Al final and goodbyes

So it's done. I graduated. It's strange to think that four years have gone by. And at the same time, it seems exactly like four years have gone by. I guess the strange part is that just as I was beginning to enjoy myself, things needed to end. Saying goodbye is something that's always been kind of an issue for me. As much as I'd like to consider myself a nomad or a permanent traveler, I always have a hard time saying goodbye. It's the transitions that bother me, the in-between the ending and begining, the grey breath between the phases of life which cause me the most pain. Maybe it's because it is in those quiet pauses that we are forced to reflect on all that has happened, and understand that we are no longer who we thought we were. I can't possibly be turning 22 this year, I can't possibly have finished college. And yet, upon consideration, it all seems exactly as it should.

I'm not happy about graduating. I'm content, sure, and excited to move on with my life. But this bit, this last few seconds of college life I can't just give up. I opted to stay on campus overnight after graduation. My parents claim they don't see the point of my staying. Maybe it was a poor decision, but I just didn't feel closure this afternoon. Everything was so pre-planned, so rushed. I just needed time to come to terms with what is happening.

And so I stayed on campus. We had a bonfire. just like we used to freshman year, except much less complicated. Not a 20 minute walk deep into the glen, but a twenty second walk in a shallow clearing in the woods. Not a loud crowd of people, but a small silent gathering. It's strange how we all sat there, speaking softly if at all, watching things burn. There was nothing to say. Even our goodbyes at the end of the night were surreal, like goodbyes before summer vacation begins, with the certain knowledge of someday we'll see eachother again. I don't know if I'll ever see any of these people again. I want to believe that I will, that we'll all bump into eachother in some dive bar in lower manhattan, or at some concert somewhere. But I don't know if that's the reality. In a way it felt scripted, it's the same story i've been telling everyone "well i'm studying spoken word poetry as a reflection of society. I start in Canada, then South Africa then Australia..." and on and on. And they always say "oh that'll be great, you'll be fine." And I always mention how overwhelming it is, but also what a great honor.

So we sat, talking about our plans for the next year or staring off into the flames. The Gin Blossoms played softly through a cassette player that had to be kicked to work every once in a while. We talked about the mid-90s, about high school, and happy memories. I looked around the bonfire and realized that though we weren't a set group, I was surrounded by friends. It would be easier, I'm sure, if I had my crew. Then I'd know for certain who I would see and who I wouldn't. But I've always been a bit socially removed from Hamilton, and in a way it's fitting for me to just sort of fade away.

I drive home tomorrow. I won't be back on campus until 2009. Except when I do return, I will return having completed my fellowship, presenting my stories to whomever wants to listen.

Onward.

The F-word

I finished both my theses this week, and I'm completely done with work. For the first time since my freshman year at college, I have nothing to do. No obligations, nothing to worry about, I can simply do what I want. And of course, me being myself, that means I've got a lot of time to sit around and reflect on things. I came to an interesting realization that even though i never did get to make my own major (a feature that Hamilton boasts, but rarely grants to it's students), I still ended up writing my theses on exactly what I wanted to study: a combination between women's studies, psychology and hispanic studies. But the way in which I wrote them, the views I took- that was the strange part. Particularly with my hispanic studies thesis, where I examined the psychological portrayal of sexual women in films directed by Almodovar and Trueba. I was particularly nervous about handing in this thesis, mainly because of my newly developed off-beat views on feminism, which I will discuss below. But my fears were placated when my professor wrote me an email back, congratulating me on a job well done. It was sweet, to say the least, and a bit shocking- I can't remember the last time a professor had complimented me so candidly about my work.

Over the past four years, I've held about every view on the spectrum as far as feminism goes. I came to Hamilton a radical marxist feminist, and was convinced after one week of classes at this school that learning in a co-educational, traditional, conservative environment was not what I needed. I had done that already, having attended a boarding school which was all-boys for 148 years or so. I wanted college to be different. I wanted to be nurtured. I tried to transfer to Barnard College in NYC. Being surrounded by intelligent, inspiring, female leaders, I thought, would be exactly what I needed. But the universe had other things in store for me, and my plans fell through. I returned to Hamilton the next year, defeated and hopeless, dreading the future which lay before me. I took a philosophy course which examined feminist views throughout history. I began to see the pointlessness and alienating nature of feminsim that was so radical, and the impossibility of marxist feminism (which claims that female oppression is based in capitalism) and became fascinated by a more approachable, malliable feminism. This was existential feminism. I read The Second Sex over and over, was amazed by the beautiful rhetorical questions that Beauvoir posited. Existential feminism wasn't a feminism based in social revolution, but rather personal revolution. Revolution of how you see the world, and therefore how the world would see you. I stuck with existential feminism for quite some time, until I got lost in it's application to every day life. What to do with women who live in bad faith (thinking they are free, but are actually not)? I became depressed, thinking it was a lost cause.

