Author: gradav23 (Page 1 of 2)

Journal Entry #11

June 5, 2015 / gradav23

Journal Entry #11

Chad was a man who had nothing left to lose. You were more likely to hear chad then you were to see him. The roar of his twin cylinder 1,600cc engine chopper was enough to turn heads just fast enough to watch a slouching, middle aged man vanish into the glare of the setting sun. Chad had been chasing the setting sun for days. It wasn’t enough that Chad was going through a divorce, but on top of that he lost his job and the bank foreclosed on his home. If Chad had to be cast out onto the streets, he was going to do it his way.

Chad’s dad was a mechanic, and he had been around bikes since he was young. When he was four he knocked his dad’s bike over just trying to climb on. When Chad got older and joined the rank and file of the middle class, he stopped riding altogether and tried to distance himself from anything that in the eyes of society would associate him with his working class roots. But this was different. Determined that the hawkish debt collectors would never be able to pick him dry, after losing his job Chad gathered up all his savings, stuffed some provisions into the behemoth of a motorcycle he had inherited from his father and had been sitting in his garage, and simply took off one day heading west. In defiance of the hand he had been dealt, this was his way of turning back the clock.

As he rode tirelessly, day in and day out, he tried not to let himself think too much. He simply let his thoughts get mixed up in the blender of the whirring machine which he was using to hurl himself through time and space. It amused him to image what might happen when he reached the coast. He planned on getting onto a ship heading west by any means necessary, either as a crew, stowaway, or paying passenger. He would sell or trade his bike without a second thought, if need be. In a sense, by moving as fast as possible towards the setting sun and against the earth’s rotation, he was running directly into the past, but this isn’t how he saw it. He was perpetually buying himself time. The journey gave him something to think about, and to occupy himself, and he just wanted to keep moving. With his Spartan lifestyle and the cash he had stowed away under the gas tank, he could keep this up for a long while. Maybe he could find his place somewhere out there to settle, and start afresh. Who knows? All he wanted to do was run, and in his half helmet and dark sunglasses he kept his eyes trained on the setting sun.

As hard as he tried to forget he just couldn’t get the thought of her out of his mind. It was like the bugs that kept splattering on his sunglasses, blurring his vision. If Chad had documented his journey with the book of world records, it very well might have been the fastest land crossing of North America ever made on a motorcycle. He hadn’t so much as glanced at a map since he took off, and all he knew when he reached the coast was that he could smell the ocean and there was no more road left in front of him. He took his bike so close to the cliff’s edge that onlookers who happened to be passing by cringed at the site of it. Then something came over Chad. He dismounted the bike and took a stuttering step towards the ledge. He quickly took off his leather jacket, because the cloudless sky offered him no cover from the warm rays of the sun. Adjusting from the din of the engine, Chad’s ears were hearing a different tune; the sound of rolling waves crashing against the shore as seagulls called lazily to each other. The beach was blissfully empty except for one couple. They were young and full of life, beaming at each other with broad smiles and laughing and playing as he taught her how to boogie board. After all of that running, suddenly Chad went completely still. The scene struck a chord in his memory. It was exactly like Chad’s honeymoon. Chad had hoped that he could put all that behind him by reaching perpetually westward. Chad heard the sound of their laughter amidst the crashing waves and the calling gulls, and for that one moment the world stopped spinning.

Journal Entry #10

June 5, 2015 / gradav23

“And once one understands that suffering is the best thing that one can hope to encounter in life, one thinks without terror, and almost as of a deliverance, of death.” –Proust, In Search Of Lost Time

There are few sights that remind me of the toughest challenge of my life more than the view of glaciated peaks along a mountain range. Last weekend I set out with Sweeney, my girlfriend, for an exciting day trip of trail-work near Mount Rainier. We were hoping to build up enough trust with the WTA trail work organization that they would consider us for the much more rugged extended backpacking trips this summer. Those trips include overnight camping and advanced trail work in remote wilderness areas. Sweeney, who is studying to be an environmental engineer, is enthusiastic about any opportunity to be part of a crew and potentially gain leadership experience. She is not just enthusiastic, but also ambitious, and for this weekend’s project she has chosen the particularly daunting task of constructing a stone staircase across a boulder field.

Since we don’t live very close to the work site and went out the night before, we met the group early Saturday morning after a less-than-satisfactory night’s sleep. We made the acquaintance of our group members and project leader, a middle aged man named Doug who is a black belt in Aikido, and then quickly set off down the trail. We all made small talk as we hiked under a pleasantly overcast grey sky. My thoughts wandered as I devoted some of my attention to the chatter around me. I thought about how different the forests look in Washington compared to the east coast, how nice it was not to have the sun beating down on me, and how cute Sweeney looked in her hard hat, like a professional engineer. Then, as we gained altitude, I saw Mount Raineer looming in the distance and at once my thoughts shifted entirely.

I was brought back instantly to that hostile, alien landscape. The white veil of sleet and snow over everything, and the white hot glare of the sun. A part of me died up there on that glacier, in the southernmost reaches of Patagonia. I’m not referring to the tissue of my fingers and toes that has never quite recovered from the ordeal. I thrust myself willingly to the razor’s edge of human endurance to test my limits, and a part of me must have died up there because I did not return the same. I look up from my daydreams just in time to catch Doug’s monotonous safety briefing. My mind drifted back to the leader of my National Outdoor Leadership School mountaineering program, who I confidently trusted with my life on that expedition. They call him KG. James Kagambi. A native of Kenya, he was one of the greatest mountaineers I have had the pleasure of meeting. He used to tell us that because of how he was raised in Kenya, his feet could fit into any sized boot. I saw his feet one time, and his toes were curled inwards and slightly deformed, possibly from wearing shoes that didn’t fit when he was growing up. He used to boast that he didn’t need to treat his water, because his body has its own filtration system. Years later, while travelling abroad I met a colleague of KG’s who told me that actually, he just has diarrhea practically every day of his life. I smirk to myself as Doug finishes his safety briefing.

The work was strenuous, but nothing I wasn’t used to. That particular expedition in Patagonia our packs weighed anywhere from seventy to ninety pounds laden with mountaineering equipment and extra food and fuel for cold weather camping. We carried them over treacherous, steep terrain in all kinds of weather. I had just graduated from high school and decided to take a year off. As a teenage boy, naturally I was convinced that I was invincible, and so had picked the hardest mountaineering course I could find. The NOLS catalog I was looking at also included trips to the Arctic Circle, Himalayan Mountaineering, and extended treks in the Amazon Rainforest. To this day when I meet NOLS alumni or instructors they are impressed that I did the Patagonia mountaineering course. To put it in perspective, of the roughly 15 people who have died on NOLS courses, the last 4 of them were in Patagonia.

We began hauling rocks into place on the trail that were so big that it took four people to move them. We had to use big metal bars to shift the rocks onto large pieces of webbing for group carrying. We worked hard to position and re-position the rocks and fit them like massive puzzle pieces into the trail. There was also the option of taking a sledge hammer to the rocks at various points. As Doug struggled to communicate what he wanted from the crew, another crew member who works in construction, clearly accustomed to taking and giving orders, stepped in to clarify some of the instructions with Doug. I thought back to KG trudging up to our group through deep snow, with his glacier goggles covering half his face. He seemed at home in the near zero temperatures of the snowfield, as if he had been born in an ice cave instead of in the sweltering equatorial heat.

In addition to the difficult loads we were all carrying; KG famously carried with him a big chunk of meat that he would cook a portion of each night. At lower altitudes, he would hang the meat from a tree so that pumas couldn’t get at it. That day he was teaching a class on how to set an anchoring point, or point of protection, in the snow to perform a technical ascent on glacier. He asked some of us to pull on the rope to demonstrate how strong it was. Then he invited more people to tug on it. Finally, with most of the group pulling on this climbing rope the anchor popped out of where it had been buried deep in the snow. It was the remainder of KG’s chunk of meat! I’ll never forget that class.

They have a saying in that region that “Patagonia without wind is like hell without the devil.” Eventually the wind got so bad that even after we built walls of snow around the tents they would crumble down and then we would wake up in the night with the walls of the tent hitting us in the face. By the third day, out of desperation, we began digging snow caves to sleep in. The temperature would fluctuate so wildly that it would rain at times and then quickly dip below freezing. On one of the coldest days KG gathered us together to have a little dance party to keep warm, with each of us taking turns in the center showing off our moves.

