And if sometimes
I can’t seem to talk
You’ll know this blackboard lacks
A piece of chalk
— Stan Ridgeway in Don’t Box Me In
“This is why I haven’t written. I can’t. Not without losing the thread, without going off kilter. I can’t talk about it, because I would be dismissed as ranting. Or better yet- a hysterical woman of color, that’s pretty much the best way to get invalidated out there. And anyway, I don’t know what to do anymore.” — Brimful in hot water bleeding the colors
B2L2, where I am to practice writing in ways I don’t on my own (science and DIY) blogs. It’s Navaratri season. I could easily whip up a few posts on these high Hindu holy days, complete with colorful pictures of goddesses and their significance in a now-macho-male-dominated India. An India that has forgotten itself. A culture that hasn’t internalized itself. It’s football season. It would take little effort to write a non-sciencey vignette on what American football means outside America. The disturbing appeal of grown western men in tight, colorful britches given millions of dollars to ram themselves into one another in multi-million-dollar coliseums scattered across this mythical, shockingly-endowed land. Speaking of Shangri-La, it’s Houston out there. Surprisingly to some, there is much to be written on that, too.
They are important, and the religion-bread-circuses complex will probably outlive humans at this rate, but no. Not when I work hard everyday at a job that I love but doesn’t afford me the time to write and make, only to earn the same that male counterparts do with half the effort. And what is there to say when young black men are taken down like feral dogs aren’t? These nightly dreams of unfulfillment and helplessness have to be hinting at something. As does the increased need to huddle with friends around good food and drink
I wish prayer and altars worked. I wish football and fandom helped, the performance of the Packers defense this season notwithstanding.
And so I wait, for something that can only come from within.
Thanks for posting this. Lovely reminders.