Clarification about feminists and love

I feel as though this is a post that has been a long-time in the making, but it wasn't until recently that I've felt it really needed to be said.

I love love. I do, I think it is an important and noble quest in this life and that it should be treated with the highest respect and admiration. And I do want someone to love and to feel loved just like everyone else.

I say this because a lot of people lately have assumed that, because I am a blunt and straight forward feminist with many goals, that love is not important to me. And while unfortunately I play along with these stereotypes with cavalier outward attitudes towards love, that is not who I am. I want to take this time to clarify what I truly feel about love.

What finally prompted me to post this was yesterday when I was chatting with my landlord about future graduate school plans and what I hope to accomplish with my life. When her husband overheard all of my ambitions, he replied with something along the lines of "Wo! And then you'll get married?"

What perturbed me most was not his comment (though much can be said towards that mentality), but his wife's stern shake of her head and response "Oh noooooo. Not her, that's not Sydney."

I'll admit I was a bit alarmed and taken back with her quick response, even if I know that I am not currently ready for marriage. What really got to me however was her assurance that because I was looking to make my way in the world, that I was not looking for love and marriage. That it was not important for my future goals. That I could not do both.

But she's wrong, and like many feminists I am very interested in love and search for it every day. I just think we are talking about two very definitions of where love is to be found and what love looks like.

Over winter break I read one of bell hooks' brilliant books entitled "Communion" about the mis-perceptions people have about feminists search for love. The idea is that there isn't one--to be a feminist is to be bitter and hateful and to resent any kind of attachment to men. Concurrently there is this accompanying consensus that at some point you must choose be an undesirable crazy single feminist or loved and in a heterosexual relationship. To draw from a popular phrase, the idea is "you cannot have your cake and eat it too." Because of this idea of being alone and unloved, many women choose to not proclaim themselves openly as feminists. They believe by choosing a relationship that they have found and chosen love instead of a life of loneliness.

However, like anyone who has been in a relationship can testify to, loneliness in love is not confined to singlehood, and thus I echo the words of bell hooks in her book who wrote:

"Looking for love and looking for a man are two very different agendas. Most women without male partners are looking for a man. And guess what? Men are easy to find. Finding a man is not the same as finding love (59)."  

I realize that I could have a man if I really wanted, and lord knows they are easy to find here on this marriage-obsessed campus. But that would not be true to my goals, would not fully encompass what I am looking for. And it takes a lot more courage, patience, and honesty to face that backlash and assumptions of being an unfeeling robot-feminist than it is to give in and simply settle with a man in a relationship and not have found love.

So in regards to my landlord's confident assessment of my lack of male companion in the future I say, yes: you may be right.

But that's ok, because ultimately I am looking for love and not a man. And that takes far more time and is harder to quantitatively measure. But I'd rather live a qualitative life of love than be so focused on quantifying what love means and putting its expression into a limiting box of two. Overall in this search I'm looking for a way of being, of loving--an erotica of being that can be found in the arms of friends, family, places, and experiences all along the way. And if that love does finally come to me in the arms of a significant other, I will add it to my list of blessings and consider it a great honor because I have found another way to love. But loving and being married is not the only way to experience love.

In the end, if there's one statement I'd like to say about feminists in love to dispel these harmful myths it is this:

 If I love you it's because I've come to know myself through these empowering lessons. If I love you, it's because being a feminist has brought me into a lifelong relationship with what true love is long before our eyes ever met. Love and feminism are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, they are complimentary.

And in this way of constructing love, I can be a feminist and search for and expect magnanimous love in my life. I can be and have both.

Murder at the Theater: a Cake Pop production

First: HAPPY BELATED PRESIDENTS DAY EVERYONE!!

Hope you had a great day, I know I did. Great celebration today partaking in the best of capitalism in Kaneohe watching sexy people in the new 'Side Effects movie" with my favorite peeps. The movie was excellent, and visiting the little bunnies and puppies in the pet shop was beyond sublime: a perfect way to celebrate a very very VERY lazy weekend.

