I've been thinking about the novels of Elena Ferrante lately. You've read the Neopolitan Novels maybe? I did, but it's been a while and I read them for the pleasure of the good story that they are and not for the weightier issues that underpin the entire narrative. I've long recognized that when I have a lot on my plate, I don't think enough about the books I read. But I'm thinking about these ones now.
My friend sent me an interview with Ferrante that she came across in the Guardian. (You can find it here.) As I was reading it, I couldn't help but think how much easier it is to recognize the brutal oppression of women in countries far from us (Iran of course, but also so many others), but how much harder it is to recognize patriarchal structures in the complicated societies we ourselves inhabit. Once women have gained access to educational institutions and to some of the basic human rights (as they have in the U.S. and in many other countries), once they gained the freedom to move out of confining homes and workplaces, many of us assumed that they, we could easily knock down the "few remaining impediments" to personal freedom and equality. And we certainly believed that once outed (through open and loud discussions about inequality) why then of course, oppressive patriarchy would become a thing of the past. I know I myself left Poland in the end because I could not imagine living in the male dominated culture that existed in that country then (I write about it in Like a Swallow). I saw the United States as being on the move, ripping apart preconceptions about gender, about race too. Others had done the work (that was not yet started in Poland). Once here, I relaxed. And then I fell into one gendered trap after the next, drowning in my inability to recognize and react to what was happening all around me as I married, had kids, sought to get a degree and find satisfying work (in that order). I wasn't strong enough nor mature nor wise enough to see the pitfalls and to act decisively. But now, thinking about it in the context of the Ferrante interview, I see that using her markers of equality, I was doomed to fail anyway. Mine was not the generation that was going to free women of gender-based constraints. The structures (created over the centuries by men) were not in place for it. It's funny, but when I was just thirteen years old and recounted to my dad my various girlish ambitions, he told me then that women were not going to attain equal footing in his lifetime or even in mine. I was stunned. I thought he was wrong. I felt I could go after any job I wanted, study any discipline at the university. Somehow I never looked beyond those goals.
Though I don't usually pre-announce trips here on Ocean, I thought it fitting this time to mention that in January, I'll be going to Naples. Not exactly just to poke into the neighborhoods artfully described in the Ferrante novels, but on the other hand both my friend who will accompany me and I are at an age where we can use the prompt of those books to reflect on what Ferrante wrote about postwar Italy and perhaps reframe a little of what we lived through in postwar Poland.
* * *
It's gray and wet outside -- nothing to cheer about there. Though maybe there is magic in a misty late November morning. Maybe that dampness releases the pungent earthy aromas from the fields and gardens. Wet leaves, muddy fields, rotting wood -- these have a place in our annual calendar of scents.
We eat breakfast. I return to oatmeal. It seems fitting for this day.
* * *
Watching the three girls (out of the five grandchildren) make their way through each day, I have to wonder about the world they will inhabit as adult women. I've learnt that even in the worst of times, not everyone is slated to confront the same barriers to personal growth in the same way. Fifty years ago, when I was growing up, there were women who did not fall into traps set by societal expectations and institutions. And I myself was lucky enough to avoid the grossest and most egregious pitfalls. The independence I feel now is a product of that luck. (And believe me, writing freely as I do here, on Ocean, moving around the planet without someone telling me that I can't or shouldn't do it -- these are markers of freedom many would kill for.)
My optimistic hope is that these little girls will get a hell of a lot closer to free agency than you and I ever could. Creating new non-patriarchal structures is a work in progress, that's for sure. But, I don't think I was wrong in believing that here at least the work is well underway. You may not see it in the recent court decisions affecting women, but perhaps we can recognize it in the reactions to those decisions.
In the meantime, this little girl is here after school, reading books, making up stories in the play room and doing a lot of Ed teasing.
No ballet today. Somebody forgot to pack her ballet clothes into her backpack.
[I was amused with her yesterday because in the same way that I went back to Nancy Drew books when I was already approaching adolescence, she has recently gone back to rereading Cam Jansen, a younger version of the same idea. And in yesterday's book, Cam was rewarded for solving a mystery by the owner of the amusement park where the crime took place. Snowdrop said to me -- gaga, did you notice how in all the Cam Jansen books, the owners and managers of amusement parks, stores and such are always women? I had to laugh. I told her -- the author of these books wants you to know that women can and do hold positions of power and wealth. And then I wondered -- at this age, does she even doubt that this is the case?]
* * *
Our evening is a little different because Ed has some routine medical stuff before him and so he's not eating tonight. I do a quick stir fry, eat it equally rapidly, by myself, and then settle in on the couch to watch a TV show -- a rare thing for us. (Movies -- yes. TV shows -- almost never.) This one is about the movie Love Actually and how its themes play out now, 20 years later. I can understand why some people find this movie to be flawed. Yes, okay. Everything in life is flawed. But hey, dig deeper and something beautiful will emerge. I guarantee it.
And the tree lights twinkle and the ornaments shine and Dance, our grand dame of a cat thinks this piece of beauty is there for her to swat at and play with.
She has a point: Christmas trees are to be shared by all.
Swat, hit, swat, dangle... Smile.
