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February 20, 2008 Born to Accommodate 
Julie's Hump Day Hmm this week is about speaking up vs. staying silent--and it's something I have strong feelings about. No surprise. Only I can't come up with anything that relates to her scenarios, except: It would depend almost entirely on what I ate for breakfast. Yeah. That's it. Am I full, or hungry, or hot, or cold, and how much sleep did Frances let me have the night before? In other words, am I cranky? If I'm cranky, I might say something, or at the least might direct a very pointed look at the offender. I keep my pointed looks sharp with the use of a dedicated whetstone, so you know, these aren't your garden-variety pointed looks. If I'm not cranky, I probably won't say anything. At all. Nice or otherwise. And then people tell me that I'm brave here, only I've always been brave in print, and I still can't speak. In part this is because I think by writing. I know the usual thing is to think by thinking, which leaves one open to the use of any medium at all to express the resulting thoughts. Not me. The best I am likely to do in public when confronted with a new question or issue is a thoughtful, concise and coherent, "Huh." In part, this is because I introject, and if you had seen me last night, Dear Readers, watching the episode of Battlestar Galactica where the new Sharon has to slit her hand open to plug herself into the computer before a cylon virus destroys the ship--sitting on the couch with my eyes clenched shut and my wrists pressed into my stomach because it fucking hurt just to watch it, and yes, I know it's not real--you might understand why I'm meeker in person than I am online. Imagining someone's reaction is quite enough, thank you; actually seeing it often puts me out of commission altogether. Sometimes, even when I know exactly what I want to say, I open my mouth and the words turn to stones in my throat. It's not at that point a conscious decision to keep peace by keeping quiet so much as an internal hijacking by some part of my mind that has decided my words are a kamikaze mission. But why? Is it fear, and if so, of what? It's not what I believe to be right, or good; if you asked me what I believed, I'd say this again, as I have many times before: "In becoming forcibly and essentially aware of my mortality, and of what I wished and wanted for my life, however short it might be, priorities and omissions became strongly etched in a merciless light, and what I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid? To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death. But we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change or end. Death, on the other hand, is the final silence. And that might be coming quickly, now, without regard for whether I had ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited for someone else's words. ...I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?" (Audre Lourde) That is what I would say; but what would I do, if someone made plans in front of me that didn't include me? Excluded someone from a playgroup because of their sex? Repaid good money with shit service? Such small things, shouldn't it be easy? For the monetary transaction conducted at one remove it probably would be, but the others? Stew, ponder, swallow some bile, crease my forehead. Then come home and blog about it. ~~~~~ "Youth Decay" (Sleater Kinney) Acid tooth Well it must be in your head Daddy says I got my mama's mouth Close my mouth Posted by Andrea at February 20, 2008 10:53 AM under Female Trouble , Me EMAIL this entry (comments fields are below this section) Comments I wonder...were you raised to never rock the boat? To believe that quiet = nice and good, and this was a desirable, no, necessary state? I was. I wonder if my outspokenness is more extreme than it would have been without needing to rebel against this. I do have an outspoken nature. I don't think I'm as outspoken as I think I am or sometimes wish I was and I'm more diplomatic and selective about battles than I imply. But still, I do tackle each day as if it were a fight, and there's precedent for that, too. Anyway, intriguing take on this and as always, amazing insight. Once again so glad you added your voice. And perhaps...blogging as as good a use of words as saying something in the moment. I can't say how many times I've altered how I think or behave because I recall something someone wrote. Posted by: Julie Pippert at February 20, 2008 11:46 AM
You seem overall happy. Doing what you are doing seems to work for you. Posted by: LauraJ at February 20, 2008 11:58 AM
I think it's more like I was raised to deny the existence of the boat or even the ocean beneath it; and if anyone did anything to call to mind the reality of the boat and its situation, this was not dealt with kindly. (I.e. expressions of emotion of any kind were frowned upon.) I don't mean to imply that blogging doesn't have value or doesn't count as speech, but certainly in the moment of any one of those situations, I probably would have said nothing. Now maybe, after having written it out, I would have known what to say next time. But that's different. Posted by: Andrea
