Personally, I Disagree- Revised

“Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do? I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal- having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.” (648)

Early on in TheYellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, I can sense how hard it is for the narrator to have to conform to societal norms. In the passage above, she tells us that she disagrees with the rest cure prescribed by her husband John, but she is unable to do anything about it. She is not free to make choices and opine about her person. This being the 1800s, a majority of women had internalized the patriarchal culture of carrying men's wishes without questioning their decisions. Yet here is a female character, who dares to wield her own differing ideas.

Even though we don’t really know what brought the family to the estate, we are led to believe that it has something to do with the narrator's state of mind. We can’t tell how long she has been ill, but this passage is written on the first day of their stay at the estate. Using the word “sly”, she has gotten sly about hiding her notebook, instead of smart or clever tells us she has had to deal with opposition to her person for a while now, and has become adept at hiding her objections. She has to hide her notebook because her husband doesn’t want her having ideas, one of the worst forms of oppression. If we can’t have our thoughts, what do we have?

In this passage, she asks herself “But what is one to do?” The question in itself sounds defeatist, but back then, questioning was a form of protest. In fact, she keeps protesting throughout the text. As she speaks her mind her husband contradicts her at almost every turn. She wants a room change, a change in wallpaper, to be allowed to go out to walk the grounds, to write, to visit friends, to leave the house altogether. All of which is received with emotional threats, she is told to just get better for the sake of everyone in the household. Authoritative threats, she is told to just do what the men are asking or she will be sent with someone worse than her husband in the fall. And John’s patronization, he laughs about her for everything and minimizes her feelings.

The word “personally” also resonates a lot with me. She uses the word twice in a very bellicose and isolated manner, “personally, I disagree”, "personally, I believe”. She is fighting her current stance alone. We know that her brother agrees with her husband and neither her sister-in-law Jane nor the babysitter Mary ever do anything in her favor, they too follow the men’s demands without question. The implication of that particular word as viewed through a woman’s restricted patriarchal society of the 1800’s is enormous. The narrator, a woman, dares to have a questioning, non-conforming nature, she creates her own ideas.

The wallpaper itself seems to be echoing her life. As she gets to the house she just hates it. Its ugliness is incomparable- perhaps akin to the actual state of her life. The pattern doesn’t make any sense- possibly mirroring the rules imposed on her. Its color is all types of depressing- which is what a life full of impositions would do on a person’s state of mind. Then, as she suffers all the patriarchal hostilities throughout the 90 days she is confined, the wallpaper changes. It starts becoming interesting and she imagines things going on behind it. As we examine her life it is easy to see why she starts visualizing; out of boredom at first as she has no other distractions. There is also the smell she starts sensing permeating her and everything around her. This is the point where we know she has lost it, after she detects the odor “the woman” comes out of the paper and starts going about outside. When she rips the paper off the wall, her mind has finally had enough. As the paper is destroyed so goes her life. She destroys it and can’t be pull back into the repressing world she is letting go of.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman and women like her gifted me the freedom to have my own insight, freedom to question, freedom of autonomy. I don’t know if she was only protesting the resting cure or the machinations of a patriarchal society, but this story is an amazing legacy!

Observations at Bryant Park- Revised

Pigeon

A filthy pigeon walks among the scattered green tables and chairs at Bryant Park. It walks aimlessly over pebbles, puddles and mud. It paces hunched over, pecking at the gravel floor. Occasionally it straights up and inspects the scene by gyrating its head in every direction, but mostly its head is bowed low. A pigeon of different coloring approaches, and the first pigeon flies away to another spot in Bryant Park, where it continues pecking on this wet and sunny day.

Person 1

He wears a red cap, black t-shirt, pants and a navy vest. He is sitting by himself on one of the many chairs at Bryant Park. He leans over a table looking and fiddling with his phone. He is short and his face is asymmetrical with dark circles under his eyes. Next to him, on another chair, is an overstuffed black backpack. As a ray of sunlight emerges from under the clouds; he places his left hand protectively over the phone’s screen. His eyebrows furrow and his lips curl upwards.

