Finding oneself in a poem
Nov. 4th, 2006 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
levertovfanIt's about six months since my grandfather died. My reason for noticing this is mostly because it is a little past six months since I moved to Mpls and took up formally with A., and my grandfather's death came about a week and a half after I moved to Mpls, his funeral a couple of days later. There was also recently another birth in my family--not in my father's or mother's extended family, but in my step-family. My step-cousin, who is about my age, I think a year younger than Diana and I, gave birth to a son, Ben.
When I think back on this year, I think my grandfather's death is going to be the largest event on my emotional landscape. There are only a few people in anyone's life who loves them unconditionally, and there are only a few people who are really shape you when you're growing up, and the number of people in the zen diagram of overlap between these groups is even smaller. My grandfather's legacy to me is--puzzling. He's the person who created and shaped the mangled, not-religious, not-practicing, not-even-really-there-except-when-I-insist-on-it Jewish identity that I have--and I don't have much of a Jewish identity; I almost define my identity in opposition to the tradition, the hierarchy, the patriarchy, the God. I was flipping through a book by Adrienne Rich tonight and found two segments of a poem that I've read many times before, "Grandmothers." The first segment had always made sense to me because of my study of history--but then the reason I became a history major has a lot to do with my Grandfather and the versions of Jewish history and prejudice he presented to me at a very young age. It is odd the second part didn't speak to me the way it should have until now:
"Born a woman, Jewish or of curious mind
--twice an outsider, still believing in inclusion--
in those defended hamlets of half-truth
broken in two by one strange idea,
'blood' the all-powerful, awful theme--
what were the lessons to be learned?"
And the rebuke to that, the first section, which comes before:
"Easier to encapsulate your lives
in a slide-show of impressions given and taken,
to play the child or victim, the projectionist,
easier to invent a script for each of you,
myself still at the center,
than to write words in which you might have found
yourselves, looked up at me and said
'Yes, I was like that; but I was something more...'"
When I think back on this year, I think my grandfather's death is going to be the largest event on my emotional landscape. There are only a few people in anyone's life who loves them unconditionally, and there are only a few people who are really shape you when you're growing up, and the number of people in the zen diagram of overlap between these groups is even smaller. My grandfather's legacy to me is--puzzling. He's the person who created and shaped the mangled, not-religious, not-practicing, not-even-really-there-except-when-I-insist-on-it Jewish identity that I have--and I don't have much of a Jewish identity; I almost define my identity in opposition to the tradition, the hierarchy, the patriarchy, the God. I was flipping through a book by Adrienne Rich tonight and found two segments of a poem that I've read many times before, "Grandmothers." The first segment had always made sense to me because of my study of history--but then the reason I became a history major has a lot to do with my Grandfather and the versions of Jewish history and prejudice he presented to me at a very young age. It is odd the second part didn't speak to me the way it should have until now:
"Born a woman, Jewish or of curious mind
--twice an outsider, still believing in inclusion--
in those defended hamlets of half-truth
broken in two by one strange idea,
'blood' the all-powerful, awful theme--
what were the lessons to be learned?"
And the rebuke to that, the first section, which comes before:
"Easier to encapsulate your lives
in a slide-show of impressions given and taken,
to play the child or victim, the projectionist,
easier to invent a script for each of you,
myself still at the center,
than to write words in which you might have found
yourselves, looked up at me and said
'Yes, I was like that; but I was something more...'"
