The Palimpsest

Knowledge like water ...

2008-12-08T11:18:00.000-08:00

I was thinking, last week, about how facts are like water drops.

We are deluged with information at all times, and technology has only heightened this tendency. We are standing outside and getting rained on – facts pelting us like raindrops -- possibly just a light drizzle in good times, and torrential downpour in others.

If we want to make sense of all of this, we need to become storytellers. Our job is to collect the rain and allow it to flow into a river. The river becomes the story, the channel for all this information.

Either way, we have to get wet.

But when rain flows as a river, at least we get somewhere.

Abaco Cove

2008-08-12T17:29:00.000-07:00

The water striped electric blue
we hold our breath
and jump.
Below the wind-flicked swells,
navy, teal, lit with turquoise,
we sink
into the smooth still, punctuated only
by the crisp fizz
of a thousand coral shrimp,
we drift
half-dreaming, between
mustard spines and violet fronds,
silver needle fish, yellow-tailed snapper,
the slow collective arch
of a school of darker jacks.
Then,
they rise,
wings dappled tawny-black
beating languid cadence,
spotted eagle rays undulating
across the sea floor.
We follow
in wonder,
awkward observers
of their curious kingdom.

The Parable of the Raft

2008-06-28T05:44:00.000-07:00

What does it mean to journey, and to change? To grow, to continue our onward path, we need to be able to embrace deep changes in our very being.

This makes me think of one of the most famous stories told by Buddha – the Parable of the Raft.

-----

A man is trapped on one side of a fast-flowing river. Where he stands, there is great danger and uncertainty – but on the far side of the river, there is safety.

Yet there is no bridge or ferry for crossing. So the man gathers logs, leaves and vines and is able to fashion together a raft, sturdy enough to carry him. By lying on the raft and using his arms to paddle, he crosses the river to safety.

The Buddha then asks the listeners a question: What would you think if the man, having crossed over the river, then said to himself, ‘Oh, this raft has served me so well, I should strap it on to my back and carry it over land now’?

The monks replied that it would not be very sensible to cling to the raft in such a way.

The Buddha continues: What if he lay the raft down gratefully, thinking that this raft has served him well, but is no longer of use and can thus be laid down upon the shore?

The monks replied that this would be the proper attitude.

The Buddha concluded by saying, ‘So it is with my teachings, which are like a raft, and are for crossing over with -- not for seizing hold of.’

-----

I find myself changing at the crossroads. My fierce competitive drive was instrumental in helping me to ‘cross the river’. I had to win, at all costs. Each success and failure defined me in the moment.

But now, I feel calmer, cooler, steadier. There is less anger in my body, less need to win. Echoing my mother, I feel as if I have fewer answers, but deeper assurance.

For a time, I worried about this – if I lost that competitive ‘edge’, would it mean I would not be able to face the coming challenges. Would I not succeed?

The raft is a good reminder.

We face many dangerous rivers in our journey. Sometimes we have to rely on certain values, certain aspects of ourselves, to get us across to safety. But once we find ourselves on the riverbanks, do we grasp onto those values, cling to them since they were instrumental to our path?

Do we strap the raft onto our back and carry it up the mountain? No, we lay it down. We embrace change, accepting that we are works-in-progress.

I think I've had enough of rivers. I feel quite light, as I face the mountain.

Priorities for Development? Gender, Environment, Poverty Reduction

2007-08-16T05:06:00.000-07:00

There are three areas which, to me, are top priorities for development. I say this based on my own experiences and skill sets, for these are also the areas in which I seek to work. They are: gender equality and women’s empowerment, environmental sustainability, and poverty reduction. I bring to these a series of questions.

First of all, how can we expect to attain common values of peace, justice, democracy, and development, when half of the world’s population still experiences discrimination in some form? I am angry that around the world women still suffer because of their sex –enduring domestic violence and conflicts, having unequal access to healthcare and nutrition and education and dying in disproportionate numbers because of this, experiencing legal discrimination and social injustices, lacking representation in the political and business worlds. This desire to work on gender equality is rooted not only in passion, but also in analysis. Much of the focus of my research over the past five years has been related to questions of gender and development. What this has shown me has been the subtle but repeated failures in attempts to empower women through development interventions, often related to the ways in which gender hierarchies are maintained. My Masters thesis was a study of UNFPA reproductive health programmes in West Java, and my doctorate focuses on state gender policies across Indonesia. I recall being a consultant for the Indonesian Ministry of Development for Disadvantaged Areas (Kementerian Pembangunan Daerah Tertinggal) in 2006 and talking to key officials about gender issues. After explaining some of the complexities and pitfalls involved in some of their projects, as related to gender concerns, the Minister turned to me and asked, ‘So, then, what do we do?’ Finding alternatives is important. My doctoral research has been critical of the processes involved in current gender policies and their institutional formulations. Yet I care deeply about issues such as combating gender inequality and injustice. It is precisely because I feel so strongly about these matters that I am suspicious of the invidious and subversive effects being had on gender relations, and women in particular, by over-simplified and essentialising approaches to gender. This area needs much more work.

