Julie R. Enszer's Blog, page 27

We Cannot Go Home Again

On Monday, while I was teaching, the decision came from Tibe’s hearing. He now has the distinction of being banned from ever entering Prince George’s County again. I am sad and angry and hurt. I am not sure that I can cry any more about it, but I know I will.

I have been thinking about the eighteen days that Tibe was in exile. I missed everything about him during those days, feeding him, walking him, having out with him on the couch, letting him in and out, in and out, but what I missed the most was how he sleeps next to me in bed. How his warm, muscular body melts on my leg. How he twitches sometimes while sleeping. How he moves from the bed to the floor near the bed and back again a few times every night. At the point Tibe went into exile, he had only been living with us for seven months, but I loved him, and I loved him as a part of our lives. Every day without him was painful. There was a hole in our lives that could only be filled by bringing us all together again, by having us all live together again. We came to Michigan as a save haven where we could be together.

Now we know, we can never return to our home again. The official findings say that Tibe cannot return to Prince George’s County, but how could any of us? How could we live without him? Are we to shun him from our family because of an accident? Are we to cut our ties after a terrible accident? How do people turn their hearts and homes away from animals? As terrible as the incident was, I do not know how we could give Tibe back to the rescue or turn him over to anyone else. He is a part of our lives, our family. We take responsibility for him. For better or worse, we cannot imagine making a home without him. If he is banned from the county, so are we all. If he must find a new home elsewhere, we all will. We hold his life with our love; we take responsibility for him with joy and affection.

Though taking responsibility for him clearly is not enough for our neighbors. They want lives uninterrupted by a barking dog inside a house. They want to walk wherever they wish without fear of a dog who has never bitten a human. They want to know that they can control who lives in their neighborhood, who stays, who is rejected and driven out. They want a community of their own making, one without us and our animals, and they convinced the Animal Control Board to enforce their bigoted vision. So be it.

We cannot go home again, but we make home wherever we all are together. We make home in our love and affection for one another. We make home in our resistance to doing as we are told, to doing as we were ordered by the bigots. We make home in our refusal to be like them, to act like them, to put down a dog after an accident because he doesn’t quite fit the vision of other people, because he is too loud, too nervous, too boisterous, too big. We may be banned from a place, but we go home, we find home every day in our love for one another.

And so our journey continues.

  

Vita and Tibe in the place we once called home.

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I am Naamah

Many years ago now, I wrote a number of persona poems in the voice of Naamah, Noah’s wife. As I have been promoting the Lilith poems (order it here!), I have been thinking about Naamah and the other poems that imagine women of Biblical times. That has been primarily imagination, however. Until today.

We had a lovely morning, the beloved and I. Both of us woke from bad dreams (dreams that were very Hebrew Bible; we both dream of vengeance and the reigning down of judgment on our neighbors), but we shook off the bitterness, walked the dogs, and then went out to breakfast at Denny’s followed by grocery shopping. It was a lovely morning. We returned home to smell gas in the house. I called my dad, called the gas company, and we packed up all of the animals into the car and sat outside waiting for the gas man to come.

I posted on Facebook:

And the whole family is sitting outside the house waiting for Consumers Power to come and examine the gas leak. It just keeps coming. Pile it on, world, pile it on!

Pile it on, pile it on. After writing that, the technician from Consumers Power shut off the gas to our hot water heater and flagged the valve to the furnace that is leaking. I went out to Sears, which is apparently on the brink of bankruptcy, and purchased a new hot water heater. It will be installed on Tuesday (I am out on Monday, hence the delay.) I am Naamah. 

Noah would be complaining about G-d and the way misfortunes pile upon him. Naamah? Naamah was feeding her children and the animals. Naamah was solving problems, while Noah lamented his condition. Naamah is the woman who says, Yes, I lost my house in the storm, yes, we left with little notice and only what we could carry on the boat, yes, the world is unfair, but still I have to finish knitting this quilt, writing this story, installing this appliance. Naamah does not have time to bemoan her condition. Naamah cares for things, fixes things, ensures the safety of her charges. I am Naamah. The new hot water heater will be installed on Tuesday. And for good measure, I purchased a new dish washer. It, too, will be installed on Tuesday. There is no time for lamentations; these dogs need to be walked, this cat needs to be cuddled, these words need toe written. I am Naamah.

