Veil One
...it's 1:30 in the morning. I've been lying awake determining all that I don't know; wondering what I could possibly offer to any of the subjects that I want to write about, having invested the last two years of my life in their study. I decide to just get up, and write.
The French Feminist writer, Helene Cixous, was a recommended read during my second semester. Laiwan explained that Cixous would be:
"...a lovely contrast and model for your [my] writing to be developed, away from “techie” syntax...a good, fun model and reasoning for developing embodied writing."[1]
Cixous is indeed a deep and resourceful writer, with an obvious breadth of information and context that takes...my breath away. Also, I'd never read any feminist work prior, so you can imagine my reaction.
"I shall speak about women's writing: about what it will do. Woman must write her self: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies --for the same reasons, by the same law, with the same fatal goal. Women must put herself into the text --as into the world and into history --by her own movement.[2]
Going solo through life has allowed me to find out what it is I want to do with my time. For the past five years my inner conversations, spiritual progress, personal habitat, social responses and occupational choices have all been tumbled, shaken and stirred. And, it seems the mistress has accumulated yet another beloved. I fought her off tirelessly, only to succumb to her promise of adventure, wisdom and security. I've lost one relationship to her alluring nature and I’m beginning to understand the appeal. Many know her by another name: education. Now I’m beginning to see a clearer picture of who I’ll be when this repartee has run its course...and I like what I see.
"...It is time to liberate the New Woman from the Old by coming to know her --by loving her for getting by, for getting beyond the Old without delay, by going out ahead of what the new Woman will be, as an arrow quits the bow with a movement that gathers and separates the vibrations musically, in order to be more than her self."[3]
Learning to give myself "the time of day", to pay attention to myself (in the same way I pay attention to others that depend on me) and to see myself as valuable, are some of the challenges I've faced within just a handful of years. The reconstruction of self, when given such a (seemingly) lame base on which to build, has not only been trying, but tentative, at times nearly impossible. Having put all my eggs in another's (mental) basket, meant that I would stay home with the offspring while the other-half...the ever-increasingly-intelligent-half, became even more so.
With the dissolution of this union came the latent realization that I would be awarded no part of our PhD. This shocked me. Though obvious. I too had sacrificed. I too, had worked hard. And, I too, deserved to be able to support myself...or so I thought.
"...To write. An act that will not only 'realize' the de-censored relation of woman to her sexuality, to her womanly being, giving her access to her native strength; it will give her back her goods, her pleasure, her organs, her immense bodily territories which have been kept under seal; it will tear her away from the super-ego-ized structure in which she has always occupied the place reserved for the guilty (guilty of everything, guilty at every turn: for having desires, for not having any; being frigid, for being 'too hot'; for not being both at once; for being too motherly and not enough; for having children and for not having any; for nursing and for not nursing...) -tear her away by means of this research, this job of analysis and illumination, this emancipation of a marvelous text of her self that she must urgently learn to speak. A woman without a body, dumb, blind, can't possibly be a good fighter. She is reduced to being the servant of the militant male, his shadow. We must kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing. Inscribe the breath of the whole woman."[4]
I've lost so much of myself...it's too awful to even think or write about...yet
with financial support coming to an end, I, at long last, make a decree of independence and for the first time in 54 years, I have no man supporting me. I am free! Free to make my own mistakes. Free to move, as I will. Free to become anything I want. All of these freedoms were available to me while I was in relationship, but unfortunately, I didn't know it. I gave up my life to serve, not to be served, to teach, not to be taught. And now, like so many other women, I will make up for this misjudgment and for my lack of understanding that I too am a person, with rights, value, desires and dreams deserving of fulfillment. This is the fire beneath my creative being - pushing me - transforming me, and the art that I cradle.
...it's 4:00 in the morning. I've been sitting here determining all that I know; wondering what I will offer to the many subjects that I'll write about, having invested half a century in their study. I decide to just get up, and live.
[1] G2, Packet #4 Response Paper, Chung, L. (2008), Goddard College MFA-IA Program, Port Townsend, WA.
[2] Laugh of the Medusa, Cixous, H. (1991), Retrieved from http://courses.essex.ac.uk/It/It204/cixous_medusa.htm (abbreviated version) cont. Full version found in Robyn R. Warhol & Diane Price Herndl (eds.) Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory & Criticism (NJ: Rutgers, 1991).
[3] Cixous, H., ibid.
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