Second, how can we expect development to continue apace when environmental pressures begin to constrain possible growth and to endanger the lives of the most vulnerable? My interests in climate change have been mainly personal, but one of my core projects as a Masters student studied the linkages between air travel, climate change, and disparate impacts upon the ‘North’ and ‘South’. It was only years later that this issue came to be championed by environmental organisations here in the UK. The project impressed upon me how environmental sustainability is both of common concern and also disproportionately dangerous for the weakest in society. For instance, we consider the very real possibility of a substantial increase in ‘environmental refugees’ over the next years, and what this will imply. If development efforts do not begin to tackle very seriously the problem of climate change, it is possible that little else will matter in the end.

Finally, how can we live in a world of such phenomenal wealth and accumulation when there are those who literally die from lack of food? The concluding paragraph of Cowen and Shenton’s Doctrines of Development quotes Adorno, saying: ‘He who asks what is the goal of an emancipated society is given answers such as the fulfilment of human possibilities of the richness of life. Just as the inevitable question is illegitimate, so the repellent assurance of the answer is inevitable. … There is tenderness only in the coarsest demand: that none shall go hungry anymore.’ This is not to say that I advocate a ‘basic needs’ approach over a more holistic capabilities approach as from Amartya Sen. But how to operationalise Sen’s work remains problematic. What is evident is that there remain immediate and pressing needs for the poorest of these, who lack the rudimentary components for a healthy life – sufficient food, clean water, sanitation, health care, literacy. The reduction of poverty at its basest level must be done, not only to prevent the gross injustice of dying from hunger in an otherwise well-fed world, but also to achieve development that brings together the greatest number of people able to live the lives that they have reason to value.

Thoughts on Leadership

2007-08-16T04:56:00.000-07:00

In 1889, long before he became President of the US, Woodrow Wilson wrote a piece called ‘Leaders of Men’. In it he uses an anecdote that, for me, best captures the metaphor of leadership and its inherent tensions. He describes it as follows:

The captain of a Mississippi steamboat had made fast to the shore because of a thick fog lying upon the river. The fog lay low and dense upon the surface of the water, but overhead all was clear. A cloudless sky showed a thousand points of starry light. An impatient passenger inquired the cause of the delay. “We can’t see to steer,” said the captain. “But all’s clear overhead,” suggested the passenger, “you can see the North Star.” “Yes,” replied the officer, “but we are not going that way.” Politics must follow the actual windings of the channel of the river: if it steers by the stars it will run aground.

There are two different kinds of captains. One sails on the oceans, and sets his or her course by the stars – fixed, absolute, certain. The other sails down rivers, and navigates according to the bends and winding curves of the banks to each side – changing, responsive, adaptive. Wilson describes the politician as leading much like moving downstream; he sees where the river turns, ahead, and gets the ship through.

A good leader, while being sensitive to river conditions, should navigate by the stars. There must be some vision that exists apart from the constraints of the riverbank, an idea and sense of direction and purpose that is imaginative, creative, transcendent. The good leader must be able not only to chart this course, but to ‘guide the ship’ through, which implies the ability to mobilise and excite people toward a common goal. The establishment of vision is critical, as is the ability to facilitate cooperative and empowered participation toward the achievement of this vision.

Every good leader must be partnered with a good manager. This is not to imply that they are necessarily distinct, as both must display overlapping skills. But the question is one of emphasis. The good manager, while knowledgeable of star patterns, should navigate by the river’s flow. The manager understands the intricacies of context and conditions, and is able to safely establish parameters for action, process, delegation of responsibilities, and flows of information – all in order to get the ship safely downstream.

