Tagged: women
Why I Write
Actions speak louder than words. I really want that to be true. I remain unconvinced.
Growing up in a Southern Baptist church and having a healthy competition in me, I really soaked up the power of the preacher. I memorized bible verses better than my peers, took pride in reading out loud better, prayed better, and spoke more. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk–all in naïve earnestness. I walked the walk as well. It wasn’t a fear of hell, but more a genuine wish to show people it wasn’t that difficult to avoid sin as I understood it.
Of course I was sinning all the while (“making mistakes” if you heathens prefer).
Until I graduated from college I had never read for pleasure. Simply movies for me. And I was as evangelical about movies triumphing over books as I was about saving souls. Catch-22 fucked that all up. I fell in love with reading as quickly and madly as Yossarian fell in love with the chaplain. After the last word, I literally had the thought, “If this is how good reading can be, I wonder if there are other books like it?” Obviously, there were. One of them being Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. In that gem, there is a part about telling the truth to people vs. using flattery on people, and the point is listeners are awful picky about one while rather forgiving with the other. Given that I had the gift of gab, I made errors left and right that my listeners had no problem pointing out. My strong character and integrity-first approach to life seemed to bail me out of most situations when I strayed from the truth in large ways, but I slowly began to realize that writing might be a better outlet for my ideas than talking. With writing there is proofreading, and re-writing. As a writer (versus speaker), I have time on my side. So I started writing. This was 8 months ago.
There is something more, though. In the story that I tell myself to make sense of this crazy, crazy world there are some written words which have changed the world. Specifically, there are books that exposed how someone felt about life. Books that took courage. Upon publication, the reading public needn’t have said a word. They simply had to show their support through a purchase. And then life as we know it changed. I understand one of these moments to be the release of The Feminine Mystique. Within its pages, a woman wrote about an unnamed problem, that being women feeling unsatisfied as housewives, and it soon became clear she was right. I am shocked every time I contemplate that women back then could have been too ashamed to admit to each other how they were feeling about life. At the same time I am so hopeful. Consider what life might be like if enough of us shared ourselves via the written word. Maybe we could start doing this life we’re given better.
And so that is why I talk, and that is why I write. No one should have to live in shame. No one should be hiding behind social graces. For whatever reason I don’t mind if others find out I was wrong or stupid. It’s kind of exciting to me when it happens, as it is so rare.
In sum, I write first to reduce shame, second to reduce mistakes that happen when talking, and lastly, I write because people who read what I write tell me I write well and I am compelled to believe them.
Now you know.
A Letter To Combat
Dear Combat,
I’ve been thinking a lot about you recently. While I’d love to report that my memory of you grows fonder as the years pass, quite the opposite is true. To begin, I want you to know I feel like you took something from me. I think you took something I didn’t even know I had it until it went missing. I’m talking about care. And concern. Care and concern for things. Take work for example. How am I supposed to believe anything that is not life and death is worth spending energy on? Of course I’m capable, and of course I’m qualified. But the drive to ‘fight the good fight’, when it isn’t a fight, is gone. I think you took it.
I also feel like I’m not sure how people expect to be treated. While we were together, everyone was equal. It was beautiful. During missions the mission was all that mattered. Everyone checked their feelings at the door. Now, people’s feelings are the mission. Every experience since being with you has included not only completing the mission, but making the person feel like the mission was completed. Instead of results, people want to purchase experiences. I just don’t understand it. I know you don’t either.
Lastly, for now, because of what you taught me about what’s important and what’s not important when lives are on the line, taken together with the depth of the learning experience, I can’t shake the appearance of having a large ego. It’s like I’m expected to just forget all the lessons you taught simply because not very many people ever learn them. The trouble is, as you know, I couldn’t forget your instruction even if I wanted to. With you, there wasn’t endless debating. There was action. There was doing. Indecision was an enemy. Now, decisiveness is a detractor. It doesn’t make sense.
You know I love you, right? Don’t you? At the same time, I just can’t help wanting to blame you either.
In the end, I guess I really just wanted to say “Thanks” and “No Thanks”.