I looked up from the work at the majestic outline of Raineer. It looked so enticing from a distance, but I know all too well the icy hell that is waiting at the top for any young explorer looking to conquer it. We all nearly died on that glacier. My warmest layer, a down jacket, became useless when wet. I wasn’t expecting that conditions so cold would also rainy. We slept on the snow three to a cave with barely any food or water, taking shifts throughout the night shoveling the entrance clear of snow to avoid suffocating in our sleep. I would go to sleep shivering, have terrible nightmares, and wake up shivering all the more violently. I lost all feeling in my fingertips and toes and eventually lost the ability to move my toes altogether. The structures we built would not have lasted more than five days. On the fifth day, the weather broke. A part of me died on that glacier. As I sweat and struggled in the dirt to rearrange rocks that overcast Saturday afternoon, I remember the essence of suffering, and I smile.

“It almost seems as though a writer’s work, like the water in an artesian well, mount to a height which is in proportion to the depth to which suffering has penetrated his heart.” Proust, In Search Of Lost Time

Journal Entry #9

June 2, 2015 / gradav23

Journal Entry #9

June 2nd, 2015

As I plow through the pithy center of Time Regained, I find myself unexpectedly satisfied by the sudden shift that the author takes from the cryptic wordiness of earlier volumes to the frank, more straightforward tone of this final chapter in his anthology. Proust has achieved a sort of immortality by distilling the essence of his life into a work which he has artfully encapsulated for future generations to ponder. This is the ultimate sense of regaining time: reaching back through writing to recapture the most memorable moments of one’s life while simultaneously casting those experiences far out into the future. I can imagine Proust at the point of his life when this was written; in and out of the sanatorium, nearing his end, bedridden and frail, squinting at the page as he urgently records his thoughts in the dimly lit twilight of his chambers. Reading his novel is like opening the pages of Proust’s mind. Naturally as he neared his own end and the completion of his life’s work, he would want to impart to the reader a final message of inspiration, if not for our sake then simply to find meaning in his own project. Throughout the work, not only does the reader roll on the sea of Proust’s consciousness to be tossed around in the tempest of his thoughts or to drift along through the vast expanse of his endless metaphors and poeticism, but now we are peeling back a new layer where Proust is thinking about thinking. He is analyzing his own work.

It is as though he is giving instructions to any writer who would be inclined to follow in his footsteps by describing his perception of the art of writing itself. I like his idea that creating art is an instinct that we all possess. He believes that although the ability is innate in each of us, to indulge it requires so much force of will that most people don’t heed their inclination. He also professes that the best writing isn’t something that can be intellectualized or contrived, but to be truly great one must call on a deeper form of self expression. While we all have experiences that are common enough that anyone can relate to them, if a writer can synthesize their own memories then they can use their experiences to express something of themselves that transcends the ordinary and is unique to themselves.

In this way a single fictitious character in a novel could represent the culmination of years of observations, experiences, and memories on the part of the author and the essential traits of 50 or more people encountered in daily life. He compares his lifelong observations to a painter recording through use of a sketchbook. “…In the end the writer realizes that if his dream of being a sort of painter was not in a conscious and intentional manner capable of fulfillment, it has nevertheless been fulfilled and that he too, for his work as a writer, has unconsciously made use of a sketch-book.” (Proust 305) Rather than simply parroting the manners of others, Proust believes that writing about them as characters gives them new meaning, and draws out essential truths in their behavior. He says “The stupidest people, in their gestures, their remarks, the sentiments which they involuntarily express, manifest laws which they do not themselves perceive but which the artist surprises in them.” (Proust 307)

This section contains one of my favorite lines of Proust. In my mind’s eye I can imagine Proust living his last days as a tortured soul even more vividly than in the scene of the film which depicts him dictating the novel from his bed. He writes:

“…A writer’s work, like the water in an artesian well, mount to a height which is in proportion to the depth to which suffering has penetrated his heart.” (Proust 318)

Memory Project

May 26, 2015 / gradav23

David Grabin

Memory Project

5/14/2015

I see my mother as a remarkably strong and independent woman. She is an entrepreneur, and president of a thriving family owned business. Growing up, she was always there for me, yet wasn’t always so easy to get to know. She is reserved almost to the point of aloofness, with a taciturn demeanor which seems to suggest that she is emotionally unavailable.

I know that she has endured her share of hardship over the course of her life, and I very rarely press her to reveal any of the struggles that I could always perceive continue to haunt her. She raised me as a single mother, and throughout my upbringing we coexisted by mutually respecting each other’s space and boundaries. Since I’ve reached maturity we’ve rarely gone out to do things together apart from family functions or the occasional sit-down meal. When I made up my mind to move from New York to Washington State to return to school and look for work, with no intention of returning, I was neither surprised nor offended by the lack of apparent emotion with which my mother received the news. Over the years I had come to expect that kind of silent support and lack of drama from her. What I did find totally unexpected was that, when I called her up a month after the move to announce my intention to briefly return home to pick up my car and drive it back to Washington, she immediately volunteered to come along for the journey. She said that as she prepares for retirement it would be fun to take the time off, enjoy the ride, and see my new place. I was taken aback by her unexpected spontaneity, but I quickly agreed, relishing the opportunity to take our long overdue first road trip together.

It wasn’t long until I had arrived home and we were throwing our lightly packed bags into the car. We set out , and in no time we had crossed the George Washington bridge, waved goodbye to the New York City skyline, and were swallowing whole sections of open road as my Mustang hit the highways of Pennsylvania like a wild horse seeing the open plains for the first time. It wasn’t long before my mother started complaining. “This state never ends. I remember coming through here with my sister Susan years ago, and after hundreds of miles of Pennsylvania I was begging her to turn around.” “Mom,” I chided gently, “pretend we’re not even moving, and we have no destination. It will be days before we get there. If you try to measure our progress like this, you’ll drive us both crazy. Let’s just focus on having a good time and making the most of each other’s company.”

I started telling her about my progress in school, and how I’ve been engaged in a course dealing with subjects of time and memory. It was then that I was confronted by another massive surprise. After years of silence and secrecy, my mother had decided to open up about her own past and the trauma of her sister’s death. I immediately recognized the value of her story. It represented not only the life and tragically untimely death of my mother’s beloved sister, but also highlights the struggles and trepidations of many other gay people during an oppressive and tumultuous time period. After speaking with my mother, my mother’s girlfriend, and even her therapist and combining those first hand perspectives of older generations with my own cultural vantage point, a picture began to emerge of a story that is seldom told: the emotional and psychological toll that societal pressure can take on homosexuals when they are given the message their whole lives that who they are, by their nature, is illegitimate and wrong.

I asked my mom what had prompted her to broach the subject after so many years of keeping it to herself. “When my father passed away a few months ago, my sister Debby and I had to go through the house to sort through things and throw away what we can.” She said. “I’ve been looking at letters from Susan to me and me to Susan, and Susan to my parents and my parents to Susan, and from me to my parents etc, etc, etc. All permutations and combinations. It’s brought it all back very vividly. For me this was the biggest trauma in my life. I wish I weren’t still mad at my parents. I wish I could resolve that anger.” She admitted.

Once I got her talking, I was thrilled to hear the words pouring out of her without effort, her forthright flow of oral history steadily feeding my thoughts like the wind was feeding the windmills on the horizon. In the past, for me to question my mother about anything felt like conducting my own little Spanish Inquisition. After having to endure agonizingly long pauses in the conversation, my inquisitive efforts would be rewarded with only the most minimalist responses. It felt as if making her speak was akin to torturing her. When I expressed my distress she would assure me that it wasn’t just me who felt that getting anything out of her was like pulling teeth. Over the years many other people have told her that she’s not always easy to communicate with. I reflected on all this as we rolled down the highway. I couldn’t believe my luck that she was willing to be so open. It would have been most convenient for my mother to drive while telling her story so that I could focus my whole attention on her, but first I had to re-teach her how to drive stick shift since six-speed transmissions hadn’t been invented at the time that she last drove a manual car. She had only ever used four-speeds. In yet another surprising turn of events, my mother, who could have requested senior citizen discounts if her pride would allow it, proved herself perfectly capable of learning how to drive my sports car.

It wasn’t until days later, with my mom at the wheel peering stoically at the road through her dark sunglasses, advancing towards the setting sun in the Black Hills of North Dakota in my steel grey mustang, looking like quite the badass,that the topic of my aunt Susan came up again. I asked my mom how the trip we were taking compared with the journeys she used to go on with Susan.”You and I, right now, are driving across the country as fast as we can. What we did then was to stop and enjoy things, and sight see. Other than that, the country looks just the same. It’s the way I remember it” she said.