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“We think back through our mothers if we are women….” Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929)

Damn Virginia Woolf. I read here when I was young. Impressionable. So her words return to me during weeks like this one. I think back through my mothers. What I find is not easy.

My grandmother is ninety-three. She lives by herself in the house she and my grandfather had built in the 1950s. She is comfortable there. She fiercely wants to stay there. Lately she is having some memory problems. Primarily short-term memory, but also some sequencing mind work. Her numeracy is still extraordinary. She can do all computations in her head. She also continues to play a fierce game of scrabble. She needs help, however, to stay in her home. Home health aids have been a godsend. Everyone is different, but all bring good humor and care to my grandmother four hours a day. Thinking back through my grandmother, particularly in this moment where I am involved in her life in such an intensive way, I find myself thinking, not about the past but about the future.

Who will be doing the care work for me when I start to lose pieces of my mind, even as I retain, hopefully, the sharpness and humor that, for my grandmother make her a delight? Who will make arrangements for my prescriptions? Ensure I have milk and snacks? While my grandmother regales me with stories about the hospital where she had her boys and her work at Lufkin Rule, one of the largest ruler companies in the United States, based here in Saginaw, I know I have her work ethic, her commitment to earning money, and her versatility for earning throughout a life time. I can think back through my life and see her fingerprints all over everything that brought me to this point, what I wonder about is how what is happening in her life foreshadows what will happen in my own.

My mother died in this house where we are staying. She also lived here, too, for over forty years. Bitter about being stuck in Saginaw. Always wishing for a larger house, for a little bit more. Even as she cultivated envy, however, she was also satisfied. It was her house; she had everything that she wanted (including those dozens and dozens of cashmere sweaters, to which I must return.) One night almost three years ago, we will probably be living her on the anniversary, she walked up stairs to bed and near the top of the steps, she stopped, sat down, slumped over and never regained consciousness. “We think back through our mothers if we are women….”

I am thinking about death through my mothers, trying to imagine how it will come for me. Will I slouch over in my own home? Will I have to hold on to my home, to my independence with ferocity? Is this what Virginia Woolf had in mind about thinking back through our mothers?

Alice Walker thought back through her mother using gardens. If gardens are the literal space where women make beauty, creative expression, and craft home for their families, I am literally living in the gardens of my mother and my grandmother. Perhaps I should be searching for their art as Walker suggests and find in it the clues to my own, but I am searching in their lives, in their pasts, in their deaths, for my own.

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Friendship and Bad Dreams

I am almost finished with Paul Lisicky’s new memoir about friendship, The Narrow Door. It is wonderful, though it often reduces me to tears. The other day, the beloved and I were talking about a future when we were living in a new place (a new house! All of our stuff around us! Books! Pillows! Our most comfortable couch! A fence!) and the beloved made some reference to new friends that we would have. I said, I don’t think so. I don’t think I will ever make new friends again.

Reading about Lisicky’s loss of a dear friend combined with our life uprooted makes me wonder why I would ever trust a person again, trust a person enough to become friends, let alone close friends. These feelings are the consequences of the ordeal we have endured over the past three months: losing one’s sense of trust in the world, losing one’s sense of joy and wonder in the world, and not wanting to venture forth into the world, with one’s life. That is how I feel today. Bleak. Like the world is a cold, dark place. And in Michigan in January, it is.

Earlier in the month, I was tracking the extra minutes of daylight each day, noting at the end of the day how long it took between dusk and total darkness. Watching each morning for when the sun came over the horizon. I have given up this practice. It is futile, the extra minutes of daylight are so short each day, tracking them is like losing them. I know from experience that there will come a day in late February or March when there will be enough sunlight, when the days will not feel as dark.

Tibe has been having bad dreams all day today. At least that is what I think it is. He is sleeping and then starts moving his paws quickly and crying or whimpering. I try to gently wake him. Petting his ears and neck. I want him to come back into the world of wakefulness where he is safe and loved. He wakes, but today he has fallen again into restless sleep, crying and whimpering again. I cannot help but wonder, what is he dreaming? How can I make those dreams better?