Your Son,
Pete
PS – This is just a little thing, and I don’t know if it’s you or just flying that is responsible, but I’m not loving how I can’t pass up a bathroom without feeling like “Might as well. Who knows when the next time I’ll have a chance to go will be.”
Error In Yesterday’s Captain’s Log
Yesterday’s post, “White Hot Flame”, contained a copy of a back-and-forth between a fellow student and myself. The trouble, however, is that there was a typo. Where I wrote “Hey S-“, it should’ve simply read, “To Anyone Who Feels Like Reading At The Moment:”
Now, you might be wondering, “What’s the difference?” Well, I’m exceedingly happy to share the answer, the difference, with you here.
If I wrote that post to “S-“, who, like you and I, is a real live person struggling to find her way in this crazy, crazy world, it would have been an attack on her character. It would’ve have been an immature, undignified, and disrespectful personal attack. And I don’t do that. At least, I don’t do that to strangers. For someone to get me to deliberately and proudly sacrifice my character in an effort to attack theirs, well, that requires a special bond. To be specific, that requires the bond that only family can form.
But if the post was written “To Anyone Who Feels Like Reading At The Moment”, then it reveals itself for what it really was. It was a rant. And I’m allowed a rant.
See the difference?
So, a stranger wrote something that pissed me off, and I had a lot I wanted to say about it. Because I write a lot these days–because it was late and I didn’t have anyone to talk with about it–I wrote (typed up) what I had to say, and was quite pleased with how it turned out. So pleased in fact, that I wanted people to read it. I wrote something, and I wanted people to read it. At this point, no error has been committed–no attack. Posting what I wrote to the class discussion board, with S- as the addressee, is the mistake. That’s the moment my words transformed from “rant” to “attack”. I see that now.
Some of you who don’t know me personally might think this is all bullshit. That I’m backpedaling. You’d be mistaken. Just ask the people that do know me. To a man, they’ll confirm that my one true goal in life is to get you to love me as much as I love me. They’ll confirm that for a while I nurtured the goal by hoping that my smile would be enough to do the trick. When that didn’t work, I focused on my body. When that failed, I tried my voice. That I write to you now illustrates that while I’m 0-3 in my quest, I am not giving up.
Did I want S- to read my post? Yes. Because at least then I knew I had one reader. Did I want to attack S-? No.
So here I am, again writing. I’m exploring the feeling of remorse. Some of you might recognize these words as an apology. I can buy that. But for me, there is something more going on here. For me, this was a breakthrough. For me, this was growth.
Thanks Ma.
And thank You.
The only way to get there is together.
White Hot Flame
This blog has a persona that I’ve been attempting to carefully control. It hasn’t been the full picture, though, and sometimes I don’t feel good about not sharing everything. As an experiment then, here’s some of what you’ve been missing:
“Hi Pete…maybe not cold blooded, but perhaps a bit narrow visioned, or at least inconsiderate, as a result of white male privilege…brutal enslavement of women is not a thing of the past. Sadly, that is not made up. And I disagree that it was “cured” by the U.S. military riding in on their white horse. It happens here too.”
“Hey S-,
I just finished watching “The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” and I have to say I’m in the mood to talk about my feelings. Brutal enslavement of women is not sanctioned by anyone (public or private) in the United States of America.
What are you even talking about?
Individual crimes happen, sure, but those will never stop happening. In fact, I heard the other day that a white male was murdered. I cried myself to sleep that night. Because I’m white. And I’m a male.
The terrible crimes against women that happen in America and occasionally are bizarre enough to receive national news coverage (which are the only things I can possibly imagine you’re referencing as evidence of women being enslaved “here”–you do know slavery is against the law here, right?), these individual crimes aren’t even in the same categorical universe as the situation in Afghanistan–the situation that is causing Afghan women to choose to burn themselves alive.
Wait a minute. I think I know what’s happened here. Yes, it’s all becoming clear now. Because I look like your dad, who I can only assume you hate, you think you get to bring up my “race” or my “culture” or my “ethnicity” without fear of reprisal. That must be it. Am I close?