“What did you guys do on your trips?” I asked.”We talked all the time. We talked very easily. We talked about ourselves. We talked about everything.” Was her reply. “What kind of trips did you go on?” I said, to build some momentum. “We would go all around” she replied. “When we would get to where we were going we would play tennis, or we would find a lake and go swimming or sunning. When we drove across the country we went to all the national parks that we could. We camped, which took up a lot of time and energy. That was pretty wonderful, too.” I paused for a moment, trying to imagine what it must have been like.

“So you guys were only four years apart. Did you look up to her when you were growing up?” I asked. “I did. We looked alike. We almost passed for twins. On the telephone no one could ever tell us apart. If I had homework to do or a test to study for, I could go to her and she would help me with it. I thought she was very cool. She was very funny. She was different, and she marched to her own drum, and I appreciated that.” she said proudly.

“Was she a good role model for you?” I asked. “Well, my parents always said that I started smoking because of Susan, and it’s true. I watched her smoking and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. As soon as I could, I started smoking. My parents thought that she gave the worst possible example. They never approved of her friends. They approved of mine but they never approved of Susan’s. At that time they were called hoods. They were tough guys in the school. She belonged to a sorority when she was in high school. Not something that a Jewish girl usually did. And the sororities were kind of tough. The girls wore jackets with the back collar up and things like that. This was the early 60’s, and there were different groups in high school at that time. That was when Elvis Presley was big. A lot of guys who were tough wore their hair slicked back. They kind of looked like James Dean. They would roll up the sleeves of their t shirts and put a packet of cigarettes into the sleeve. They wore their pants a little short with white socks and loafers. Girls wore bouffant hair styles. The girls in the sorority had sorority jackets that they wore. These were not girls who were going to college. Susan was smart, she was very smart, but she chose to be with these girls instead. Maybe she was insecure and this is who she felt she could be comfortable with.”

“So growing up you must have seen her get into trouble a lot. Did that have any effect on you?” I asked. “I spent a lot of time being in between my sister and my parents. Trying to explain my sister to my parents. Trying to explain my parents to my sister, and being mad at all of them. I felt very protective towards her. Sometimes I was mad at her for things she did, but I took her side almost all the time. She was difficult. She was very difficult. She was rebellious, she acted out, she didn’t behave in school, she always gave my parents a hard time. I don’t think my parents dealt well with her. For instance, when they discovered that she was gay, they took her into a room just the three of them. They were yelling at her and they were berating her and they were screaming at her. I was outside the room beside myself. It was such a big dirty secret at that time. Nothing you could tell anybody. I was never ashamed of her no matter what she did.”

“How did your parents find out about Susan?”

“They had intercepted a letter that Susan got from a woman she was involved with and read the letter. This was the summer after I had finished High School, right before I started college. I was upstate at a summer camp. They drove all the way up there to tell me that my sister was a homosexual, and then demanded to know if I was one too. They said that if I was they would commit suicide together. For most of her life my parent’s didn’t treat Susan right, especially when they found out that she was gay. They were terrible to her. They said terrible things. She loved my parents like crazy even though she had a lot of trouble with them. She wanted their approval, but they never approved of her. Certainly not when they found out she was gay. One of the things my father said to her at that time was “I’m leaving, but I’m not sure I can leave you alone with your mother’”

“At that time, was your parent’s attitude towards homosexuality unusual, or typical?”

“Homosexuality was viewed with scorn and disgust. Openly with scorn and disgust. People would even be willing to say something in the street. Two men wouldn’t dare to walk down the street hand in hand. If it became obvious that they were gay, they could be beaten up severely. Even if it was two women there would be terrible comments that would be passed. The funny thing is that my parents were liberal thinkers. I don’t think they would have been homophobic except that their own daughter turned out to be homosexual. That just made them crazy. I mean they said ‘you’ll never have a normal life, you’ll never have children, you’ll never marry,’ but it was more about them. What will people think of them because their daughter is gay? They’ll never be grandparents, and they’ll never be able to see her have a normal life. I felt that it was always about them and not about her. If they had thought about her, and what things meant to her, they could have acted very differently. It would have made a very big difference.”

As my mother confided all this to me I watched her closely to see what additional message her body language might reveal. Surely the topic was not easy for her to discuss, yet she betrayed no discomfort and delivered all this without a trace of emotion. In fact, she still looked pretty stylish behind the wheel of the Mustang GT, with her short curly hair barely clearing the top of the red leather seat. The road stretched before us across the high plains without so much as a curve in sight, and it seemed to me that we were headed on an entirely distinct journey within the confines of the car’s small cabin. Emboldened by her apparent willingness to divulge the story and relieved by her lack of emotional distress, I pressed on.

So how did all of this affect Susan?

My mother went on to discuss some of the grizzly details of Susan’s struggles with alcoholism and depression, which she has always believed to be closely related to Susan’s difficulties in coming to grips with her own sexual identity and her parent’s brutal condemnations. Susan was initially kicked out of college before returning to ultimately complete her degree and become an elementary school teacher. In Susan’s younger years my mother can vividly recall more than one of Susan’s suicide attempts which seemed to her like cries for help. At one point Susan attempted to end her life by ingesting an entire bottle of aspirin, and my mother says that even though she was very young at the time she can still picture all the little white capsules floating in the toilet after Susan regurgitated them. When speaking of Susan’s drinking problem, my mother was quick to point out that even though alcoholism does have a genetic component, we do not have any kind of family history of it.

“Susan had two big problems. One was that she was an alcoholic, and the other was that she was gay. She wasn’t able to let being gay make her happy, so she was depressed. The drinking wasn’t making her any less depressed, either. You could really tell it just by looking at her that she was not comfortable with herself. By the way she was really very beautiful, and very smart. She had a lot of reason to feel good about herself but she didn’t. I don’t know if it’s an outrageous thing to say, but I think she also drank to get through certain social situations. Yes, I think there was a connection between her drinking and her sexuality. I know that very often when she slept with boys she did it as drunk as hell.” Suddenly we were interrupted.

“Look, an antelope! Were those antelope?” Exclaimed my mom. “Yeah, good eye. How did you spot that?”

My mother and my aunt Susan were inseparable up until the time of Susan’s tragic death. I asked my mother if Susan ever confided in her about any of her deepest issues, but my mother replied that she just didn’t have the skills at that time to conduct that kind of conversation. I’m sure it doesn’t help that many of the topics would have been taboo, and repression was the climate of the times. Finally the conversation came around to the inevitable moment where I was to ask my mom about my aunt’s death.

“You know, to this day, you’ve never told me the whole story of Susan’s death. Now would you be willing to tell me the details of what happened?”

“I’ll tell you what happened that day. Well first of all the year was 1981, so she must have been 35. Susan went and had therapy. She was having therapy with someone she called ‘the child’ at a place called Peninsula Counseling. After Susan’s appointment her therapist called me at about six o’clock at night and said ‘I saw your sister today. She said she’s going to kill herself, so I wanted you to know.’ I hung up with her and immediately called my parents and told them what the therapist had said. Susan was very depressed at the time. There was no question of not taking it seriously. I went over to their house, and we decided we would check all the bars in the neighborhood because Susan often went out drinking. We drove around downtown, and I went into each bar looking for her. It was a pretty crazy thing to do. We didn’t find her that way, so after that I told my parents that I thought we should call the police, but they didn’t want to. I kind of insisted, and we did, we called the police. We went to her apartment in Lynbrook, the three of us. At first we were looking for her there too, but we ended up staying there all night. I remember my mother said to me ‘gird yourself for the worst.’ I was so mad at her for saying that. My father slept and my mother and I wrung our hands all night. In the morning my father went to work. My mother and I went back to the house” my mom said with a sigh”

After a pause, she added “In a little while my father called and he said that a state trooper came into the office to say that Susan was dead. I always try to control myself and not show too much what I’m feeling, but I took my fists and I banged them against the wall, and I said ‘Nooooo!!’ What happened was that she left her therapist’s office and had gone straight to Herman’s sporting goods to buy a rifle. She drove upstate on the NY State thru way and in a moving vehicle she shot herself in the head. This was unbearable horror to me. Unbearable.