Maybe tomorrow he will have peaceful rest, though even now, I look down at him and his hind legs are twitching. I would like him to have peace, sleeping and awake. He is growing up. Everyday the mail carrier deli a the mail through a mail slot in the front door, and now he approaches the door calm and inquisitive about this paper entering our home. He goes to the front window in the afternoon and looks at the mail carrier walking the street without barking. The other night, he watched a rabbit in the neighbor’s yard with more curiosity than anything else (it is like Watership Down here, last summer in a morning run I saw almost two dozen rabbits!). Emma senses it, too. She lets him sit closer to her. The sleep and move more synchronously, more grown up dog than crazy pup.

Still, it is dark here. We have bad dreams. Sometimes when we wake, it seems that the life we have woken into is worse than we imagined.

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Plastic Bags and Poop

We arrived at our undisclosed, secure location in Michigan the day before Thanksgiving. It was disorienting, fleeing from our beloved home in Maryland with only what we could fit in our cars, not sure about the future. On the Monday after Thanksgiving, I realized that I would pick up every single poop Tibe had every single time he pooped for the foreseeable future. I am still picking up shit, every day, twice a day (on good days, sometimes he throws a third in there.) When the beloved is out of town, I pick up Tibe’s poop and Emma’s poop, too. 

I have a big black bin out back for the individual bags of poop. Once a week, I empty the big black bin into a big black bag and haul it out for the garbage folks. Tibe’s poop is generally solid and well-formed. When you pick up a lot of poop immediately after it has been eliminated, you think about these sorts of things. Our back yard poop strategy in Maryland was to let it lie until the lawnmower came through and turned it into mulch for our back yard. This confession, like the photographs showing the dogs sitting on the couch, probably reinforces the notion that we a bad pet owners and our animals should be taken from us and put down (as the bigoted bullies advocated two weeks ago). So while we have shared our lives with dogs for many years, I am closer to the dog’s poop than ever before. Firm is important. 

In Michigan, I would actually prefer to leave the waste for a few hours. Often it is easier to clean after it is slightly frozen. No mushiness. The cold temperature seems to eliminate the odor. Still, sometimes it fuses to the ice, making it more difficult to pick up. Yet with a small fenced yard, where we do not even let the dogs wander freely, it is crucial to clean regularly and immediately.

Perhaps it is picking up this poop that makes me envious of every single fenced yard that I see. I want to live in a house with a fenced yard again. I want the dogs to be able to poop without being attached to me and my leash. I want flowerbeds that will be enhanced by dog waste. I want to wear jackets with empty pockets; at the moment, all of my pockets are stuff with plastic bags. I want us all to have some freedom again.

That is the crux of my desire. I want Tibe to be free. I want my family to be free from the unwanted scrutiny of the county, free from the harassment of neighbors, free from the irrational fears of bigots, free from the scrutiny of small people with small minds and no hearts. Even more than eight hundred miles away from the bigoted bullies, we do not have freedom. We do have lots of shit to pick up every day.

It is two weeks since the hearing about Tibe at Animal Control. We have yet to learn of the decision of the board, even though it was allegedly issued. I want freedom for Tibe with all of my heart. Freedom and a fenced yard.

  

 

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Cashmere Sweaters

I have owned less than a handful in my lifetime. Three are still in my closet. A cream cable knit one, a navy blue v-neck, and a bright green cardigan. I love them. They are soft and comfortable. They are also expensive. And how many sweaters does one need, particularly in the mid-Atlantic region? This current storm aside, there are only a few months for wearing thick warm sweaters. 

Michigan is different. We have had to remember and relearn how to keep winter warm. Wool socks. Layers. Within two week of moving here, I bought three more long sleeve cotton t-shirts. They form a foundation for any outfit. My cashmere sweaters have been a top layer, over the long sleeve tees or turtlenecks, or waffle-weave insulated henleys. The beloved remarked the other day that she remembers how in Michigan in the winter, how exciting and shocking skin on skin contact is. It is one of the exciting things about a new lover: when you finally get beneath the layers and find skin, raw, naked, exposed. Most of our time is spent covering skin, protecting it from the cold, from the wind.

We finally seemed to have solved the problem of warmth in the bed. At home, I love our down comforter, but it was too thick and bulky to carry, and I think I secretly thought while we were fleeing that we might return home again. The testimony from the angry bigots confirmed that it is not safe for us to live where we once did. So I did not ship the down comforter and the king size pillows. I miss them. We have struggled with staying warm while sleeping, until I splurged and ordered a new woolen Pendleton blanket. It seems to hold in body heat and is not too heavy. We slept warmly and soundly last night.

