(Preface:
I’ve gone on a lot of walks this past week. On Tuesday I walked a little less than a mile through my neighborhood to meet my carpool buddy for a trip across town to a Resource Generation dinner. On Wednesday I walked a bit around a nice, lately gentrified beach neighborhood where my dad lives and where I spent part of my childhood. On Thursday I walked at noon for almost an hour in the mountains, and later that night from my place to a pizza place around the corner where the wine glasses are full and cheap to celebrate my 31st birthday with a group of good friends. And on Friday my partner and I walked around the L.A. National Cemetery for a little while before the 21-gun-salute ritual that opened my USMC grandfather’s memorial service.
I sat down to write this post wondering if I should put a note on privilege in parenthesis at the beginning of this entry, as a footnote at the end, or what. I sat down to write this post wondering if I should write about my paternal grandfather’s death last week, and the many things about family and gender and whiteness and class and militarism and beauty and legacy and relationship and love that are swirling for me in the wake of his memorial on Friday; or about my Thursday mid-day walk and things about colonialism, and class and property and movement, that occurred to me in relation to the park I walked in then; or the Tuesday evening walk and how it is impossible to walk in my neighborhood without thinking about gentrification, and of course I would link that to the roles of real estate and property in my life and my family and the dinner I was on my way to that night, where I’d talk with peers who identify as both progressive (or radical) and class-privileged.
I want to write about all of those things, and more, in this space, at some point. And is there a single walk or idea among them that is not on some level a note about privilege? No. There isn’t.Class privilege and able-bodied privilege and whiteness were there in every walk I took last week, though they’d have come through in different ways depending on which walk I wrote about, of the so-many I took.
But I’m still torn about where or whether to post a more explicit note on privilege. I guess I’ve started it without meaning to, so I’ll put the rest right here, up front.
I have a lot of doubts about my presence in this space, and my role in this collaboration. As a white, class-privileged, conventionally/normatively “able-bodied” person who exercises a lot, I feel concerned about taking up space here, where BFP is doing really amazing work centering the health of women of color and others whose bodies have been marginalized by dominant conceptions of “health” and “the outdoors.”
When BFP and I shifted, at her suggestion, to make this a project about “walking,” about health and the outdoors with radical politics (from our earlier ideas of making a project about feminism and race, or radical media, both topics where I felt like I had a handle on why my voice might be appropriate), I was excited by it, but no longer sure I was the right collaborator for her. I asked her about it, and (basically; the conversation was longer and more complicated than this) she said, yes, she was sure she wanted me to stay and do this walking thing with her.
My questions remain, and I’ve been trying to think of a way to write this first-walk post of mine that neither evades my privilege nor makes this all about me wringing my hands about it, because, two things:
1. It can be very boring to read/hear privileged people write or talk about how harrrrd it is to reckon with their privilege, and it is not only boring but, I think, annoying and oppressive to have to read/hear about that in the rare spaces in this society that are decidedly not centered around privileged people. Doing work around privilege is really important for privileged people who believe in justice to do—but I think we need to do a good lot of it in caucus spaces with each other rather than taking up other space with it (if you’re looking for such spaces, you may want to check out, on whiteness, Catalyst Project or AWARE-LA; on class privilege, Resource Generation). Which brings me to
2. BFP’s blog is nothing if not a woman-of-color-centered space. I really don’t think it’s a space for a class-privileged white woman’s stories to be centered, or for a lot of how-do-I-deal-with-my-privilege? anguish.
For those reasons, this prefatory note: Readers, please know that there is not a movement I can possibly make that is not informed by various privileges, and that, whatever I write here, questions about my role in this space are swirling in the subtext, even if they are not always surfaced. I feel like this is a tricky terrain to navigate, but BFP has asked me to, and, in the face of my own doubts, I’m gonna follow her lead and figure out how and why I’m walking here as we walk together.) With that said, my first walk for “(Re)Thinking Walking” is after the jump.)
A Walk in the Mountains
The largest U.S. city park with an urban wilderness area is a couple miles from my apartment. Its mountains have been part of my daily view, from one side or the other, most of my life. When people disparage LA, this park is the evidence in one of my strongest arguments for it: but I am in the midst of a big city and yet I can be on a mountain path, hiking and like I am worlds away from the urban bustle, in minutes. Lately I’ve been particularly thrilled that I can get all the way up to the observatory at the top of one of its peaks without using even a drop of fossil fuel. (I bike city streets to the base of a trail, then walk the rest of the way.)
