i went to portland to spend the weekend with some valiant women. i indulged in some fine asocial behaviors like reading-my-book-during-lunch & not-going-out-to-dinner-on-friday & sitting-under-a-little-bridge-where-i-could-not-be-discovered. also i went to many meetings & discussions one of which was titled "spirituality & abortion."
i spent the first half of this discussion basking in the glow that hummed in this room full of valiant women who understood that being valiant entails listening & reaching-out & forgiveness & grace. i spent the second half bristling as the hum of the room became this bristly type of hum instead, full of not-particularly-well-veiled anti-catholic sentiment. finally i raised my hand.
i told them i am catholic & that i am frustrated to find walls put up against me by my fellow activists who do not understand that my community is ideally a community of activists. i talked about the gift of free will, the gift of grace, the preference for the poor, the call to serve, the importance placed upon good works that grow from faith. i did not explicitly say that i am a catholic because i am an activist & the other way around too, but i think that those words, even unsaid, hung in the still-humming air of that room.
the rest of the weekend, despite my fine asocial behaviors, valiant women kept approaching me & thanking me for what i had said. they said a lot of things which i am holding in my heart. at lunch saturday when one of these women walked away, mary beth said to me, "i bet you are getting more props for being catholic, at the abortion conference, than you've ever got for anything in your life."
she was right. i am full of joy. i think it helped, too, to be in a city with hills & a pervasively green-grey cast to the light & the largest oldest ginkgo trees i have ever seen.
i did a lot of other things in portland, besides, like seeing a severed rat-half with the rest of its spine sticking out, which i thought was fascinating; tasting the worst sparkling wine (it was local) ever used in a toast; bonding with mary beth whom i had previously assumed to be jockish but is actually like me, distancing herself from the same smart-girl persona that was okay in high school but seems too boring & confining now; talking to mischka & making him explain to me infrared light, which conversation veered into a small consideration of the pioneers of radio technology; starting (& finishing) the diamond age; nearly missing my plane to come home; et cetera.
:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:conversation just now between bean, who is finishing the introductory notes for a bibliography, & me:
bean: can you think of anyone else i should give a shout-out to?
me: when you talk about the gaze, are you going to remember to mention foucault?
bean: well, i'm going to give him a shout-out.
me: good. you need to shout out to him.
:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:the most pioneering of the pioneers of radio technology are marconi ("the black box") & a canadian named reginald fessenden. marconi just invented the wireless; fessenden figured out a way to broadcast a voice transmission in 1905.
i'm hoping for a big radio-technology centenary celebration in two years. aren't you?
:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:also as we were maneuvering our way toward the roy lichtenstein this afternoon, at home in the columbus airport, mary beth & i were walking behind this frighteningly-tanned & -muscular woman who was saying into her cell phone, "i don't know. i just think it must have been one of those jealous women living in the neighborhood."
mary beth & i looked at each other with glee.