Then I went to spain, and it all changed. Spain changed so much for me, as you can probably tell by my constant ramblings. But there I saw a different kind of woman, and with it a different kind of beauty. There I saw women who were proud to be women, who walked with their hips and not their thighs, who wore skirts and low cut shirts and at the same time had every man under her control. Men walked around the streets, carrying babies, holding hands with their children. Not grumpily either, but proudly. Men were dependent on their mothers and wives, but in a completely different way. Not disrespectfully, just lovingly.The women there didn't starve themselves, they didnt go to gyms every day to work out, to rid of their softness. That was just it: the women were soft, in every way. As my friend Ana put it, "Women are soft and graceful, but not weak. There's a big difference. We have our own strength."

And that acceptance of softness is what I wrote my thesis on. The women in Almovdovar's films in particular are by no means "masculine". True, he does bend gender stereotypes to the point where you don't know what makes a man and what makes a woman in his eyes. But the characters that idenitfy as women, even the men, have this acceptance of softness about them, and an acceptance of their sexuality. It's different than the acceptance of sexuality of the "liberated" women in the states. Here, a woman who is "sexually aware" is that typical college girl, who dresses in leather and goes to the gym and obsesses obsesses over her image. She'll put up sexy pictures of herself on the internet. She'll objectify herself and claim that she's doing it out of self-awareness. But that is not true sexual liberation. There is no gratification in self-objectification because to be objectified means that you are an object TO someone ELSE. Not yourself. No, the sexual awareness portrayed in Almodovar's films is a different type of sexuality. It's women who are beautiful and strong, who know they are beautiful and strong and don't need to prove it to anyone. Case in point: Cruz's character in Volver. The scene where she comes home to find that her daughter had killed her stepfather (Cruz's husband) because he tried to rape her. Cruz, with red pouty lips, and smoky black eyes and a form fitting dress looks at her daughter and tells her that she was the one to kill her husband, and that it wasn't her daughter's fault. Then, in the next scene, she is seen mopping up the blood with a paper towel on her hands and knees, and scrubbing the bloody knife in the sink. Apart from all the blood, she looked like a stereotypical housewife cleaning her kitchen. Furthermore, the women who are explicitly sexual in his films are not objects. They have their own source of strength and beauty, a source that comes from their acceptance and awareness of themselves as they truly are. As Almodovar himself put it:

"It’s true that when heterosexual men make movies- I’m not talking about pornos- they pay less attention to the power and sexual beauty of women. The goal should be simple: to create a wonderful woman. Just pay attention to a woman. It doesn’t matter whether you are gay or straight- if you pay attention you will see how rich they are."

How is this man not a feminist?! It's funny now, to look back and see how much I've changed and how simple my feminism really has become. It is no longer even a struggle for equality in the sense that men and women are equally capable of accomplishing the same things. We are not the same. My feminism is simply a recognition and celebration of all things feminine, an acceptance that though I may not be physically or mentally the same as those who are masculine, that my physical and mental capabilities are equal in value to those different than me. Sure, I'm moody and my emotions get the best of me many times, but these emotions allow me to be passionate and be compassionate to those around me. They allow me to communicate on deeper levels, and allow me to even elicit emotion in others who hide their emotions behind masks of rationality and logic. Sure, I am not strong enough to lift heavy objects, nor am I comfortable with the idea of it being ones "duty" to kill another, but I am strong enough to go into labor for extended periods of time(a process that most psychologists agree is more painful than anyone ever imagines it to be) and I am capable of creating life, instead of destroying it. These are traits that both men and women may posess (ie: not every man is masculine and not every woman is feminine) and are traits that I have come to accept. You cannot assign a value to one without acknowledging the importance and necessity of the other. It is as if I have brought feminism back to it's original purpose: a simple celebration of being feminine, and knowing what that means.

