A Mini-Memoir of Resistance - 1 of 7
#NanoPoblano2024 - Day 17
In May I took a wonderful course on writing & political resistance taught by author/historian Eraldo Souza Dos Santos and offered by the truly amazing Corporeal Writing program. https://www.corporealwriting.com/
I was a grandma in a group of primarily much younger writers/activists. My own activism had happened when they were babies at best. Eraldo asked if I planned to write a memoir of those times, and immediately I thought NO. It would be too time consuming, I was too tired, and who would care, anyway? I did want to produce something to turn in for class, though, so I decided I could summon the energy to write some notes. That -with updates- is what follows here today and what will comprise my next six posts. As with many things I write, it’s all true but only partly serious. It begins in 1971 and takes place in New Jersey.
1. Someone opens a portal: In 11th grade Mrs. Lowden forces the class to read Thoreau’s “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.” In Social Studies, Mr. Geary talks about the Catonsville 9, as Rev. Dan Berrigan had just gone to prison after two years on the lam.
I am breathless with wonder and possibility. I’d been strictly brought up to do what was right, but that meant the mundane, narrow focus of what my parents thought was right. On an intuitive level I see that “do the right thing” can be more exciting and on a broader scale than I’d ever imagined.
The Catonsville 9 went into a Selective Service office on May 17, 1968, removed draft registration records, and burned them outside. https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/berrigancatonsvillenine.html
2. I am lost:
Photo by peter bucks on Unsplash
All my life my mother said I’d go to college over her dead body. In 12th grade my best friend sits me down to fill out applications to the same schools as her. Somehow my parents are indifferent now and don’t resist. But I’m secretly not interested. My creepy Army-guy boyfriend has just been transferred to Virginia and supposedly wants me to join him when I graduate. I write him a long letter about all the antiwar activities I’ll participate in when I’m out of my parents’ house. I never hear from him again.
Meanwhile, that year I’m the single, loud antiwar voice in my Problems of American Democracy class in a school that sits right outside Ft. Dix. I’m features editor of the school paper and write an article laying out how to avoid the draft, but the school won’t let me publish it. My much older sister brings me to Philadelphia to the old mansion where her Sufi commune lives with their guru. It saved her from our home life, and she’s trying to do the same thing for me. The guru is kind, the people are friendly, the food is amazing, but when I ask my sister what the guru’s stand on the draft is, she says, “He doesn’t care about that. He’s above it.” That’s all I need to know to dismiss the place. (And that difference will follow us all our lives.)
On the heels of being ghosted, I end up with a new boyfriend also headed to Rutgers University. Soon after we arrive, I drag him to hear Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda when they pack the Rutgers gym. But no one I know cares.
I don’t know what to do. Instead I get lost for years in the need to be loved, in the panicky challenge to create a meaningful life when my family and all the rules of the culture say I can’t.
Rest of series:
#2 - https://janetjonesbann.substack.com/p/notes-on-resistance-2-of-7
#3 - https://janetjonesbann.substack.com/p/a-mini-memoir-of-resistance-3-of
#4 - https://janetjonesbann.substack.com/p/a-mini-memoir-of-resistance-4-of
#5 - https://janetjonesbann.substack.com/p/a-mini-memoir-of-resistance-5-of
#6 - https://janetjonesbann.substack.com/p/a-mini-memoir-of-resistance-6-of
#7 - https://janetjonesbann.substack.com/p/a-mini-memoir-of-resistance-7-of