So, after having regretfully gotten up at 5:30 a.m. on my birthday last Thursday to finish some work I had to turn in by late morning, I couldn’t wait to be out the door at noon, on my bike, on the way to meet a friend at one of many park corners where rushing traffic gives way to trail heads.
***
The most cursory Internet research will tell you the following about Griffith Park:
* it’s named after a man who came to the U.S. as a poor Welsh immigrant and earned a fortune investing in mining and, later, L.A. real-estate speculation, and who asked his wife to get down on her knees before he shot her at close range, and who donated these thousands of acres of land to the city
* before that man (who called himself Colonel Griffith, although it looks like he probably never served in the military) owned those thousands of acres, it was owned by the Feliz family, descendants of the military escort to the area’s first Spanish settlers, who received the land from the Spanish state in one of its large land grants
It takes a good deal more digging to find any mention of the history of the land before that—i.e., before colonization. The standard history appears over and over again, on site after site, as if the story of the mad, wife-shooting man with the American Dream rags-to-riches story, and before that the Spanish colonizer-ranchers, is enough, is as far as back story need go. Yet many of these same sites are careful to note how much of the indigenous plant life has been preserved in the park.
***
It is a lie to say that I was able to take so many walks last week because of “able-bodied privilege.” Or, at least, it is a partial truth, and one that shores up normative definitions of “able-bodied” while preserving the too-common invisibility of mental-health issues in discussions around dis/ability. The truth is, if I didn’t move my body almost every day, I would be immobilized by my mind. Exercise is part of how I treat depression. I love it, and also it is, for me, a prescription.
***
My friend and I walk this loop, starting and ending near a big bear statue, about once a week. Usually it is early in the morning, before work, but for this birthday hike we’re here in the heat of mid-day. (Yes, it’s January, but it’s L.A.) This past year, we have talked so much about climate change and capitalism and bad blood on this trail. People who’ve confused us or let us down or done us wrong, all wrapped up with dismay at the endurance of an unjust, unsustainable economic system. And we’ve also weaved in visions of how it could be different and asked each other questions about our own money-related choices, trying to be and to hold each other accountable to our politics. And we’ve talked about our families and collaborative art projects and queerness and one day we saw a pack of coyotes on the trail, broad daylight, right here so close above the city.
**
In 1933, 29 men were killed and 150 were injured in a fire in Griffith Park. It was the midst of the Depression, and they were being paid by the government to clear brush in the park. It was 100 degress. (It was October, but it was L.A.) A fire erupted, and many of the workers, untrained as fire fighters, attempted to put it out. (Some historians say they were ordered to do so by their supervisors; some say many of them volunteered of their own accord; some suggest that even those who volunteered may have done so in fear of losing their hard-to-come-by jobs.) Twenty-nine of them died and more than 100 were injured before trained fire fighters appeared and put out the fire.
(Sometimes at the bottom of the Griffith Park trail I most frequently walk, I see men raking dry leaves. My friend and I talked recently about the plastic bags they rake them into, whether there isn’t some better way. I have no idea how much the people doing the raking are paid, whether they spend their whole days in this park or are clearing paths all over town or … )
***
Depression is complicated, and I resist singular explanations for it. My depression is in part chemical, and I treat that part of it by exercising regularly, which shifts the chemistry in my brain in some way I don’t understand but know works. And my depression is also in part circumstantial, or social, or cultural, or …
When I first went to therapy at 25 and was told that regular exercise might be an effective alternative to the antidepressants the therapist wanted to prescribe, which I was reluctant to take (for my own reasons; no judgment on anyone who does take them), my tears and immobility in that moment and the months leading up to it were not only about lack of exercise. I don’t remember a lot about that session, but I remember that I cried a lot and fidgeted a lot and told the therapist at one point that I needed to accomplish things to be respected in the world—to justify my existence. I had no idea in that moment that not everyone defines human worth by work and work-related accomplishment. I had no idea that the particular socialization I’d received in the elite educational environment I’d spent most of my time in since I got tracked there via a (culturally biased) IQ test when I was in second grade had instilled in me certain very specific, and not universal, cultural messages about “excellence” and identity. When the therapist said something about how it would also help for me to spend more time on relaxation and self-care—she suggested one hour a day, one day a week, one week a year—I thought she had to be kidding. When would I find time to do that? Maybe after I published a book or did something else “worthwhile” that my family and peers could respect me for I’d “deserve” to do something like that, but meanwhile I was 25 and I had not lived up to the intellectual promise that I’d been socialized to believe was my worth in the world and I didn’t deserve shit.
