something full circle about the whole experience.

While there is joy in my heart, there is also sadness. In February, just as the primary season was really heating up, I talked a lot with my grandmother about the primaries and Hillary Clinton’s bid for President. My grandmother has always been a Democrat but never a primary voter. She maintains, Let the Party  figure out who they want and then I will vote for them in the general. She was uninterested in voting in the Michigan primary but happy to talk to me about Clinton’s campaign. She thought it would be good to vote for her in November, but just as often thought that the Democrats would block her from being the nominee. I don’t think they really want a woman to be president, she said. Yet, while skeptical, she recognized how extraordinary the moment would be. 

My grandmother was born in 1922, two years after women secured the right to vote. For all of February and March, I thought about how exciting it would be for her to vote for Hillary Clinton in November. And she may and it may be an exciting moment, but currently my grandmother is slipping farther away from all of us through the disease process of dementia. She is whip smart so she is very effective at covering many of the losses, but they are visible. I worry that by the time November arrives, she may be non compos mentis and unable to cast her ballot.

So that is my bittersweet reflection on this herstoric evening. Come November though, I’ll be voting and if all goes well, voting in a swing state!

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Goslings

All spring, we have been watching the goslings at the park. Born in the early spring, they were protected by their parents for the first few weeks. They were, like my pack, cosseted away for safety. Then they emerged in broods of four, five, six, some even seven or eight. They waddled across the grass, picking and poking at the ground. In early morning, they walked as a group from the meadow to the water’s edge. Many days, driving to the back of the park where Tibe can romp privately, we stopped the car while a brood or two meandered across the drive. 

Early, I wanted to pick up those little goslings. Cuddle them, hold them, coo at them. Feel that soft down. Smell them with that hope of new life as it emerges. Their protective parents, of course, would have never let me near these precious babes, and with my park visits dedicated to Tibe we could have never even though of approaching them. Still some nights, I dreamed of sleeping with the little goslings. I dreamed of their softness, of how they might cluck, squirm, coo, and rustle through the night. 

Now, the goslings are growing. There are dozens of broods living at the park. Every morning we see them in the meadow. We watch them walk to the water. Watchful parents supervising the young. Each day they grow bigger, though they still have all of the markings of goslings and not of the full grown Canadian geese. All day long, they walk and swim, they poke at the ground for food, they eat from what their parents gather, they sleep, they sit and watch the people at the park, the sea gulls, the turkeys, the beaver, and yes even Tibe.

Someday they will fly.

We may not see it, but we trust it will happen. We know they will feel the cold breeze coming, take to the open blue skies. We imagine for them, what we imagine for us all: safety, freedom, space to walk and sit and swim.

These words barely convey how much I love these goslings. Their young lives carry hope for us all.

Photo credit: David M Coppola, http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/5833410/?source=gallery

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Lepidoptera

Tibe’s approach to the nature world is to explore with his mouth. Like most canines, he is a sniffer, but he is also eager to experience the world orally. Crows? Delicious.  The hedgehog? Wonder what he tastes like. He loves all manner of greenery: grass, dandelions, ivy, and flowers. He puts everything into his mouth to explore it, to understand more of his world. This week, I discovered an exception.

The lepidoptera are out in Saginaw. Butterflies, moths, and, though not Lepidoptera, dragonflies (anisoptera). They are gorgeous out in the field where we walk in the morning. Not thick as in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel. Present. Many on the ground or on tree trunks with wings spread, their bodies warming in the summer sun. I have been seeing them for a week or two. Quietly enjoying them. Thinking Tibe was oblivious to their small bodies. Their delicate wings. Their careful camouflage in the field. Then, this morning, while sniffing the ground, Tibe first came upon a butterfly. It was sitting on the ground. Wings spread. I looked and immediately wanted to move him away. I could not capture his attention quickly enough. I braced myself for the fierce and heavy paw. I expected him to bear down on its delicate body. I steeled myself for him to first nose the creature, then take it in his mouth. Tibe did neither.

