For Emily in Franklinton

"If I read a book and it makes me so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head is taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?" -Emily Dickinson

Emily, you got me through seventh grade gym class

and conflicted college nights.

I have loved you at twelve and twenty-two,

but what would you say

to the man on the street with the cart?

You, who cackled at your Irish servants

and copied your last name until it shone?

What would you think of the wild nights

on Sullivant in this city

where everyone stops for death?

Would you drag your white dress down

our streets, past the strip club and bars?

On hectic nights I hear you in the staccato dashes

of the police helicopter.

To know someone well and love them

is always an accomplishment,

but Emily, I have learned that poetry

isn't the only thing that can take off

the top of your head.

And nobody is asking if there is any other way.

Boundaries

When I hear about incidents like Ashley and Greg breaking up a fight last Sunday, I am devastated by the violence in our neighborhood and feel an overwhelming pain for the children growing up exposed to it. A (more selfish) part of me is also devastated by my fear for my friends. What if someone hit Greg when he stepped into the circle? What if that guy had followed Ashley home? A lot of days I want to encase my friends in bullet proof armors and store them all in the FCW warehouse, emerging only to pick heirloom tomatoes from the community gardens to eat. Because those tomatoes are worth coming out of hiding for.

Sometimes I think I should have become a social worker like my mom instead of an unemployable person who likes to read like my dad (sorry, dad). Once you see what is happening in our neighborhood, how can you spend any time on anything other than trying to make it better? Meeting with the caseworkers at Gladden yesterday, though, made me realize that I could never do the job. They need to have a level of practicality and personal removal from the children's situation that I can never seem to have. I'm not sure they actually have it, either, but they sure have to try.

I met with them to discuss some disturbing behavior happening in homework help. One five year old has been saying really inappropriate things and drew a picture of me taking a shower with one of the male volunteers last week. Her sister has started calling me "mom." The caseworkers are working very hard to contact their family, but say that it is difficult to prove any kind of abuse. They basically told me that I need to stay out of it, draw more boundaries with the kids, and stop walking them home. I don't know how we can have boundaries in our neighborhood. These kids live a block from me. I see them after school and at community garden events. Since I have moved to Franklinton, I feel like all of my boundaries have disappeared or expanded. The boundary defining my family as Brian and my biological relations. The boundary around personal possessions. The boundary of what is normative behavior. I know some boundaries are important, but right now they seem like walls society tells us to build to protect ourselves.

The madness of our age

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, we gather at 123 to do morning prayers. We are reading through Common Prayers: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals (2010). It is a book of prayers and songs compiled by Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgove, and Enuma Okoro. Shane Claiborne is best known for his earlier work, The Irresistible Revolution (2006), which discusses his journey from the suburbs to the community house he helped form in the inner city of Philadelphia. I started reading it when we moved back to Columbus, but couldn't finish it until we moved to Franklinton.

From today's prayer (sounds better read aloud with Kelly and Ashley):

Desert father Abba Anthony said, "A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, 'You are mad, you are not like us.'"

Lord, help us to resist: the madness of our age

"Shroud"

In case it sounded like I was romanticizing our TV fast, I should mention that we JUST started "Lost" before the beginning of lent. Talk about bad ideas.

Today I was feeling a little gross due to a combination of having to grade papers, eating a bunch of girl scout cookies, and not using shampoo for the past week (more on that later). Luckily, things got better when Ani came on Pandora. It seemed like an appropriate fasting song with all of the shrouds we are trying to give up before Easter.

Shroud by Ani Difranco

I had to leave the house of fashion
And go forth naked from its doors
'cause women should be allies
And not competitors
I had to leave the house of god
Because the cross replaced the wheel
And the goddesses were all out in the garden
With the plants that nurture and heal

I had to leave the house of privilege
Spend Christmas homeless and feeling bad
To learn privilege is a headache
That you don't know that you don't have
I had to leave the house of television
To start noticing the clouds
It's amazing the stuff you see when
You finally shed that shroud

I had leave the house of conformity
In order to make art
I had to be more and less true
To learn to tell the two apart
I had to leave the house of fear
Just about as soon as I could crawl
Ignore my face on a wanted poster
Stuck to the post office wall

I had leave the house of self-importance
To doodle my first tattoo
To realize a tattoo is no more permanent
Than I am, and who
Ever said that life is suffering
I think they had their finger on the pulse of joy
Ain't the power of transcendence
the greatest one we can employ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrUQqSAvr30