It feels like it’s been a long time since that day. I almost don’t recognize that 25-year-old me, and there is a part of me that doesn’t want to own up to the fact of her. She seems so insulated, isolated, self-absorbed and a little clueless. I was already deep into doing social-justice work at that point, yet I was still looking through a really isolated-individual lens in a lot of ways, and so unaware of all the ways privilege would have played out had I continued along that path, breathlessly pursued that book deal in my twenties, etc., etc.
Except I’m not sure how long I would have made it if I’d stayed in that perfectionist place, if I hadn’t spent years learning how to stop asking “what have I done this year to justify my existence?” I literally asked that of myself, many nights before falling asleep, from the time I graduated high school and decided not to go to college (i.e., stopped getting consistent external validation for academic achievement) until my mid-20s. And the justifying things I might do were about publication, or awards. Maybe other things mattered, on some level, but it was those particular intellectual-accomplishment things that justified.
Instead of chasing those publications and awards, I listened to that therapist, and I started exercising, and spending time on self-care, and learning new ways to understand my position as a person in the world and human worth more broadly.
There are sort of two threads here, I think, that are twisted for me around depression and movement, separate from, though related to, the brain-chemicals thread. A lifetime of being affirmed for intellectual achievement in an elite educational environment had over time led to a perfectionism that kept me isolated, competitive, harshly self-critical, and ultimately kept me from creating much of anything, which led to my feeling worthless, which continued around and around in a vicious cycle. And a lifetime of being affirmed primarily for intellectual achievement, as a girl in a sexist society, had led to my being really in my head—and really disconnected from my body.
***
Sometimes I like to walk this loop alone rather than with a friend. I need the quiet, sometimes. Alone and not talking, I notice the birds more, and the way the landscape shifts from almost extraterrestrial desert-y to green and shady. So much of my world is made of words—my work, my relationships, my creativity, my activism—and I love words, but sometimes I need to be quiet and cleared of them, and I know of no better way to find that than outside, and moving.
One of my favorite things about Los Angeles—I’ll say it again—is that just a few minutes’ trip from the urban culture I love are hiking trails. I can see the mountains from the sidewalk in front of the building I live in. I can get to them on my bike. I live so near the largest urban wilderness area in the United States. This is important to my mental health. And, just, of its own accord, I love this. I love these mountains I’ve looked at almost every day of my life, and I love being in them.
Yet this “nation’s largest” urban wilderness area is preserved and accessible to the public only because a delusional mining and land speculator chose to donate it to a city whose leaders have sometimes been less than steadfast in their commitment to keep it that way.
***
Scenes for Birth of a Nation were filmed in Griffith Park. Rebel without a Cause, too.
There is so much more about Griffith Park that I haven’t mentioned. There’s the cruising (and the policing of cruising). There’s the Hollywood sign. There’s the “curse” one of the Feliz sisters is said to have put on the land after being swindled out of her inheritance. There are the millions and millions of stories of this land that have not made it to big movie screens or become legends. Maybe I will get to tell more of this someday. Maybe I won’t and someone else will. No doubt many of those stories will remain untold, and meanwhile I will walk on trails there sometimes with friends, sometimes alone, and tell and listen to other stories.
***
I think a lot these days about how perfectionism is tied to white, class-and/or-educationally privileged women’s depression. And I think a lot about how this is tied to certain individualist, competitive, careerist tendencies within mainstream feminism. And it makes me sad, in a lot of ways.
That sadness is different from depression, though, which I think I’m managing pretty well these days. I’m getting my regular exercise, and I’m looking at the world and my place in it really differently from how I looked in the midst of a bleak 25th year.
