“There is no love of life without despair of life”—Albert Camus It's been two weeks since Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old nonbinary teenager, died after a hateful attack at their Oklahoma school. I keep trying to write this newsletter—ostensibly about joy and creativity and queerness and books—and I can’t seem to.
I share your admiration for Rebecca Solnit. The world is heavy right now, and we all need to find hope in the darkness. Thank you for continuing to shine a light with your words.
Thanks for this newsletter, Anna. So wide-reaching, some enticing essays to read and important issues to internalise. Nex’s story and the broader attacks on LGBTQI rights is heartbreaking and an essential reminder of the fights for justice that continue.
Thanks for writing about Nex, not joyful but still illuminating 💗 Starting to be read as a ‘straight couple’ has been really weird for me since I’ve been in only queer relationships for 13 years but it I’m noticing the safety of it although it’s always conditional bc of transphobia.
"It’s one of the reasons I present the way that I do.... They’re weapons, shields. Masks worn so as to not draw attention to myself. I pass. I’m ignored."
But wait... doesn't everyone do that?
Wear masks, that is?
Are we not different people with our parents than we are with our friends than we are with our brothers, our sisters, the loves of our lives, and the nice lady who checks out our groceries? Are we not different people now than we were 10 years ago...20...30...40 years ago? Are we not different people when we're alone? Shouldn't we be? Don't we, in fact, prefer this kind of self-allocation process that allows such freedom to be different?
And what the heck is our 'authentic self', anyway? Does such a thing even exist? How do we know it...and how do we know it's truly US? Is it static, unchanging? Are we so sure of it that we'd tattoo that self front & center on our faces, knowable to every individual we'll ever encounter? Why would we do that?
Why on earth should we believe our public society: the place our public selves do their public thing (walk, talk, buy oatmeal, get coffee, hail ubers, meet friends, play games, shoot baskets, listen to Future Islands) should / must not only allow but welcome & embrace our authentic selves (assuming we ever figure out what that is) .... even if that authentic self is a real pain-in-the-butt conglomeration of obnoxosities?
Why would I ever expect that you embrace me -- the fullest, most private pieces of me (you don't even know me!)? And why would I ever want to embrace your own idiosyncratic collection of things that I personally don't care for?
That's why public life is separate and distinct from the lives we live in private.
So, in lieu of the thoroughly impossible, undoable, and eminently unlikable.... we wear our public masks. We smile. We cross when the light is green. We hold doors open for the Other. We don't pee in the middle of the conference room. We don't chew with our mouths open. If I'm thirsty I don't take your ice-cold Orange Crush (even though it looks like a right-this-moment thirst quencher). There are a million things our public self quite deliberately chooses to do or not do in order to "pass", as the author says, "to be ignored".
Why would we ever do it any other way?
And why would we ever think that our individualistic appetites, desires, and hungers actually merit an audience to validate them. Why would I care what you want to do, as long as you're not requiring me to share your secret handshakes? I don't. Nobody does, actually.
And so we learn how to behave in public (just like Mom told us to)...and we hope that everyone else did too. Don't you?
Hi -- this is a question asked out of ignorance, but I'm hoping to learn! You're your mother's daughter, so since you are to some extent Native and Mexican through her, why then are you also a gringa? If the term can be used for anybody with white ancestry, ok, but why use it when you are keeping and transmitting part of a legacy that isn't that? Thanks!
I share your admiration for Rebecca Solnit. The world is heavy right now, and we all need to find hope in the darkness. Thank you for continuing to shine a light with your words.
Thanks for this newsletter, Anna. So wide-reaching, some enticing essays to read and important issues to internalise. Nex’s story and the broader attacks on LGBTQI rights is heartbreaking and an essential reminder of the fights for justice that continue.
Thanks for writing about Nex, not joyful but still illuminating 💗 Starting to be read as a ‘straight couple’ has been really weird for me since I’ve been in only queer relationships for 13 years but it I’m noticing the safety of it although it’s always conditional bc of transphobia.
So true. Beautifully authentic and horrifyingly real. ❤️🏳️🌈💯
A fascinating question really.
"It’s one of the reasons I present the way that I do.... They’re weapons, shields. Masks worn so as to not draw attention to myself. I pass. I’m ignored."
But wait... doesn't everyone do that?
Wear masks, that is?
Are we not different people with our parents than we are with our friends than we are with our brothers, our sisters, the loves of our lives, and the nice lady who checks out our groceries? Are we not different people now than we were 10 years ago...20...30...40 years ago? Are we not different people when we're alone? Shouldn't we be? Don't we, in fact, prefer this kind of self-allocation process that allows such freedom to be different?
And what the heck is our 'authentic self', anyway? Does such a thing even exist? How do we know it...and how do we know it's truly US? Is it static, unchanging? Are we so sure of it that we'd tattoo that self front & center on our faces, knowable to every individual we'll ever encounter? Why would we do that?
Why on earth should we believe our public society: the place our public selves do their public thing (walk, talk, buy oatmeal, get coffee, hail ubers, meet friends, play games, shoot baskets, listen to Future Islands) should / must not only allow but welcome & embrace our authentic selves (assuming we ever figure out what that is) .... even if that authentic self is a real pain-in-the-butt conglomeration of obnoxosities?
Why would I ever expect that you embrace me -- the fullest, most private pieces of me (you don't even know me!)? And why would I ever want to embrace your own idiosyncratic collection of things that I personally don't care for?
That's why public life is separate and distinct from the lives we live in private.
So, in lieu of the thoroughly impossible, undoable, and eminently unlikable.... we wear our public masks. We smile. We cross when the light is green. We hold doors open for the Other. We don't pee in the middle of the conference room. We don't chew with our mouths open. If I'm thirsty I don't take your ice-cold Orange Crush (even though it looks like a right-this-moment thirst quencher). There are a million things our public self quite deliberately chooses to do or not do in order to "pass", as the author says, "to be ignored".
Why would we ever do it any other way?
And why would we ever think that our individualistic appetites, desires, and hungers actually merit an audience to validate them. Why would I care what you want to do, as long as you're not requiring me to share your secret handshakes? I don't. Nobody does, actually.
And so we learn how to behave in public (just like Mom told us to)...and we hope that everyone else did too. Don't you?
Thank you for the tag lovely!
Thanks! This article was actually written by @claire tak, though. https://clairetak.substack.com/?utm_source=byline&utm_content=writes
Hi -- this is a question asked out of ignorance, but I'm hoping to learn! You're your mother's daughter, so since you are to some extent Native and Mexican through her, why then are you also a gringa? If the term can be used for anybody with white ancestry, ok, but why use it when you are keeping and transmitting part of a legacy that isn't that? Thanks!