Category / words of the week

by jsetc

The picture of the woman who gets me up in the morning

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Today I was called an arrogant bitch. I was driving in my car when my thoughts overcame me at the traffic lights. As I dawdled  into things that had happened to my life recently an unfocused moment became reason for the man in the car alongside me trying to make a turn as quickly has he could to not only make assumptions about me but to verbalise them in a way that was harsh enough for me to have to carry them and analyse them as the day continued. During my undergraduate Arts degree of varied description I came across feminism and even found myself taking subjects called ‘women and power’ or something like that. I don’t wear make up on most days. I’m a mother whose children may not have a clear answer for the question ‘what is your mum’s job?’ yet the fact that they are asked this question at all allows for some degree of satisfaction; some proof of progress. I whinge. I get labeled; I have been objectified. I complain about life and inequality. I am not always happy. I don’t spend my days feeling blessed that I can walk down the street by myself or even indulge in a drink at a pub during the day – on my own.

When I took the photo above I was aware I was stealing something. The woman whose life I dived into for a few moments – uninvited and unashamedly –  remains anonymous. I took the photo because at first I didn’t believe what I was seeing. I remember standing, frozen and frightened for a few moments while I gathered what my eyes were trying to capture. Across the dusty unpaved street in downtown Ladakh a woman hobbled slowly; her back bent over by the weight of the bricks it was carrying.  Her hands and face were protected by rags. Although I couldn’t see her eyes I could feel her shame. She did not look up or down. She did not glance sideways towards my direction. She knew I was there.

Here, here’s my life. Here’s my feminism. Here’s my lot. I carry cement bricks to building sites each day because where I’m from women do the hard labour. Women do not get to make decisions about make-up free selfies. Women do not get to decide about what to make for dinner, what else to put in school lunch sandwiches that become boring soon after first term ends. Women do not get to drive cars and be called arrogant bitches; or walk down streets in fancy clothes and get wolf-whistled at. Here feminism  – if that’s what you want to call women working – is meaningless for me. Do you want to be treated like a man and have your back broken?

Sometimes the mornings are so monotonous they lull me back to sleep; the morning drill. The fighting children. The rush to do everything and more. The ridiculous expectations we have of ourselves. The domestic crush of the soul. The anonymous woman in the photo finds her way back into my thoughts on these days in particular. As her image confuses and destroys everything I thought I knew her predicament challenges me in such an immense way it forces me to get up and try to make sense of all our realities as they naively collide and stupidly compete with each other. She may still be stuck in her reality. I am often stuck in mine. Yet even the thought of hers during my day-today so-called privileged life is what makes me believe that one day, somehow, our two realities will meet. Her bricks will fall, my complacency will be shaken and we will both be called women.

by jsetc

Gone Illuminating. Be back soon.

I have just returned from being immersed. I don’t refer to anything religious with my choice of conjugated verb.

My immersion began when I arrived in Byron Bay with one initial mission: to find the flotation tank that had set me on a cloud of care-free some fifteen years ago when I first discovered this mode of relaxation that was unlike any other I could have imagined. Lying in a coffin half-filled with salty water is not everyone’s chocolate. And think what you will for my confession that it’s my idea of heaven.

So when I found my zero gravity coffin box at a place called Relax Haven I knew it was only a matter of time before further immersion would be allowed to occur. First I needed to release the layers of fatigue, dust, dead space and worry that had edged their way under my skin and remained in the creases hoping to find a permanent home amongst my angst. As I lay down in the warm, magnesium-activated water I said ‘sorry loves, you’re leaving’ and closed my eyes for an endless hour of trying to go nowhere in my own head. For most of the hour I did manage to find nowhere. After what seemed like a period of fifteen minutes my time in the tank was over and my journey could begin.

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The next three days at Byron Bay Writers Festival 2014 were filled to the brim with whole food, fine weather and full words.

I feel slowed down, filled up and let out.

Jeanette Winterson said ‘where do we meet? We meet on the steps of a story’ and in doing so reminded us all that language is what started us, language is what ties us together and language is what makes us human. It’s often so easy to forget that little line –  ‘we are all human’ – it’s so obviously simple that it’s so easily kicked away to the sidelines. She said

“If you think about language beginning in the mouth rather than before it hits the page, because speech is far older than writing, language itself becomes a memory system, a way of passing on and preserving what is essential to remember, the history of a tribe, clan, a people, enchantment, celebrations, warnings, heroism, doomed lovers, loss. In that sense storytelling allows history to happen.”

and immediately reminded us not only of our present, but of the past in all our futures. And in that complexity we find ourselves. We need to embrace the complexity and not let it scare us into unconsciousness. In slowing down and listening to the stories told all around us, we need to let our minds immerse themselves in the language that binds us.

Jeanette Winterson was one of so many writers who reminded me so gently what it means to be a reader and a writer. ‘Reading…’ she said ‘takes your hand off the panic button.’ And I had had my hand on or around that panic button for far too long. The circumstances of my life had forced me there. Now, Winterson and her words were showing me how to remove it. For that I cannot be more grateful.

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At a book signing after her address Jeanette Winterson touched my heart…and I like to believe I touched hers as well. As everyone lined up with their  pile of books for her to sign, all with sticky notes attached clearly spelling the accompanying  names to make things easier for the signer there was one book that remained unnamed – mine. As she reached this book Ms Winterson asked ‘and who’s this one for then?’ I smiled shyly and said ‘that one’s for my daughter…who’s six years old.’ She looked at me with wide eyes and I explained ‘you see, I might never see you again! And so I hope that in ten or fifteen years time, when she’s old enough, that she’ll pick up your book and read it as I did.’ And as I tried to get the words out as calmly as possible, she put pen to paper and wrote a little note for my daughter. She looked up at me and I could see her eyes glimmer. Mine certainly were. I said ‘thank you so so much’ and walked away with the best gift I had received in a long time.

After Jeanette’s remarkable introduction the rest of the festival flowed on like expensive champagne, straight into my glass. Three days later I emerged, drunk, spent and reignited.

“A lot of people say they don’t have time to read any more,” she said. “That should be a warning sign, not a fact of life.” (JW)

I’m back 🙂