 Person 2

He wears a tartan t-shirt, blue jeans and new looking gray tennis shoes with bright orange soles. He wears a worn out cap that once was mauve with a black visor. He holds a golf club in his hands and stands straight with his feet together bending his body slightly down. There are two plastic balls on the ground, one white and one chartreuse. He looks at one of the balls and then at the base of one of the five flags placed around the perimeter. He does this several times, the ball, the flag, the ball, the flag. Then he pulls the golf club backwards and swings forward hitting the ball with a hollow thud. His eyes follow the ball as it rolls down the green. He takes half-a-step and places himself behind the other ball as he readies to do it all over again.

Person 3

She wears a white and black striped shirt, with a striking plastic red roses necklace. Her hair is short, pixie cut. She wears purple and pink tennis shoes with electric yellow shoe laces. She sits on a bench next to her friend surrounded by shopping bags. Behind the bench the ground is raised, leveling the top of the bench with the ground. Here, a guy sits reading. As she lies back on the bench her head lands near the guy’s hairy uncover backside. As her friend chats, she picks at her teeth.

#DemandoTuRenunciaEPN

Image: Revista Proceso. Zócalo, México DF, 11/20/14

I don’t want to live in a world of impunity, a world where the lives of 43, 143, 1,043, 10,043, 100,043 + are disappeared to infinite silence, and no one is charged. Life is the most precious of elements. A randomness harder to quantify than grains of salt or stars in our ever expanding universe. These lives ended in conspiracy with those that were supposed to protect them. How is society supposed to carry on when they live in absentia of their maximum right, the right to pursue happiness? A government that continually attempts against those trying to make sense of a deeply corrupted system does not deserve civility.

Here I am, looking on from a safe place, at what might have been my life. I can’t turn my eyes; I can’t quiet the screams of indignation. I write because I have nothing else except words, words that choke me and flood my eyes. I surround my being with images of Zapata, who knew better than believing he was worth less and deserved less than those who would take his heaven and earth and suffocate him to take his centavos. GREED is something to stifle, to spit on; not to aspire.

Salina’s reign should have ended a long time ago, but there he is, the resuscitated fiend of our nightmares. Hand in hand with Televisa and the narcos, pulling the strings of the bland and ridiculous Peña Nieto. All of them dancing and singing around a fire consuming a whole nation, whose minds were fogged by Televisa’s inane programming. As the fog clears; the masses take to the streets and Peña effigies are burned. And as we fight our own fights of the haves vs. the have nots on this side, we look on, south of the border, at the proud people who are raising their voices.

-----------------

In response to Kimberly Morales who read her piece- "I'm loud and ugly that's why I get cut off during political discourse" in honor of the 43 disappeared Ayotzinapa students of Iguala, Guerrero at LaGuardia's Literary Magazine launch.

Coyote: Stunning, Mythical Spirit

Coyote was there; at the beginning of it all. According to a Miwok tribe tale, Coyote and Silver Fox made the earth by singing and dancing. I can’t envision a better way for our planet to have come into existence. According to a Navajo legend, he created death at inception because he was already worried about overpopulation. He was also the one who scattered the stars in infinite randomness because as wise as he is, he is also very impatient. He showed Grandfather Man how men and women should look like by transmogrification. According to a Nez Perce legend; Coyote made people of different shades because he undercooked the white ones and overcooked the black ones, but the Native Americans were just the perfect color. In many myths he creates women because however men came into existence, either by his hand or another, he feels like something is missing, and he is evermore happy with the result. In myths, Coyote is depicted as powerful, wise, proud, whimsical, mischievous and even naive in all his magnificence.