The other day, I opened a chest and uncovered more than a dozen cashmere sweaters that had been my mothers. After my mother died, I cleaned out her closets and her bathroom. All of the clothes, I thought, went to Goodwill. She was a bit of a hoarder. That modifier, a bit, is misleading. There were clothes at all layers of her closets that still had tags on them. It was impossible to close any of her closet doors, they wee all brimming with clothes and shoes. In the end, it was boxes and bags of material. I recall donating at least a dozen cashmere sweaters. Yet, here were fifteen more. Folded in this chest. Even now almost three years after h death, they still smelled like her. I pulled them all out and took all but one to the dry cleaner. The one I didn’t take? Thick stitching mending holes on the elbows.

Two in light blue went to my grandmother. She was delighted. She needed more warm sweaters for this cold weather. The others are hanging in the closet. I wore a red one today; Kim wore the black one. I am happy to have new warm sweaters. It is more cashmere than I would have ever purchased for myself. At the same time, it feels odd to be wearing my mother’s clothes after hear death. It also feels odd to keep ten cashmere sweaters. There are only seven days in a week. What does anyone need with so many sweaters? Where and how will I store them all? (Assuming, as I must, that I will have a home again and that we will retrieve all of our stuff from Maryland–remember, we left quickly. I shipped nearly a dozen boxes of clothes and office things, including four boxes of books. We carried only what we could in two cars with two people, two dogs, and Vita the cat. She took the most space. Her large presence and personality.) 

Immediately after my mother died, I disposed of her cloths and her make-up quickly. With little sentiment. It was a way of clearing and creating space for my father to have a life after mother. It was also satisfying to organize, clean, and remove. Each action seemed to prove how unlike moth I am. Now, living in her house, I cannot let go of her things as quickly, particularly of these sweaters. What if the hoarding desire lives in this house and is becoming a part of me? What if I am slowly becoming my mother, one cashmere sweater at a time?

Just as I typed those words, Tibe let out a long, loud, plaintive whine. It is like nothing either of us have ever heard from Tibe. I put my hand down on his neck and gently woke him. It seems to have been a bad dream, though I wonder if it was subconsciously his objection to that simple question.

Many have asked, what is happening with Tibe. We do not yet know the decision of the Animal Control Board. We had hoped to have it at the end of the week, but no word yet. On one hand, we are all waiting to know the fate of our dear pup; on the other hand, we are moving on with our lives. New sweaters and all.

  

Tibe with some of his weekend reading.

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On Gold Bond Lotion

When I visit my grandmother at night, I always take time to rub her feet and her legs with thick, creamy lotion. In January, in Michigan, everyone’s skin is dry and cracking. My fingernails are brittle and ragged. My toenails would be too, but they a not outside of thick wool socks for more than a few minutes a day. My grandmother has a small rash around her ankles. She itches it, which makes it worse. Every time I see her, I monitor the status of the rash. Some days it is better, some days it is worse. I rub it first with caladryl, then with Gold Bond lotion. She loves that. I massage her feet, warming them with blood stimulated. Lately, I have also been rubbing lotion on her back, which is also dry. She reaches back and tries to itch it, but has little success. She loves the lotion on her back, how I rub her shoulders.

There are medical reasons to do this. Skin, our largest organ, deteriorates and becomes compromised, especially for people who have diabetes. A regular inspection lets me know that there are not places where infections could enter, and if there a I monitor them. It also reminds me to check that her nails are trimmed and blunt to prevent too much scratching. All of these reasons aside though, it is a profoundly intimate time with her. Spreading lotion over her dry skin. Stimulating her circulation with my hands. Bringing warmth and softness to her body. Skin to skin is a demonstration of caring, trust.

Though the other day, I walked into her house and she was dispensing advice to her visiting nurse and the home health aid. Her main words of wisdom? Don’t let your granddaughter take care of you. Good advice from her perspective. Before I arrived, no one was picking her finger to test her blood sugar level, no one came into her house insisting that she take pills or bathe. She could do what she wanted every day with no interference. It had some challenges, of course, the self determination, but who does not prefer that, in spite of its challenges, to having someone “bossy” come in and tell you what to do.