Yet some of that old perfectionism, that need to do it “right,” and even exceptionally well, to justify my presence in a space, is still there. It’s there for a lot of white people engaging in antiracist work. It’s a common enough dynamic that I’ve heard it mentioned in more than a few workshops on white privilege—some people call it competitive antiracism, where white activists (unconsciously, or at least un-admittedly) compete with each other to be the “best” antiracist in the room. Some people refer to “the lean,” where a hardcore antiracist white person kinda leans away from an unconscious white person (her younger self, even?) who’s making some not-so-conscious comments about race or oppression or something, as if to clearly signal, “I’m not that kinda white person. I’m down.” Which, of course, keeps us from actually connecting with, and potentially organizing, other white people — which might be one of the more useful things white antiracists could do. Lots of us laugh when this is discussed. We know that sometimes we do it. Some antiracist organizers (e.g., the folks at Dismantling Racism) suggest that perfectionism is actually a part of “white-supremacy culture.” In white-supremacy culture, privileged people are socialized to be the best one in the room. And sometimes that comes out even when we are trying to deconstruct and challenge our privilege.
My initial plan for this space, way back before any of the walks I took last week, was to take a walk where I’d reflect on that therapist’s telling me, six years ago, that I could try exercise to treat depression. Then I’d write my “walk one” post for this project about that—about mental health and dis/ability, about class and gender and perfectionism, etc. And then last Monday I read BFP’s first-walk post, and I thought to myself, She just went right to Sacagawea. No way I’m gonna follow that with depressed-white-girl-in-a-therapist’s-office.
BFP and I have already shared a laugh about this. And it is funny. But it’s also sad, and a reflection of internalized white-supremacist culture, and the kind of thing I think a lot of us are often dishonest about. I was tempted to just do a whole different post today about walking through my gentrified neighborhood, and leave me-in-the-therapist’s-office out of it. But I think that kind of evasion is a barrier to movement making. And still I thought, well, I will tell that mental-health piece of this at some point, later in the collaboration. But I need to start with something more specifically about activism, or History-with-a-capital-H, or just more concrete than and bigger than that little personal (and rather privileged) story. But, see, even as I tried to narrate a walk I took in a big park this week, with that park’s back story as contextualizing counterpart, me-in-the-therapist’s-office intruded. Maybe it’s something I needed to write, up front, to be real about the body and the social position I’m walking in. And so I wrote this.
For the rest of this series, see here.
- Share
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:45 am #
Griffith Park! I spent a lot of time there on the trails growing up in L.A.
There’s something about mountains including within urban environments that’s comforting. I spent three years living in the Rockies and loved the mountains there. Where I live now, mountains too and I always try to get to them. I’ve been trying to fit mini-hikes to rev up for meetings and it’s helped center me and others for some of the more frustrating bureaucratic style ones. And the ones where you feel like beating your head against the wall.
There’s some interesting stories about its history. Curses. Hauntings and so forth.
But most of the marching lately have been marches in response to police actions and Border Patrol/ICE actions (which have started doing raids in my area) and in some ways, it’s a different form of walking than hiking the mountains but in some ways, it’s similar.
February 2nd, 2009 at 4:24 pm #
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I reached some of the bleakest points in my life because of this exact impulse. If I didn’t get a story published, or a book deal, or an impressive writing-related job, then I was nothing at all. It’s a relief to know that it wasn’t just me.
Also, yay Griffith Park! I was at the observatory just the other day, at one of their star parties. That has to be my favorite place in L.A. Where else is every resident of the city invited to look at planets and nebulae (talk about the Outdoors!), watch Foucault’s pendulum knock over a peg, learn about optics, and admire artwork made from thousands of star-shaped earrings, broaches, and hat pins for free, with no strings attached? Love.
February 2nd, 2009 at 4:27 pm #
Thank you so much for this, Jess. There is just a ton I would like to say, but I won’t.
I do want to say thank you for discussing depression and how able-bodied vs. disabled discussion leaves out those of us who have “sound” bodies but struggle with other debilitating conditions.