As a culmination to our celebration of our nations leaders, my friends and I decided to throw a Presidents Day party (to make up for our lack of a V-day party). I was super stoked to invite this boy from my English class who has been flirting it up with me lately and impress him with my awesome homemaker skills, and generally just fraternize with a larger group of people. And when I say people, I mean men.

I don't have many male friends. That aren't married. Or on the internet.

Anyways, so it was kind of a big deal and I was really excited. But alas, as the day progressed it became apparent that it would once again be a ladies night in with no responses from any men. No matter! Can still have a great time sans les garcons! So I thought I would narrate my evening and the death of Mr. Abraham Lincoln using our very creations. Hopefully this will help to give you a sense of what my life will be like with the 2345678987654 cats I will now be purchasing.

Thus, I give you:

MURDER AT THE THEATER: a Cake Pop production
by Sydney Odell



                         ACT 1: Scene 1
*The time is 1865. Its a dark day, raining, overcast. Scene descends on a middle aged man, peppered hair, slumped over his desk sleeping. His wife enters the room dressed in a long dark blue dress, obviously distressed and impatient*

Mary Todd: "Abe! Sleeping again? Why its almost time for the show! You haven't even washed your beard! We'll certainly be late by now..."

Abe: "It's been a long day my love! Surely my beard cannot be in such distress, for I have never seen it so!"
*runs fingers haphazardly through beard*
"There it is! I am ready now to go--dashing as ever. You will surely be glad to be seen with me this night. Will the Grants be coming with us then?"
                                                                                                             
Mary Todd: "No Abe, they will not be coming nor do I think we should be expecting their company any time soon. Major Henry Rathbone will be seated with us in their stead."

Abe: "Well that escalated quickly, I had no idea they were next on the list. What happened to the Robinsons?"

Mary Todd: "...busy."

Abe: "Joneses?"

Marty Todd: "Couldn't keep up."

Abe: "So Major Rathbone then you say? Will he be joining us alone? Why certainly a gentleman shouldn't be without a lady..."

Mary Todd: "Of course not Abe, now don't be so stupid he will be accompanied by Miss Clara Harris"
*walks over to him and determinedly puts his top hat on tight*
"There, much better. The hat really does do wonders to accentuate your beard my darling. Now lets be off!"

*the two exit*
__________________________________

Scene 2

*enter John Wilkes Booth, dressed to the nines in expensive clothing, pacing back and forth. He shuts the door behind him and walks up to a man, grabbing him by the collar*

Booth: "By God man, will we do right this night?"

Man: "Pull yourself together Booth. If I had known you were going to be this much of a two-faced actor in your indecision I would never have given you the part of assassin. Now do you want this or not!?"

Booth: "You promise it will bring me lots of glory?"
*relaxes grip on the man's collar, looks longingly into the distance*
"You promise my name will be remembered through the ages."

Man: "Like none other, I assure you. Judas himself will wrestle for a spot against you."

Booth: "Well then..."
*straightens jacket and stands erect*
"only one thing left to do now isn't there? Give me the gun."

Man: "Gun?"

Booth: "Yes gun, we are going to shoot him with a gun are we not?"

Man: "Well I hadn't gotten that far yet. I figured he was going to be on a balcony ledge so you could kind of just...you know" * gestures with his hands* "push him over?"

Booth: "...come again? Push, you said?"

Man: "Why yes, you look to be a fit man" *slaps Booth on the shoulder reassuringly* "One giant heave should do the trick!"

Booth: "Chair and all?"

Man: "...I hadn't thought of the chair. That may pose a problem. What is this gun alternative you say?"

Booth: "Oh yes, a gun would be quite reasonable. Quick shot to the back of the head, no chance of putting out my perfectly chiseled back...."

Man: "Right, wouldn't want that." *strokes beard, deep in thought* Inmates aren't very kind to those bent over fellows...."

Booth: "So you will procure me a gun then? Within the hour?"

Man: "If I had to fashion one myself, by God it will be done! And then we shall be rid of this wretched wretched man who shames us all with his glorious furry manhood."

Booth: "Here here! Let it be done, I will speak with you shortly then. I am off!"

