One Woman Army

Listen to my story, silence me no more...

“And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives. That we not hide behind the mockeries of separations that have been imposed upon us and which so often we accept as our own.” - Audre Lorde

I am in awe of the words of women.
I sit here alone, in a house on the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the voices of women who I spoke with so long ago. Women who I worked with, talked with, laughed and cried with - who trusted their stories, their words, their lives, to me, to my care, to my listening and witnessing. To take these stories of theirs - their herstories - and to share them, use them, analyse them, trust them, guard them, work with them, and to honour them.

To honour their herstories.

They were not mine to give, and yet here I hold them.

I am challlenged with how to tell their stories, to give them the adequate - no, not adequate - the necessary attention they so deserve. How to respond to them and ensure that they are received into the hands of others with the necessary care that they require. How to do justice to women's words.

We, women, live in silence. Our stories, not told. Not spoken. Not listened to. Not given respect.
How to them justice when they are told?
How to be an active, truly present listener and witness?

To ensure that women's voices are not lost in our re-telling of the story?

This is my challenge.
Not my stories to tell, yet here I am, entrusted in telling them.

To be continued.
-Artemis.

Video of the day: Mother's Day Action

I have always had mixed feelings about Mother's Day - a hallmark holiday whereas you are suddenly told to emulate and celebrate your mother - and there are many mothers in the world who should not be mothers and should not be celebrated on command.

Why have just one day to do so? Why  not whenever you need to? Whenever you feel like?

Its easy to forget the history of Mother's Day - and that it wasn't about celebrating the mother - but rather, restoring peace.

I love this video from Mothers Day For Peace - featuring Gloria Steinem, Alfre Woodard, Christine Lahti and more. I'll admit it made me cry. And while I can't donate to their charity right now - helping children devastated in the Iraqui War - I love how it makes you remember that there is something bigger than celebrating your mother right now - finding peace.

Transgendering the self

A few notes of interest quickly this morning as I get ready to head for work.

First, a call for submissions for an online anthology Beyond Masculinity.

Gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer men's gender identities often exist somewhere outside the traditional categories of "masculine" and "feminine." Sissies, drag queens, and leather daddies alike play with gender in a way that cannot be accounted for in traditional understandings of maleness. This collection -- part blog, part anthology, part audiobook -- aims to shatter traditional understandings of maleness and point towards a new understanding of how queerness and gender intersect.

I suggest people take up the opportunity if they are so able. I love stuff like this - writing that is breaking barriers and bridging bridges, so to speak.

Yesterday, I attended a presentation by Dr. Pauline Greenhill of the University of Winnipeg titled ‘If I Was a Woman As I Am a Man’: The Transgender Imagination in Newfoundland Ballads. Its been a while since I'd been to a Women's Studies presentation, it being summer now, and this was great. She seemed wonderful, very interested in her work, and her ideas were really great. I couldln't help but wonder what my Newfoundland friends would've thought of her analysis - particularly their grandparents and parents. Old ballads and folktales and songs are so much of a part of the culture of Newfoundland it would be interesting to see what the people who sing them now really think.

Is there a transgender imagination?
Dr. Greenhill was wonderful - noting that in the 17th century people likely might not have had a concept in Newfoundland of transgendering and transexuality at all - or at the very least very limited.

What struck me in her analysis was how if the men in the ballads suddenly found themselves dressed as women, it was never of their own will and always met with embarassment. Whereas if a woman was dressed as a man, not only was she still sexually desirable but suddenly more grand.

So typical and so mirroring life today still. Feminine attributes are still always the unwanted in society while male attributes are still desired.

My opinion? We all have a transgender imagination of some sort - perhaps this delves into the realm of bisexuality. We all in some ways imagine either ourselves to be of an opposite sex or gender; and at times imagine others to be as well.

Fluidity.

-Artemis.

When our pasts haunt us...

It has been some time since I've been here. Summer has been filled with too many projects to handle, as the workaholic in me just can't say no to anything. I miss my writing, and I know it misses me.

Last week my past came in full blast to haunt me. A ghost from my past, a person who I hadn't seen in over 6 years, back in my life.

It's hard to believe only a week has passed now since I saw him again.

I write here, instead of on my other, more public blog, because I can't risk him knowing how he still affects me. How he once affected me, and obviously still does.

This person broke my heart 6 years ago. I was emotionally so over the moon for him. I would've picked up and talked about moving provinces to be with him, to have a chance to be with him, because I was utterly and absolutely positive that he might be the one.

He on the other hand, was too terrified, too scared to take that leap. And so instead, our communication ended, and this person who I had completely and utterly given my heart to, was out of my life.

I knew that if, in a year, he came back and wanted to try again, I would. And the wiser part of me looked at the lovesick me with pity for not being wiser, for being gullible, for believing he might ever change.

***

6 years later, he's back in my life. Married now, but separated. A huge batch of problems. Whether or not he's telling me the truth is another story.