I stayed with my mother until my father got home, then I started pacing in the street. I was walking up and down East Broadway waiting for my sister Debby because I couldn’t bear to go back to the house and face their grief. It was just shock and horror. I felt so bad for my parents I could hardly stand it. They huddled together in their grief. Meanwhile I had just missed an appointment with my own therapist. It was the furthest thing from my mind. I went to the therapist’s office anyway. This is not the way I behave, but even though he was with another patient I just walked in and he sent the other person away. I said ‘my parents said that my sister is dead and I don’t believe them.’ So he got on the phone and called my parents and then said ‘yes, she is.’ So, that was that day.”

Not only had I never heard any part of this story and was only recently told that my aunt’s death had been a suicide, but that it was also kept hidden from me for many years that Susan was a lesbian. It is almost as if the guilt that I can only imagine being tied into her death extended to her sexuality as well. The first time that I learned anything at all about my aunt Susan, other than that she died in a car accident before I was born, I was already in my 20’s. I’m under the impression that no one in my extended family on my mother’s side, including her cousins who she is still close with, ever heard the full story.

Perhaps if things had gone differently with my aunt it might have changed the entire course of my mother’s life, and removed many obstacles from her path. It turns out that my grandparent’s initial fears were justified that day when they confronted her at summer camp. My mother was a lesbian all along, although she did her best to hide it even from herself. Her first marriage to a man named Phillip who had been her best friend in High School ended after a few years when Phillip came out of the closet as gay and divorced her. He later died of AIDS in the ’80s. She remarried to my father, but that marriage also ended in failure when I was still a child. It wasn’t until years later that my mother had the courage to confront the root cause of her unhappiness which revealed itself to her in part due to years of therapy.

As we plodded on through the treeless expanse of North Dakota my mother went on to describe to me her tentative journey towards self acceptance. She acknowledges that deep down she knew the whole time that she was gay, but circumstances and outside pressure made her inclined to reject that part of herself.

“I didn’t want to be gay.” she said. “I wanted to have a normal life. I wanted to have a child. None of that was possible in those days. There was no gay marriage. There were no gay couples having children. I don’t know exactly how to explain it. I feel like I wasn’t brave enough to do it. If I had been braver I would have said ‘this is who I am, this is what I want, and I’m gonna do it’. I couldn’t.”

She readily admits that a part of why it took her so long to reach the point of being honest with herself was her experiences with her parents and sister growing up, especially her parents telling her they would kill themselves if she was gay, which she is able to laugh about now.

“I also remember when my therapist told me that according to the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) homosexuality was no longer considered a sickness. In Susan’s time it was considered a mental problem to be gay. One day I found out that it wasn’t anymore. My therapist also helped me come to terms with it because she said ‘gay or not gay, what’s worse is nothing.’”

My mother decided that since I was grown, if ever there was a time to make a move it was then. She started by going to gay bars on a few occasions and just sitting quietly in the corner. She just wanted to see how she felt about the whole thing, not unlike dipping a toe in to test the water. At first this only made her feel more alienated. She said to herself “Oh my god, who am I? I don’t know.” Eventually she joined Match.com and she slowly began acclimatizing herself to the tremendous change of dating women. She describes the process:

“I was still very confused. I remember once I was talking to my therapist. I had gone out on a date with somebody, and at the end of the date she kissed me. I said to the therapist ‘she kissed me!’ and she said “Jackie, that’s the whole point. What did you think you were doing? Did you think you were making friends with people?” My mother chuckled at this. “And then there was another woman I saw for months and months and we never kissed. I never wanted to kiss her, I never wanted her to kiss me. I liked her well enough. I had a good time in the city, but I didn’t like the way her hair smelled. I didn’t really want anything to do with her physically, so eventually we stopped seeing each other. There were a few others, but there was never anything really very much that went on sexually. I was still trying to wrap my mind around it and see how I felt.”

Eventually my mother ended up meeting Jo’, who has been her partner for the past six years. Even though gay marriage is now legal in New York, my mother has repeatedly stated that she’s not interested in a third marriage and is happy just the way things are. Based on their level of love and commitment to each other, in my eyes they are as good as married. As far as I can tell, my mother has never been happier than she is with Jo’. The two of them are perfect for each other, and Jo’ has brought so much joy into my mother’s life that it’s as if she’s a new person. I know that a big factor in all this is that times are changing and society is much more accepting. I see this change as having been enabling for her, and she confirmed that belief in the course of our conversation.

“I met Jo’ through mutual friends when we played golf together one time. I knew I liked her from the minute I met her, but I liked her just as friends. Eventually she and I became more than friends. It’s a whole different thing today. Because, for instance, in my family… first of all with you… eventually it happened that I had to let you know. You were okay with it. I remember exactly what happened. You found something on the computer, and you asked me point blank if I was gay. There was no way for me to get around it. I had to either lie to you or tell you the truth. So I told you the truth. I was very scared to see how you would react, and very relieved that you seemed to be OK. I imagined you not approving. As a matter of fact my therapist said ‘Okay now David knows. That excuse is gone.’ Because I had been saying ‘how could I let David know? What would it mean to him?’ Oh, I’m going 100″ She said, laughing, as she gestured to the speedometer.

I can still vividly remember the day that I confronted my mother about her dating website. At first I was angry at her for hiding it from me for so long, but never at any point was I ashamed, embarrassed, or upset with her in any way. No negative thoughts or emotions went through my mind about her being gay at all. I would have been completely neutral towards it, if it wasn’t for the disappointing knowledge that she had been hiding it from me for years and would likely have lied to me about it rather than admit the truth had I not been able to corner her. I remember that despite my reaction of approval my mom cried anyway, which was puzzling. It was one of the rare times in my life when I had seen my mother cry. I couldn’t tell if they were tears of joy or sadness, and couldn’t fully comprehend why the conversation was so emotional for her.

It wasn’t until I heard her story that day in the car that I could understand. After growing up in a culture where the message was driven home over and over by society and even from her own family that who my mother is as a person is wrong and shameful, after all of the lies and guilt and sadness, her own son was finally accepting her. She must have been petrified of telling me for fear that I would react as so many other loved ones in her life had. I was struck by the thought that during her lifetime public perception has changed so much that when she was growing up it was acceptable to beat a gay person in the street, yet by the time she came out to me the thought of not accepting her because of her sexual orientation literally never even entered my mind.

My musings were interrupted by a gesture of excitement from my mom, as she pointed out towards the horizon. “Look over there. Do you think those are the Rockies?” she said with hope in her voice. “I believe they are.” I responded. “Look over there where the sky is black. There’s so much wide open space here that you can see where it’s raining by the black sheet coming down from the sky like a curtain, but it’s dry and sunny over here. There’s something you don’t see in New York.” I pointed out. “That reminds me. One time Jo’ and I took a road trip together and I made up a song. Did I ever sing it to you?” my mom asked. “No, go ahead” I responded, more astonished than I let on to hear that my mom had a theatrical side.

“I’m gay. I’m gay. I’m a big girl now, I’m gay. I’m 60 now and I don’t know how, but I’m gay. I’m gay” she sang to me in an upbeat tone, with a smirk on her face. “Did you really make that up? What’s the tune from?” I asked. “It’s from a Barbara Streisand song” was her reply. I chucked. “Go figure.”

The more I thought about the story the more I started to get the sense that for all the potency of her own little piece of history, there was something missing. My mother is far from apolitical. She is idealistic, has always voted, and occasionally takes a stand to support a cause that she believes in. If I had to hazard a guess, I would imagine that the reason that the events of the gay rights movement never entered the conversation with my mother is because she simply never identified as gay, and so distanced herself from gay rights issues. Even after making so much progress in coming to grips with her identity, I still don’t think she views gay rights topics as something that affects her directly. As many lesbian friends as she might have, and as many LGBT friendly social functions she may attend, she is still inclined to view herself as separate from the larger context of gay society. Her partner, Jo’, on the other hand, makes no such distinction. On the contrary, Jo’ was able to “come out of the closet” in her early teens, and has always been far more comfortable with her sexual orientation. She quite enjoys the social scene, and is happy to be a part of it. During some of our ample free time I decided to give Jo’ a call to see if she could help me piece together some of the circumstances surrounding Susan’s death.

For me, it’s always a pleasure to speak with Jo’. Her personality and my mother’s mesh quite well, and there is an uncommon depth to the bond that they share. While my mother can be shy and reticent, Jo’ is a boisterous extrovert. Luckily, in addition to being talkative, she is also knowledgeable about a variety of subjects and well spoken. She is particularly interested in history, which was suited to our conversation. After exchanging greetings and a little small talk, I asked if Jo’ could tell me more about the civil rights movement, and then gently steered the conversation towards issues of gay rights. I made mention of Susan, which was a topic that Jo’ was all too familiar with. Being in my mother’s highest confidence, I’m sure Jo’ had even still heard more than me about a topic that was still clearly on my mom’s mind after so many years.

