ECW301 Revisited

Even as a little girl I remember telling stories. I don’t mean stories as in made up lies but stories created to entertain my peers; though, at the time I wasn’t inclined to write anything down. When I was in grade 11 I took a course called Creative Writing. Now this was back in the seventies when there was a freedom to basically take any course you wanted as long as you came out at the end of four or five years with requisite number of credits for your diploma. This is how I managed (much to my regret) to obtain no math credits; I opted for accounting instead. You could do that kind of thing then. Creative Writing appealed because there was no final exam, no tests, and the only requirement was a one page story a week with a major story due by the end of each term. Ah, the simplicity of the teenage mind.

I started writing my first major short story term paper right after school the day before it was due in an Eaton’s department store cafeteria. A funny thing happened after I got a few paragraphs in. I went into a place I call the zone. As I was writing, I suddenly existed on two levels. There was me in the physical world scribbling away but my mind’s eye was centered and I was literally watching the story unfold in my head as if I was watching a movie. I lost all sense of time, place or self. Writing wasn’t the only thing that put me in the zone. Drawing and dancing put me firmly in the place I call the zone. Dancers have an expression “see the music, hear the dance” and for that expression to make sense you have to have traveled to the zone.

I still have the story and I am surprised to find, 30 years later, it holds up remarkably well. Then again - it came from the zone. I called it The Rape of Eliza du Noir. It was inspired on a few lines taken from a William Blake poem (and no, they didn’t teach Blake or Milton in secondary school way back in the day:

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night

It was based on the idea that so few of us comprehend what exactly goes on in the interior lives of other souls; no matter how closely we stand beside them, and how, some souls appear to have been born into an endless night. Of course, lots of teenage angst and alienation make a strong appearance – at the time I was the lone “punk” in school. The story is told from the point of view of Eliza’s best friend and it is not until the end does the reader discover that the friend is actually retelling how she came to find Eliza hanging dead from a beam in the hallway of Eliza’s home. The story got me an A+ and six months of harassment by the guidance department of my high school.

I learned a few valuable lessons writing that story. If you are teenager, it is an uphill battle to convince any guidance counselor or school psychologists you are not a risk as a potential suicide if you just turned in a paper concerning suicide and teenage alienation. Secondly, after you write a story, you have absolutely no control over how any reader will internalize what you have written. Readers will read into whatever you write as dictated by their own internal bias.

I forgot those lessons when I used a life event from my son’s experience to convey a message in Sins and Sticks. Perhaps it’s the innate danger of using an experience as an analogy for an event. In Sins and Sticks there are no real good guys or bad guys and no it is not an Ode or Apologia to Racism as some critics accuse me of. Nor do I see Right Girl as wearing strictly the mantle of one specific character.

So let me try to make it clearer. There are four 13 year old boys on a playground. A conflict develops. One child from a position of frustration and anger cries out and calls the others names. This represents either the first or second wrong which depends entirely on your point of view. The other boys were presented with an opportunity and choices in deciding how they would interact to the first boy. They could have chosen to try to understand the “dog-eater” position and how he got to this point. They could have tried using empathy and reason but they didn’t. They respond in trade which is also an entirely natural human kick-jerk reaction. After all, the 3 boys didn’t deal the play and the “dog-eater” should accept the consequences of dealing the play. This represents the second or third wrong.

In comes a new character, the principal. The principal is manipulated by a combination of the angst the first boy displays and the dictates of his own internal bias. He is neither a good or bad guy but just simply a misguided guy. At this point, the principal is faced with more opportunities and choices. He assigns himself the role of the judge and jury but he never stops to pause, reflect or examine the evidence of events. He never sees he has an opportunity to help the first boy grow away from knee-jerk responses, frustration and pain to mature emotionally. Instead the principal decides he will strike a blow for racial equality, harmony and justice – all noble qualities but here the principal was also presented with another set of opportunities and choices.

He assigns himself the role of the judge and jury but he never stops to pause, reflect or examine what events caused anyone’s actions. He could have questioned the “Jew-Slave”, “the Spic” or the “Gook” to determine if they had a point of view worth of examining or taking under consideration but he deliberately chose to ignore and marginalize them. He never saw he had a golden opportunity to establish a rapport with all his students rather than just one student out of hundreds. He had an opportunity to guide the other three boys away from tit-for-tat responses while establishing his reputation as an authority figure who stands both reflective and fair.

Then the principal muddies the mix by assigning himself a new role as teacher/social activist. He could have chosen to remain in the role of judge and hand down his sentence to all the boys directly involved for his “life” lessons but instead he chooses to subject an entire classroom to his particular brand of wisdom. This is where he still could have made a difference except he forgot who and what he represented to his audience and the nature of the forum he was standing in. In his righteous zeal to bludgeon home his point of view he alienated his captive audience. He completely overstepped his bounds and any potential good his tirade offered was lost in the wallowing resentment by the start of the third hour.

In walks me. Not only am I the actual “mother” in the event in real life I am blogging from the point of view of the mother. When I wrote my son ‘smirked’ when the principal threatened to call his mother it’s because my son Montana knows from experience; I don’t always take the positions one would assume I would take and only bring me into a conflict at your own peril.

In real life, I took the principal to task for missing all those choices and opportunities to make a real contribution and a difference in a positive fashion. He is suppose to represent the adult. I pointed out his inadequacies and failure as principal, judge, teacher and social activist. I reminded him of the precarious position he stands in racially and the need to be sensitive to those undercurrents when dealing with the other. I underscored the need to let go of a “lynch mob” mentality no matter how righteous your alleged cause Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord; and I will repay.

But what I found infinitely fascinating was the response to my own Sins & Sticks post by other bloggers and what character they identified with instinctively. And of course, the role they chose to assume. It was more than a little ironic watching how the blogsphere re-created the playground/classroom/office environment of my posting on their blogs.

A few ‘progressive” bloggers bristled and decided to call me a few derogatory names on their blogs. I got a few emails and one comment suggesting I would feel differently if blacks were involved rather than Aboriginals. A few thought it was a shame we don’t lynch blacks any more - so “dumbfucks” like me would learn what it feels like. I ignored most of it.

But the element which sailed over those progressive blogger heads was my use of the phrase “well-meaning progressives.” I don’t necessarily believe all progressive bloggers to be well-meaning, (and I have an email box to attest to it) but some are, and I deliberately chose those highlight those I judged them to be both progressive and well-meaning; although, a slight revision may be in order. Just like the principal in my posting was not innately bad and he was motivated to try to make the school environment a better place for everyone. He just couldn’t effectively let go of his lynch mob mentality to do so, and by not letting go - he made another rip in veil of the world.

In real life, my son Montana learned if you can make your mother laugh she won’t raise her voice to you but you still don’t get a free pass for being disrespectful to authority figures. Nor can you avoid a lecture when you get home. And the next time someone reactions from a sense of grievance by calling you names; the prudent course is to take a minute to see where they are really coming from before you react. Just because someone else deals a play doesn’t mean you have to raise the stakes. He also learned that well-meaning progressives who hold positions of authority over any direction of your life should be approached with caution because they very well may hold a grudge.

Bloggers accuse each other continuously of creating echo chambers on their blogs, and others attempt to create a forum where individuals from all sides of the political spectrum can come together and share “ideas”. I do neither. This is my soap box in the midst of the rabble where I stand-up and say what I believe is true. Sometimes I answer questions. Then I climb down from my box and go home to feed my children. And brunch beckons.