*exits stage*
_________________________________

Scene 3


*Abe, Mary Todd, Rathbone, and Harris at Ford's theater. The ladies take up a quiet conversation while the men engage in pleasantries during the second scene of the third act*

Rathbone: "Fine of you to invite us Mr. President. What a lovely night for a play! This one in particular is most engaging."

Abe: "I assure you, t'was all the ladies doing. She is quite a patron of the arts. Such a fine woman, sometimes I think I ought to sleep in later and just let her run this country!"
*the two laugh deeply*
"but please, let us just enjoy this night together as friends and suspend all thoughts and matters of state these next coming hours.I do love this next part."

Rathbone: "Nothing would please me more Mr. President."

*play continues on, and the silhouette of Booth can be seen in the background. Booth's shadow looks menacing, hunched over. Booth slowly sneaks over and, with one last final breath, shoots Abe point blank in the back of the head* 

Mary Todd: "Really Abe, can you not stay awake for anything! Quiet your snoring..."
*looks more intently at Abe*
"Abe...oh my goodness Abe!"
*flings herself on his hunched over corpse and begins sobbing*

Rathbone: "He's been shot! Why you bastard, I..."
*wrestles with Booth, ends up being stabbed by Booth. Women scream out, the play stops. Booth hurls himself off the balcony*

Mary Todd: "Abe! My beautiful beautiful Abe..."

Booth: "The South is avenged! Remember me now, for I come to save us all!"

Rathbone: "Stop that man!"

*Women screaming, men overtake Booth and arrest him to the ground. Curtain falls*

_____________________________________________________

Scene 4

*The year is 2013 as two young adults sit across from each other, noses buried in laptop computers, discussing social politics of the day and reminiscing about the reason for their glorious day off of school*

Young Adult #1: "Remember when we used to get a day off of school for each presidents birthday? Now they've just shortened it to one inclusive day. Life is a bitch sometimes."

Young Adult #2: "First world problems man, a hard life. First the lack of school days off, and now the Pope resigning. There really is no God now... what is the world COMING to..."

Young Adult #1: "Tell me about it. Hey, you seen this new fan fiction for Abe Lincoln yet? Pretty funny stuff. They've used cake pops and shit to tell the story of his death, pretty neat..."

Young Adult #2: "Who the hell does fan fiction for the story of a President's murder?"

Young Adult #1: "Dude I don't even know. There's some weird shit on the internet these days..."

Young Adult #2: "Well is it any good?"

Young Adult #1: "Pretty pathetic, but the moral is pretty funny though..."

Young Adult #2: "Read it to me."

Young Adult #1: *clears throat loudly*

Moral (in Abe's very words):

I shall be telling this somewhere ages and ages hence,
two bullets diverged in a crowded theatre and I,
I took one right in the back of the head.
And that has made all the difference.

Young Adult #2: "Brilliant" *all is silent except for the mutual typing on a keyboard* "facebook status... UPDATED. Thank youuuuu Lincoln."
_______________________________

Name Ten Things

Back in high school my friend Ashley I had the opportunity to be a part of the Olympia Free Choir lead by Kimya Dawson. Every Tuesday we would gather together at a member's house and sing songs to the tune of one lone guitar, usually songs written by Kimya's friends, reveling in the organic raw energy of our communal voice and sometimes enjoying gluten free brownies in a quintessential Olympian fashion. Anyways, one of our favorite songs to sing was by Paul Baribeau, entitled "Name Ten Things." It is one of those songs that just captures the human spirit, and I always loved the climactic build towards the end that left one in a state of inspirational euphoria.

As I think back to the lyrics now years later I still find the song incredibly powerful and applicable for reflecting on our life path.The song itself is a pure representation of living a contemplative life and being conscious of our blessings and our hardships. To embrace it as part of our identity and to not let it keep us from living a truly fulfilling life of love. In the three short years that I've been away from this Choir I have changed so much, but this transcendent song has stuck with me and helped me to consistently live a better life, true to the person I am and want to be.