“If you go back to the ’50s when Susan was young, imagine putting gay issues into the framework of the McCarthy era. There was so much paranoia in this country that they were throwing anybody who was suspected of being gay out of government jobs. The idea was that the Communists could use it against you if they found out your secret and blackmail you to steal information. That was the paranoia of those times. At that time you could be fired from any job for being gay, because they saw it as a kind of terrible mental illness” said Jo’.

I brought up that Susan was a teacher.

“At the time Susan was employed one could not be a teacher anywhere in this country and be gay. That was just not going to happen. Even if you were a woman teaching in an all male school, they would still fire you for it. You had influence on children. It was seen as corrupting minors” she said.

“When did all that start to change?”

“That’s pretty much the way it was until the Liberation Movement kicked off in 1969. By that time in Susan’s life she was already out for many years. The prevailing attitude at the time was that it was nurture rather than nature. In the studies that were done prior to 1975 they always said that homosexuality was caused by a family with a dominant mother and a weak father. So when a parent found out that their child was a homosexual in those days, they blamed themselves. That was why the reaction that your grandparents had was so strong. It was normal. It was what most parents felt when they found that out.”

“What about your own parents?”

“When my parents found out, they were shocked. My mother said it broke her heart because of the ramifications… as if I had no future in that. That was what made them very sad. Just as in any point of time in this country, at that time two women living together were not going to make as much money as with a man. Was I always going to be poor, not be happy, and not have a full life? This is how that conversation went.”

“Sounds a lot like what went on with Susan and my grandparents”

Susan and I are five years apart. My experience was so totally the opposite of hers… I always had it easy. If I was Susan’s age I would be having an entirely different conversation with you right now because life would have been horrible. So many people were thrown out of their houses and never had their family again. Alcoholism was a big deal in the gay community for a very long time. There were more AA groups that were formed out of the gay community than any other demographic because that was your life. If you didn’t have a partner, you went to bars every night. You were drinking all the time. You couldn’t find the acceptance within yourself. You didn’t realize you could make a life for yourself. It drove people to drink. It was a big, huge problem.

The bars were little hovels, little holes in the wall, dark, dusty, depressing places. At that time gay people were always surrounded by this message that being gay is wrong and it’s a sickness. They felt doomed to a life of abuse where they couldn’t ever be themselves. The only options for entertainment were disgusting, dark, and drab with all kinds of weirdoes around. In those circumstances you’re going to feel like you’re a freak, especially if you don’t really know any other people like you. It isolates you. It makes you go underground. But those were the only places we could go.

When the cops had nothing else to do, they would go raid gay bars. They would go into the bars. They would arrest all these guys. They would throw them into the paddy wagon, take them down to the police department, and send their names to the newspaper. The next day in the New York newspaper or whatever city you were in they would print the names of everybody they arrested in the raid. Now remember you could get fired from your job being a homosexual back then. You could get thrown out of an apartment. If you were married and on the down low your kids could be taken away from you. That was a real big deal. That’s what they used to do for sport, the police. It happened over and over and over again.

That tension with the police is what sparked the Stonewall riots. After the Stonewall riots the gay rights movement really started to gain traction, and everything changed. Part of the politics was to come out. If you came out people would realize how many of us there were. They would realize it was a neighbor, someone in their family, a teacher, or someone who they knew so it wasn’t a foreign thing anymore. It was somebody that you could actually relate to. After that was the sexual revolution in the ’70s. Everybody was out and open and carrying on. I remember the first ever gay pride parade in New York City. It was in June of 1970. It was also the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. I thought it was the most amazing thing I ever saw. I was standing on a street in New York City surrounded by tens of thousands of gay people. Even though I grew up in New York, and even though I came out in New York, it was the sheer number of people there that made me realize that something had to happen for people like us.

If Susan had hung on just a little bit longer, I think she would have revived herself a little bit and been able to enjoy life. Then maybe your grandparents might have come around.”

The more I thought about it, the more I started to see that what happened with Susan was not uncommon. It was a predictable reaction to a set of circumstances which would have been a major setback in anyone’s life. It was not an isolated incident. Her struggle to be accepted by her family, her depression, her alcoholism, were the silent struggles of a generation. How many stories like hers are never spoken, existing only as fading memories? Can you blame Susan for her alcoholism any more than you can blame her for being gay? What could have been going through her head that night that she decided to end her life? With the weight of these questions never far from my mind, I knew that I had one final phone call to make. Still on the road, with the permission of my mother, I found some privacy and contacted her therapist who had weathered most of the storm alongside my family. Although patient confidentiality prevented her from discussing any details of my mother’s relationship with her, she had some enlightening accounts from her own career.

“When I first started my career in high school I cannot tell you the number of kids who were gay who could not come out and who were driven to madness. Many of them were depressed and suicidal. They made suicide attempts. They were tortured souls. It really upset me because I knew they were suffering. I was active myself in promoting the gay straight alliance in my school district. I brought lecturers in to raise awareness for the teachers. At the end of my career an eighth grader came to me to announce that he was gay. He was completely open. He was unafraid. He was perfectly comfortable talking about it. I thought maybe nobody else knew, but he had already shared it with his parents. His friends knew. He was completely accepted. From 1979 until 2007 when I retired, there was a major, major shift in the experience of dealing with homosexual people. I was fascinated by it. I was thinking ‘oh my god. These people are attempting suicide in 1979. Some of them are getting hospitalized with depression. And in 2007 an eighth grade boy announces to me he’s gay and he’s perfectly comfortable with it.’ All in less than 30 years. It was amazing to me. It was exciting to be part of it. Now it’s a whole new world.”

“We still have a long way to go, but we’ve come a very long way.”

The progression of the days was marked by the features of the landscape and flies upon the windshield. As our road trip was nearing its end, I drove down the highway with unfocused eyes, trying to process everything that I had just heard. I donned a pair of sunglasses as the sun began descending ahead of me. At that moment, I could almost picture my aunt Susan’s face. I held it in my mind. It was a sort of compilation of whatever pictures of her I had caught a glimpse of in old photo albums, all brought to life by my newfound insight into her personality. The Susan of my imagination was a lot like my mother.

She left behind no children, no momentous life’s work or crowning achievement. It was as if her potential was extinguished before she ever had a chance to express it. If there is one thing that I can take away from my journey with my mother, it’s the legacy of Susan’s story which has been passed down to me. Although Susan’s time was brief and has long since passed, the story of her life and the memory of her struggle will always stay with me as a guiding force. Sitting in the car alongside my mother I suddenly realized that this is the place where Susan finally found acceptance. Looking out at the road ahead, I thought about the words from that last conversation. We still have a long way to go.

Haiku

May 15, 2015 / gradav23

Searching For Lost Time

Is Like Trapping Your Shadow

To Catch The Darkness

Journal Entry #8

May 14, 2015 / gradav23

Searching For Lost Time

Is Like Trapping Your Shadow

To Catch The Darkness

Baltimore Riots Revisited

It has recently come to my attention that I was the subject of a rebuttal in a classmate’s journal entry following a classroom conversation. The article cites one of my own entries and specifically mentions my name. At the time that his piece was posted I was unaware of the effect my comments had generated. In fact I was several thousand miles away engaged in recording interviews for my memory project while driving cross country. Although I’m a little late to rejoin the conversation, these issues are no less relevant than they were when the story first broke. I believe that the opinions and beliefs expressed in his entry are legitimate and come from a good place, however I continue to disagree with the reasoning behind them. I am acutely aware that I am expressing an unpopular opinion, and part of the reason I feel the need to make my position clear is that there are those in the class who appear to be dismissive of my perspective or unwilling to hear my point of view. Perhaps they think that my beliefs are intolerant or racist. If they would take the time to understand my argument, it would be evident to them that this is not the case. I do not view this as a partisan issue either, and it has nothing to do with however you might perceive my political affiliations.

To start with, I would like to address the implication that the rioters needed to resort to violence because they don’t have other viable options. To quote the journal entry in reference:

“Their response is that these people should go through traditional methods, including peaceful protests (which by the way DID happen simultaneously during the riots), through voting or IE all of the methods that won’t actually do anything to damage the status quo. Of course, again, the use of ‘traditional methods’ relies on the assumption that black youth in America have all of the same opportunities as their white counterparts. This is usually the first illusion ascribed to, that needs to be torn down.”