Both leaders and managers, stepping away from the analogy, must be able to deal well with ideas and with people. This is a behaviour that can be learned. Sometimes leadership is associated with charisma. This Greek word, meaning ‘gift of the gods,’ was first used by sociologist Max Weber to describe an aspect of leaders that he did not understand. Yet it is possible to demystify charisma through establishing the particular characteristics demonstrated by individual leaders that prove most successful. Marshall Sashkin, in composing the Leader Behavior Questionnaire (LBQ), argues that there are five factors that help to explain what leaders do that makes them so successful. These behaviour categories are:

- clarity (the ability to focus others’ attention on key ideas, making vivid and visual the key aspects of the leader’s vision, such as through metaphors),

- communication (skills such as active listening and giving and receiving feedback well),

- consistency (‘saying what you mean and meaning what you say,’ i.e. demonstrating integrity of purpose and action to build trust over time),

- caring (demonstrating respect and concern for people, including in the ‘little’ things),

- creating opportunities (empowering followers to accept and take on challenges, while taking care to minimise risk and to not demand overmuch from them).

These five behaviours, among others, can and should be practiced by good leaders and good managers. What is perhaps most important is the willingness to grow, being open to improvement, upgrading, even critique. This is the lesson I have learned from my father, who has been in high positions of leadership: he was always learning, always thinking, and always prepared to receive counsel; in this way, he has continued to develop his leadership skills.

To return to the metaphor, if we envision this sea captain at the helm of the ship, she still holds her compass and ponders the night sky, with a clear vision of where they must go. At her side stands the river captain, managing the ship’s resources and guaranteeing that they are able to make safe passage. Both listen to and encourage the crew, such that the crew members feel an integral part of the voyage and are able to contribute uniquely. In this way, the crew as a whole is able to avoid being bogged down by lethargy or routine, and to adventure together toward uncharted territory.

Varsity Match (March 10 2005)

2007-08-06T16:13:00.001-07:00

I step into the ring, step into my memories
(how has it taken me this long to write?
perhaps even this is too much), bending through
to manoeuvre the thick ropes that are meant
to hold me in, keep us square.
Diagonal across from me, she shakes her legs,
rocks her head from side-to-side, front-to-back.
I shrug my shoulders and watch her
as fingers press into my neck –
my coach – his hands, his voice, his mouth
inches from mine as he stresses
what I must do, punctuating advice
with air punches (yes, stresses,
the stress and nerves thudding through me
in time with a heartbeat so loud it shakes
me on my feet). I try to breathe,
focus on breathing, open my mouth for air
to find a mouthguard shoved in,
black plastic meant to save my teeth
but unable to save my lips from the
chafing and burning and swelling to come.
I stare at my coach, focus deep,
try to make the crowd disappear,
give myself one last shake and then it’s
go! it’s the bell! it’s the
clang that signals our warfare.
Hands up and gloves close, I feel the leather
against my moist cheek, pressed into the
hollow by my eyes, elbows tight
to cover ribs and feet arched to react.
Front foot forward, right foot on ball,
calf taut and swollen to sprint, then
spring I do, snapping forward to unleash
the waiting, a stretch of sinew and muscle
from my heart into my left, this extension
of me that rips itself from my fibre
to tear into her face.
She comes back, guarded, strong, swinging
punches with aggression, and I take it,
I move, block, parry
in-and-out, in-and-out (Be first!
I hear his voice, only his voice – Be first! I jab).
We are moving fast, to catch up to ourselves,
and pausing, circling,
eyeing each other with questions of measure –
do I measure up? will I be stronger?
The pain builds as the seconds pass,
a fire that spreads from calf to thigh, shoulder blades
alight, lats and abs twisting and swelling
with each snap, each tension and release.
I catch her and she staggers,
blood crusted just below her nose, blood that
calms me, cools me in my fire. She is hurt.
In my head I am quiet, I am lethal,
I will be faster and stronger and
I will win.
The bell sounds (saved) and I earn one minute.
Shaking legs lower me and I sit in my corner,
gulping air hungrily as they wash my mouthguard,
rinse my mouth, I spit and pant and
listen. Face-to-face, I feel my coach’s words
expelled on my skin, warm. And then
it is time: two more rounds.
We continue our dance, our violent game
picking punches and finding weaknesses
to exploit as we begin to shudder with the pain
of keeping our gloves up, our chins down.
It flashes through my mind, in those last seconds:
‘Pain makes cowards of us all,’ he said
(a champion, a boxer; he knew).
And with sick determination I swallow
the fire, drink the ache, rise again to come
at her, ablaze, stronger and
stronger still, pressing and moving
with the growling hunger of so many years.
Left jab, then a right, and a hook
twisting from the stomach, dropping to
send a short sharp punch just below her sternum,
holding up my arms to block the
massive right hook she throws at me again and again
with her whole body, shuddering with the effort
of absorption.
Then it is over, suddenly and quietly
(but it is only hushed in my head, in this hall
full of shouts and murmurs, buzz
and eyes). I am trembling,
adrenaline pumping in quivers that keep me
on my feet, exhausted. He takes off
my headguard, my mouthguard, my gloves.
Hair is smoothed back, sweat-soaked, tied up
with fingers that twitch.
And the moment comes. We stand in the centre,
referee holding our hands in his as if we are
children crossing the street, needing him there.
A pause, a silence, my heartbeat, then
my arm lifted
my hand raised
and the realization that I have won
hits me just as I hit her: hard,
rich with emotion,
a twisting in the stomach and a
feeling of release.