He looked in awe at the butterfly. Set his head on the ground six inches away and watched, then stood and walked away. I was astounded. It was, I thought, an aberration. Then, a few minutes later, across the field, we came upon a dragonfly, sunning itself on a tall stalk of grass. Again, Tibe approached, and I waited for him to snap, take it in his mouth, but again, he sat. Mesmerized. He watched. Then in a flash the dragonfly flew away. We walked on. Through the field. We did not see any more lepidoptera, we did not see any more anisoptera.

When we returned to the gravel parking lot, Tibe barked and jumped at the seagull. She squealed and circled around us, safely out of his reach. Tibe reminded me of his craziness, of his desire to take the world in his mouth. He cocked his head as if to say, nothing has changed. I am still crazed Tibe. But for a few brief moments, I saw a curious pup. A gentle pup. An inquisitive pup. A pup at peace in the world. Change happens.

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Depression

Two weeks ago, when it was finally warm and sunny here in Michigan, I pulled out a cream hat that I bought last fall. I love it. It is big and floppy. It reflects the sun, keeping me cool. I think it looks fabulous (the beloved disagrees with this assessment. Whatever they say about marriage, dissent continues to be an order of the day.) When I first pulled it out of the closet, I could not bear to wear it. I bought it on vacation. A photo of me in the hat from vacation is below. I did not want to wear it because the vacation is the last time I remember being happy. 

Happiness is, of course, ephemeral. Even under the best of circumstances. It is always coming and going. Often the happiest moment is not in the moment itself, but in the memory of the moment. Yet to delve so deeply into unhappiness that happy becomes a distant land, that happy becomes something that is unimaginable, something that feel forever elusive. To be so unhappy that to look at a photo of the happy self in the past feels painful. To wear a hat purchased in the happy past, hurtful. This type of painful, hurtful unhappiness we conventionally call depression. I fiercely resist that label.

It has been years since I read Kate Millett’s Loony-Bin Trap. I did not understand it as a younger woman. I understand it today. The trap is that depression is the construct to alienate us from the legitimate anger, even rage, that surrounds the conditions of our lives. Here is my simple conclusion: I am not depressed; everything that I am feeling and thinking is a normal and ordinary reaction to the conditions of my life and the conditions of the world. These conditions are deeply fucked up.

Think about it. How is someone supposed to react when she is driven from her home? When bigoted neighbors seek to intimidate and harass? When local government bans part of one’s property from being in its county? How am I supposed to react to having my dog threatened with death? How am I supposed to react when a small group of neighbors decide that me and my family are so threatening, so abhorrent that we must be banned and driven away from our home? I maintain that any reaction that I have is a reasonable reaction under these conditions, and any reaction and all feelings aren’t collective depression. They are rage, they are anger, they are reasonable and honest struggles for survival.

I am like Millett. I refuse to be the problem. I refuse to personalize the problem. I refuse any notion of depression. I refuse anything that makes me and my internal life the problem. The problem is outside me. The problem is the world. I am not interested in fixing myself. I’m actually no longer interested in fixing the world. That is another of the beliefs that I have lost over the past six or seven months. I am interested in wearing the floppy hat and sitting in the sun. Still crying, but able to imagine the future possibility of laughing.

A picture of happiness in a hat.

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Empathy and Its Limits

Prior to October of last year, two central values of mine were:

Stories shape our lives and help empower people across differences to develop empathy and justice.

Community is the space and time we create for care and justice in our lives.

I no longer believe in either of these statements. Part of my emotions over the last six months is morning the loss of these beliefs–and the sense of betrayal that accompanies their loss. Now I am also starting to lose my belief in empathy as well. I will try to explain, though it may be beyond words.

The past two days, Emma and I have met people on our walks. People love Emma. They want to pet her and cuddle with her, even on the street. I realized that I finally have an adequate story to make meaning of why we are here in Michigan. When people inevitably ask, where do you live, I can say, I am staying over at my father’s house dealing with some family issues before we move. I have a story that briefly makes sense of the past six months, even as it elides so much of what has happened.

