1 post tagged “germs”

I wrote the following "essay" as an undergraduate, circa 1993, circa the tender age of 18.  It appeared in my college's campus newspaper, and I haven't looked at it since.  However, recent discussions in the Girl Germs Vox group made me dig it up out of the archives.  Reading it today I am simultaneously charmed and annoyed by my younger self.  In any event, I offer it as an artifact of what one young feminist was thinking way back in 1993...

    It awoke inside of you with a gentle stirring.  At night, you tossed over in troubled dreams to feel it shifting.  And when it awakened you from your slumber, you softly lulled it back into submission.  But it began to awake with greater frequency, and eventually it even refused to go to bed - a petty child revolting against its bedtime.  But after your own tired and fitful sleep, you soon gave up and merely crawled back underneath your sheets.  But it stayed awake.  And the longer it stayed awake, the hungrier it became.  So it began to feed... on you.  And you slept right on through the feast.
    And when you awoke, there was nothing left of you.  You raised your head from the pillow to squint bleary eyed into the starkness of a day you did not recognize.  The world that had said good evening to you the night before was gone.  The dreams that had formed in your troubled head had become the nightmare devising of someone else.  Suddenly, with the dawning of one bleak day, you had lost your power to dream the reality, as bleak as it might have been.  For although your fretful visions might have been dark, they were your own.  You had control over them, commanding their appearances and performances in the lives around you.   But suddenly you were no longer the director of your own thoughts.  You were no longer the mother of your own world.  And you did not know why.
    And you were angry.  Your own son had risen up against you.  You had nursed this infant child, and he had revolted.  He had fed upon your resources only to destroy your ability to call upon them again after he had grown.  And with that right violently taken away from you, you were so very sad.  And you were so very, very angry.
    And you were not just angry.  You were furious.  You were mad.  Raving.  Hysterical.  You were a misplaced woman who could no longer determine her own worth - could no longer measure her own dreams.  Your fellow man had stolen your ruler and erased the increments you were familiar with, using the senseless wood instead as a weapon to brandish upon you.
    And you felt the ruler slap your knuckles even when it wasn't actually there.  Your sister told you that she had been abused.  Her aunt told her that she had been oppressed.  Her neighbor told her that she had been violated.  Her hairdresser told her that she had been victimized.  Her employer told her that she had been objectified.  Her lover told her that she had been sexually harassed.  Her co-worker told her that she had been discriminated against.  Her mother told her that she had been raped.  And women everywhere echoed their cries.
    And that made you even angrier.  So everyone came together in one big and very upset group.  Only it wasn't a group.  It was a mob; and it had its own mentality.  And for a while this was good.  You were so caught up in being furious that it helped if you didn't really have to think.  And for a while just being furious was good.  Because when you were furious, you got to talk freely, openly, and loudly about your pain, your oppression, your rage, your hate.  And this was also good.  And although you were just talking and not really thinking, the mob was busy dreaming a reality for you.  And you were part of that mob, so it was like you were doing the dreaming as well.  And that was, after all, what you missed the most.
    But after a while, it began to lose its appeal.  Your eyes started to glaze over, and you were tired of being so furious.  You were tired of talking freely, openly, and loudly.  You wanted to start thinking again.  And you even wanted to start dreaming your own dreams again.
    And some of your sisters didn't understand this; but that was just because they weren't through being furious.  And your father was still reluctant to give you an opportunity, but some of your sons started mumbling that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.  And one of your lovers even let you borrow some of his dreams so that you could have a little taste of what he had by birthright.
    But this didn't satisfy you.  And that was when you began to understand.
    You were not equal to him; but you were of equal worth.
    You did not live like him; but you needed to live side by side with him.
    You did not know like him; but you knew just the same.
    You did not dream his dreams; but you dreamed anyway.
    And once you had understood all this, you stopped raining anger on everyone around you.  And then you turned to those immense reservoirs of rage that were so close to breaking the dam, and you diverted them back to the source.  You took that enormous power of being able to speak freely, openly, and loudly and began to think.  You took that strength of hostility, and suddenly you had the strength of creativity.
    And you began to create.
    It was an enormous explosion from within yourself.  You drifted in and out of a trance; but this was nothing like sleep.  This was being brilliantly awake, radiantly alive.  You skimmed the surface of emotion, and dove deeper and deeper into the colorful abyss.  You soared to touch the sky, and you singed your wings in the sunny fire.  And you had never been happier.
    And you had never been stronger.
    For now your father looked at you, and saw your buildings.  He saw your poetry.  He saw your gardens.  He saw your products.  He saw your markets.  He saw your success.  And he was proud.
    And that was fine.  But it no longer concerned you.
    For you were healing yourself into perfect health with your own pride.
    And then your sons looked on, and they tried to suckle themselves on your glory.
    And that was fine.  But it no longer concerned you.
    For your glory was enough to nurse every single sand through your own shapely hourglass.
    And then your lover tried to share your dreams.
    And that was fine, too.  But even this no longer concerned you.
    For now everyone could share your dreams; you had dreamed them into being.  You had reawakened to create the reality once again.
    And nothing would ever lull you softly back into sleep.