Also, I had an “Aha!” moment when you talked about perfectionism being something that comes from privileged backgrounds. Although I identify as a WoC, I am never allowed to forget that I could pass for white, and that I was raised in a white family and predominantly white culture(despite all their efforts to give us more multi-culturalism than a lot of kids get). I too struggle with perfectionism and feeling like I am worthless because I haven’t “accomplished” anything. In fact, my perfectionism keeps me from even trying to accomplish things, because I’d rather not do it at all than to do it less than perfect. And I never realized before, but certainly see the possible connection now, to growing up in a “white” atmosphere and culture.
Anyway, enough about me! You rock!
I understand why you feel conflicted about participating in the collaboration between you & BFP, but please let me say – I’m so glad that you are trying anyway, and I see a lot of value in your voice and experience.
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:21 pm #
Thanks, everyone, for reading, and for your comments!
radfem – i hope (and feel confident) that the future of this collaboration will involve making connections between walks in the mountains and the marches for justice you describe
julie – feeling at once sad and joyful to share those connections with you
aaminah – thanks so much for your support, which means a lot, and for sharing your experiences.
also, i do want to clarify that i don’t mean to imply that perfectionism is unique to white people, but to suggest that it is a part of white-supremacist culture (and other hierarchical, disciplinarian cultures … like capitalism … ).
Love,
Jess
February 3rd, 2009 at 3:30 am #
Jess,
I didn’t think you were saying perfectionism is unique to white people. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that the PoC and cultures where it has become most prevelent and problemmatic are the ones that have bought into the “white is right” thought process. I can think of many PoC that share issues with perfectionism, and generally it is because they were raised in a way that pushed that human value is based on productivity and “we have to be more___ than the ___”, meaning they have accepted the domination of, as you say, “white-supremacist culture” and are trying to emulate it, believing that is the only way they can be “successful”.
February 3rd, 2009 at 4:16 am #
“In fact, my perfectionism keeps me from even trying to accomplish things, because I’d rather not do it at all than to do it less than perfect.” – Amen to that
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:03 am #
Jess,
Thank you so much for sharing this. As a white woman I, too, feel conflicted talking about myself here – even in the commenty space. But I wanted to say something because I see so much of myself in your description of younger-you. I’m struggling to immerse myself more deeply into radical movement, to overcome my paralyzing fear of not doing it “right” and destroying my relationships with loved ones who are radical WoC. Your insights here, BFP’s writings, resources in links, and the simple fact of the work you two are doing together has given me so much…hope, energy, strength. I’m crying happy tears right now. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU both.
February 3rd, 2009 at 7:22 am #
A lifetime of being affirmed for intellectual achievement in an elite educational environment had over time led to a perfectionism that kept me isolated, competitive, harshly self-critical, and ultimately kept me from creating much of anything, which led to my feeling worthless, which continued around and around in a vicious cycle.
I could have written this sentence.
When I was having my nervous breakdown (which was pretty mild, as nervous breakdowns go), one thing I would do that I later filed as an unhealthy habit was just walk for hours. Not to go anywhere in particular, just walk around and around the campus (land belonging to what people so many centuries ago?) or the neighborhood or sometimes when it was cold in circles at the 7-11 at 4 in the morning when I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t handle anymore sitting and thinking about how miserable I was. I thought this was messed up and it sort of was, but now I wonder if I wasn’t, to a certain degree, subconsciously self-medicating.
I have spent a lot of time in the year and a half since then thinking about perfectionism and competition and the ways they messed me up and, later, when I was starting to lift out of the myopic world of depression, the ways they might be messing other people up. The ways, also, they alienate us from each other, make us approach each other guardedly, defensively, focused on ourselves and how we come across instead of on other people and what they can share with us or teach us or say to make us laugh. I agree with you completely on their being a part of hierarchical/oppressive systems and cultures.
You’ve given me a lot to think about – too much for a comment!
but I do want to ask – have you ever read anything by Alfie Kohn? Most of his work is education-related, which is how I got into him, but he’s a lot more radical, I think, than you might expect (though it makes sense when you think about it because – what better way to examine our deepest cultural assumptions than by examining what exactly it is we are teaching our children, who exactly we want them to become and how we want them to do it?) and he writes a lot about competition/competitiveness/”achievement” and its costs, the downsides of praise and focusing on results – you might find him interesting.
