Friends say that my anger is justified because July 23rd, my birthday, opens Leo’s first solar cycle. As a fire sign, my astrological chart tends to repeat a lot of the same language: passionate, outgoing, aggressive, inflexible, cheerful, stubborn, sun stuff, et al. Collectively, these descriptions seem to describe some mercurial lion lord. I never really believed in that zodiac stuff, but if I got an excuse to be a bit ‘bitchier’ because the other kids never celebrated my birthday during the school year, then that was fine by me. As a child, anger seemed to ‘fit’ my young personality because I was the tallest, eldest, and largest in my grade. This made me the prime candidate for class spider murderer and the anchor for tribal activities like tug-of-war.
I wouldn’t say I’m a bold person, at least on purpose. Intense? Yes. I might say some bold things out of naivety, but that’s about it– though, for some reason, this action– writing on this topic– is daring to me. Historically, I’ve danced around the subject abstractly through art-making but never really gave myself space to breathe in the heat, using it to generate a precise language and descriptions. Well, more so, I didn’t dedicate attention to tracing an accelerant back to its source (I sure fucking hope I don’t go overboard with these passé anger-fire/heat comparisons…). This aversion to writing is something I interpret as an anxiety of translating abstracted thoughts or feelings into a type of reality through words. I don’t know whether it’s the lack of practice or whether writing forces me to stop and confront what’s at the front of my mind, but the processing of information slows quite rapidly. But at this pace, a certain level of clarity presents itself. Once it has been made clear, I can no longer rely on ignorance, and I cannot unsee it. Maybe that’s why.
I didn’t– don’t– want to write this paper even though I’ve written it already in fragments throughout sketchbooks, notebooks, calendars, memos, backs of envelopes, page margins, and post-its. I need to articulate it nonetheless. Although I’m having difficulty starting this story, I feel like it needs to be written and read as a diary. Both seem apparent at this point as this essay has both been thesis-less and frank. But I want to write within a framework I’m comfortable being candid, and I guess that’s a diary (I think this is a little funny because I’ve never been able to build a journaling habit). Another reason is that I’d recently read “Are You My Mother” by Alison Bechdel– a comic memoir written in a similar honesty that I would like to channel and analyze later in this essay. While I might struggle to articulate my thoughts, I know that I have created a body of visual work that results from, or oozes forth, the tension, anxiety, and fear of my home for many years. I’m filled with memories that navigate through the cracks of my hometown– alleys filled with bins of old photographs and smoldering, coughing laughs; my family, Indiana. Rifling through these thoughts, and in turn, my artwork, feel like a sort of emotional purge. What I find frustrating is that these thoughts and emotions feel, in part, inherited. I don’t remember experiencing shame until I went to school, and then it was gradually built up over time, like the slow scaling of a pipe from water. And like an artifact trapped inside a curio cabinet, I imagine these thoughts as being restrained within the confines of my painted surfaces.
At this point, my grandmother would crack and exclaim, “poor baby!” And not with the slightest bit of concern, as I am the ‘thankless’ daughter. The ‘selfish’ daughter. And those who provide within the family unit cannot be criticized. I had a house to live in, was going to college, and they could afford me a therapist; what else did I need?
My life has not been terrible. It’s not been great, but it could have been much worse. I suppose anyone could say that, but at the risk of sounding a little too dramatic, I’ll say that my family is ‘one-of-a-kind’ in many ways. I no longer wonder why they live as hermits, preferring to work with and see exclusively family members day in and day out. I work for an adorable family as a housekeeper, and watching them interact makes me think back fondly on the intergenerational aspects of my upbringing. Living with my grandparents and great grandparents was both life saving and altering. My dad’s grandparents lived with my family and my mom’s parents lived a few miles down the road. If you took the scenic route from my childhood home to my grandparents, around the courthouse to see the monument of a WWII buzz bomb, the trip would be a total of 3.3 miles. The church my family (my grandparents) attended, to this day functions as a militarized worship space which was just down the street from where I often did my homework, the VFW.
When we weren’t building shields or swords from construction paper as a symbol of God’s army, we were crawling through pews on our bellies like snakes. I remember my sister sobbing one Sunday afternoon because she was going to hell. I especially remember because leading up to what looked like fun, was a challenge in which if you “couldn’t get out, then God wasn’t leading you.” She could not find her way out of an obstacle course that ran through the pews of the youth worship sanctuary. In hindsight, I’m reasonably sure that the activity was meant to be an allegory. Still, between the anger and pain that I felt as a 9-year-old, not knowing how to explain the ridiculousness of what I was witnessing, instead ensured that I cheated my whole way through the course. As I would periodically lift the blindfold we were each fastened with at the beginning of our route, I would bump into the sides to simulate ‘being lost.’ A bit of cheating to make sure I was going in the right direction, I thought, “I’ll be damned if any of these fucking Christians know I’m going to hell.” Or some 7-year-old angsty equivalent to it. After my parents found out, as they never attend church with us, my grandparents moved us from the Evangelist congregation to the Southern Baptist congregation across the street from the jail.