There are times that I have told more of the story: the story of how our puppy bit another dog then an angry mob of bigots and bullies organized to have him killed by Animal Control; they were not successful, but they did get him banned from the county. When I have told this story, the listener feels empathy for me, quite possibly because many times when I have told the story, I have cried. Who would not feel empathy for me? Crying about my dog? Empathy or a sense of derision for how pathetic I am. Either option seems reasonable.

This morning, though, while walking I was thinking about empathy and stories and wondering, do people mainly have empathy for the person standing before them telling the story? That is, is empathy primarily emergent through human proximity rather than through an arrangement of facts? Do people hearing the stories told by the bigots and bullies empathize with them?

I imagine the owner of the dog that Tibe bit (see this is how empathy works, I am constantly imagining myself in someone else’s shoes) telling people about how Animal Control held a hearing and this vicious dog was banned. I imagine the empathic listener joining her with a sense of righteous justice. Yes, the world is as it should be, your beloved dog was bit and that other hoodlum dog was forced out of the neighborhood. Would a listener feel empathy for Tibe or does it only or at least primarily emanate from proximity, from the person telling the story?

Similarly, I imagine the other neighbors telling people about their fear of Tibe and how the close knit neighborhood spoke out together and removed the frightening threat of a dog. Does every listener think, what a strong and effective community? Does she think, these poor people, frightened by an unruly dog, but the community came together to secure justice? How can anyone counter or questions a speakers’ fears? How can rational minds ever triumph over the emotions, particular emotions that other and reinforce ideas about those without institutional and societal power?

This is why I no longer believe in community. Community is not about building more equality, building more justice; community is not about inclusion and the generosity of human spirit. Community is about enforcing the norms of dominant culture. Community is about policing racial and sexual boundaries. Community is about power and control and the disciplining of other humans. Believing in community and building community, which I have done for nearly thirty years, is folly. When the chips are down, community does not serve our highest aspirations, it functions to reinforce our basest instincts.

Stories function similarly. Stories are dependent on the narrator and the listener and the proximity of the two. Stories from minority communities can never sway the dominant stories. The sheer volume of stories being told by the dominant community can never be countered by the subjugated communities for the simple reason of power.

And empathy? I wonder if empathy is simply a tool to keep people powerless. I can imagine how other people felt in the drama of our lives, but did they think about how we felt? I doubt it. And ultimately, what we needed is not empathy but justice. Justice was elusive. The stories and community that I have spent my adult life believing in? They failed me. I am now trying to move on from this loss and find what I might believe in next.

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Tibe Texts the Beloved

The beloved left for New York yesterday and we had an eventful morning without her. Here are Tibe’s texts of our exploits.

Dear Mommie, It was fun to ride to the park in the low rider but then mom slammed my tail in the car door at home. I miss you. Love Tibe

(Usually Tibe travels in the Honda CRV which he has to jump to get in. This week we have the Honda Insight–we should really be doing Honda commercials. Tibe calls in the low rider. He thinks he is all gangsta.)

Dear Mommie, To extra my revenge over the tail, I just ate a whole stick of butter. Yum! Tibe

Dear Mommie, My tummy does not feel too good. Can you come home and rub it? Love, Tibe

Dear Mommie, I am working out all of my tummy issues walking outside and squatting. I am trying to convince Vita to lick my butt hole to make it feel better. Still the butter was yummy. Love, Tibe

Dear Mommie, I am lying on the couch. What are you doing? Love, Tibe

Dear Mommie, We vacuumed the room where you sit in during the day and talk to yourself in front of the computer. Did you leave because it was so dirty? Will you come home now? Love, Tibe

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Double Barrel

Today, we went shopping for my gun. I have been browsing for one for a few months in the newspapers. The Saginaw News and the Detroit newspapers regularly carry advertisements for guns. Hunting is a big sport here in Michigan and Saginaw is a weigh station for people traveling north. I have been shopping passively through advertising inserts, but today we went to Cabela’s, an outdoor sporting store where I plan to buy the gun.