Here is the rub, however, this business of living requires a lot of labor. Labor that is largely invisible and unaccounted for. I cannot tell you how many times I have thought over the past month, how have women done this for generations? Because of course the type of labor I am talking about–making sure that there are healthful diabetic-friendly meal options, picking up prescriptions, ensuring that home health aids can find socks and underwear and outfits that are warm and matching, overseeing regular bathing, cleaning, and laundry, taking medicine on a daily schedule. The list continues. This is women’s work. And it is work that is often unseen and unacknowledged.

Part of why I have been thinking about these issues is because of an article at LinkedIn. The author describes a woman living at home in the final days of her life with NO acknowledgement of the labor that keeps her in a home, the labor that puts the comfy pillow under her head, the labor that makes the soup boiling on the stove. I found the article completely annoying. Sexism at its worst: the complete erasure of women’s labor.

Do not jump to praise me. In the scheme of caregiving in the world, I have done very little. I have organized some interventions to help my grandmother’s life and health for the past month, but my labor is small compared to the labor of people who care intimately for parents and grandparents for months and years. Caretaking is extraordinary work that is both physical and emotional. It is also work that is not recognized and undervalued. I have had only a small taste of it, enough to know, I do not want to dine here every evening.

If I were at home with my books, if I had not been driven out of my home by bigoted bullies, I would pull out Minnie Bruce Pratt’s book Inside the Money Machine. The poems in that collection make visible the labor of women–and men–that we often want to forget or ignore. I am not at my home, however, so I pull out the Gold Bond lotion and rub it on my grandmother’s ankles and feet, on her back and shoulders, on her hands and arms. I am trying to smooth over the rough edges in both of our lives.

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Can you ever win against bullies?

On Friday morning, I had a complete meltdown. Kim called on her way to the house from the airport to ask if I wanted breakfast. I burst into tears. No, I don’t want breakfast, I want a house with a fenced back yard and a working dishwasher! That is what I wanted to scream. I refrained from saying that for another thirty minutes until she got home. I am not proud to admit these facts. Kim, who had one of the most grueling weeks of her life. Kim, who had to be in the same room with the hateful bullies while they described our incompetence as dog owners, while they called for our dogs (not just Tibe, but our beloved eight year old Saint Bernard Emma, whose primary goal every day is to sleep a full twenty-three hours) to be put down. Kim who had to listen to two and a half hours of testimony again our beloved Tibe and Emma. Yes, that Kim. She returned to our home in Michigan, after leaving Maryland at three in the morning, flying on a six am flight, then driving north for two hours, and I hollered at her. And cried. The least I can say is it was not my finest hour.

While I continue to stand by our actions and the decision that we made to be with Tibe and continue to train him (a decision that is paying off!), there are these low moments. In addition, lots of people wonder why we let the bullies win. Why do we not go back to our home? Stand up against the bigots? Build a six foot privacy fence around our home. Yet, I wonder, is even that winning?

The simple answer is we cannot go home because the angry mob continues to threaten us and our dogs with violence. We feel we must take that seriously. We know too many queers, people of color, women, and others who have risked their lives in the face of bullies, threats, and intimidation only to have it turn out that the bigots followed through on the threats, causing bodily harm and even death. We cannot go home because bigots have created an atmosphere hostile to our lives and our family.

Still, I wonder, are we letting them win?

This is not my first time at the rodeo with bullies. (I still chastise myself for not seeing it coming. Part of the angry cabal is now, in retrospect, so clearly mean girls. I should have known better. Even though they were not wearing black hats, they had all of the hallmarks of mean girls, of bullies just looking for the issue to bear their teeth, to scowl and snarl and intimidate those they deem as powerless, as less important, as dispensable. As I said to a dear friend, though, I really wish the bad ones wore black hats. It would make it so much easier.) As queer kids everywhere know, life and survival are about steering clear of the bullies, avoiding, disappearing, seeking shelter and respite. 

Yet, part of me feels like we did win against the bullies, at least in some ways. The bullies wanted to intimidate us into putting Tibe down–or rehoming him. (What a horrible term, rehoming. As though there would be another home equal to ours in love for our pooter. As though homes for large dogs, for large mutts, as easy to find. As though we are replaceable for him and he is replaceable for us. As though giving him up is a generous decision, one that helps him find a proper home when in reality it is a decision that condemns him to more time in shelters, temporary houses, more time to build mistrust, have bad experiences, be without our consistent guidance, our firm training, our love.) We told the bullies, no. We told them, we take our love and commitment to Tibe seriously. We did not let them win.