It was difficult to understand why my parents never went to Church with us or why they allowed my grandparents to parade us around these places. As a child, I remember being chided by my mother to attend etiquette classes and dance classes, church, and anything that would regiment or feminize me. I have always been stubborn, defiant; I never wanted to be the adorable little girl my mom envisioned because I was Ruth the Spider Killer, and no one wanted to see me presented that way. It would have been ‘too comical’ due to my size and demeanor. Don’t get me wrong. There were some advantages in learning the fine art of the spider hunt and other activities allotted for the boys. The only pseudo-feminist escape I can remember from an early age was through the ‘girl power’ movement in the 90s, but my memory serves that as something tied to athletics– and I despised moving around, so most of that energy remained literally and figuratively unharnessed.
If those examples weren’t enough, my mother always told my sister and me that every action we made in public was under scrutiny. My dad owned a business, which meant that I needed to act accordingly, or the ‘bad actions’ would reflect on our family. Oh, and Jesus is watching. Remember Jesus. Knowing how small my town is and each high school graduation ceremony averaging under 100 students, I never really questioned the logic...and mom saw Jesus the next town over, so keep on your toes. All of these eyes watching made me incredibly defensive, and until high school, the authority figures in my life were women. I think that’s common for people my age and older. Especially in rural areas, and to this day, I am still heavily preoccupied with the trauma and connected misogyny tangled in my mind—so many layers of issues.
The reason I ultimately chose this topic is to help aid myself across this divide– both in my art and my soul. To stop dwelling in my anger of my old life and choose to cross over somewhere more serene (although, it was nice to write everything down). The only reason I struggle now is not that I haven’t been able to ‘move on’ but because I want to be able to build a bridge. To feel comfortable traveling from one side to the other. If not for my family, at the very least, my community. I recently felt like me leaving my home to find a more exciting and ‘artistic’ life in the city is a ridiculously romantic gesture that I’ve seen performed in multiples– which ultimately results in this perpetuated issue of impoverishing an area. The older I become, the more I realize that this continued act leeches life from rural communities. I think this relationship is similarly related to crop rotations. After the soil has been depleted of every last nutritional grain, the field is left dry, strewn with weeds and old corn stalks. With the occasional GMO soybean making it through on what little is left, the fields are largely abandoned to absorb as much rot and animal shit possible. Similarly, all of this life and culture rushes to the city, which I have only recently realized is exploited and harvested by the suburban family.
As mentioned earlier, the themes and topics in ‘Are You My Mother’– lead me to believe that ‘forgiveness’ is what Bechdel wants too. To be able to heal one’s family, heal one’s self, acknowledge trauma, and move along together without leaving stripped, exposed wires to spark from each brush or puff of wind. Several sections of this book I thought resonated with the topic of the paper. Alison’s character and her relationships between her parents and family are, at times, volatile. Alison is looking for a way to ‘bridge’ a gap between herself, her past/present/future, and her family. Forgiveness and healing are themes of meditation throughout the story, and at one point, she says, “I want to cure myself. To be my own analyst.” I think I’ve always felt that too.
“Orphaned” is how Bechdel defines her feelings of abandonment. A combination of her mother’s emotional ‘absence’ and the pangs of sadness from her church visits. I think they are both connected as these examples are often interpreted as forces that are ‘supposed to provide.’ She self-identifies as a ‘narcissistically catherted object’ throughout the story, which she attributes to being the firstborn and a daughter. The idea to me is disturbing, but what stuck with me is Alison’s comprehension of her own mother’s misery and history. Exhausted and abusive, Bechdel’s mother unnecessarily burdened the life of her daughter. Still, through a continuous and lengthy form of inquiry, “I know now that she gave me all she could.” and the story ends with a bittersweet acceptance knowing that this is still a journey continuing to unfold. (p. 119)
But what is most kind and wonderful to me is the idea that mothers are mirrors to their children. I know that my mother lives somewhat vicariously through me as she was never able to attend college. And as I paid more attention, the resentments that I held of being feminine I recognized as my mother’s points of obsession upon herself– all tied to misogynistic bullshit. After sensing the pain of her mother, Alison understands the importance of rebuilding their relationship. By the end of the story, Bechdel recognizes that healing oneself is, in turn, caring for and accepting her mother and family.
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