February 3rd, 2009 at 9:37 am #
aaminah – thanks for that; really insightful, connecting perfectionism to assimilationism …
rebecca – it is beautiful to read that you are in the midst of this process. truly, beyond isolated individualism and fear that keeps us from connecting is a whole other, better way of relating to ourselves and others. none of us will do it “right” every time, and that’s okay, and completely worth the risk.
isabel – i think that insight about how perfectionism is not just damaging to us as individuals but also is damaging outwardly is really important – it’s doing more than just hurting us one at a time; it’s a barrier to relationship building, community building, movement making and a world that is about cooperation and connection. thank you for taking the conversation in that direction. (and i haven’t read kohn — will try to. thanks for the recommendation!)
love to you all,
j
February 3rd, 2009 at 12:19 pm #
I’m not great with html stuff…but I’m trying!
Thanks, for this Jess. I hope you don’t mind, but I started to walk behind you guys.
http://myecdysis.blogspot.com/2009/02/response-to-jess-everything-in-sink.html
February 3rd, 2009 at 12:21 pm #
As someone who has turned to exercise and “healthier” habits to help me cope with intense and often times debilitating depression/moodiness, thanks for your post.
Also identified with your “perfectionist” tendencies, though mine have risen from growing up working-class and always feeling like the dirty/poor kids with something to prove to the world. As I break into my mid-thirties, I’m only just being able to acknowledge this.
I’ve been obsessed with Griffith Park lately, wrote a short story where the main action takes place in the parking lot by the Astronomer’s Monument, and had the chance to hike up there last time I drove through LA. A fascinating gorgeous spot and a great location for examining issues of history, class, colonialization and nature vs. urban.
February 3rd, 2009 at 3:50 pm #
It is midnight, nearing 1am my time, as I read this. I am too tired to respond coherently, yet I must, with more to come. This says so many things that so reflect where I have been and how I measured myself. To be honest, they are probably still mostly relevant in ways I struggle to acknowledge. Right now, I live in my head because being in my body is too sensitive a task. It ebbs and flows, of course, as I know it is happening and can try to come back into myself. I go to my acupuncturist (who took the place of my talk therapist when my words dried up), and sometimes, she can barely touch me because the sensitivity is unbearable. It is only after we talk first that I realize my words are still there and we are building trust, enough trust that I will let her touch my fragile body.
I used to think the list of achievements was a Midwestern thing – that was all I knew to blame at the time. When you grow up in middle America, there is this expectation that you can/will account for your time. This includes leisure time – what did you do? Did you read a proper book or did you stare at the TV? Constant productivity – are you busy? Get busier. I am still unlearning this and perhaps have not even started down that path, can only see it from where I stand, intellectually knowing I should go but so terrified to leave behind the safety of known/understandable anxiety. I can only accept it as a class component, a racial component, an able-bodied privilege, if I walk down there. Due to my able-bodied-ness, I fear I will turn around and run back, weak. That potential humiliation is also terrifying. I want to be better than that. I want to meet someone on the path who reminds me to stay. Don’t look back. Just because it hurts doesn’t mean it is wrong. Like when my acupuncturist puts the needle in my leg. Breathe through it. She is there, and I trust her. Who is on the path? Or do I just go alone because we all have to do it that way?
I live in a new city where I don’t know anything about the history and do not speak the native language. I live a five-ten minute walk from the ocean and go there sometimes. I only learn about myself there because there is no one to explain it, the place, to me. At night, the street lamps shine on the water, and you can see the bottom of the sea, the plants sloshing around at 9pm in sub-zero temperatures. I feel like the plants. Stuck, seen.
I can go back to my own blog and write about how real these things are for me, which is what I intend to do, but this is my long-winded way of saying thank you for sharing this. It is so real to me that I got chills as I read. As you look back on where you were, I wonder what looking ahead can be.
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:36 pm #
Leilani – reading your post, I immediately wanted to say: I didn’t grow up with money, but I was educated in classrooms where most of the other kids were from wealthy families, so I always perceived myself as the poor kid trying to prove myself among the rich kids I was in school with, and what you wrote really resonates with me.
