Author: celineb10

“I let her be absent, though sometimes the illness was imaginary. How different from my now-strictness about attendance with the others. I wasn’t working. We had a new baby, I was home anyhow. Sometimes, after Susan grew old enough, I would keep her home from school, too, to have them all together.”

As I read these lines, I can’t help but to recognize the similarity in parenting methods that my own mom shares with the narrator. As the youngest of three daughters, I can remember my mom being so adamant about me attending school. I can nearly hear her now parading in the hallway saying, “You have perfect attendance, you can’t miss school”, although all I wanted to do at the time was miss one little day of school because I felt slightly ill. From a very early age I had an acute understanding that in some way I was an opportunity for my mom to “get it right”. I knew this, or felt this rather, because my mom was more relaxed about my sisters missing school than she was with me. I adored school as a child, and deep in my mind I knew that it was important that I did well because mom was counting on me to do well. I was, to some extent, the Susan of my family. 

The narrator attempts to make up for lost time by letting all of her children to stay home from school, and, despite these attempts, lost time remains lost time. The metaphor of the iron that Olsen sets the reader up with is representative of this painful surrender. The narrator who stands ironing is ironing as an attempt to settle the qualms that she’s collected over the years. All of the losses, missed opportunities, and quality time that fell through her hands because she was busy working to try and provide for her children. She is trying to flatten out these compounding imperfections that are permanent and unchangeable not just within Emily but within her own position as a mother.

Though the story is presumably about the seeming neglect of Emily. It can also be argued that the narrator is speaking of herself. That she was denied the care and attention that she deserved from herself and that this greatly impacted her self-esteem. It seems no coincidence at the time that the narrator is writing this, Emily is the same age that she was when she gave birth to Emily. It brings to question why there isn’t more support for first-time mothers, especially young mothers. The story also affirms that mothers are so much more pressured than fathers to be present in their child’s lives especially emotionally. The narrator carries such a heavy burden while trying her best to do what she feels is right. This is the hardest to accept.

This story nearly comes full circle while also leaving so many questions left to be answered. It begins with the narrator and her husband Franklin planning their death, deliberating whether to leave a note or not. It ends with the narrator professing that should she die, she’d want for Franklin to read the note that she left behind. From this we can tell that even though years have passed from the flashback that the narrator presents us with, her mind is still unchanged about leaving a note behind for others to read just as Franklin’s mind is unchanged about leaving the note alone, unwilling to write one, fine without reading one from his late wife. Without saying exactly what “it” is that is characteristic of their relationship, the narrator says that, “It went back through [their] whole life together”, “it” potentially meaning their differences in their attitude towards life.

Franklin comes off as more of the calm, cool, and collected kind of guy while the narrator seems to be taken off into the air with her thoughts, allowing them to consume her and influence her decisions, even going so far as to leave town on suspicions that Franklin is cheating with Dolly, his blast from the past. 

After all this time that they’ve been together the narrator seems to hold some distrust towards Franklin. She knows his likes and dislikes, his patterns and behaviors. She knows intricate details about him and yet there is much that she doesn’t know about him: his past. The narrator was likely a young teen when Franklin was at war, engaging in moments of fleeting desire and passion that eventually gave rise to the poem that he is most known for. The narrator even makes it a point to say that she only felt younger than Franklin when he spoke of the war. There is this immense curiosity that the narrator holds in association to Franklin that she doesn’t truly recognize until Dolly comes in (as a stranger to her) in an unexpected visit to sell her makeup. This curiosity turns to jealousy when she finds that Dolly was Franklin’s former lover. 

The final lines of this story go to affirm that the narrator would go against Franklin’s wishes to satisfy her own curiosities and that she knows deeply, that Franklin would respect any boundaries she set, even if it was a final farewell. Franklin’s rejection of the narrrator’s idea to leave a suicide note behind also affirms this notion that he has of I am mature enough to die and in my eyes, you are not. Even in their old age together, just twelve years apart in age, this rift in age is as much a problem for the narrator as it is for Franklin. It keeps them from seeing eye to eye. They lived through very different times, and as the narrator writes, their difference in outlook on life “went back through their whole life together”, and impacted their relationship as a result. 

Being an online student these past few weeks has been undeniably challenging. I have greatly missed interacting with everyone in person, but seeing everyone on screen was really delightful. I couldn’t help but giggle. Perhaps they were giggles bubbling up from feeling awkward after seeing myself, a digital image on my screen attending class. Surely they came from seeing some of my classmates giggling too. I greatly enjoyed seeing the seniors join our Zoom meeting too and was curious to know how they felt about participating in an online meeting. I would have really liked to hear more about how they’re doing, or any words they wanted to share in general. Even in an online meeting though, I could feel a sparkling energy exuberating between all of us as we gathered virtually to discuss “The Balm Yard” by Patricia Powell. To my surprise, Patricia is a professor at Mills! I only wish I had gotten acquainted with her sooner, because I very much enjoyed the chapter that she shared with us and I bet I would have really fancied taking a class of hers. 