Coyotes came into existence in North America over 2 million years ago, as did all the dog family. Its scientific name is Canis Latrans, meaning “barking dog”. In 1915, the US Federal government tried to commit coyote genocide because they found them to be a nuisance. Never mind that coyotes prefer an effortless meal. They are omnivorous and only eat small, sick, old animals or carrion and fruits. The US government spends more on bringing about their destruction than what coyotes actually destroy. Eating rodents seems like a great way to help farmers keep pests at bay. I also cannot help but feel like coyotes belong right where they are. As we push animals to the brink of extinction; it feels so good to know that such a stunning, mythical spirit might survive our anthropogenic ways. By 2010 they managed to conquer the entire North American continent, there isn’t a single place coyotes haven't claimed as home. They reign supreme over all other species thanks to their adaptability, flexibility, and resourcefulness. They can live almost anywhere, eat almost anything, change their breeding habits and social norms to fit the most difficult of situations.

Coyotes are bound to the night, not for preference but because they feel safer under the shadows. They make their dens 3-6 feet underground with various escape routes, and are very hard to find since they are great at concealing them. Coyote pups are taught to be cautious of humans. They use blending (a light camouflage) to their greatest advantage. These are the reasons they have been so skillful at surviving us, and thriving. They veil themselves out of our everyday existence. They are all around us in their specter form. As we move about, they tiptoe behind us titillating their own world with our faux pas. They shroud their lives to my begrudging being; at not being able to share in their wild cosmos. They fail to show in front of my deficient sight. Lots of animals do this. The hippopodius is invisible, cicadas hide years underground, squids do breathtaking color changes, and arctic foxes change color with the seasons. We do it too, humans. Some of us would rather do anything than be spotted by others, so we hide. An almost somatic pain arises when being surrounded by people we are expected to make small talk with. We are expected to react to inconsequential matters in amazement, to abandon our tumultuous inner dialogues in order to fulfill our trivial social obligations. We feel abandoned in a sea of people and completely at ease when hiding in our sanctums. We are way too passionate of anything that makes us happy and howl about it whenever we feel safe, otherwise we keep it to ourselves. We are always aware of spaces and position ourselves near routes of escape. We asphyxiate every day, yet every day we wake up astounded by the wonders of this world!


Sources:
CITY SLICKERS: How to Be a Good Neighbor, Doug Stewart, National Wildlife (World Edition), (2006). 44(6), 31-35

Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior, Edited by Marc Bekoff, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut/London, 2004 Animals Myth and Lore: Animals of Native American Lore

Blood of the Monster: The Nez Perce Coyote Cycle, Deward E. Walker Jr., High Plains Publishing Company

Diné Bahane': The Navajo Creation Story, Paul G. Zolbrod, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984
Myths and Truths about Coyotes: What You Need to Know about America's Most Misunderstood Predator, Carol Cartaino, Menasha Ridge Press, 2010

Coyote: Creator, Concealer

Draft


The coyote came into existence in North America, Mexico specifically, over 2 million years ago, as did all the dog family. Its scientific name is Canis Latrans, meaning “barking dog”. In 1915 they endured a massacre by the US Federal government, but they still managed to become conquerors of the entire North American continent by 2010. They reign supreme over all other species thanks to their adaptability, flexibility, and versatility. They can live almost anywhere, eat almost anything, change their breeding habits & social norms to fit the harshest of settings.

Coyote: Gorgeous, Spectral Presence

Literary Source

Coyote

Roxana Robinson

Coyotes are extraordinarily adaptable, which is what makes them so successful as a species: they can live pretty much anywhere, and on anything. In central Los Angeles, my sister-in-law can't let her cats out at night.

Coyotes would rather hunt small prey, but they'll kill fawns, or old animals, weakened or injured ones. They're usually solitary, but if necessary they hunt as a pack.

We haven't had coyotes here, or wolves, for a hundred years, and now, for better or worse-not that nature cares-we have them back, these gorgeous, spectral presences. I like to think of that coyote, trotting easily down the bare wood land slope in her new territory, confident, resourceful, astonishing. 