Looking back today, on a day dedicated towards love, and listening to the message of this song I feel incredibly blessed to have lived the life I've lead. To have met such incredible people and been to some of the most beautiful places on earth, to be healthy and capable and to have the resources, people, and inner drive to accomplish the tasks I set out to do. I love my life.

And although life is not always easy, I try to follow Paul's advice and wake up every day smiling because I know that I cannot list the endless reasons why it's good to be alive and every day I get to continue on in this life leads me closer to celebrating and giving the love that is in my life. Today is such a great day to take advantage of this reflection, regardless of Hallmark's profit margin. So sit down and try to name those ten things that can draw you closer to the truth and the happiness you deserve, not wasting any time being sad or bitter about a lack of romance, knowing that I love you and there are many things to be thankful for. And hopefully I'll be one of those people you call to scream those songs with you in the future, celebrating  this life that we live.

Happy Valentines Day everyone <3

Love,

Sydney

                                                          Paul Baribeau's 

                                                     "Name Ten Things"

Lyrics:

Name ten things you want to do before you die and then go do them

name ten places you really wanna see before you die and then go to them

name ten books you wanna read before you die and then go read them

name ten songs you wanna hear again before you die
get all your friends together and scream them

because right now all you have is

time time time yeah

but someday that time will run out

its the only thing you can be absolutely certain about.

think of all the things that are wrong with your life and then fix them

think of all the things that you love about your life, be thankful you are blessed with them

think of all the things that hold you back and realize that you don't need them

think of all the mistakes you have made in your life
make sure that you never repeat them

because right now all you have is

time time time yeah

but someday that time will run out

its the only thing you can be absolutely certain about.

name ten thousand reasons why you never wanna die,
go and tell someone who might have forgotten

try to list the endless reasons why it's good to be alive
and then just smile for a while about them

soon the sun will rise and another day will come, soon enough the sun will set 

another day will be gone

because right now all you have is

time time time yeah

but someday that time will run out

that's the only thing you can be absolutely certain about.

_________________________________________

Future Plans

So I get questions all the time as graduation looms near of what I'm going to do with my life past April. Many of you know that I'm awaiting to hear back about graduate school, so I thought I'd break down exactly where I applied and what I've heard back thus far:
                                                                                                                   STATUS:
University of Aberdeen: Scotland.                                                        *
Program: International Relations

University of Amsterdam: The Netherlands.                                          *.
Program: Gender Studies

University of Edinburgh: Scotland.                                                      Rejected.
Gender History

Centre International European: Turkey, France, Berlin.                       *.
Advanced European Studies and International Relations

Bradford University: England.                                                             Accepted.
International Politics and Security Studies

University of Innsbruck: Austria.                                                        *.
Peace Studies

Richmond University: England.                                                           *
International Relations


So one in the back pocket, one in the trash can. Still keeping hopes high that I'll get accepted into Amsterdam or CIFE and that this summer will give me opportunity to further my writing skills as an intern with Ms Magazine in Los Angeles. *fingers crossed*

Lots of things in the works per usual, and obviously with the chaotic way I plan my life next week I could be picking up to run off to culinary school or pick tomatoes in El Salvador. Life is cray, but I love it.

Prism: a poem

they say that I am white
but I cannot find that part of me.
they point to My forearm and say
"there!" as if they have won.
I look down, but all I see
is blue veins strung taught
under a fleshy mother
of pearl casing.

when I pierce My skin further,
searching for this opaque identity
only red unveils itself visible--
making tiny puddles of murky
rain, a scarlet row of braille.
there are no other hues.
I am confused.

in science they teach us about light,
about prisms and how refraction
illuminates the spectrum of visibility.
this is how rainbows are formed,
this is the creative purpose
of white's translucent invisibility--
to project that illumination and
make diversity visible

when I tell the others that I am not white
that I am prism, I am a rainbow--
I can only be understood
in relation to the light that I interpret
they do not see My ultimate invisibility.
"You are white" they laugh,
walk away. they have learned
it is easier this way.

in art we learn that white is not the
absence of color, but a commolgamization of
many different shades, infused together to
create one encompassing blanket of unity.