To suggest that changing the system without violence is impossible or impractical is ignorant of not only the current political situation, but all of history including the history of the civil rights movement within the United States. According to Wikipedia “From 1966 to 1999, nonviolent civic resistance played a critical role in 50 of 67 transitions from authoritarianism.”

Out of a curiosity inspired by our classroom discussions, I watched a Spike Lee movie outlining the life and beliefs of Huey Newton, the founder of The Black Panthers. While I agree with the reasoning and motivations behind much of his ideology, my support can extend no further than the violence of his intentions. Huey Newton, who also authored the manifesto Revolutionary Suicide, is quoted as saying “Sometimes if you want to get rid of the gun, you have to pick the gun up” and “The policemen or soldiers are only a gun in the establishments hand. They make the racist secure in his racism.” and also ” “Existence is violent, I exist, therefore I’m violent. . . in that way.” He also discusses Dr Martin Luther King Jr with scorn, and seems to believe his methods to be ineffective. Although I acknowledge that it’s entirely possible that the FBI at that time may have been involved in the vilification and dismantling of his organization, the fact remains that ultimately whatever good his beliefs served was eclipsed by senseless violence, did not have a good outcome for race relations or civil rights, and lead to his untimely death. To compare the effect that he had on the struggle to uplift his community with Dr Martin Luther King’s ideals illustrates the futility of using violence as a tool to instigate productive change.

In modern times we have the benefit of modern technology and social media, which have already sparked many populist uprisings worldwide. Every video of police brutality made viral is another victory for civil liberties and a step in the right direction towards correcting some of the injustices facing black communities. There are also reforms underway to begin to address the inequalities and prejudices that contribute to the disproportionate incarceration of African Americans. For example, while many people are arrested and unfairly targeted for enforcement over minor drug offenses, there is also a movement that is increasingly gaining traction to decriminalize marijuana, a policy which surely has positive implications. Also surely it’s a good thing that many of Baltimore’s leaders in government are black, including the Mayor and Police Chief. Again, I am not saying that the people who rioted don’t have the right to be upset. It was the last straw for a community that has faced systematic oppression long before that incident. What I’m saying is that using violence is ineffective and morally reprehensible, and that alternative solutions definitely exist.

The article I’m responding to seems to indicate that rioters have a larger goal which is being ignored by the media. I think that in glorifying violence, you are losing sight of what that violence actually is. Statistics and newspaper articles don’t tell the whole story. Maybe you have never seen what a rioting crowd can be like. I could rattle off statistics about the riots; there were 144 vehicle fires, 19 structural fires, and nearly 200 arrests, over 200 small businesses were unable to reopen, etc, but that is nothing compared to this:

Having myself been the victim of gang violence on more than one occasion, I can relate to the feeling of victimization from the senseless ferocity of an unprovoked violent attack. While many people may assume that the protesters committed “victim-less” crimes that only targeted property, they are ignoring the reality of the hatred and violence at a riot’s essence. When I was attacked by a gang of about 7 thugs while traveling in Peru who jumped on me from behind and began repeatedly striking me in the face while brandishing broken bottles as weapons, nobody suggested that their actions should be excused because of the history of inequality between our races or their impoverished background. Nobody suggested that since they never intended to kill me, only to steal from me by force, that I wasn’t really being victimized. By the same token the act of rioting invalidates what would otherwise be a valid motive.

Perhaps another part of my own background that makes the concept abhorrent to me is the legacy of rioting in my own city. The following is an account of the Crown Heights Riots in Brooklyn, an event that has always resonated with me even though I was too young to remember it.

“Lifsh’s vehicle struck a car in an intersection, veered onto the sidewalk, and pinned two children against building. Seven-year-old Gavin Cato, the son of Guyanese immigrants, who was on the sidewalk, died instantly. His seven-year-old cousin survived but was severely injured. The EMS unit that arrived on the scene about three minutes after the accident said that Lifsh was being beaten and pulled out of the station wagon by three or four men. All accounts agree that Lifsh was beaten before ambulances and police arrived. A volunteer ambulance from the Hatzolah ambulance corps arrived on the scene followed shortly by police and a City ambulance, which took Gavin to the Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Volunteers from a second Hatzolah ambulance helped Angela Cato.

Two attending police officers, as well as a technician from the City ambulance, directed the Hatzolah driver to remove Lifsh from the scene for his safety, while Gavin was being removed from beneath the station wagon. According to the New York Times, more than 250 neighborhood residents, mostly black teenagers, many of whom were shouting “Jews! Jews! Jews!”, jeered the driver of the car and then turned their anger on the police.

Some members of the community were outraged because Lifsh was taken from the scene by a private ambulance service while city emergency workers were still trying to free the children who were pinned under the car. Some believed that Gavin Cato died because the Hatzolah ambulance crew was unwilling to help non-Jews.

Later that evening, as the crowds and rumors grew, people threw bottles and rocks. At about 11:00 pm, someone reportedly shouted, “Let’s go to Kingston Avenue and get a Jew!” A number of black youths then set off westward to a street of predominantly Jewish residents several blocks away, vandalizing cars and heaving rocks and bottles as they went. After the death of Gavin Cato, members of the black community believed that the decision to remove Lifsh from the scene first was racially motivated. They also maintained that this was one example of a perceived system of preferential treatment afforded to Jews in Crown Heights. Furthermore, many members of the black community were concerned about the expansion of Jews moving into the neighborhood, believing the latter were buying all of the property. It was widely believed in the Jewish community that these allegations were an attempt to mask blatant anti-Semitism committed against Jews during the riot. As examples, they point to anti-Semitic statements made by protesters throughout the rioting, and comments made at Gavin Cato’s funeral. In his eulogy at the funeral, the Rev. Al Sharpton made comments about “diamond dealers” and commented “It’s an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights.” In addition, a banner displayed at the funeral read “Hitler did not do the job”. Edward Shapiro, later called the riot “the most serious anti-Semitic incident in American history“.

In a sense this reference is a little off topic, but at the same time when I think of the lawlessness and mob mentality this is the first place my mind goes. The Nazis were a prime example of what kind of effect the feelings of anonymity fostered in a crowd can generate. Mob mentality is a phenomenon that has been studied in psychology and can result in levels of inhuman behavior that people would never ordinarily stoop to as individuals.

As for the “just cause” of the rioters that the media lost sight of? This New York Times article sums it all up.

“Back across town, next to his own Southern Baptist Church, a $16 million, half-built senior housing project and community center were ablaze. He had worked for years on the project, an extraordinary investment in a neighborhood that has suffered for years from poverty, drugs and neglect.” “I can’t make sense out of nonsense,” he said of the unknown arsonists. “Whoever did this was someone who didn’t understand what we were trying to do.”

“They’re destroying and undermining businesses and opportunities in their own communities that rob jobs and opportunity from people in that area,”

Maybe I haven’t stressed enough how outraged I am by the disturbing legacy of police brutality in this country. I am sympathetic to the plight of the disenfranchised black community of Baltimore and the hardships that they have endured. Although I am privileged enough not to have to experience police brutality or the grip of extreme poverty firsthand, I am also lucky enough to be able to enrich my perspective with a serious academic inquiry into the topic and consider myself fairly knowledgeable on many contemporary issues of race relations. It is only fair that if I am to find the violence and brutality of police officers abhorrent that I must be equally disgusted by the violence committed under the banner of any other cause.

Journal Entry #7: 1st Encounter With Interview Subject

May 12, 2015 / gradav23

Journal Entry #7

May 12th, 2015

I set out on my journey back to NY in high spirits, brimming with anticipation for what was to come. The catalyst for my trip was to interview Isabella in person for my memory project, and although this remained my main ambition I couldn’t deny the appeal of certain other secondary motives. A chance to revisit my hometown, however briefly, and reconnect with my mother on the westward ride back to Olympia. Even after enduring two taxi rides, a commuter train, a lengthy wait in the airport, and a particularly rough “red eye” flight fro Seattle, I arrived home early on a Friday morning with the same enthused energy with which I had begun my trip. I was eager to sleep the morning away in my own bed beside my content house cat, and looked forward to beginning the interview process with Isabella that afternoon.

My initial attempts to set up a pre-interview with her had to be postponed due to some pressing health concerns involving her parents. By the time things had stabilized on her end and she was ready to conduct the pre-interview with me, I found myself rushing through the process while hectically boarding the train in Olympia the day of me departure. At that moment things were a little rushed, but luckily I had already laid the groundwork well in advance and had gently reminded her through numerous calls and texts in the weeks before the interview that I would be on a tight schedule. I thought I had stressed the importance of maintaining the agreed upon timetable enough, but when in my rush to board the train she made a plea to postpone the interview that afternoon despite my objections, I found myself distractedly agreeing. It wasn’t ideal, but I just figured I’d have to make it work.