23 May 2005

Being a boxer

2007-08-06T16:08:00.000-07:00

(These were a few thoughts I scribbled down in October of 2005, when contemplating what it meant to be the first woman to compete as a boxer at Oxford University.)

‘Why would you, as a girl, want to box?’

‘Aren’t you afraid of getting hurt?’

‘You wouldn’t want to lose that pretty face, now would you?’

These are all comments I’ve received repeatedly since I’ve started boxing. Some aren’t quite as oblique. One College Fellow looked at me, shook his head, and said: ‘Lady boxer … You ought to be ashamed.’

I simply do not believe that ‘because I’m a woman’ the sport’s physical demands are any different than they would be for a man. There are power differentials, which I readily admit; pound for pound, it is most likely that male and female boxers of equal boxing ability will hit at different speeds and with different strength. But the stresses these boxers are placing on their bodies, in relative terms, is equal. And when a nose bleeds or an eye blackens, it does so equally for both!!

The reality is that boxing can be brutal. It is demanding on the body, the head, the psyche. Boxing is hard. Full stop. And coping with that requires a strength of will that surpasses bodily endurance. But I’ve also fallen in love with the sport. Boxing has such a vicious grace. When a good boxer moves across the ring, it is elegant danger.

Yet women boxers still face different challenges and reactions than men. At every bout I’ve had thus far (and I’ve had 5), the announcers have made some reference afterward to the fact that ‘Oh, their boyfriends or husbands better be careful! Wow! Men, watch out – these women hit hard.’ Can you imagine this same announcer telling the women to watch out for hard-hitting men, lest they get beat up?? I can’t either. Maybe it’s because we still live in a society where statistics on violence against women are all too real, and all too high, and it still surprises people when women pick up a pair of gloves and decide to fight back.

But I’m not trying to speak for all women. I’m not trying to explain the phenomenon that is the slow and steady rise of women in boxing. I can only speak for myself. I can only point to the ways being a boxer has allowed me to lay claim to my strength, to come into my power, to find pride in overcoming my own fears and hurts.

Because ultimately, it is not whether you are a man or a women that pushes you forward to face your opponent in the ring. When every inch of your body aches for rest, screams to stop – when you remember the boxing great who once said, ‘Pain makes cowards of us all’ – finding the courage to continue must come from your heart. It must come from your will.

Giving over

2007-08-06T16:03:00.000-07:00

I think we all could use a few more trust exercises. You know, like when you have to stand there in gym class, cross your arms over your chest, and fall back – trusting that the person behind is there to catch you. Or have you ever experienced a concert, and flung yourself off some stage – trusting (however stupidly) that a group of gangly teenage boys are going to be able to lift you high, up and over the crowd?

This is a short, emphatic burst of trust. It’s the fun kind, where in the worst case you suffer a few bruises, maybe a scraped knee.

Then there’s the harder kind, where you risk much more. This is where I find myself now, being thrown onto the beneficence of the world around me, trusting that people, in very surprising ways, will step up to fill the places they are most needed. I am giving myself over.

What is most miraculous, most special, is that the more you risk, the higher the return. The wider you fling your arms, the greater the giving over, all of this takes you deeper into the life you have – not the life you think you have, but the one you’re really living. Nothing like a little trust to put you in the moment.