but even so we do not spend time
making white--
we make brown black gold
turquoise magenta scarlet, but
when I point to My skin and say
 it's notan absence but a substance,
tangible and meaty
they cannot draw the oils to
paint this evasive white

"it's deeper than skin",
they say--and so I dig deeper with
mercantile precision to the
very center of my being, so
confident that that i will find
that pure canvas awaiting me.

at last my hands find the
solid mass that grounds me,
hidden deep between the slippery
pink of my life-giving organs.
with one final breath, I pull--
giving birth to this whiteness
everyone keeps speaking about.

i think now it is not so literal.
i think now it is far too late.


by Sydney Odell

Progression of Taking an Actual Decent Picture

It takes a lot of work to look this average.

Fourty-Five Minutes

         When I was a young girl growing up in Southern California I did a lot of traveling. Being the love child of two wandering souls; my spirit was bound to carry on in this legacy of a life in between. After years of my own conscious movement, I often forget this voyaging identity was carved early into my bones, setting deep within my spine the narrative of my future explorations to come.

          My parents came to be in two very separate ways. To this day I still can’t say I know the extent of my father’s journeys as only later in life have I become privy to chapters of his adventures. Born in the heart of Texas his father took his last breaths within a few short months after his son’s very first, thereby marking the beginning of his trek in the spacious unknown. Running away from his own fatherless home at fifteen to return to the familiar shores of Floridian beaches, his choices since have reflected an early solemn commitment to live a liminal existence.

          My mother’s journey into her wandering soul, however familiar a tune, has more ambiguous roots. The second of eight children, she was spoiled from a young age by the puritanical epitome of a perfect union. She was smart, beautiful, and vivacious with a strong heart and a stubborn head. However after being launched from the comforting nest of their love, her independent soul would lead her into a lifelong quest in search of the male equivalent of her canonized father, an outside sense of fulfillment that was reinforced through religious gendered narratives. Despite independent roots, this idea of eternal co-dependence somewhat stunted the breadth of her self-exploration in a way that I’m not sure has ever been self-actualized.

In the end, both ironically solidified their independent identities with the defying act of marriage. They believed that, like many couples, their own incapacity to transcend into that final state of stability could be treated in the arms of another person. It just wasn't until my sister and I were born that they could truly admit this deception and once more continue on their separate journeys.

My parents split when I was two, and like most children from broken homes I spent much of my formative years traveling between two very different providers. A lot of people try to pity me into believing I had less of a childhood with divorced parents, but the fact is I never knew anything different. While I realized there was a different dynamic in the homes of friends and family with parents who fell asleep longingly in each other’s arms, I never went a day in my life without love. My love for my parents was not predicated on their love for each other in return, and thinking about my parents being together was even stranger to me than their separation. My parents were two very different types of people—my father a shadowed mysterious moon to my mother’s bold and vivacious sun. The completeness of their one holistic unity completely evaded me, an ignorance that helped shelter my adolescent innocence.

I don’t remember much of my first years living in Los Angeles, and what memories I believed I had have been long sense been shrouded in doubt through the depths of time. By the time my mother decided she needed to get out of the stuffy confines of her childhood home, I had already lived in enough houses to match my age. When I was 4 my mother moved us to a small town in Oceanside, leaving our relationship to our father to be largely confined to weekends, birthdays, or otherwise special occasions rather. For my father, who spent the first several years as a supportive feminist husband tending to our raising, this was a hard blow. While my father loved us, distance of any kind always transforms a relationship—this move being the first real test of his commitment. After the move, the amount of time I actually saw my father usually had strong correlations with which female benefactor he was seeing at the time.

For most of my childhood his long-time girlfriend Ingrid was intertwined with every part of our rearing, showering us with attention and gifts as if we were her own children. She was a straightforward no-nonsense type, deeply generous and deeply independent. I think it would do her discredit to say that her own sense of self did not deeply influence my upbringing being surrounded by such a strong personality. My most vivid memories of my father and Ingrid always center around food [no doubt a product of my budding childhood obesity] and often when I would return to Los Angeles we’d all congregate at Islands restaurant. Huddled around a small booth waiting for the hamburgers that could never quite meet Ingrid’s medium-rare expectations, Ingrid would openly chide us for kicking her underneath the table in our childish restlessness.