Shortly after I awoke that Friday at around noon, I found myself confronted by my mother who gave me a reality check about the risks of leaving so late after the interview. I had been unrealistically hoping that maybe we could leave late at night on Friday or else make up the time by adding a few hours of marathon driving to the already drawn out lang-haul days we would have to pull. My mom reminded me that the most likely outcome of doing the interview in the afternoon would be arriving late to school and missing an additional day of class as a result. This would put me right at the limit of allowed absences for the quarter, and also leave me extremely behind in my work. I had already allowed myself to fall a little behind schedule in order to meet with Isabella in person rather than do the whole project over the phone or using Skype, so for a myriad of reasons it would be unwise to miss any more class time than absolutely necessary. I called Isabella a few hours before our appointment to break the news to her that we needed to reschedule and would have to do the interview at a distance, but she didn’t pick up, so I sent her a text message instead.

She was far from thrilled to hear that, and I got the sense that she was upset with me. She expressed disappointment about having been all ready to go through with it, and exclaimed that she had already cancelled her car service appointment in anticipation of being picked up by me. The next several days the topic was never far from my mind as we messaged and emailed back and forth about the project. Although it’s possible that a miscommunication is to blame (I was never able to reach her by phone and we may have misinterpreted each-other’s tones by trying to communicate by texting), I got the sense that she was somehow upset with me or for whatever reason unwilling or hesitant to proceed with the project. This was extremely vexing to me, because although I tend to think of myself as an empathetic person who can easily relate to other people’s perspectives, I couldn’t fathom what was causing Isabella’s erratic response. I tried not to take it personally, but it began to strike me as extremely selfish that she would leave me in such a position even though she knew how important the project was not only to me but for my schoolwork. I could only imagine that the subject was still too painful for her to confront head on, and that maybe the deep psychological trauma was somehow responsible for her completely uncharacteristic behavior. I realized that it would be better to cut my losses than run the risk of jeopardizing the progress of my course further by giving her any more chances to turn things around, just in case her resistance would continue or take other forms. With the deadline looming in the back of my mind, I had hardly begun thinking up alternative ideas when my mom volunteered herself as my interview subject.

As much as I love Isabella and committed myself to recording her story, I began to consider it a blessing in disguise that things didn’t work out with that topic. My mother, who is usually a fairly reserved and soft spoken woman, was for the first time divulging to me a fascinating series of memories which she has always held close that speak volumes about her own identity and perspective. It was our first road trip together, and hearing her tell her story was like getting to know someone that I was never fully acquainted with. She disclosed many details about the life and death of her sister Susan, who was her closest friend and passed away before I was ever born. She linked her sister Susan’ struggles with her sexual orientation to my mother’s struggles with her own identity, and put it all in the context of the struggles of a generation. It was an unexpected and welcome insight into my family history, that begun a new line of inquiry which will culminate into a memory project that I can be proud of.

Journal Entry #6

April 29, 2015 / gradav23

Journal Entry #6

April 29, 2015

Last night, while cooling off after a late evening Muay Thai class, thoroughly exhausted both physically and mentally yet with too much adrenaline left in my system to sleep, I found myself perusing through videos of the Baltimore riots. Although I had read newspaper articles on the subject earlier that morning, seeing the raw chaos and violence unfold from the perspective of the people who witnessed it took on a quality altogether different than reading intellectualized accounts.

The first video I found was filmed from the perspective of a group of white people taking shelter inside a bar. At first a few of them were standing outside, possibly because they didn’t anticipate what was to come or they wanted to catch the event on video. The rioters began hurling open bins full of garbage at them, and two of which hit women in the group near the person filming. The assailants may have targeted the women intentionally, either anticipating that they would react more slowly to the projectiles or to deliberately antagonize the men they were with. One of the larger thugs came over to the group near the person filming and punched a bystander in the face several times before running back to the group of rioters. Those that chose to fight back got caught up in a huge brawl and from the video it is unclear what happened to them.

After a draining bout of kickboxing, my first reaction in as I took this all in wasn’t anger. I found myself imagining what it would be like to be thrust into a situation like that. I started to envision what the best strategies would be to remain safe, and which self-defense measures would be most effective. Reacting to the violence with more violence would most likely not have a good outcome, but it would be hard to stand idly by and watch as others were hurt without stepping in to defend them. The violence simply rolled through the streets like a surging wave, welling up suddenly like a flash flood that threatened to overtake anyone in its path. To reverse the course of the riot or assert control over it seemed like more than any one person could have accomplished. Another video showed a huge black man with his arms outstretched, forming a barrier between the police and protesters to discourage violence. This struck me as incredibly brave. Finally, I watched as a news reporter interviewed one rioter as others slashed a fire hose to disrupt firefighter’s efforts to control a fire inside a CVS that was set by arsonists after looting it.

I went to sleep disturbed by what I had seen, so over breakfast I sent Sweeney, my girlfriend, a link to a NY Times article reporting on the the effects and aftermath of the event in order to discuss it with her and hear her opinion. It was my favorite of the articles I had read on the issue. The article includes an interview with an African American social reformer in Baltimore, who watched dumbfounded as a multimillion dollar housing project for senior citizens he had worked on for years was burned to the ground. The article also describes the difficulties that government officials have had in getting any corporations to invest in the troubled neighborhoods prior to the riots, with specific reference to the CVS that was destroyed.

Sweeney responded that the article doesn’t explore the perspective of the rioters, so I sent her the video of the fire hose slashing which includes a man hiding his face as he rants to the reporter; quite possibly to distract the news camera as the other rioters converged on the hose.

As disturbed as I was by the videos, that feeling was compounded by the film The Sorrow and the Pity, which we finished in class today. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the story was not enriched in any way by including the interviews of men who had been high up in the Nazi military during WWII. Neither of them were apologetic about their role in the war, and I have trouble buying into any rationalization they may employ as for what motivated their involvement or their knowledge of the full scope of the evil of the Nazi party. I was also put off by the way they chose to end the film., It went into a detailed portrayal of the injustices committed after the war and the innocent people that were condemned by the French after they were liberated from Nazi control. Although the scale and scope of the injustice that went on after the war differed drastically from what went on during the occupation, the film spends a good deal of time delving into it and ends on that note, as if to insinuate that everyone was guilty of some form of inhumanity not just the Nazis. The documentary went so far as to include at the end a former Nazi recounting his woeful tale of being spit on after the war ended.

The ending of The Sorrow and The Pity reminds me in a way of the Mel Gibson movie Apocalypto. The whole movie is about the persecution of one small tribe by the Mayan Empire. The movie ends with the tribes spotting Spanish ships on the horizon for the first time, and is suggestive enough that the viewer may question “Well, if that’s how the tribes treated each other before the Spanish arrived, and then was the process of colonization really that bad? Maybe that’s just the way their history is.” This is along the same lines of people saying “the Africans were enslaving each other before Europeans even got there.” To me, the documentary is making a deliberate statement by focusing so much on the way that political prisoners were treated post liberation at the hands of their own people instead of the Nazis. It is as if to say “it’s not just the Nazis who were criminals. Atrocities were committed on all sides and no one is completely innocent. You can’t judge the Nazis for what they did”

Both the documentary we watched in class and the news reports from the riots in Baltimore made me question, what exactly is the value of a narrative? When telling a story, are some narratives and perspectives more valuable than others? When crimes and atrocities are committed that have implications greater than the individual perpetrators, is the best way to get a balanced view of both sides really to include their narrative? Although rioters in Baltimore may have committed petty crimes, or in some cases felonies and more serious crimes, to me this doesn’t put them on the same level as the atrocities, genocide, and crimes against humanity of the Nazis, however parallels do exist in the way that their story is told and the sense that the individuals committing the crimes stand for something larger than themselves.