What are you doing?!? part 2

I walked into my career center appointment feeling the same as always:a bit of apprehension, and a tinge of jealousy directed at all the other kids who already know what they're doing next year. But something was different. My advisor seemed... strange. We walked up the stairs and into her office. I hesitated. The fellowships coordinator was in the office. She told me to sit down, my advisor sat down behind her desk. I chose the comfy chair by the window. It was such a great day outside, warm enough for bare shoulders and legs. But I felt doubt- beautiful enough for a rejection? I had been waiting to hear from the Bristol Fellowship for the past month. They had it narrowed down to two people, myself and a friend of mine. We had gotten drunk together on saturday and decided that whoever wins has to fly the other person out to visit them. The Fellowships coordinator began to speak.
-So I wanted to congratulate you
-on?
-You got the Bristol Fellowship.

The world stopped. I what? I have to do WHAT? Everything has just fallen into place. Yesterday the world was falling apart along with my health. Today i am as sunny as the sky. Ridiculous world. I love it. Just then, the other candidate walks in. He sits down. The fellowships coordinator looks at him too. He got it as well!
I feel like we are the two luckiest kids ever. Seriously, I can't believe this is happening. Just the other day I wrote on a job application form as a response to "If you could have 3 wishes, what would they be?" My answer?: 1) A mountain of guacamole 2) a cure for HIV 3) Enough money to travel the world for a year. And that last one just came true!

So what am I doing? I will be traveling around the world studying slam poetry, interviewing spoken word poets and god knows what else! I can't believe it. Holy Crap.

Woah full circle much?

The Coalition for Social Justice: brought together members and activists from all progressive groups to discuss various social issues that affect the lives of Hamilton students
Birth (circa) fall 2003.
Death (circa) Spring 2005.

The Action Forum: brings together members from all progressive groups to discuss various social issues and ways in which our student population can address them.
Birth spring 2007.
Death-xxx

Creepy, right?

I got a phone call today from one of the people who I feel is going to take over the activism scene at Hamilton once I'm gone. The scene as it is right now is kind of my baby, and I'm sad to see it go. But there I sat, on the phone, listening to a past version of myself asking me to send out an all campus email about a protest that the action forum organized. A protest against the war. I got chills. And then I hesitated.

I wanted to tell her that protests like that don't work here. Trust me, I remember when I was an underclassman, and all I wanted to do was have some crazy protest like they do at Wesleyan. I organized rallies, marches, sit ins, even a die-in once. But it never worked out. We'd get 20 people, max. And looking around, the only people that were paying attention were the ones who already agreed with me. That wasn't the point, was it? I didn't want to soapbox, I wanted to *reach* people. I wanted discussion, not discourse, not even debate. I wanted a solution. It's like that Taylor Mali quote:

I'm for evolution more than revolution
unless they're offering some kind of solution
isn't that how we got the constitution?

I wanted to tell her that the way to reach people wasn't by alienating them. It wasn't by scaring them, or by playing into this "radical liberal partisan" bullshit stereotype that all progressive groups have automatically at this school. No, the best way to reach people is to ENGAGE people. Get them personally involved. People freak out when they hear that a lot of my friends and family are in the armed forces. But it also gives us something to connect on- even though I'm anti-war, I support my friends and my family. Therefore, I cannot be this radical liberal communist or whatever.

It's just funny. I hear these kids talking about revolution, about radical activism. Part of me wants to warn them. Hamilton is not the place for activism like that. It just doesn't fly here. That sort of thing has never worked here, even in the 60s. For whatever reason, the activist community isn't renegade in your face style like that of say, Wesleyan.

And then it hit me: this is why activism here is so backwards. It is because no one learns from the generation before them. Now that my college career is ending, I KNOW exactly what to do to get people's attention. I KNOW exactly how to create a buzzword (Check out all the Darfur benefits/lectures/projects on campus this semester!) I KNOW how to get people involved. I know how to write press releases, I know how to call the local news paper, I know who to talk to in the C&D office about getting publicity on the website. There is no more guesswork, I've got it down to a formula. But I'm graduating. And they're starting from scratch.

I think I will write a book. The activist's handbook: a guide to social evolution.