#metoo

Recently, I've been attempting to get back to my writing roots.  I have been journaling more and brainstorming ideas for short stories, plays, children's books, and an ergodic/multimedia/interactive novel that's been sitting in the back of my brain for ages.  I've been having trouble getting any of those projects off the ground.  However, a couple times in the last few weeks, I've mentioned an experience or a perspective and someone will say, "You should blog about that."  In fact, three separate people in different realms of my life have said something similar.  I thought I'd return to blogging by recounting a silly little poem I dashed off the other day as a sort of marker of my jumping down the rabbit hole of writing again.  Yet, I never got the motivation to type it up and post it.

The #metoo hashtag is different.  That lit a fire under me to actually get on here to say something.  And, be forewarned, I have a lot to say.

At first, I toyed with the idea of just letting the #metoo thing go by.  I thought I could scroll through my Facebook stream liking or loving and supporting other people's posts and stay on the periphery.  

Until I saw how many of my female friends and family members posted it.

Until I saw how many of my former students posted it.

Until I saw other people, like me, who also felt like their experiences "weren't that bad" or "weren't that important" thinking they shouldn't bother to post and did anyway.

Until I saw other people talk about how this needs to stop, no matter how "minor" the sexual harassment they experienced was.

Because it needs to stop.

I don't want this to be a part of my culture anymore.  I don't want my students to experience it anymore, no matter how "minor."  I don't want my son to grow up in a world where he has to stand up for his female friends and classmates and coworkers in the face of sexual harassment.  I don't want to contribute to perpetuating that a sexist culture is the norm simply by not speaking up.

So....#metoo.

Assault has never really been on the list, but harassment definitely has.  Cat-calling, obviously, because you can't escape that as a woman. Being a 6'1" target doesn't help things, which is ironic considering how frequently the phrase "shawty" has been used in the catcalls themselves.  (Although, apparently, it does prevent me from being a target for rape and assault because it would "make too much of a scene."  That's according to my high school self-defense instructor.)

There was the time when I was celebrating my birthday at an amusement park with friends - I think I was 13 - and the much older teenager in line behind me decided to grab my butt.

There was the time when my eleven-year-old friend and I were hanging out with some boys of roughly the same age at a water park and they thought pressing their crotches to our back ends would be a good idea.  For them, maybe.

There was the time I was sitting with my husband before we were married at a restaurant and the man a few tables over - also on a date - chose to make lewd gestures in my direction when his date and mine weren't looking.  Luckily, we were done eating and I asked to leave so as not to make a scene.  I told my husband (fiancee at the time), much later, which was good, because he probably would have started an argument.  

There was the time, when I was nineteen, that I was working as a hostess at a chain restaurant and was propositioned nearly every day by men all north of 40.  My favorite was the guy in his fifties who gave me his card and offered a free helicopter-flying lesson.  Thanks, but no thanks.

There was the time in college that my friends and I went to Mardi Gras and, as per the tourist culture there, I was repeatedly asked to flash men for beads.  Fed up, I yelled, "Hell, no" at one of them and got some beads from the woman on the balcony above him as a reward.

There was the time, a few weeks ago, when Billy and I ran into male seniors we've both taught near a local movie theater that they all went out of their way to say hello to "Dr. P." but neglected to acknowledge my presence.  Billy, not willing to let them leave our school without learning the importance of respecting the women in their lives, or women in general, schooled them on how inappropriate their reactions were.

None of these overt moments of harassment, though, compares to two situations I've experienced that involve the cultural tendency, in general, of treating women as being inferior to men.  Because it is the two moments that I'm about to describe to you that made me feel like a lesser person.  You see, in the previous examples I provided, I never felt powerless.  I never questioned my worth.  I moved on and didn't really give them a second thought.  These two shook me to my core.

One all comes down to a simple off-handed comment.  I was in grad school at the time, but working as an admin for a local publisher, who my husband has nicknamed "Professor Tiddly Winks," who owned a series of storefronts.  I worked most directly with the woman who ran the storefronts - a cafe, gallery, art lesson studio, and bookshop - but he would come in from time to time.  I figured I might be able to get a job learning editing from him on the side, but that never transpired.  My husband, however, did manage to grab a free-lancing job editing a book for the company.  I was turning in his edits one day and Tiddly Winks started up a conversation about my goals after grad school.  At the time, I thought I had wanted to continue on to the Ph.D. and we talked about what types of schools I would prefer to work at. 