I’ve always been someone who likes to plan, and who likes to stay in control. It’s easier to manage life, relationships, stress, work, when you have control. But the wildest rides I’ve ever had have been where I’ve opened my arms, taken a breath, and jumped. It has shown me that my ‘control’ is usually an illusion. So much of life is out of my control. When I jump, I acknowledge that truth, and by letting go, I grab hold more firmly of the life I want.

The life I want is woven through with people, rich with relationship, warm and honest and real. And I’m learning what it means to allow myself to appreciate these things, instead of holding myself secure away from them. Already, over the past few days I have watched with wonder as people I would never have expected stand up and offer help, fill in where they are needed, or even just walk with me a while. I think of a verse: ‘For when I am weak, then I am strong’.

I am giving myself over – finding that in trust there is hope, and in releasing there is power.

Wordless

2007-08-06T15:24:00.001-07:00

Why is it that sometimes I can write, and other times words only come out in stutters? I think it is like groundwater, my emotions liquid below the surface. Sometimes the water level rises, comes close to the top crust as if to breach its shell. It never manages to break through, but it pushes the boundaries. It is during these times that I write, when I speak without conscious understanding.

Words flow rich like rivers and I am simply swept along with them, to look at what has been said after and wonder at the person who wrote. It is as if these rising waters speak my secrets, whisper them into my ear, sing them to my heart. They dance to a melody that hovers beyond my ears, beyond what I know, as if remembering a past I cannot recall.

But when the water subsides, words slip back beneath the earth, slide down deep within me into a quiet cave. With them go the meaning of my memories. Then the words that do find their way out are dry, are parched. And I find myself staring across a grainy flatland beneath a still azure sky that goes on for miles; it simply breaks and breaks your heart as you wonder at its expanses, its wildness, the way you stand alone in the middle of nowhere and have no words.

Love's Winter

2007-08-06T15:20:00.000-07:00

I caught a glimpse of Love,
like poplar trees in winter’s embrace
forming lace-lines against the greying sky.
Love fluttered, trapped in those black branches,
then faded into a melody I heard once and
forgot, buried in the memory of your eyes in twilight.
Love never took up home in my breast
to flourish and grow, to deepen;
it never reached its ripened harvest
in the wheat-golden summer of your body.
Instead, with autumn’s rusty brown
Love burrowed into mydarkquiet
to rest through snowfall and wait for thaw.
I sit quietly, remembering my glimpse
(the way it reflected in your smile)
how Love beckoned in sweet siren call,
and I cannot shake the haunting
that hopes for spring’s pink melt.

1 May 2006

Spring's Promise

2007-08-06T15:19:00.000-07:00

I am tired of words of pain,
a sorrow-drenched prose that
litters my path with storm clouds.
I want to catch exultation and
sunlight, chase it recklessly
down the street like a greedy child after
Christmas sweets. The world soaks in
beauty, radiant-effuse, a tumble of
wild irises, purple orchids,
tiger lilies that dare you to love me and
sunsets that streak my heart orange;
the way music shakes and stuns
me, when feeling and power
entwine to tingle my heart,
the way I am pressed upon by
love and it catches in my throat
unaware (delighted by
joy, surprised by grace).
I am tired of sadness, and even
as I weep, I am matched in glory,
the defiance of spring’s
response to winter,
the blaze of summer sun,
the riotous proclamation of
my life.

5 November 2006

Off the Sumatran Coast

2007-08-06T15:10:00.000-07:00

11 August 2005

The mountains layered upon themselves like tissue paper, transparent at the base, crisply torn in jagged edged tops against a rose-streaked sky. We were returning in wooden boats that threatened to break apart, lifting off each water trough to smack down again in a jarring rattle that would flick spray around the edges and onto my lips. Everywhere, I tasted salt. I was sun-soaked and water-logged, staring rapt at the way the clouds had formed in lines to accent the sky, as if writing its denouement in warm yellow lines, threaded with orange and pink.

We had left that morning, banging across the water in the same fashion, almost seeming rude intruders to these deeps. It was warm, and already the sweat was trickling between my breasts, through my bikini underneath those dark clothes. We arrived at the island after about thirty minutes; my ribs felt tight from the seizing, the clutching, but I did not mind. I wished I could fold inside out with the smiling, contentedness well-rooted.