To be clear: (I was taught once to not use the phrase “I think” when writing, because of course each of us only ever writes our opinion. But for those of you who haven’t learned that ev-er-y-thing is opinion, I’ll use “I think” here.) I read M-‘s poem. I thought it was good. I didn’t think it was great. But I thought it had the potential to be great. I never doubted that Afghan girls were burning themselves alive, though I don’t have time to focus on the news these days, and until reading the poem, I wasn’t aware they were doing this. The purpose of this course is to teach us to write better, teach us to use imagery, etc., teach us to write in a way that causes the reader–any reader–to feel what we (the writer) intended to be felt. I did not “feel” that M-‘s word choice was as effectively-imagery-ridden as it could be, and, in my own style, I told her as much.
S-, R-, and K-, that you chimed in on this discussion did nothing except reveal how misaligned your understandings’ of life on planet Earth are. Suffice it to say, because I have responded to you despite the fact that you used words like “offended” and “inconsiderate”, I’m now very afraid that some actual repercussion will occur, and, if so, that could result in me losing some money. Because I clearly think I know everything, I composed a swan song that I’d like to share with you now. Please write this down, and when able, commit it to memory:
College is the last time in your life
When you might be given actual honest feedback.
However, at your bidding, in this class, and from now on,
I’ll only say the most unoffensive and considerate things about everything you write.
In effect,
I’ll lie.
That should cause
Some real growth.
I know I’m
Looking forward to it.
Pete”
The Miniature Van
People don’t remember that twenty years ago the first minivans had two bench seats. And just one sliding door. And no TV screens. Worse yet, the speed limits were slower. Road trips, coast-to-coast family vacations took longer. It was quite miserable having to spend time with your family.
Only then came bucket seats. And CD players. And space. And younger brothers. Soon, everyone sat in their own seat.
But there were occasionally short moments, usually right after a sack lunch at a rest area, when the trip would become bearable. And in those moments, the family played car games that involved talking to each other. Single words became phrases and phrases became conversations. Conversations, of course, became love. And love blossomed into memories.
A simple, yet fun, way to prolong the sugar high was a game where players had to name cities which began with the last letter of the previous city. Bismark, led to Kansas City, which led to Yorkshire, to Edmonton and so on and so forth.
Anyone who has played this game can remember that after a few rounds, everyone seemed always to get stuck on cities that ended in “y”. Not the youngest brother. Receiving New York City, he quickly returned Yukon. Oklahoma City became Yonkers, and Sioux City led to Yorba Linda. Wait, what? Yorba Linda? How did Sam know Yorba Linda?
As one, father, mother, sister, and brother all turned back to see how he was doing it.
Looking up towards the silence, young Sam feigned ignorance to the rules of the game as he closed the giant road atlas and its alphabetical index.
That reminds me. The first minivans didn’t have GPS either.
Sadness
The buzzer always startled him. This time was no different. Alone and lost in thought, he sat with his fingers resting lightly on the home row when it sounded.
“Shit that’s loud,” he cursed, hoping to keep his man card after the fright.
The words not coming, he decided to go ahead and do now what had to be done at some point or another. The hardwood floor reminded him that he had been standing all day; the carpet, that he needed to vacuum. Pulling open the dryer, he hoped no socks would fall into the below washer as he removed the ball of clothes.
Back in the living room, he pulled his work clothes out first. Once folded, he laid them on the couch. Looking into the hamper, he saw her clothes.
At first he chuckled, never ceasing to be amazed by the sight of how small they are. Then he laughed at the memory of how excited she gets when putting them on herself.
Hating that he was laughing at memories, he didn’t laugh again for a while.
The Small Things
“Can you turn off the car daddy?” she asked.
“Oh. Yes I can. Thanks for asking,” he responded. “Looking to get into the house, eh? Sorry, I just was enjoying the song. Here we go.”
Racing to the door, she called out her victory upon touching the glass. He proceeded towards her, fanning out the three keys necessary to enter the house.
“Daddy, can you turn on the light?”
“You can do it H-. You’ve done it for over a year now. Just reach for it.”
They each began to remove their jackets and begin their respective rituals. Stopping his, he realized he hadn’t hugged her yet today.
“H-,” he called, squatting down low, “what haven’t we done today?”
Only just a little, she bent her knees, unsure if mirroring him was necessary. Then it hit her.
“Hugged!”