"But, of course, if it's a spousal hire, you'll end up having to move where your husband decides to go, so it doesn't really matter."

Yep.  He said it.  To my face.  Like it was nothing.  I should note that, at this point, Billy had only finished his master's degree and had not yet started applying for Ph.D. programs.  But, according to this guy, we would have to go wherever Billy got us a job.  And I wouldn't matter.  And he was right.  Much of academia is structured that way.  It doesn't mean the rest of us have to continue to buy into that mindset anymore, though.

Oh, and, for the record, both Billy and I earned our current jobs on our own, but we came onto the school's radar because of my teaching experience, not Billy's Ph.D. (which he didn't have yet).  Take that, Professor Tiddly Winks.

I'm still getting over the other one that also occurred during grad school.  You see, my high school English teacher had an affair with a student several years after I had graduated.  This was a man who I not only idolized but who also had encouraged me to pursue my English degree because of all the support and effusive compliments - and challenges - he had provided to make me a better writer.  I was shocked, hurt, and appalled.  And I no longer trusted my instincts about people.  I had modeled much of my now successful teaching style on his!  Though I wrote a letter to the editor in support of the school during this awful time, I didn't know what I thought about the whole thing.  Was it all a lie?  Did he just compliment me because that's what he did with all his students?  The weird thing is that I even found out he had a "type."  I didn't fit the mold, so maybe his reassurances were genuine and not based on some perverted sexual attraction to me?  I kept trying to justify all of it somehow.  

I eventually ended up having his same job at my alma mater.  

That's when the dreams started.  For some reason, in them, he was still allowed to be at the school and his sole purpose there was to taunt me at how I would never be as good at his job as he was.  This statement was usually followed by his hearty laughter, at which point I would wake up.  Every time I was stressed or questioning my methods or abilities, he would pop into my nightmares again.  Slowly, with a few more years of experience and a few more successful graduates under my belt, he receded into the background until, during one stressful portion of the semester, he showed up again to haunt my dreams.

"You'll never be as good of a teacher as I was."

And I punched him right in the jaw.  I haven't had the dream since.  Something else helped.  As part of taking his former job, I had access to his files.  I read my college letter of recommendation from him.  It's good.  It's damn good.  And so am I.  And even with the fog of his relationship with a student, and possibly others, tainting everything, it doesn't change my abilities.  I keep that letter as a talisman to remind myself to be the person I always thought I had the capability of being.  

And that means I need to be a role-model for my students.  I need to make sure that this type of thing doesn't happen to them.  I need to talk about it and write about it and speak up about it so that we no longer normalize this sexist treatment, harassment, and, yes, assault on the women and men in our society who are having their power taken away from them by people who don't deserve to be in power.

So, yes, #metoo.

Writing Goal Update

So, as I mentioned in my post about the background of my summer goals, I was hoping to write a play this summer.  I had an idea I had been thinking and brainstorming about, I bought a book with some helpful information in it and some writing exercises that I was going to work on, and I had a vision in my head of what I wanted to do.

And that's when it kind of fell apart.

Let me back up a bit.  I used to write all the time.  Like, constantly.  Unbidden.  I've been making up stories since I was three years old.  My dad would pick up a yellow legal pad at family gatherings and ask for a list of 20 words.  Then he and I would have to make up a story around the words, kinda like it was reverse madlibs.  I caught the storytelling bug and it's been with me ever since.  Poetry, short stories, even school papers - any time I could write I would.

Until college was almost over.  When I was rejected to every creative writing program I applied to, I sort of hung up my journal and pen and wandered into the real world, lost.  I even actively pushed away the idea of writing.  But it hasn't disappeared.  (Take this blog as an example.)  For a while, though, I've been grieving my storytelling career, until I realized that it hasn't been dead - it's just been in hibernation for a while.  It shows up in the comments I write for my students or in the ways I explain a difficult concept in the classroom.  I practice my word choice in my Facebook status updates or my comedic timing when relating a funny experience I had.  When I give my Autobiography students an in-class writing assignment, I write about the same topic.