The men dragged our boats up out of the water, after navigating us through the reefs close to land. We stepped out onto powdery white sand, silky dust, and walked to a clutch of palm trees to set up camp. I marveled at the sharpness of colours, how the dark and bright greens of the trees in the forest razored against each other, how the pale sand was lapped by crystal water, which in turn was lined with midnight blue to mark the drop off. A narrow sand bar ran from the island toward another, larger land mass, as if reaching out for it.

We finished the task of sorting our few belongings beneath the trees, where they were already being investigated by red ants the size of my knuckle. Then it was time to strip down, peeling off layers of clothing in brisk anticipation of the cool water. It felt awkward and delightful, standing there in only a bikini in Indonesia, where I always have to be well-covered. My skin tingled with the humid breeze; if I stood still, it gathered moisture and beaded on me.

We walked to a landing dock, the now-empty home of the Frenchman who owned this island. I proclaimed to those nearest me that perhaps I would make enough money to buy an island of my own one day -- half in jest, half not. This place was wondrous. We climbed down to the wooden stage closest to the water and prepared our snorkelling kit. This was my first time of proper snorkelling, and I was slightly nervous after all the tales of poisonous sea snakes, barracudas, deadly fish and anemones. Add to that my lifelong fear of sharks and deep dark water (if you could not see the bottom, it didn't mean that it couldn't see you), and my body-shiver before I entered the water was part delight, part nerves.

Those first few seconds I clung to the stairs of the dock. Then I dipped my head under to test my mask and breathing tube. That first glance calmed me -- I could see so clearly, so much detail. I saw a fish dart to one side, it was banded violet-blue and black, and without thinking I sunk into the water and followed it. I remember how my body felt, with the sun warming my shoulders, my calves, my stomach cool-gliding through the water, the bubble rush I left behind as I kicked slowly, sinuously, with my fins. The sound of my breathing rasped, low and steady, and I paused between breaths as if each one required thought.

I could see my friends around me, and stayed close to Jo or to Catherine, both of whom were enjoying this as much as I was. We would see something interesting and point and make gutteral noises, trying to talk through our tubes and failing, but allowing our discoveries to speak all their wonders themselves. The coral was alive, moving, twitching, breathing. I commented later that some of it looked like a human brain, to be told that it was called brain corral. In these bits of 'brain' there were slivers that looked like open mouths; every few moments the mouths would snap shut and open again. Brilliant blue spikes adorned several puffed creatures, some coral stood stiff and proud with its green barnacled decorations, while others looked like Christmas trees -- all spikes and branches, with each tip glowing a bright violet, as if decorated with lights. I did not know the names for most of the things I saw, but seeing was enough.

If we swam in closer to shore, the coral was much closer to the surface, and I had to keep my body a straight plane. Something as simple as a knee coming down could get cut on the coral, so sharp it was in places. So I kicked from my ankles, maneuvering with the fins and lying flat on the water. Still, this made me nervous, my body on the reef, my skin exposed. I moved out closer to the drop off. To my right, nothing but darkness. You could not see into the deep, and cold currents came up from it to mix with warmer blasts swirling from shore.

All of a sudden I saw it move on the edge, just below me. I pointed to Catherine, snake! snake! It was bright blue and black, striped down its whole body, slowly making S-shapes to glide through the water. I heard her scream and move away, and I lay still, perfectly still, watching it wind below me. I felt no fear, knowing that it would not attack unless provoked, comfortable around snakes as I had held them for years (my father, herpetologist by hobby, had given me that). When it was gone, Catherine pulled me to the surface, and told me repeatedly that if I saw another snake, I was to move, away, slowly, and, keep, moving. She punctuated each word with her intent, and would not stop saying it until I agreed.

In between snorkeling, I would sometimes pull myself up onto the dock to warm in the sun for a while. Just when I would feel my skin start to dry and crisp in that hot stare, and the warmth would have seeped into my fingers and toes, it was back into the water again. I saw angel fish and azure blue star fish, as if the heavens had decided to reflect themselves in the sea. I saw clown fish and yellow fish and flurescent turquoise fish, as if rainbows and humour could be found here too. I swam through schools of sword fish, thick in groups near the surface, their long silver bodies and black eyes darting when I came near, reaching out as if to touch them. They let me swim with them; I was this big brown thing in a pink bikini surrounded by fish all colours and shapes, an awkward giant in a land of a more beautiful and graceful people.