Roxana Robinson
Coyote
Mississippi Review, Vol. 33, No. 3, Location/Dislocation (Fall, 2005), pp. 189-196
Published by: University of Southern MississippiArticle Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20132544

Scientific Source

CITY SLICKERS: How to Be a Good Neighbor

Stewart, Doug

While these four-footed neighbors are bound to make some city dwellers nervous — coyotes are carnivorous, after all — Gehrt and other wildlife experts say there's no reason we should feel threatened. Most coyotes avoid contact with people so thoroughly that we're lucky if we see one at all; learning to be wary is part of a pup's upbringing. The key to coexisting is to not undo what coyotes have learned so well.

Most coyotes manage to operate unobserved, mainly due to their preference for the wee hours between midnight and dawn. They may visit your backyard regularly, but not while you're awake. Urbanites who do cross paths with coyotes can easily mistake them for unleashed dogs. With their large, upright ears and bushy tails, they look a bit like small German shepherds but with lighter frames and narrow, fox like muzzles. In the western United States, adults typically weigh between 20 and 30 pounds, though their heavy coats can make them appear larger. Eastern coyote average 10 pounds more; some reach 50 or 60 pounds. Their larger size may be due to crossbreeding with wolves sometime in the past.

A modern city might at first seem like marginal habitat for a coyote. Not so, says Paul Krausman, a University of Arizona wildlife biologist who is studying two groups of coyotes living in downtown Tucson. "Coyotes are one of the most adaptable species on the face of the Earth," he says. "In urban areas, they've got everything they need. There are no wolves or mountain lions, so they're at the top of the heap. People are throwing out garbage for them to eat, and they're watering their lawns, which attracts prey species. It's a perfect setup."

In dietary matters, coyotes are opportunists, which is one reason they're able to make themselves at home while surrounded by people, cars, buildings and asphalt. Strictly speaking, they're more omnivores than carnivores. Their diet consists of mammals like deer (fawns in spring, roadkill year-round), raccoons, rabbits, mice and, when the opportunity presents itself, cats and small dogs, but also birds, insects, berries and other fruit. An urban coyote's natural diet is often supplemented by anthropogenic food items like pet food and trash.

Stewart, Doug

CITY SLICKERS: How to Be a Good Neighbor

National Wildlife (World Edition), (2006). CITY SLICKERS. 44(6), 31-35

Printed Source

Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior

Edited by Marc Bekoff

For many tribes coyote is the most important of the Spirit People and Native Americans have sometimes called him "the Indian God." To be sure, he did not actually create the world, but he organized it in the way we know today; he ordained the way people should live. For many tribes it is coyote who brings fire to humankind, who gives them salmon and acorns, and who in fact invents death, not only for the ecological motive of preventing evolution, but also for a psychological motive- "so that people will be sorry for each other".

Observers of coyotes observe their round-the-clock activeness, which seems to include a strong element of playfulness. As one writer says, "Coyotes do have a sense of humor. How else would you explain, for instance, the well-known propensity of experienced coyotes to dig up traps, turn them over, and urinate or defecate on them?"

Among the most salient characteristics of the biological coyote is its opportunism and adaptability. Sheepmen and trappers are quoted as saying, "The coyote will be here long after we are all gone!" It is estimated that there are more coyotes within Los Angeles city limits than there were in aboriginal times; they thrive on garbage, and on people's perception of them as cute. As white people have populated the continent, the original range of Canis latrans, in the western United States, has expanded eastward; the animal is now found from Alaska to Central America, and from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

This aspect of the coyote turns up in Native American myths repeatedly; coyote "drowns", but immediately afterward he is seducing teenage girls. He "dies", but a few minutes later- like Wyle E. Coyote in the cartoons, he falls off the cliff or gets blown up with dynamite- Old Man Coyote is back, and he is planning the life of the world to come.