We did not let them win because we chose to pick up and move with our pack and two car loads of stuff. We did not let them win because we left, refusing to bend to their intimidation. Refusing to bow to their threats. In many ways, I think of this whole situation as a win against bullies, in many ways, my very first win against bullies.

Yet, then there are the tears. The persistent feeling of jealous when I see people living in homes with fences. The ways I covet shiny, new appliances. The feeling of missing my fluffy down pillows and my rows and rows of organized books. In these things, the bullies have won, separating me from my physical home, denying me the use and enjoyment of my property.

This makes me think even when one wins against the bullies, denying them what they want most of all, thumbing one’s nose at them for their small-mindedness, insisting that one has more power in the world to move around and do what one wants, even then, the bullies win. They force choices that are less than perfect; they limit our lives; they interrupt our happiness, our sense of stability, our sense of autonomy and self-worth. These are the pernicious consequences of bullying. Even in the win, there is no win. Their hatred, their bigotry, their small-minded actions diminish our lives. This is why we must fight bullies. This is why they must not be allowed to operate in the world.

We have taken actions to preserve Tibe’s life, to bring us all together in one home as a family, to deny the wishes of the bullies, but it still is no victory.

Oscar Wilde paraphrased George Herbert when he said, “To live well is the best revenge.” Oscar knew a bit about bullying. And winning and losing. And losing while winning. 

I am not sure that anyone ever wins against bullies. The very best response is to interrupt bullying behavior before it takes hold, before it disrupts the lives of people the bullies target.  People who have the power to speak up and intervene must. Bullies and bigots need to be challenged, not by the people that they target, but by the people who witness it happening. For us and our family, there are many who witnessed it happening who chose to feed the fire instead of tamping down the flames. I wish that there had been more intervenors on our behalf. In absence of that, however, we are trying to feel our way to living well again.

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One Voice and Its Power

Much of the contemporary conversation about bullying is about how young people treat one another in school and about how adults can be allies to young people who are bullied and interrupt the bully cycle. Allies are important and what I am thinking and writing about this evening, but I do want to preface my thoughts with the note that there must be structural corrections to prevent and interrupt bullying. As I wrote in a previous blog post, people with power cannot be allowed to use social, political, and administrative structures to bully people they perceive as having less power, as being marked as other in our society. Individual action to prevent this type of bullying is important, but it is not enough. There have to be structural changes and structural protections. I do not know what those changes and protections are–I am too embroiled in my own life and the consequences of being targeted by a group of bullying bigots who have driven me and my family out of our home with harassment, threats, and intimidation tactics. I do know that they need to exist. Structural interventions are crucial.

People are important, too. Two stories about people who have acted with kindness and compassion when I have been targeted. First, a story not about Tibe and the current situation, but one from my past with a prefatory digression. Reader, this may shock you, but I am not longer a young woman. I would like to think I am not yet long in the tooth, but young is an adjective I have left behind. When I actually was young, I understood that as a result of sexism people would think that I was overly emotional, overwrought, and carried away by my emotions in a wide range of circumstances. Passionate about queer equality? A product of youth that will pass you by. Angry about homophobia and heterosexism? The anger will diminish with time. One of the ways that we diminish women in our society is to characterize them as experiencing things with too much emotion and tell them that their feelings are not important, not right, and will pass. I thought that these types of diminishments would decrease as I aged. I thought people would recognize my anger, my fury, my pain, my distress as a middle age woman as accurate, as earned through experience. It is not. My anger and all of my feelings continue to be diminished and dismissed–often even by other women–as not rational, as overwrought, as perhaps valid but not relevant. Being seen as a smart, competent, intelligent woman who happens to have strong, valid feelings is a rare experience. Having someone reflect back that they see and understand your feelings and that they want to take action in solidarity with you is even more rare.

When I was in my early twenties and working at the gay and lesbian center, there was an older lesbian who became obsessed with me. It happened quickly. Over a few days it moved from being a curious situation to an uncomfortable one to a creepy one to a situation that made me fear for my life. There was some evidence for my concern, but primarily it was a gut feeling. Many people told me I was misunderstanding the situation, that there was no danger and I should not worry. Two people, two board member, both gay men, heard me. They believed me and my gut feeling. They saw me and my concerns, and they responded with care, compassion, and action. In fact, it turned out that the woman was obsessed with me, was mentally unbalanced, and was in possession of a firearm. The ability of these two gay men to see me, understand the situation, and intervene ultimately diffused it. More than the resolution, though, I remember the profound sense of support and validation from them. I remain grateful for their aid but even more for the experience of being seen and believed.