Sometimes you would see clusters of fish dancing together, two smaller ones weaving around one larger. There were funny little flat fish that stood up, moved with tiny fluttering fins in vertical lines. There were fish that looked to be made of satin, so iridescent and soft their colour, and others whose scales looked like metal.

By the afternoon, my skin was tired, stung countless times by the jelly fish remnants that had been floating around. I felt baked and soaked, as if both sun and water had reached my insides. But something else had reached me, too. I had grown tired of cities, of buildings, of exhaust and chatter and the pressing-in of busy life. In this ocean all was quiet but for my own breathing and the thud and hiss of bubbles, and life was rich and dancing before me as if oblivious to all else but its own beauty. What purpose, these bright colours? For what reason, all this vibrant difference? The simple answer: Life.

And the pressure of to-do lists and to-be lists slipped down beyond the drop off, where I could no longer see them. It was just me, my body in this water, my eyes on those fish darting past, my senses feeding on colour and quiet and soft liquid touches. It was just me, my body in this water, my heart thick in my throat and my soul sunk past me, quiet and still, into the deep.

The Prophet, the Philosopher, and the Poet

2007-08-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

I am a feminist and I am angry. But don’t take it personally – I am not angry at you.

I am angry that in developing countries, women still suffer legal injustices, endure domestic violence and conflicts, have unequal access to healthcare and nutrition and education and die in disproportionate numbers because of this; angry that in the ‘first world’, adolescent girls are cutting and starving themselves, rape and domestic violence statistics remain high, women still lack proportionate representation in the higher echelons of the political and business world. I am angry that both men and women face enormous pressure to conform to particular standards of masculinity and femininity, to standards of beauty and being that limit people’s ability to choose their path and to be judged solely on their strengths and weaknesses.

To me, this is unacceptable. I do not offer these examples to complain, or to whine that women are ‘weak and oppressed’, because I know many women who live under oppressive conditions with such dignity and power. But that does not mean they do not suffer injustice.

My anger, to some, is unpalatable. By some estimation feminism has become the new ‘F-word’, leading some younger women to avoid the label of ‘feminist’ lest they be perceived as angry man-haters. (My own mother cautions me to tell people that I don’t hate men, largely for this reason!) Martha Nussbaum explains this by talking about Prophets and Philosophers, showing how some second wave feminists – the ‘Prophets’ – raged, using extreme and unforgiving rhetoric to decry what they felt were extreme injustices. These feminists, like Andrew Dworkin and Catharine McKinnon, have been subsequently polarizing in their polemic.Then there have been the Philosophers, like John Stuart Mill, who are careful, nuanced, reasoned. They can offer insights into gender construction (Judith Butler), masculine domination (Pierre Bourdieu), and so on, from very academic standpoints that may spark disagreement but rarely offence. But in this coolly analytical approach something is lost – the sense of injustice that impels action, the queasy burning sensation that not all is right with the world and we have to do something about it. For I believe that anger can be a good thing – anger can be a positive and empowering force that we can embrace and leverage to affect change, so long as it is anger at injustice, anger at inequality, anger at the structures and systems that perpetuate these injustices.

So what are our choices? Do we rage without reason? Do we become so reasonable – and thus more ‘palatable’ to society – that we lose the power of anger?

In the book Finally Comes the Poet, Walter Brueggeman speaks of the necessity of speaking poetry to a ‘prose-flattened world’. This ‘daring speech’ is neither complacent, nor trivial, but proclaims truth and offers an alternative vision. A feminist Poet reacts with power and urgency to the hierarchical world she – or he – sees, but does not limit this reaction to angry criticism or calm analysis. Instead we must re-envision our world with truth, bringing rage and reason to bear on imagining a future where the sex of a person does not determine his or her place in it – a world where being born a girl does not mean you are at risk of female infanticide, or denied literacy or economic control, or taught that the female body has to be ever submitted to male desire. I think of Martin Luther King, offering a dream to the world. He was a Prophet, but also a Poet, using language that showed how a world made ugly by hierarchy could be saved by the beauty of equality.

It is time to reclaim anger at injustice – to be Prophets once again – but to convey our message in a way that draws upon the best of Philosophers to speak clearly and convincingly. But finally comes the Poet. So let us speak truth and beauty into our future. Let us call ourselves feminists, and know all that this implies and demands. Echoing King, let us dream together of a world where people are no longer judged by the shape of their sex, but by the content of their character.