Lent

I haven't given up anything for lent for years, but I have been feeling lately that I should quiet things down a little and the days before Easter seem like a good time to do that. So I gave up facebook, which I check constantly. It is more of a compulsion for me than anything: I check my e-mail and I check facebook. I am usually only on it for a couple of minutes to read status updates, but whenever I am working on my computer and I get stuck, I immediately go to the site. It has been easier than I thought to give it up. It is fun to see what everyone is doing, but I usually know what is going on in the lives of people I am closest to without status updates, and reading a few lines on a profile doesn't really give me enough information to say I am in touch with the rest of my "friends." It is fun, though, and it keeps me connected to a lot of people who are far away geographically, at least to an extent. I am sure I will get back on as soon as lent is over, but it is giving me one less reason to procrastinate on my school work. I have cheated to answer messages!

Brian gave up alcohol for lent. He really should start a whole blog just about that. He has not cheated at all. He never does once he has decided something.

Together, we gave up watching tv except for documentaries. We really get into routines with television. It is how we unwind after a long day of work. We usually watch an episode or two of MASH in bed, too (nothing stresses me out more than war, illness, and doctors, but I am secretly in love with Mike Farrell. We saw him give a talk on social justice at Wright State and he is still awesome). Like alcohol, tv shuts off our minds and helps us relax. I don't think there is anything wrong with doing that every once in awhile, but we are not always good at doing things in moderation. It is one thing to watch an episode before bed, but another to get home from work, turn on the tv, and zone out all night.

Friday night was rough, because we usually watch a movie and have a bottle (uh, or bota box) of wine together. We weren't sure what to do, but we ended up having some good conversations and getting a lot done around the house. In fact, we are getting A TON of stuff done around the house. We always said that we were too tired when we got home from work to do projects, but apparently that is not always the case. We are also hanging out with people more.

Of course, we can't be constantly working on projects instead of watching tv. We need to figure out ways to relax together without tuning out. I am looking forward to figuring all of this out together!

Free Bitch: Wonder Woman

Most Sundays for the past few months, our friend Kyle has had some of the women in the neighborhood over to view films directed by women. Free Bitch cinema. Clearly, the final movie of the series was the 2009 animated film Wonder Woman.

There have been some memorable moments: the horror of the woods scene in Wendy and Lucy, the decadence of Marie Antoinette. But there is nothing quite like watching Amazon warrior women saving the world in an FTON basement with some of the most powerful women you know, and a guy who planned free bitch in the first place. Moments like this, and the vagina monologues reading, and our Thursday potlucks, and, and, and, remind me of the best parts of the university life, the parts that are suppose to lead to more compassionate and thoughtful individuals. Just like in college, forming bonds, sharing ideas, and being idealistic together is something we do nearly every day. It is more powerful, though, because we are older and it is not four years, but a life we are building together.

Sometimes I think Franklinton is the only college I have ever attended.

Vaginas and An Old-Fashioned Girl

"It's so much jollier to eat in sisterhood. Let's club together, and have a revel" -An Old-Fashioned Girl (266)

"You'll be shocked at our performances, Miss Shaw, but you can call it a picnic, and never tell what dreadful things you saw us do" -An Old-Fashioned Girl (266)

In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (1986), the narrator's husband says that he loves making dinner and that cooking is his hobby. His mother in law responds that countless women have had to die in order for him to be able to say that.

Reflecting on the amazing and spiritual conversations we had at our reading of the Vagina Monologues last week, I wonder how many times women had to meet before we could all talk about our vaginas, or how many times vaginas were discussed and not recorded.

Louisa May Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Girl (1869) discusses a gathering of women that made me think of my friends, mostly because it is a potluck. They are all independent women working together to become "strong-minded, strong-hearted, strong-souled, and strong-bodied" (264). It is a feminist scene in a fairly traditional novel. I always remember that LMA wrote what I consider one of the most horrifyingly true feminist lines of the nineteenth century (in Little Women [1868]when the always-loving Marmee admits to Jo that she has been angry nearly every day of her life).

"We'll show you the sunny side of poverty and work, and that is a useful lesson for anyone...," answered Polly, hoping that Fan would learn how much the poor can teach the rich, and what helpful friends girls may be to one another" (271)