I’m not going to get anything fancy, just a simple double barrel shot gun. I will get a shoulder strap so that I can carry it on my back when I walk the dogs. While I am not talking openly about where we are moving yet, it is a state like Michigan: guns are part of people’s lives. It will not raise any eyebrows for me to walk my dogs on my land with my gun.

Yes, I have never shot a gun. Yes, before today, I had never held a gun. Yes, until recently I have been a virulently anti-gun sort of gal. Ban them all, I have been heard to say. It is an intellectual and emotional crisis that brings me to this point. Here is what I have learned in the past year:

Money will not protect me
Lawyers will not protect me
Local government will not protect me

I need to protect myself.

The Women’s Gun Pamphlet published by the feminist gun consciousness collective through the Women’s Press Collective remains informative over forty years later. Here is the conclusion to the introduction to the pamphlet:

I am building my own feminist gun consciousness.

The next time white people threaten and harass me, my family, my dog with their homophobia, racist bigotry, I’ll be staring them down over a double barrel. My gun will be cocked.

Image credits: Both images are from The Women’s Gun Pamphlet available online at DeepOakland.

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Let the Summer Reading Season Begin!

So I’ve been using Goodreads for a few years now. Initially, my fantasy for the book sites was organization in virtual and physical realms. I started with LibraryThing and their awesome cat that scans barcodes and automatically enters the book into your library. I thought this would prompt a physical organization of all of my books. It didn’t. I entered about a thousand, maybe a quarter of the collection. Then stopped. And nothing was organized in real life. This was four or five years ago. After petering out, it seemed like all of the cool kids went over to Goodreads. So I went there. Wanting to be a cool kid. Knowing it was unachievable.

I like Goodreads. The interface is great. It is easy to add books. I like the shelf of what I am currently reading to keep me organized an balanced: some fiction, some poetry, some scholarly books, some journals. I like the annual goal for books read and I like making progress to it all year long. I don’t record everything I read there. Somethings I breeze through and it seems too much to add them. Some books I test out and only add them when I know I will finish. I am reading one book right now that I want to drop, but I added it to Goodreads so I feel morally compelled to finish it. Crazy, huh? I should just abandon it, but there is no abandoned designation. Should I just delete it from my list? Mark it a read even though that is a lie? I also don’t want to admit that I don’t like it, that I dropped it. Moral complexity in the social network.

In spite of this anxiety, as I said, I like Goodreads. It makes me curious though about other people’s reading habits. Do you write down everything that you read? Track your reading? Or just read capaciously and worry not about the numbers? Is memory enough for a reader? What happens when we cannot remember?

If that is too deep, I was also thing about what it is like to encounter a new author who you feel will be great. What was it like to read The Bluest Eye when it first came out? Song of Solomon? Sula? I encountered Morrison when she was already recognized as great. What first second or third book have you read lately that made you feel in the presence of Morrison-level greatness?

And what about authors who you love and seem to fall out of favor? What about authors who are forgotten? I was thinking about how much I love Gloria Naylor’s work. The Women of Brewster Place, yes, but Linden Hills and Mama Day. I love her work. What happened to her?

These are my reading reflections as we launch the summer reading season, may yours be filled with books you love.

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Window

I note, tentatively, that spring is here in Michigan. This weekend, worried that the elevated temperatures would leave us sweating in the house, the beloved tackled taking down a few storm windows and putting on screens. Our safe house has the old double hung windows with equally old storm windows and screens to be exchanged twice a year. I believe on the main floor, all of the windows, storms, and screens are original to the house. Given that things were more handcrafted than manufactured when the house was built, each of the screens and storms is slightly differently. Part of the project is always matching the screen to the window. Another part of the project is ensuring that the screens are on windows that open and stay open; some of the old windows are warped and only open a few inches. As you can imagine, this is not a project I relished; I had hoped, desperately, that we would be gone from Michigan by the time the mercury rose. Life seems to not be matching my expectations of late.

