sara.gladwin's blog

I missed class on wednesday, so I took at look at the course notes and thought about some of the things I would have written/ would have said.

On Eli’s portrait:

*Kneeling but not quite… one foot poised as though ready to stand back up- reminiscent of movement, which characterizes Eli’s life and relationship to home/body/place/the environment ---> Movement also works w/ metaphor of taking the earth inside the self and letting it grow out; depicted by the tree which grows through Eli

hi everyone!

So Sunday I had a pretty huge allergic reaction, ended up having to take some benedryl and was pretty out of it, so I actually found a recording of Eli Clare reading his text to listen to rather than read. I wanted to share because I thought it was pretty powerful to listen to!

http://eliclare.com/books/exile-and-pride#mp3

As I just realized when checking my account information, two days ago was the anniversery of the day I joined Serendip. Since then, I have fallen in love with the potential I see in this site for creating connections and communication across all kinds of disciplines. The one semester I did not use serendip in those two years, I could feel a piece of richness missing from my academics. I am excited to interact with you all more, not just in class, but here on serendip! This all being said, the reasons why I choose to use my real name today for posting are the same as when I first created my account. The simplest reason is that I couldn't come up with pseudonym that fit me. Nothing that I thought of sounded like me at all. Strangely enough, chosing a psedyonm felt confining, and some how revealing, but in an uncomfortably inadequate way. For example, if someone's name is doglover12, you are going to automatically know, first and foremost, that person is probably a dog lover. This way of naming myself felt like writing my identity into wet concrete, and when in dried all anyone would ever see when they stepped over my name in the sidewalk was just a dog lover and nothing more. My real name felt like the best representation for the very fact that it wasn't really a representation at all. Using sara.gladwin leaves you all the room to percieve me in many differing ways and through your own eyes, past the misleading concreteness I associate with crafting my own moniker. Your own various interpretations will be the best representations of my identity I could as for.

Posting this today because I still have not found all the right words. I had referenced this poem in an earlier post, but am feeling the need to share the whole piece. I am currently wishing I could read this aloud to our group; I think the only way to translate how I feel when I read this would be to hear it in my voice. More importantly, when I read aloud, I can pretend, for a moment, the words are my own.

IX

Your silence today is a pond where drowned things live
I want to see raised dripping and brought into the sun.
It's not my own face I see there, but other faces,
even your face at another age.
Whatever's lost there is needed by both of us -
a watch of old gold, a water-blurred fever chart,
a key...Even the silt and pebbles of the bottom
deserve their glint of recognition. I fear this silence,
this inarticulate life. I'm waiting
for a wind that will gently open this sheeted water
for once and show me what I can do
for you, who have often made the unnameable
nameable for others, even for me.

Adrienne Rich's words on silence are circling around my mind as I try to conceptualize a reflection that could synthesize my feelings about our last class and the rest of the semester.

I keep drafting posts to write back to Anne, Hayley and Sasha, but nothing sounds adequate. I am not ready to collect all of my feelings yet, and I am afraid I will lose something important if I rush to put it all into words so soon.  I am choosing to take my time because I am not ready to let go… by holding silence close, and by prolonging the dissection of feeling into theory and analysis, I can more vividly remember these women, not as research opportunities or as a means to a more elevated understanding of educational theory, but as people who continually broke down the barriers I thought existed around my own capacity to feel.

Beginning Chant:

I am

(I am)

A Reader

(A Reader)

What I have to Say

(What I have to Say)

Is Worth Listening to

(Is Worth Listening to)

What I Think

(What I Think)

What I Feel

(What I Feel)

Matters

(Matters)

Our Chant (written collaboratively with Riverside Women):

I am

Grateful

I am

Reflective

I am

Thoughtful

I am

Strong

I am

A Prisoner

I am

Stronger

And Smarter

Then I think I am

I am

Compassionate

I am wondering

If being Responsible

Means lowering your Expectations

I am

Filled with Questions

I am

Happy

Found this and HAD to share:

GROUPED OUT
"Please make these groups interesting, 'cause I am grouped out!"
— Elaine Bartlett, Bedford Hills prison, September 1997

I'VE BEEN
CHAINED UP / BANGED UP / FELT UP
ROUGHED UP / STUCK UP / HELD UP
NOW I'M
LOCKED UP.
I HAVE
PUT UP / SHUT UP
SUCKED UP / TALKED UP
NOW I'M
MESSED UP —
IT'S SO
FUCKED UP.
THEY MAKE ME
STRAP IN / WALK IN / SIT IN
TUNE IN / MOVE IN / FIT IN
I FEEL
PINNED IN.
THEN SOMEONE
GETS IN / PUSHES IN
COMES IN / PULLS IN
WANTS TO
BLEND IN —
THEY'VE NEVER
BEEN IN.
SO I'M
TURNED OFF / RIPPED OFF / SHUT OFF
CUT OFF / PISSED OFF / FLUFFED OFF
ALL YOU'ALL SHOULD
FUCK OFF!
CAUSE I'M
CLEANED OUT / WASHED OUT / SQUEEZED OUT
THROWN OUT / GROSSED OUT / PASSED OUT
READY TO
SHOUT OUT
CAUSE I'M
GROUPED OUT!
PEACE OUT!

Found here:

http://www.lifeontheoutside.com/poem.html

I haven't finished typing up quotes but I did have one I wanted to put up here. I also chose a longer passage, thinking that depending on the situation and how many people have read, we may need a longer passage. It can also be shortened or lengthed because I thought these particular pages (189-93) really interesting.

From 189:

“The next morning, Elaine returned to South Forty at 9:00 am for an all-day workshop about job hunting. She did not think she needed this class, but George had told her she had to attend. She walked into the classroom and sat down in the second row. Nearly every chair was taken, and almost all the other students were male.

The teacher distributed manila envelopes. “This envelope is for documents,” she said. “Birth certificates, ID with a picture, release papers, rap sheet, letter from a P.O., dispositions from the courts, and any proof of your ex-offender status.”

            Before South Forty’s counselors could help anyone find a job, she explained, they needed some paperwork. The students pulled crumpled slips of paper from their pockets.

            ‘I got a copy of my bail receipt,’ one man said.