Growing up in a home where the louder an opinion is stated, the more valuable it is - and now knowing, as Joe Strummer said "Opinions lead to war", I now believe that the power of the written word trumps what one might exhale on the spot. Whether it's writing to Craft Zine with a request that my gift subscription be extended because I had the first one I received already - or writing to my councillor today to get some garbage removed from the street, every word applied via my fingers going peckity peckidy thwack will have more effect than all the "opinions" my mother ever stated. And as mothers, we could never speak of this post. There isn't the time to have this conversation - but here it is, and it will linger with me for weeks. I like you on the computer as much as I like you in person. Posted by: Marla at February 20, 2008 12:10 PM
The poem sums up more for me on relating with others and not entities (service businesses in this case) than I can say. I want so badly to speak out at times that my teeth hurt from the grinding that happens. I am overbalanced on the business side because I do not see how to speak out on the personal, only waging wars I believe I am capable of winning. Posted by: Ria Ludy at February 20, 2008 12:23 PM
Thanks, Marla. :) Ria, thank you--and woops, that's a song, not a poem. I should have said so. Posted by: Andrea
I think by writing, too, so I totally relate. I rarely say something in the moment. I think that is why blogging has been so good for me. It gives me an outlet for thinking through something and having people respond. I am so much better at written conversation! That said, thanks to my husband's outspoken family, I am learning to speak my thoughts, too. Posted by: twosquaremeals at February 20, 2008 2:47 PM
You sound like me in this regard. It all depends on which Melissa came out today. And blogging is a good outlet for this stuff. Unless, of course, you find out after the fact that someone has been reading your blog without your knowing it. :) Great post! Posted by: melissa at February 20, 2008 5:56 PM
I read this yesterday, but now Marla's sent it to me so I'll say now what I was thinking then, which is that so often you write thoughtful posts on issues that speak to me and sometimes I wish I could muster the same kind of effort on my blog. Posted by: lisa b at February 21, 2008 11:00 AM
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Change is God (Octavia Butler, Parable Series) "If the writer is a socially privileged person--particularly a White or a male or both--his imagination may have to make an intense and conscious effort to realize that people who don't share his privileged status may read his work and will not share with him many attitudes and opinions that he has been allowed to believe or pretend are shared by 'everybody.' Since the belief in a privileged view of reality is no longer tenable outside privileged circles, and often not even within them, fiction written from such an assumption will make sense only to a decreasing, and increasingly reactionary, audience. Many women writing today, however, still choose the male viewpoint, finding it easier to do so than to write from the knowledge that feminine experience of reality is flatly denied by many potential readers, including the majority of critics and professors of literature, and may rouse defensive hostility and contempt. The choice, then, would seem to be between collusion and subversion; but there's no use pretending that you can get away without making a choice. Not to choose, these days, is a choice made. All fiction has ethical, political and social weight, and sometimes the works that weigh the heaviest are those apparently fluffy or escapist fictions whose authors declare themselves 'above politics,' 'just entertainers,' and so on." Ursula le Guin Email Frances! frances AT athenadreaming DOT org You can email her mother too (that's me):
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Earn Your Karmic Brownie Points The WHOYCBE Not So Secret Spoilers These links open in a new browser window. Random Writer's Quote What are the results of ignoring the writer and paying undue attention to the reader? A style that aims to please all and offend none, one which 'smiles' all the time, shows very little of a thought process, but strives instead to produce a neat package tied with a ribbon. Ambivalance is out, changes of mind are out, the important nagging questions are out, because they are not neat, and they might offend--and because they involve paying some attentnion to one's own state of mind while one is writing. Such papers are highly polished, so much so that it is hard to catch a human voice in them. And, like Griselda, they are dull; competence is all. ~~ Joan Bolker, "Teaching Griselda to Write"
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The title of this blog was taken from the short story "The Language of Nna Mmoy" by Ursula le Guin in her collection, Changing Planes. I won't tell you why or how, because I want you to read the story and figure it out for yourself.
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