But within a matter of minutes of seeing him again, all of the anger for how he treated me rushed out of my heart and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to spend an afternoon with him, to talk to him, to look at him and listen to him and laugh with him.

What I ask myself now, is this: am I feeling so mixed up and emotional because I still have feelings for him, because there is still something lingering between us? Or is it just that I'm missing the idea of what could've been?

Either case, I'm doing a serious case of punishing myself. I'm in danger of falling off a cliff all over again, whichever reason I'm feeling this way.

No good can come of this.

I know this.

The wise part of me is saying, block him, don't talk to him, don't think about him. This is a bad situation. He's in a different province, so far from me. That allows me to put him aside, to try to forget, to put emotional as well as physical distance between us.

The other part of me is wishing he would get in touch again. Because one afternoon didn't feel like it was enough.

Danger, Will Robinson, danger.

- artemis.

   

Roots

Lately I am at such odds. I thought it was a passing phase perhaps, one that went away with the month of March. But I'm finding now that its still here, a restlessness that doesn't seem to want to leave me.

Restless. To find something new, to find a sense of where I am to be, who I am to be, to plant roots but leave at the same time.

I am homesick.

I am living in this wonderful place I have come to call home, but I am intensely, bitterly homesick. I want to go home. To the place I grew up in. To my family. Friends. To the connectedness of history.

I can only develop so much history here. No one knows me. Knows my history. That is all in another place.

I miss it.

Mid-life crisis?

I've had a sudden thought that perhaps I'm having a midlife crisis lately.

I've always had a tendancy to take on other's emotions. Too empathetic perhaps.

Sympathy pains? No problem? Imagined tendonitis when my friend's have it? You bet. Anxiety for my stressed-out best friend? Definitely. Pregnancy dreams, bloating and cravings when my friend got pregnant. Of course.

My mom would've been 50 this year. Chances are, knowing her, she would've been in the throes of a mid-life crisis. She was always having a bit of a mini-life crisis. But coming up to 50 might've just pushed her over.

For the past few weeks I've been questioning everything I've been doing. Am I happy? Do I like the work I'm doing? Do I want to continue it? Should I do something else? Is it right for me?

Today I'm putting in my nomination forms for another year on my student union. For weeks I'd debated throwing it away, quitting the student movement, leaving it behind. Too much stress. Not enough pay. Not enough respect. Interference with my thesis. Do I really want to do this?

I'd contemplated leaving the country. Quitting school. Quitting the union. Quitting my work at the Women's Centre. Go teach English in the Czech Republic. Become an au pair in France. Win the lottery.

But realistically, can I do any of that right now? Is it worth quitting my program when I'm more than half way through and have $20,000 of student loans because of it?

I love being busy, if I let myself admit it. I love being too busy (most of the time).

Perhaps this has been another mid-life crisis, brought forth by a 5-year anniversary of my mother's death, by her 50th birthday today.

Empathizing what she might've been experiencing.

Perhaps I need to start examining what I want, not what I imagine she might've wanted.

- Artemis.

In refuge...

"Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness." - Maya Angelou

This photograph really has nothing to do with the weather outside, the season, the time, or even the place. Sometimes I need to remind myself why I've left the places I've been, why I've come to the place I'm in now. What I miss, what I don't miss. What I'm doing here, why I continue to stay here. Looking at photographs of places I've lived, places I've loved and continue to love, helps me to do that.

***

It's a crazy wind outside today. The tree branches, speckled with ice, tap at my window while freezing rain pelts at the glass. After a few days of working hard at home, I've allotted myself today to do nearly nothing. I don't feel a single bit guilty.

- Artemis

New Year's questions from a woman on the run

"Perfection is static, and I am a work in full motion." - Anais Nin

It’s a New Year, a new day. Who am I? I’m still trying to figure that out.

This year was my first Christmas away from “home”. I’ve made a new home for myself over the past three years, with people to now call my family. I rarely missed the place I once called home, and yet… I can’t help but wonder how long this place, this space I’ve made for myself on the tip of the rock, will remain my home.

What forces will push me forward? Will I have the courage to make certain choices, to move in certain directions?

Leaving terrifies me. People leaving terrifies me.

One of the persons who I’ve come to call a friend, part of my new family, might leave in the next few months. Forces outside of me, outside of him, might push him away, might take him on a new path. I am a firm believer in following your heart to a place that calls it - but I can’t help but feel that my heart is slowly unravelling at the thought of yet another person in my life leaving.

In a year from now, will he still be here?

Will I still be here?

I’ve been alone for so long. I crave my space, love my loneliness. I push people away, and I’ll admit that I like it. I like the pain that it causes me. I like the solitary sadness that eats away at me. I long for more, but I can’t seem to make myself accept more.

In a year from now, will I still be alone?

“Perfection is static, and I am a work in full motion.” - Anais Nin

Happy New Year.  -Artemis