But I hadn't been actively writing until last summer.  I was afraid it would be too hard.  I was blocked.  So, at the recommendation of a friend, I went through the book The Artist's Way.  For 12 weeks, I wrote morning pages every day, I did the workshop tasks, I kept artist dates with myself, and I started to feel creative again - not only in writing, but in teaching, and in everyday life.  I could almost define myself as a writer again rather than someone who dabbles in it from time to time.

And then life got in the way.  I stopped writing every morning.  I stopped making time to be creative.  I stopped, well, playing and having fun with creativity.  So that's when I decided I was fed up and that, this summer, I was really going to write something.  That's when I had the idea for the play.

Which brings us to the last few weeks.  Where I've been stuck.  Stymied.  Blocked again.  So I decided to write morning pages again.  If I'm going to write something as a project, then I need to at least start writing, period.  After I did that for a few days, I decided I needed some more encouragement.  So I picked up the book that comes after The Artist's Way - The Vein of Gold.  While the first book is about finding your inner artist child and digging her out of the hole she climbed into, this one is about recovery - now that the urge to write is back, what direction do I take it in, kind of thing.  I felt I needed to work on this for a little bit before I could dive right into a project.  Just like my running goal, where I have to build up my stamina with intervals, I have to flex my writing muscles before I can throw them into a 5K-type project.  They need a warm-up.

Part of that warm-up is my next project.  In the first part of the book, you're supposed to reflect on what has brought you to this point, year by year.  It's called the life narrative.  You look back on each year of your life and write about one or a couple of images that really stand out in your mind.  It's sort of like going to counseling with yourself because you end up realizing what is integral to who you have become as a person and how events have shaped your perception.  By examining the past, you can move forward in the present. So, I'll be updating you on the progress of this life narrative as well as the play itself.  Since the main goal is to get writing again, at least I'm getting back on track as far as that goes.

Tally as of today:
Life Narrative: Year 1 (29 to go)
Morning Pages: 5/last 7 days

Summer Goals: Background

This summer, our school has decided to add to our summer reading assignment.  We have chosen the theme of goal setting and each student (and participating faculty) must choose one of the six books listed that focus on goals to read and discuss on the first day of school.  In addition to this, everyone must set at least one goal to attempt to accomplish over the summer and keep track of the progress made towards that goal.  (If you want to see a more detailed explanation of this project, go here.)

As part of this, I have chosen to pursue two goals over the course of the summer and, in order to make myself accountable for following through on these, I've decided to blog about them here.  If I've published it, I have to go through with it, right?  I'm going to be posting updates periodically, divided by the goal that I'm talking about.  I would appreciate if those of you who are actually interested in my progress can occasionally check up on me to help motivate me a bit.

So, what are my goals, you are probably asking by this point?  One is physical while the other is more creative/emotional.  Let's go with the physical one first:  I've been wanting to be able to run a 5K, without having to stop to walk, for at least the last three years.  I've continually attempted to do the Couch to 5K program, which is nine weeks long, but I've never been able to get past week 6 and, usually, I have to do some of the program for a couple weeks in a row.  Part of this is due to the fact that I'm not in as good of shape as I'd like to be while part of it is simply my exercise-induced asthma.  The closest I've come to completing this was during the Buffalo Corporate Challenge when I ran about 2/3 of the 3.5 miles in 42 minutes.  Not great and my back started hurting partway through, but, still, a place to start.

I don't have a particular race in mind yet.  I've looked for local ones that are a little more than nine weeks out to allot for doubling up on a couple of the weeks, but I have to be careful not to schedule anything at the end of August or the beginning of September because of the girls moving back in, orientation, and the beginning of school.  I think I'm leaning more towards the end of September or the beginning of October so if anyone has any recommendations, please let me know.  Anything I write about this particular goal will be tagged "running goal" if you want to search the blog that way.

Now, on to the second goal.  The creative one.  I would like to write a play.  I came up with an idea I fell in love with a few months ago and I would like to see it come to fruition.  At this point, I'm not sure how much of the play I can feasibly write before the school year begins again, so part of my goal setting process is determining what a reasonable amount to have accomplished by the end of the summer would be.  Anything I write about this goal will be tagged "writing goal" if you want to keep track of that one.

If you do read this, feel free to cheer me on or make suggestions.  Even if you don't, thanks for providing the possibility of an audience to help me stay on track.