If it’s true that I’m all about good conversation, then I ought to be able to provoke such a thing through a pithy statement or question, wouldn’t you think? That’s my attempt and hope today. Rather than me wax eloquent on a particular topic, I’d love to just start things off and then see where we go. Game?
OK…here’s the RENEGADEconversationSTARTER for today:
Ourself behind ourself concealed
Should startle most…
(Emily Dickinson)
I hid myself within myself…and quietly wrote down all my joys, sorrows, and contempt in my diary.
(Anne Frank)
“If I were to say what I was feeling and thinking, no one would want to be with me, my voice would be too loud,” seventeen-year-old Iris says…
“But if you are not saying what you are feeling and thinking, then where are you in these relationships? It is my question for girls and women; it is my question for myself. Iris sees the paradox in what she is saying: she has given up relationship in order to have relationships, muting her voice and concealing herself so that “she” could be with other people. Her pleasure in these relationships is compromised by her awareness of having sacrificed herself, or pleasure takes on a different meaning, referring to bodily sensations that have become divorced from or a stand-in for the pleasure of being a soul in a body living in connection with others.
(Carol Gilligan, The Birth of Pleasure)
Far too normal, far too unexamined for many women is our silence. What makes us afraid to speak? To be known/seen/understood for who we truly are?
For me, this is something I knew all too well as a young girl and a young woman – even up until the past 6 or 7 years. I also know many of the reasons (another post for another day). It is no longer my predominant reality, but that does not mean that I don’t feel its creeping tentacles grabbing onto my emotions and thoughts before I can get them formed into words, language, un-silence. What is the work of breaking our silence? What are the ramifications? And if we do not speak? More ramifications…
So, the table’s set. A RENEGADEconversationSTARTER is served up. ‘Would love to watch the conversation ensue – and join in!!!
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