In May I took a wonderful course on writing & political resistance taught by author/historian Eraldo Souza Dos Santos and offered by the truly amazing Corporeal Writing program. https://www.corporealwriting.com/
I was a grandma in a group of primarily much younger writers/activists. My own activism had happened when they were babies at best. Eraldo asked if I planned to write a memoir of those times, and immediately I thought NO. It would be too time consuming, I was too tired, and who would care, anyway? I did want to produce something to turn in for class, though, so I decided I could summon the energy to write some notes. That -with updates- is what follows here today and what will comprise my next six (?) posts. As with many things I write, it’s all true but only partly serious. For some reason it came out in second person, which seemed weird, but I went with it. Hopefully it will make sense. It begins in 1971 and takes place in New Jersey.
1. Someone opens a portal: In 11th grade Mrs. Lowden forces the class to read Thoreau’s “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.” In Social Studies, Mr. Geary talks about the Catonsville 9, as Rev. Dan Berrigan had just gone to prison after two years on the lam.
You are breathless with wonder and possibility. You’d been strictly brought up to do what was right, but that meant the mundane, narrow focus of what your parents thought was right. On an intuitive level you see that “do the right thing” can be more exciting and on a broader scale than you’d ever imagined.
A note on the featured image above: The Catonsville 9 went into a Selective Service office on May 17, 1968, removed draft registration records, and burned them outside. https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/berrigancatonsvillenine.html
2. You are lost:
Photo by peter bucks on Unsplash
All your life your mother said you’d go to college over her dead body. In 12th grade your best friend sits you down to fill out applications to the same schools as her. Somehow your parents are indifferent now and don’t resist. But you’re secretly not interested. Your creepy Army-guy boyfriend has just been transferred to Virginia and supposedly wants you to join him when you graduate. You write him a long letter about all the antiwar activities you’ll participate in when you’re out of your parents’ house. You never hear from him again. Meanwhile, that year you’re the single, loud antiwar voice in your Problems of American Democracy class in a school that sits right outside Ft. Dix. You’re features editor of the school paper and write an article laying out how to avoid the draft, but the school won’t let you publish it. Your much older sister brings you to Philadelphia to the old mansion where her Sufi commune lives with their guru. It saved her from your home life, and she’s trying to do the same thing for you. The guru is kind, the people are friendly, the food is amazing, but when you ask your sister what the guru’s stand on the draft is, she says, “He doesn’t care about that. He’s above it.” That’s all you need to know to dismiss the place. (And that difference will follow you two all your lives.)
On the heels of being ghosted, you end up with a new boyfriend also headed to Rutgers University. Soon after you arrive, you drag him to hear Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda when they pack the Rutgers gym. But no one you know cares.
You don’t know what to do. Instead you get lost for years in the need to be loved, in the panicky challenge to create a meaningful life when your family and all the rules of the culture say you can’t.