Edited by Marc Bekoff

Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior

Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut/London, 2004

Animals Myth and Lore: Animals of Native American Lore Pg. 23-26

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I have forever been fascinated by coyotes. I am fascinated by most creatures in the animal kingdom and suffer quite extensively from solastalgia. The literary source I chose, is a story about a woman who sees a coyote on her way somewhere. She feels an instant rapport and addresses the coyote as a female. She briefly touches on their solitary nature and their resourcefulness. For the scientific source, I chose an article about how coyotes live among us in the concrete jungles and most of us aren’t even aware. They can only do this by going about as inconspicuous as possible but are becoming ever more sinanthropes. For the printed source I wanted something that would shade coyotes as mythical creatures, as I’ve always thought of them.

I feel like human beings sometimes open themselves up too easily. I would like to focus on how coyotes have been able to adapt and thrive by hiding in plain sight. It was in Chicago I believe; that coyotes made a den among bushes in a preschool and were there for months without raising suspicion. I want to champion the introverts who howl their way into this world!

Personally, I Disagree

Unpacking a Quotation with the Help of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wall-Paper

“Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do? I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal- having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.” (648)


Early on in The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, I can sense how hard it is for the narrator to have to conform to societal norms. In the passage above, she tells us that she disagrees with the rest cure prescribed by her husband John and backed up by her brother, but she is unable to do anything about it. She is not free to make choices and opine about her person.

Even though we don’t really know what brought the family to the estate, we are led to believe that it has something to do with the narrator's state of mind. We can’t tell how long she has been ill, but this passage is written on the first day of their stay at the state and using the word “sly”, she has gotten sly about hiding her notebook from the other household members, instead of smart or clever tells us she has had to deal with opposition to her person for a while now and has become adept at hiding her objections.

In this passage, she asks herself “But what is one to do?” The question in itself sounds defeatist, but throughout the text she keeps protesting. As she speaks her mind her husband contradicts her at almost every turn. She wants a room change, a change in wallpaper, to be allowed to go out to walk the grounds, to write, to visit friends, to leave the house altogether. All of which is received with emotional threats, she is told to just get better for the sake of everyone in the household. Authoritative threats, she is told to just do what the men are asking or she will be sent with someone worse than her husband in the fall. And John’s patronization, he laughs about her for everything and calls her pet names.

The word “personally” also resonates a lot with me. She uses the word twice in a very bellicose and isolated manner, “personally, I disagree”, "personally, I believe”. She is fighting her current stance alone. We know that her brother agrees with her husband and neither her sister-in-law Jane nor the babysitter Mary ever do anything in her favor, they too follow the men’s demands without question. The implication of that particular word as viewed through a woman’s restricted patriarchal society of the 1800’s is enormous. The narrator, a woman, dares to have a questioning, non-conforming nature, she creates her own ideas.

The wallpaper itself seems to be echoing her life. As she gets to the house she just hates it. Its ugliness is incomparable- perhaps akin the actual state of her life. The pattern doesn’t make any sense- possibly mirroring the rules imposed on her. Its color is all types of depressing- which is what a life full of impositions would do on a person’s state of mind. Then, as she suffers all the patriarchal hostilities throughout the 90 days she is confined; the wallpaper changes. It starts becoming interesting and she imagines things going on behind it. As we examine her life it is easy to see why she starts visualizing; out of boredom at first as she has no other distractions. There is also the smell she starts sensing permeating her and everything around her. This is the point where we know she has lost it, after she detects the odor “the woman” comes out of the paper and starts going about outside. When she rips the paper off the wall her mind has finally had enough. As the paper is destroyed so goes her life. She destroys it and can’t be pull back into the repressing world she is letting go of.

I admire Charlotte Perkins Gilman, it is women like her who gifted me the liberty to have my own insight, freedom to question, freedom of autonomy. I don’t know if she was only protesting the resting cure or the machinations of a patriarchal society, but this story is an amazing legacy.