I was particularly drawn in by the characters of this story, as well as their history and future. I really appreciated the attention to detail that Patricia brought to this chapter regarding spirituality and all of the many ways in which it manifests for everyone, even Dorothea who wanted no part in it whatsoever. As someone mentioned in the discussion, I was struck by how Dorothea’s reactions and defiance against her mother rendered like that of a teenager going against the advice or guidance of a parent. I wonder if this is because Dorothea left home many decades prior and is in some way unpausing the relationship that she had been establishing with her mother. 

Additionally, I love the messages woven through this piece including the very true sentiment that it is never too late to learn about and get spiritually in touch with yourself. Another message being that as much as we try to run away from our roots and the core of who we are, it is always with us in one way or another. It brings to mind this quote that I learned in meditation which I have recently been ruminating on which says, “Wherever you go, there you are”. I am greatly interested in reading the remainder of the story to continue along with Patricia’s beautiful creation. 

Even though I sometimes feel strange being in these online settings, I am truly looking forward to our next, and sadly final meeting with the seniors. This class has opened my eyes in more ways than one and I hope that I will be able to express my gratitude in my final project. 

Even though this was not our first time visiting the seniors, I was still quite nervous and even more excited. For this visit to the Downtown Oakland Senior Center, I had the pleasure of talking with Kitty. Since it was only one senior to three of us Mills students, I was worried that we were going to overwhelm Kitty, but she was very open to sharing her experiences in a joking yet earnest manner that I really admired. Over the course of the conversation, I felt a strengthening connection to Kitty through laughter which made me feel comfortable. 

In thinking about how the “dark flood” rises in our lives, Kitty shared her perspective on how she regards death: “a wall which you should not look beyond”. Since our visit, I have been thinking of this phrase often. I had never heard or thought of death in these words. We should not look beyond the wall, because we cannot look beyond the wall, and whatever is beyond it was not intended for us to know. Kitty stressed how important it is to live in the now, because people too often spend their whole lives planning for a future that they do not yet know. I agree with this sentiment and yet, I cannot stop myself from preparing for what will happen next, and I don’t know anyone who can. Perhaps Fran was living in denial, Kitty suggested; we can live in denial, or make ourselves busy with taking care of others, and still we must make sure we make ourselves a priority. This is one of the larger takeaways from the conversation that I had. So often I think about having to take care of my parents, and my parents having to take care of their parents and me, but Kitty shared with us what she asked her daughter: “who will take care of you”? 

The topic of technology came up again in our conversation as we discussed how facilitative it can be in our everyday lives, and how it can make all the difference for someone, who say, doesn’t have any family or friends to care for them. As I shared a story of an incident in which my parents got scammed online, and as I recalled the time that I myself got scammed over the phone, I realized that incidents like these unfortunately happen everyday to even the most cautious people. Living in fear of the things that we don’t know can hold us back in some ways, and Kitty mentioned that she wrote a poem that she thinks about from time to time about fear as a tool, instead of as a hindrance. 

I am so grateful for this time that we share with the seniors. I only hope that I can provide half as many gems of perspective as I am gaining from these women. 

Initially, I was quite nervous coming into the senior center. I did not know what to expect. Would the conversation flow? Would I be awkward and not know what to say or respond? As I sat down at the table I was instantly comforted by the simple fact that we were in a spacious room all sitting at tables together. It reminded me of being seven years old playing bunco with my grandma and her friends, four of us to a table rolling dice. Except this time I was twenty-one and the dice were printed copies of “My Man Bovanne”.

As we each went around the table sharing our word associations from the beginning exercise, it seemed as though we couldn’t get through one person’s entire list of words without the conversation twirling off into new associations, which I particularly enjoyed. Thoughts about how young people nowadays “have no manners” turned into advice of how crucial it was in life to forgive and how the wonderful comedic relief could be. I was but a sponge, soaking in the volleying of associations and thoughts. This remained common in our conversations so that the bulk of our conversations about the readings was about life as they experienced it, and how the times have dramatically changed. One theme that each of the women resonated with was one of community. Loa, Maria, and Peg, each personally described how when they were younger, community and support looked vastly different from what it looks like now. Where support was once local and familial, it can now look like ordering online, or joining a group in which volunteers come to your home to help you. A collective fear that was expressed was one of how quickly technology is advancing, and how it has and will continue to create barriers although it is often intended to make things easier. None of the elder women at my table had children so it was interesting to hear from them how they are navigating technology on their own by signing up for a technology class at the senior center for example.

We talked of things of the past, and of things of the future, while ruminating together in the present. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to meet with such an open and candid bunch. I don’t take for granted this chance to sit in a room with women who have such a wide range of experiences and who are willing to share their perspective with us. Loa, Maria, and Peg were so engaged in the conversation and eager to reflect on their own experiences which I was delighted to be present for and also engage in. I wondered if anyone had ever asked them explicitly about their experience of growing older, and if this was the first time that they were having a dialogue with young adults about it, I was honored to be there for it. As Loa enthusiastically put it, “I can’t wait to do this again”!