I am grateful to the beloved for accepting this task. This morning, as I write, there is a breeze wafting through the house. Vita was sitting in front of a screened window on the second floor while morning sun came in and then she padded downstairs and sat in front of another screen, breathing in deeply the smells of outside.

Over the weekend, Tibe and the beloved practiced looking out the window. Tibe is getting very good at this activity. It is not as easy as you might think. Tibe’s instinct, since we first adopted him, has been to rush up to a window and bark and bark and bark, particularly if there is anything outside moving. He wants us to know, danger lurks just beyond our den. For a year now, our training has been focused on helping Tibe walk away from a window when called. He does that more reliably now. He also has come to understand that he can look out the window at what is happening outside if he does not bark.

That final dependent clause is the hard part. Who wouldn’t want to bark at a rabbit scampering across the front yard pausing to eat a dandelion? And don’t we want to know when a woman in a blue uniform is walking up to the house carrying boxes, perhaps laden with explosives today instead of the usual books? Isn’t it really the polite thing to do to bark when another dog walks by so that he knows this is the home of the great and powerful Tiberius and the equally great and powerful Emma, though she may be snoring at the moment? Sitting at the window and not barking seems counterintuitive to our beloved little Tibe.

Yet, he is learning. This weekend, he and the beloved watched the rabbit in the front window–and later in the day, he watched another rabbit out the back window without making a peep.

He has not yet learned that what he sees out of the back bedroom window on the second floor is not visible from the front windows downstairs. Nor has he learned that there is a connection between sound and sight. Hearing something does not drive him to the window to look. At this moment, we are thankful that he has not gained that insight. We will continue to look out the window with Tibe in wonderment at the natural world around us. The magnolia tree is blooming. The smoke tree is budding. Each day, multiple rabbits visit. Tibe loves the world around him. I am almost starting to believe: the world loves him too.

I’ve learned something about windows and barking. All of that barking at the front picture window back in the house in Maryland? He was right to bark with crazy warnings. Those people near our house were bigots. They were planning an attack. They were evil. We should have been more careful. We should have known the Cossacks were at our door. Tibe was right to warn us. He tried to tell us, barking and barking: be careful; they have ill will; they will harm us. He warned us. He was right. We did not listen.

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Shadow and Vixen

I have heard about the devoted canine companions, but I have never had one. Until now. Tibe is my shadow. When I wake, Tibe is there. When I walk to another room, Tibe is there. On the weekends about sixty percent of our time together, he is touching me. During the weekdays, while I am working, he sits near me or in the adjoining room. If I get up to get a cup of tea, he comes into the kitchen with me. If I go to the bathroom, he sits near the door. He is my shadow. In many ways it is an extraordinary experience. I am awed by the devotion and continually aware of how much this dog depends on me.

Lots of our other animals have been affectionate, of course. One of my favorite memories of our dear Liza, the feral cat we rescued from the streets of University Park, is the first night I return home after my mother’s death. She slept right next to me all night long, cuddled up next to my body or underneath my hand. Liza was not a physically affectionate cat, but she seemed to know that night I would appreciate the reassurance, the kitty contact.

One challenge of the shadow behavior is that whenever I sneeze or cough, Tibe becomes agitated. He does not want me to sneeze or sniffle. If I am eating and something catches in my throat, he sits at attention, watching me, monitoring to make sure that I emerge fine. If it lasts more than two or three seconds, he barks, waiting for the assurance that I will be okay. Fortunately, the sneezes, coughs, and chokes happen infrequently. More vexing is how much it disturbs Tibe when I cry. He hates my tears. He does not want to console me with gentle licks or nuzzles. No, he wants to jar me out of tears with play. Play with a one hundred thirty-five pound dog is not necessarily what one wants while crying.

Vita Vixen, on the other hand, is the most comforting animal while crying. She wraps her sweet little body around my neck and purrs. She rubs her head against my face and cuddles me. She will sit with me for hours, purring, snuggling, just sitting with the tears. We hide away from Tibe. Tears and sadness are emotions he does not understand, emotions that vex him. He wants to erase them with play. Vita Vixen is happy to absorb them with love.

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