There are many arguments that can explain the side of the rioters and make their cause relatable. The social reformer who was quoted in the NY Times makes the case that the acts were a senseless reaction resulting from underserved and underprivileged youth who, filled with anger, didn’t realize the repercussions of their actions. Statistics can also reveal that the areas affected the most are home to a populace that is generally not well educated. Hearing the explanations in that article, it isn’t hard to relate to the justifiable anger of the youth there. As a teenager I could imagine myself protesting or rioting with no thought of consequences, and I didn’t have half the problems that the youth in those communities are faced with. When the argument is correctly framed, the action of those rioters is compelling in a sense. It has actually caused me to put more thought into the specific ways in which members of those communities are disenfranchised, and issues of racial inequality, than I otherwise would have. The problem is that by interviewing the rioters themselves, you get none of those kinds of answers. Just a spout of reactionary hatefulness from the mouths of those who are too ignorant to realize that their actions are hurting themselves and their community just as they are damaging the livelihood of the targets of their random aggression. We know what their motivations are. We don’t need to hear it directly from the perpetrators of the crimes. Their opinion is not likely to build a productive dialogue or have any real value. It is better to understand their perspective in other ways. Similarly, I think it is more productive to learn the intricacies of what really made the Nazi’s tick by taking a sociological or psychological approach. For example studying the impact on the Nazis of the propaganda they were exposed to, or to gain an understanding of the underlying social or historical forces that were at work. I fail to see what can be gained by focusing on the smug reminiscing and contrived excuses or people who took part in atrocities under the banner of a genocidal regime. The narrative of a crime’s perpetrator isn’t necessarily the best way to put their actions into context.

Journal Entry #5: Deep Memory

April 27, 2015 / gradav23

On the surface, it would appear that Isabella and I are as different from one another as can be. Although some people may convince themselves that they won’t have anything in common with those that are “too different” from themselves, both Isabella and I embrace these differences, which, it turns out, is one of the many things we have in common. Apart from just the generational gap, we are also from totally different races, backgrounds, and cultures. She is African American, of Caribbean descent, and identifies strongly with her roots in Trinidad. So how do two people from completely different walks of life develop such a strong bond? Most simply it’s that none of those things matter, which is glaringly obvious to nonconformists like us who habitually defy societies’ expectations. Our friendship was formed on the basis of complimentary communication styles, shared values and beliefs, and mutual interests just like any other, even though we might appear to be an unlikely pair. All of these commonalities form a solid foundation for a friendship, but in order to comprehend why I find Isabella’s story so intriguing and what draws me to her is a journey of introspection into the deepest of my own recollections.

When we first met, we were united by the shared experience of focusing on Isabella’s recovery from a devastating car accident. Dedicating myself to assisting her however possible helped me to take pride in my work, and after nearly a year of working together two to three hours a day for three days a week I began to affectionately think of her as an older sister. In order to fully understand what motivated me to want to dedicate myself so wholeheartedly to her recovery, and what mysterious forces of the inner workings of my mind contributed; I have had to take an unflinching look at some of my deepest memories and realized some associations that are not easily acknowledged.

At its essence, Isabella’s story is one of determined resilience. As a middle class white male, some might assume my life to be the epitome of privilege and luxury. Unfortunately, as comfortable as my life may be I am no stranger to loss and suffering. As a child, I suffered from Tourette’s syndrome, which affected my schoolwork and strained my social life. I was one of the lucky few that grow out of it with age, and I can’t imagine what my life would be like now if it wasn’t for that. At age nine my parent’s got a divorce; a process that involved constant fighting, the filing of restraining orders, selling the house I grew up in, and moving into a small apartment in a new neighborhood. A few years before the move, my family had adopted a kitten off the street that I had taken a special interest in. I used to talk to him sometimes just to vent, especially when I was grounded and he was keeping me company. Suddenly, shortly after my parent’s told me about the divorce, my cat died prematurely.

For what seemed like a long time my mother and I had to move in with my grandparents until she could find a new place. By Middle School I was on my own in a new town trying to make new friends. Summer camp was a haven for me, and I used the healing that it afforded me to bounce back as much as possible. I took a chance and ran for class president in 7^th grade, and gave an unconventional speech that took me from completely unknown to student body president. Then, in 8^th grade, came September 11th. The whole nation was in mourning. Later that same year my father passed away. 2 years later my maternal grandmother also passed away. I did my best to cope with these tragedies, and focused a lot of energy on my schoolwork. I maintained High Honor Roll throughout all of Middle School and continuing into High School. I can recall vividly the influence of my 9^th grade Health Class teacher. Maybe it was because I was one of the few students who applied myself to the class and took the subject seriously, or she might have sensed my penchant for public speaking, whatever the reason, she singled me out and asked if I would be part of her HIV/AIDS Awareness club. I didn’t feel any particular connection to that issue, and so she recommended a book to me on the subject. It was the true biographical story of a boy the same age as I was at the time that was a hemophiliac and contracted HIV due to a contaminated blood transfusion. It was a long book of around 500 pages that detailed many events of the boy’s short life, his struggle with illness, the activism/awareness he initiated to change the public perception of the disease, and his private thoughts and feelings about being terminally ill.

The book deeply affected me, and I invested myself fully in the cause of the club. Although it was unusual to head a club before senior year, I became president of the club both junior and senior year. By the time I graduated I had acquired enough experience in teaching the peer education program that I could also oversee the training of new club members. Despite all of the setbacks I did well on the SATs, kept my grades up, and was accepted to my first choice of colleges. I decided to defer enrollment and took a gap year after high school. During that time I spent 5 months in Africa, 3 of which were spent doing volunteer work. I was able to use my experience from the Aids Awareness club to start similar peer education initiatives in several locations hard hit by the AIDS epidemic. Simply having the education to realize that there is no danger in associating with those affected, and by appearing with them in public, sent a positive message and hopefully made a difference. It was as if the positive change was amplified from my initial decision to take up the cause into a broader and broader scope. Focusing on a worthy cause also put my own struggles into perspective for me, and gave me a sense of purpose. It all started with that one teacher, Mrs. Dowler, and the book that she lent me. I learned the value of using biography as inspiration and the value of doing work to benefit others. I can relate to Isabella’s experience because even though we have very different backgrounds and struggles I know what it means to be a survivor and to have to persevere through sheer toughness and resiliency. I want to record her story, as a testament to the determination of the human spirit.

Journal Entry #4

April 22, 2015 / gradav23

Journal Entry #4

April 15th, 2015

I find it interesting how closely tied the sentiments of the individual are to their social surroundings. This course has made me keenly aware of the common threads of human nature that unite us all, across the boundaries of time and culture. It appears that people generally behave in predictable ways accordance with their environment. This is why the concept of collective memory is fascinating. When we watch films in class that drudge up and expose the secrets of a family or expose the ugly truths of history which are preferred forgotten, it serves as a reminder both of the powerful defense mechanisms we employ in order to hide these things from ourselves and the potential benefit of exposing them. As I force myself to ponder difficult issues such as the holocaust, I find myself primed for further introspection. What kind of atrocities could I be passively allowing to happen in these times? How will future generations view the impact that we’ve had? Just as in my personal life I have always benefitted from unflinching introspection and a healthy dose of self-awareness, how can I apply the same kind of frank, progressive honesty towards social issues of imminent importance?

Today I was approached by vegan activists with all the fervor of a group of missionaries thirsty for converts. They offered to pay me a dollar to watch a 4 minute film on veganism. Nearby there was another stand selling cookies for one dollar (which may or may not have contained milk and eggs). It was all too tempting, and I fell right into their snare. I spent the next several minutes in stunned silence as brutally graphic images of shocking blood-and-gore depictions of violent animal cruelty were paraded in front of my despoiled eyes. Immediately following this, with pamphlets in hand, they began asking me what I thought of the film and so went the indoctrination process.

Although I don’t agree with all of the views of the Vegan ideology on an ethical level, it is admirable that they are able to dedicate themselves so wholeheartedly to a cause that extends so far beyond self-interest. Whether or not I actually launch any major dietary changes as a result of the encounter, the experience in and of itself was inspiring. It has been so long since I’ve immersed myself in an environment so unorthodox and nurturing of creativity as Evergreen that I can almost hear the creaking as my mind re-opens to ideas that have fallen by the wayside as I became caught up in conforming to New York culture and all its societal norms. I have renewed optimism that even though I have yet to discover a clear path between my studies and an occupation, the fertile grounds of my present mentality are sure to bear fruit in a career path firmly rooted in ideals and conviction.

In Search of Lost Time

The Evergreen State College

Author: gradav23 (Page 1 of 2)

Journal Entry #11

Journal Entry #10

Journal Entry #9

Memory Project

Haiku

Journal Entry #8

Journal Entry #7: 1st Encounter With Interview Subject

Journal Entry #6

Journal Entry #5: Deep Memory

Journal Entry #4

Contributors

Meta

Navigation

Contributors