As someone interested in and impacted by the outdoors, hiking, human connection, harmful historical legacies, and ever-present white supremacy, I absolutely love and highly recommend Rahawa Haile’s article “Going It Alone”: Haile shares her experience through-hiking the Appalachian Trail as a queer black woman. Here are a few of my favorite lines: In trying to figure out why this piece so deeply speaks to me, I realize how much I crave stories of hiking ... Read more ...
#52essays2017
Disrupting the Mind-Body Split
This past week I dreamed that I was standing before a group of students, guest-lecturing in a colleague’s class. In the dream, I was slurring and stumbling over words—making little to no sense. The colleague asked if I was confused, and I realized that I had a concussion. Not from any physical injury, but from the semester. The semester had given me a concussion! I woke with a strong sense that the dream was symbolically true, metaphorically speaking to me. Because, ... Read more ...
Why I’m Vegan: Doing Something Small and Sustained
Being vegan, for me, is about imperfectly striving for justice. Rather than all-or-nothing thinking, it’s small-but-sustained action. It’s not a finished state, but about always being in the middle (and mess and muck) of it all. It’s constant, everyday, and enduring—something that keeps me focused daily on the long haul toward justice. Of the many reasons why I’m vegan, an important one is the ritual of doing something every day (actually many times ... Read more ...
Exploring Exhaustion and Energy Loss
I’ve been particularly exhausted, as is so often the case at the end of each school year. I often feel that the further I get into spring semester, the more I become tired, grumpy, and on edge. It’s as though my brain becomes over-worked, my body under-utilized, and my balance thrown totally off. This year I’ve also been experiencing exhaustion as more than regular semester stress, and I feel certain it’s due to the routinization of daily assaults on personhood. It’s ... Read more ...
Why I’m Vegan: Cookie Dough!
To start a series of posts on why I’m vegan—answering this question that I’m so frequently asked—I’ll begin with perhaps the silliest answer: cookie dough! Since I was little, I’ve loved cookie dough. I’ve also been cautioned not to eat it: “Beth, stop! You could get sick.” The risk of salmonella from uncooked eggs loomed in the air as I stole spoonfuls of raw dough. Though I never got sick, the fear certainly hampered my enjoyment. Since I’ve been vegan, however, I’ve ... Read more ...
Gratitude for/on Earth Day
Earth Day snuck up on me this year. Though I wasn’t thinking about this annual event, I was in the midst of writing blog posts about why I’m vegan, how hiking supports my commitment to justice, and why there’s cause to be alarmed with the world right now. All of these posts communicate the importance of environmental justice and connections between how we treat the earth and how we treat each other. In other words, environmental justice is also about racial justice, ... Read more ...
Wrestling with Whether to Wear Pantyhose
I’m attending a friend’s wedding this weekend, and I wish I could say that I’m experiencing the joy, gratitude, and love associated with celebration. Instead, I’ve been experiencing worry, shame, anger, and grief—so many unresolved emotions and resurfacing memories associated with the trauma of sexism. I’m wrestling with a very real and raw question: Do I wear pantyhose to my friend’s wedding? I’m wrestling with the pit in my stomach that relates not just to ... Read more ...
Answering the Call for Artistic Activism: Yes, I’m an Artist!
“Do you consider yourself a writer?” I’ve been teaching for almost two decades, and throughout this time, I’ve routinely asked this question on the first and last days of the semester (and often in-between). I’ve found my own strong YES to the question, asserting: “I don’t just study writing. I write. I am a writer.” And I hope that students, colleagues, friends, and family will similarly see themselves as writers, as people who write (who do the embodied act of ... Read more ...
Potato & Kale Casserole (vegan + gluten-free): Finding Comfort in the Growth Zone
These days I’m experiencing a lot of stress, finding myself quick to cry, and noticing both tightness in my chest and shallowness of my breath. Undoubtedly, this stress is both personal and political, particular to me and shared in our collective. Conversations throughout the day address concerns about the Muslim ban and travel restrictions, ongoing deportations and abuses of power, challenges to health care, an unwillingness to look for missing black and brown girls, ... Read more ...
Refueling with Feminists of Color
My last post shared blogs I love—blogs by feminists and womanists of color. I was motivated to write this post while working on a related one for the YWCA Southeast Wisconsin: "Refueling with Feminists of Color” shares books, blogs, and events to refuel the activist fire or to get fired up. Especially at this time of ever-increasing violence (symbolic, cultural, structural, and direct violence), I seek ways to keep commitments alight, to keep visions burning ... Read more ...