To everyone – so many of us have different cultural explanations for and versions of what seems to be a too-common experience of feeling isolated and competitive and like our worth is only our work-related achievements. (Not to be too flip, but: my friend Hilary and I have a little pretend sitcom in which we turn to each other at conversational moments like this, shrug, smile, and say, “Thaaaat’s capitalism.” Then the creepy laugh track comes in.)
But really, is it a white-supremacy-culture thing? an assimilation-to-white-supremacy-culture thing? a midwestern thing? a poor-kids thing? an immigrants’-kids thing, as in Lisa’s example? seems clear it’s something that’s happening in different ways in lots of different spaces and cultures, across identities, at least within the U.S. society I think most of us (?) are writing from.
I really appreciate how open and honest you all are being in your responses, reminding us how social messages are internalized differently and yet pervasively, pervasively and yet differently.
I know for me that relearning, learning to see myself not as an atomized individual but as part of communities, and to envision society/the world as a community-based, interconnected space and try to live in ways that enact and connect to that vision on the local scale — collaborating rather than competing, connecting rather than behaving in ways that increase isolation … that is an ongoing and sometimes challenging process within a very individualized, competitive, and hierarchical culture — but one that I think is necessary and inspiring and totally worth all the perceived risks.
February 4th, 2009 at 2:44 pm #
I too am continually sabotaging myself with my perfectionism. I have never even been able to make a decision about what I want to do with my life (I’m now 33), in case I make the wrong choice. Consequently I have not pursued any of my interests to a point where I can make a career out of them. I’m now at home struggling with not being a perfect mother!
I was the poor kid in an elite school, it was required that everyone grow up to be brilliant, and I have spent my adult life kicking myself for what I haven’t done, and also wondering why so many seemingly not so smart people manage to achieve so much.
I have ignored my body to the point of total neglect, but have been inspired recently to take up yoga, because it still partly cerebral!
I am white but I wear a headscarf, so I am often perceived as a migrant, so I feel suspended between worlds.
Anyway, great post, thank you.
February 6th, 2009 at 1:29 am #
I am a visual learner. I create pictures in my mind as I take in and store information. My learning is also emotional and sometimes lacking the right descriptive words, which I find immensely frustrating since I am a writer. I read this piece and picture you walking on the path depicted in the photograph. I know your face only from pictures, but I imagine what it might look like when you smile or frown or are in deep concentration. I see semi-translucent bubbles appearing on the edges of the path as you walk. They float at eye-level. You stretch out your hand and the bubble pops, emitting a puff of smoke or mist or whatever fog is made of. The pop of a bubble is a moment of clarity that, like most moments of clarity, contributes to the haze that we attempt to navigate, thicker at some times than others. I think too much about who I have been, what wrong I have done, what my responsibility is and isn’t for my actions. Your writing prompted that. I wonder why I need people to like me so much, what void that desire is coming from. I wonder why I am making your writing about me. I smile at your description of “the lean” and then stop smiling as I recount the many times I’ve played that game. I wonder if I still play it, just with different motions. Accountability again. Trying to find mine so that I don’t re-become the person I used to be… the one who caused so many problems for who I am now. I feel sad a lot of the time that trust is so hard to build. That honesty is not the default setting. That we fear the truth, from ourselves and others. I wish that I could start my own walking, but the environment that I live in is so polluted that the outdoors are a hazard. I re-read what you write of not wanting to take up space with your privilege and think that the internet itself is a space of privilege, that all words in that space are privileged. I think of Gayatri Spivak’s work on the subaltern. I wonder what it looks like to not have any privilege at all. I try to create that picture, so I look out my window at the pollution-stained buildings and immediately recall the dirt-stained faces of the street kids I walked by yesterday on my way to class, the two women who occupy the sidewalk in front of my school that hold up their bowls and call to me as I enter the building every Tuesday and Thursday: “Ma. Ma.” I have no words for what this piece has stirred in me, something that I will wrestle with and put back in its cage so that I can make it through the rest of the day. I wonder how this comment will come across to you and to those who read it. I consider not posting it, consider whether the exercise of writing is all that I need from it. But I think I need to let you know that I made a connection, and I wonder if that connection is mutual. Needing to be liked again, no doubt. Can’t take it back if I click submit. I wonder how these thoughts shape my brain… what new wrinkles have formed there. I am a visual learner.