Bullies thrive on the diminishments of people’s emotions. When someone says of a situation where the dynamics of bullying is at play, oh it isn’t a big deal, or she is overblowing the situation, that person is diminishing the person being bullied and refusing to see them and their humanity. These types of diminishments are complicity with the bullying dynamic. Listening to the experiences of someone who is being bullied, validating those experiences, and taking action to change the situation are the actions of support and validation. They allow someone being bullied to be seen and heard.

The Saturday after Tibe’s biting incident, I was walking with Emma on our usual walk around the neighborhood. We voluntarily did not walk Tibe after the incident confining him to walk and play in our large fenced yard. That Saturday morning, Emma and I we walking by a neighbor’s house, one of the neighbor’s who testified that Tibe should be put down. There were four or five people gathered. Three of them were people we knew, people we had walked dogs with for many months. They did not speak to us. They looked away. Emma wanted to come over and see the other dogs and say hi to her friends, but before we could, the neighbor shrieked and ran behind her fence. Then she said, oh, it is just Emma, I thought you were walking Tiberius. Readers, you know these two dogs do not look alike. There was nervous energy surrounding these people gathered because they were organizing a call in campaign to Animal Control. I did not know that at the time.

The next day, another neighbor came over to our house, with her dog to talk to us. She wanted to know what happened with Tibe, and she wanted us to know that people were organizing in the neighborhood to call in complaints to animal control. They called her to ask her to complain. She refused. Her visit to us that Sunday was so profoundly meaningful. It helped us to understand the dynamics of what would unfold. It also reminded us that not everyone would join the angry mob. In her visit, she recognized our humanity and our vulnerability, and she stood with us, resisting the isolation that helps bullies thrive. I am so grateful for her kindness, her voice, and her action.

I continue to believe that one of the most profound actions we can take as humans is to listen to one another and witness humanity with one another. I honor and appreciate these people who have used their voices to help me at difficult times. I hope that I continue to have opportunities to do the same for others. I understand the immediate appeal of being part of the angry mob, of being in with the cool girls, but I think we are called as humans to something greater. We are called to find our best selves outside the frenzied cabal. We are called to hear and witness people’s profound, large, and messy emotions.

Two photos of Tibe and me, including a selfie! (For the bigoted bullies, this constitutes further evidence of my inadequacy as a dog owner. On the couch! Oh, no! Hugging the dog! So wrong! For the rest of us,  these a two snapshots of me and my beloved dog.)  

 

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Michigan Women

I came out in Ann Arbor. I knew, living in this very house, in Saginaw that I was a lesbian, but I didn’t really come out into a community until Ann Arbor. The Ann Arbor lesbian community was political and righteous. As a group, they seemed to me (at the tender ages of nineteen and twenty), to believe in egalitarianism, consensus, vegetarianism at the very least with a preference for veganism, socialist politics, woman-identified music, and comfortable shoes. They joked about the Butch women upstate. Those women were different kinds of lesbians. Lesbians who declared, my house, my dog, my gun, my woman. Survivalist lesbians. Libertarian lesbians. And being that I was from upstate, these were the women I knew, the women who aroused me.

I have been thinking about these women, these my house, my dog, my gun, my woman women in part because I have become one of them. It is amazing what a group of bigoted bullies can do to one’s politics. I have become a property rights lesbian, furious at the interference of others in my real property and my canine property. (While I philosophically chafe at the notion that animals are property–they clearly mean so much more to me and to others I know who are caretakers of animals; I think of the relationship as much more reciprocal and bound by care and attention–the fact is legally that is what animals are. Personal property. Interfering with one’s pet is interfering with one’s use and enjoyment of property. I told you, I have become a private property nut.) Especially when as one neighbor testified, she was afraid of Tibe because he barks loudly, and this makes her fearful to walk in front of our property, and this denies her the ability to walk down and see the blow up Halloween display two blocks down from her house. For this, Tibe should be put down. So she can see the Halloween blow up display over on a corner, where the are four or five other ways to travel to see it besides in front of our house. Yes, this is the kind of white, heterosexual privilege with which we are dealing. My dog should be put down so that she can walk to see a Halloween display of a neighbor. I should be denied the use and enjoyment of both my real property and my private property, my dog (remember, I warned you private property rights nut), for her to be able to walk in front of my house without irrational fears (remember that Tibe has never bit a human and that he has not gotten out of the fenced yard).