However despite our young imperfections, the two continued to attend almost every soccer game, oftentimes spoiling us by renting a decked out snazzy sports car to drive home in. My sister and I would battle for a seat next to our father, all the while resisting the urge to stand up in our seats and feel the wind in our hair—secure in the fact that we were alive and loved. While our relationship to Ingrid could never quite rival the love of our mother, she will always be dear to my heart as another prominent maternal figure in my life. By taking him under her wing she allowed us the ultimate gift of a father’s love that might have otherwise been absent with his lack of material resources and initiative.

            However despite my naivety I was aware enough to realize that being the product of divorce was not all sugar coated lanes and fairy tale happy endings. Living this life mid-way between two sources of love I often felt strained. Meeting up in Irvine, halfway between my mother in San Diego and father in Los Angeles, came to symbolize for me the very thesis of this hardship. Many times I would sit balling to my mother from the back seat, begging her to turn around so I wouldn’t have to endure my father’s sometimes sporadic and vindictive fits of rage. He was like that sometimes, short tempered and violent—something I would later attribute to his hot Irish blood and strong-headed masculine will to domination. These outbursts occurred so infrequently however that each encounter seemed like a flash of lightning, sudden and unexpected though painfully lethal. It always stemmed from the mundane—a lost card game, an indulgent dismissal of parental request, a refusal to eat our mandated vegetables. Though I have far less recollections of these childhood “punishments” than my sister, they are nonetheless crisp in my fatherly constructions. Despite recent attempts at reestablishing a positive relationship with my father, my cheek still silently throbs from that one defining blow years ago.

Likewise there would be times I would sit in silence in the front seat near to my father, holding back tears at the thought of returning back to the long days of school and day-care, waiting for my struggling mother to drag herself away from the providing role she had had to assume. These car rides to Irvine with my father are perhaps the most memorable ones I have—The Monkees blasting their familiar tunes from the car’s stereo, the promise of eternity lying just at the end of horizon. My father loved driving, feeling the steady rhythm of the engine purring beneath our feet, the consistency of movement blowing kisses on our sun streaked faces. In between “Last Train to Clarksville” and “Daydream Believer” my dad would let out his immortal phrase in a voice he reserved solely for the rueful silliness of a child’s spirit. “Forty-five minutes from Hawthorne California to Irvine Center Drive!” he would bellow, his blue eyes glinting in the California sunshine. That’s how I’ll always remember him. Head flung back, a grin of boyish candor lighting up his age weathered face.

While I never imagined my parents together, I also knew that they could never be fully apart. There are forces which attempt to tie us together, even in the bonds of our common anguish and hatred. Their union had merely transformed, not diminished, affecting each of them in different ways.

Whatever streak of sunlight I might have witnessed in my father’s wanderings has since dulled to the fading glow of a cloudy moon. Realizing that love is not enough to fill you up, my father has since indulged in a haphazard journey. Seeing the love my father holds to this day for my mother, the paradoxical defeatist acceptance and yet defiant longing in the recesses of his shattered soul leaves me questioning my own adventurous motives. I fear this is the same emotion I smother within myself—this inability sometimes to understand the twofold mission of both running two and away from things simultaneously. I fear that his complete vulnerability that leaves one scarred for life in the name of love’s inescapable tragedy will be my own fate. The reality that some journeys, even from those we love, are meant to take us apart.

It wasn't until the maturity of adulthood that I began to let myself wonder what might have been. How that forty-five minutes of space might have been lessened if their wandering spirits had at last found loving communion through their daughter’s outstretched arms. How this mysterious moon I often referenced back to in my silent nights could come to rule a space so bleak and fearful. How my own slice of moon might hide itself from preying eyes, fearing its exploitation and further abandonment. And still I walk the road of my traveling heart, searching like young Oedipus to both escape from and return to the arms of a familiar nurturer, echoing my mother’s own heartbreaking journey. To seek solace in the arms of a beloved, whatever form that might come to me in.