Walking briskly towards him, her head mechanically assumed the cocked-right position as she opened her arms. They embraced. He stood, lifting her into the air. She let her legs hang.
Upon putting her down, she immediately beckoned, “Pick me up daddy!” He complied. This time, she was intent on staying and said so.
He hadn’t seen her for days, and wanted to be sure she knew the meaning of a hug. Taking a moment to get the lesson right in his head, that a hug is a way to say “I love you” without words, he was interrupted by her.
Pointing towards the counter, she said, “My phone!”
Wonderful Weather – A Sestina
A Sestina is form of poetry. A restrictive form of poetry. It has six stanzas of six lines, then a three line stanza. The last words of each stanza are the tricky part. After the first stanza, the last words have been chosen. The full pattern is as follows:
- ABCDEF
- FAEBDC
- CFDABE
- ECBFAD
- DEACFB
- BDFECA
- ECA or ACE (called envol or tornada–it must also contain the other end-words, BDF, in the course of the three lines so that all six appear in the final three lines.)
Wonderful Weather
Leaves horizontal foretold stormy weather,
Foretold darkened skies. Danger lingered in the air.
Standing together, the two, a pair
United in disgust,
They heeded the captain, and ventured to the bow.
Remaining anchored would prove too intense.
Remaining anchored would prove too intense,
The port must be abandoned in search of fair weather.
Cracking, breaking, crunching sounded the bough,
Unable to stand the force of the air.
Leave they must, no other option need be discussed.
Trust me, he said, and so complied the pair.
Trust me, he said, and so complied the pair.
The swelling sea stopped short of intense,
Honeymoon over, hidden from each other was disgust.
Such an event, to be ruined by weather,
It seemed that love was no longer in the air–
At least, until he took that fateful bow,
At least, until he took that fateful bow.
Fading from view, the trees, the storm began to pare.
Not upon them yet, water was in the air.
Only yesterday, they were in tents
Deciding whether or whether
Not to follow through with what they discussed.
Not to follow through with what they discussed
Was the decision they made. Her hair bow
Was loosed by the weather,
A light green, the green of a pear.
The deck dropped out from under, intense
The moment became, as they hovered in the air.
They hovered in the air,
Their eyes absent of disgust.
The moment was intense.
Port side, starboard side, stern and bow,
All dashed away, all left the pair.
Never before this feeling, never before this weather.
Over too quickly, the air vanished; feet returned to the bow.
Disgust gone for good, the pair
Called to the Captain whose eyes were intense, “Wonderful Weather!”
You-Berry
“All right H-, tonight’s going to be a bit different. I’m going to cook you some broccoli, which you’ll eat here, then we’ll go to the restaurant.”
“Old Mcdonald’s?”
“No, I feel like a burrito, so no McDonald’s today.”
“What’s this daddy?”
“What’s what?”
“This?”
“Oh, yes, that came in the mail yesterday.”
“Can you open it, please?”
“Sure, just give me a second to start your broccoli. Okay, it’s open. Careful, careful! You don’t know if it’s breakable.”
“Can you open this card?”
“Sure. Here’s what it says, ‘What’s sweeter than a blueberry?…a you-berry! Happy Valentine’s day. Love, Grandma and Pops.'”
“It’s my Valentine’s Day?”
“Huh? Oh. No. Well…yes. I mean, that’s adorable.”
How To Avoid Capture (despite being an extremely eligible bachelor)
(If you’re short on time, skip to the bottom for numbered instructions.)
“So, guess what I just got?”
“I don’t know. What?”
“Tailored shirts. They’re great. Gone are the yards of fabric that hide my svelte figure.”
“Yeah, I actually heard the radio talk about how women like men who wear tailored clothes the other day. Though, I have to say it seems out of character that you’d do something like that. Did you have them done at the store? When did you even go shopping?”
“Oh, I didn’t get them done. My friend was going to throw some away, so I said I’d take them.”
“So, they’re not tailored…to you?”
Instructions for How To Stay Single
Step 1 — CROSSFIT for life.
Step 2 — WALK through Costco like a kid in a candy store.
Step 3 — ABSTAIN from soap.
Step 4 — TELL everyone you know about Steps 1- 3.
Captain’s Log 