Luxurious Hiatus, and Coming of Age with Avril Lavigne

After the heart-explosion-induced fatigue of last week, I took a 7-day hiatus from my computer. I read books and magazines, listened to the CBC, put ink on paper, ran along the river, visited the art gallery and made things out of pumpkins. Autumn luxury. New kinds of explosions!


Save email backlog, the week was exceedingly fruitful (and not just because of the pumpkin). Brainspace was open to consider themes for my comprehensive exams, and I became intrigued by the idea of a person's transformation into feminist thinking. Many feminist scholars (especially educators) write journalistically about a blurry time when they were becoming aware of themselves in an unjust world order. It's described as birthing or paradigm shifting, awakening, etc. The concepts of "process" and "becoming" and "embodiment" (of such processes) are big in feminist theory, and I can appreciate why. I can't recall how I thought before I had language to critique sexism.


Returning to my writing as a child, it seems I've always felt something about gender (journalling about not wanting to sign my name as the author of assignments as early as age 8 because I didn't want the teacher to know it was written by a girl). But I don't remember what it felt like to be me before I had words to articulate feminism. Do any of you? As Dorothy Smith remarks on her solidification of feminist identity, "I don't know who I was before I was Dorothy Smith."


The transformation is the fascinating thing about Women's/Gender and Feminist Studies as a (non)discipline. The goal to transform is overt, causing closet positivists to cluck their tongues at such biased theorizing. I'm so far gone into the vitality of feminism that I take the opposite stance - what better climate for theorizing than one where people wear their biases on their sleeves? It's forthcoming and rigorous in the deepest sense of the words. 


In keeping with my obsession with event-ness, I'm interested in pulling apart transitional moments that write feminism onto our brains/hearts. My perusal of psychology texts leads me to believe that these events are usually traumatic and usually related to the body. Like most women, I remember every single comment anyone has ever made about my body and every way my body has been touched, and I return only to the painful ones. My two jarring feminist turning points have to do with my bum. I return to them now to highlight how pivotal moments haunt us.


When I was 16, Avril Lavigne, Pink, Gwen Stefani and "dirrty" Xtina ruled the dance floor. At a college party, one of my then-boyfriend's older brother's friends commented on my baggy jeans: "What a waste those jeans are. You might actually have a nice ass under there." I was horrified and subsequently thought, why would I waste it? Why would I waste the opportunity to provide visual pleasure to a man? I don't think I wore a pair of jeans I could breathe in for 5 years after that. I literally thought to myself, there's a reason Britney is more popular than my fave rockstars combined.


When I was 18, a boyfriend commented on my running gear: "I usually like your fashion, but those pants don't do anything for your backside." The next time I wore those pants (on a run), I was dating someone else. I told him what my ex had said about the pants, expecting him to scoff in disbelief. Instead he said, "Well, I kind of agree. They make your bum look weird."


And these guys are nice humans.


I draw on these scars to reflect on how haunting is feminist transformation. Yesterday I pulled the pants out - hardly worn Nike dryfit cropped running tights, a gift from my grandmother for running in the rain - for morning training. I felt so uncomfortable in them, I stuck to the back of the pack so nobody could look at me. I took them off as soon as I got home, not able to stand the feel of them on my body alone in my apartment. I'm an object, even in my own eyes.


As I was tidying up, I thought I should just get rid of the pants like I did the Avril Lavigne jeans, but I'm keeping the haunted things. I pull sadness and anger out of them when I wonder about transformation and putting ghosts to good use.


Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of having afternoon tea with an elderly woman who has just been diagnosed with cancer. Ontario-born, world-traveller, never married, and drawn to the West Coast, this woman reminds me of my ultimate idol, Joni Mitchell. She wears fleece and thick wool socks. I felt myself relax around her as we talked about bohemian afternoons, relationships, orientations to ocean, the mossy dampness of Vancouver Island, marijuana, puppies, and what it means to face elderly life as a single person. She inquired about my current life stage. Our conversation went like this:


Me: "So in this phase of reading books, I feel like I'm being shaped and reshaped."
Suzie: "My stage of life is similar."
Me: "You mean... you feel like you're in transition?"
Suzie: "I'm always in transition."
Me: "Hmm... wow..."
Suzie: "All my life, in transition. Amanda, that's all there is."


Incredible. She leaned forward and stared right at me when she tossed up, "That's all there is," so matter-of-factly. We talked about our fears of self-betrayal, of living in contradiction, of feeling socially unaccepted at times, of constant pupation. Fantastic. This woman and the pants are my opportunity to think things through. And get ready, friends, because I'm about to ask you about yours :)