This kind of imbecilic logic is combined with the bullying of a group of women that is really right out of a bad YA novel about an all girls high school. These self-appointed cool girls have decided to pick on two others and a dog that they perceive as powerless. They want to have the school/dorm/neighborhood operate in their way, and they decide to shun us with threats, administrative hearings, and the like until we drop out, or given that we are all out of high school, move out of the neighborhood. These women almost make me hate women. (I wonder if Florence King, now of blessed memory, lived in a suburb like mine. This is the kind of experience that could turn me into a Florence King.)

The circumstances of my life at the moment make me doubt my commitment to making the world better for women, a commitment those dykes in Ann Arbor taught me (even though they might despise the lesbian I have become). As my commitment to women has wavered, being the object of bigoted bullies who are primarily women, three Michigan women remind me how fierce, righteous, and strong women can be.

First, on Monday, I was slinging snow with the other folks in the neighborhood. We have had three or four inches this week. Of course, not all at once, so some shoveling has been in order on more than one occasion. The neighbor woman across the street started a friendly conversation while shoveling. Now she is a good ten years older than I am and, while I carry a little extra insulation, she is probably a weight class higher than I am. This is to say, I was winded shoveling that snow, and it hurt my back and tired me. I did not want to carry on a conversation. She on the other hand chatted away with no evidence that this project was taxing. That alone made me admire her, but there is more. She said, Someone tried to break into her house the other day. She was there in the shower. She called the police. They came, found him, arrested him. He had a b&e record. I said to her, how frightening. I will keep my eyes out. I am so glad he didn’t get into the house. She said, Well, he should be, too, had he gotten in, he would be dead. She hefted the next pile of snow. Reader, these are the women I love. Shoveling snow, protecting themselves and their property from intruders. There was no threat, no bullying, just the facts, ma’am. I love Michigan women.

At a family gathering, my cousin’s son’s girlfriend told me about her family’s taxidermy business. (I have since noticed that this is a booming venture here in mid-Michigan.) She works in it with her grandfather. She recently finished taxidermying an alligator. One that she killed in Florida. With a cross-bow, though she said, I had to finish it off with my hunting knife. We have eaten almost all of the alligator meat, but I may have a bit more if you want to try it. She is seventeen. Fierce. Powerful. I love Michigan women.

While Tibe’s hearing was happening, I went to lunch with a dear friend from high school. We have not seen each other since the late 80s. She is an electrician, worked at Dow and General Motors, where she was a fixer in the foundry sense. Problem? Call her. She will fix it and get the line running. When a line is down it costs the car company thousands of dollars a minute. She retired out and now owns a party store out on a Michigan highway. It’s a good business, but there is risk. They are open late. Often just one person in the store. She told me about the bat she keeps for her safety. Oh, she said, all I need is one good hit and they won’t mess with me. One woman was stealing tobacco for a few weeks when they first opened. Taking a big bag and putting it in her jacket, then buying a few, small cheap things. Finally, my friend saw her do it and caught her on the security camera. She came up to pay for the gum and candy, and my friend said, Now I want you to take the bag of tobacco out from your jacket and never come back to my store again. She stared her down. The woman mumbled an apology. She has never been back. I love Michigan women.

These are the women that inspire me. Their lives are not easy; mid-Michigan is not thriving by any measure, but they bring fierceness and determination to their lives. They are funny and wry, practical and grounded. These are the women I admire. They are not studying someone’s Facebook page for evidence of their inadequacy as a dog owner; they are not simpering about wanting to see Halloween decorations but not able to because of a dog’s loud bark; they are not passing on weak threats from a man in their life with a sick fantasy about hurting women and dogs with bats and guns.

The blog is open now and not private because I just have no more fucks to give. More than twenty-five year later, I am the my house, my dog, my gun, my woman lesbian, a rabid advocate for property rights. I love Michigan. I love women. I love Michigan women.

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