anti:freeze

I have been so absorbed in work, I did not even realize it was August. You see, last Friday I was hired to teach a class at the Art Institute of Portland. I have exactly eighteen days to prepare for an intensive, accelerated course in visual literacy, writing, critical thinking, and cultural context/perspectives. As of last night, I had a complete syllabus, a selection of images and exercises for the first day, a grading rubric for the formal papers, and two documentaries to show to the class. Whew!

As you can imagine, I am completely obsessed with the class and find it hard to do anything else. But I promise to come back here and post later today. I will post on my other sites as well.

When I dream about Grandma Ashline, I dream about her house in Froelich, Iowa. But she is never there. In every dream, she has already died from her eight brain tumors. We have already listened to her scream through the night, demanding we leave the windows open. Sealed windows trap dead souls. How we must keep the cellar door unlocked, so she can hide from death when it comes.

Lately, I keep having the same dream:

I wake up on the sofa bed in Grandma's living room, my hips sore from the metal slats, my neck twisted. My cousins and sister sleep next to me, sheets kicked down to their ankles. We kids always get stuck in the same bed.

Why are we here? Grandma died months ago. Every last trinket and antique was auctioned off to pay her medical bills.

I crawl out of bed to find a better place to sleep, and suddenly, my sister rolls over and wakes up.

"What are you doing?" She says.

"Finding a better place to sleep. Come on."

We tip-toe through the kitchen and stop to check the weather owl figurine. It changes color depending on the weather. Pink for sun, blue for rain.

Blue.

When we arrive at the door to Grandma's bedroom, we stop and look at each other. "Shhhh," we both say.

The door creaks as we open it, and as we step over the threshold, we realize the floor has rotted away. It is all dirt. And then we notice the cats - hundreds of them, squirming and crawling in furry piles. The cats hiss and scratch as they fight over scraps of meat. They knead their paws into the dirt and meow.

We run across the floor and hide in Grandma's private bathroom, which we know is a secret bathroom, and we should not be in there.

"Did they forget to bury her?" I ask. And I feel my cheeks flush with rage.

And then I wake up.

Grandma never had a private bathroom. So I have to wonder: What is this secret room? What does it mean?

When I was a kid, I hated shoes. I spent most of the summer barefoot, except when I practiced tough tricks on my bike. (A BMX wanna-bee needed shoes to dig into the bike pedals.) But when I ran through our backyard or played basketball on our blacktop driveway, I preferred blisters and callouses to the trapped, tight feeling of laces across my forefoot. I wanted to wiggle the toes and feel my joints grip and move.

Sometimes, I even enjoyed the burn of hot pavement against skin. (But of course, when the Iowa sunshine burned too hot - often above 100 degrees - I resorted to flip-flops, at the very least.)

This summer, when I fractured bones and sprained ligaments in my left foot, I could not fit the swollen tissues and toes into a shoe, though I desperately wanted to leave the house.

It got me thinking about feet, and how they seem so different in the city. Even those of us who walk everywhere - work, groceries, classes, social events - feel alienated from our feet most of the time. We shield them with cushioning and steel toes, thick soles and waterproof leather. But we rarely let them grip the concrete. Do you even remember the wonderful sensation of your toes gripping rough surfaces as you walk?

After spending several weeks with my injured foot wrapped, iced, Epsom-salt-bathed, elevated, massaged, and gently stretched, I am thrilled to watch it come back to life. The toes touch the floor again (after weeks of sticking up at bizarre angles, from the swelling) and can grip the carpet. Gently. Barely. The alternate numbness and tingling has ceased, and I can feel the balls of my feet again.

For now, I wear a stiff medical shoe that prevents bending, so the sprains can fully heal. I hobble and limp, with most of my weight supported by the right leg. Even still, the very act of walking feels sensational. I missed it. My imagination missed it.

The medical shoe looks ridiculous, with its white sole and open toe, its velcro straps and blue cloth design, but it makes it possible to walk. For the first time in 5 weeks, I am able to explore the downtown and visit cafes.

Happiness may not be a new pair of shoes, as the Johnny Sole sign proclaims, but this week, it feels like something close.

Today is the first day of the class I'm teaching at the Art Institute. It's a 5 1/2 week accelerated course that starts mid-quarter. The students are in for a wild ride - essays, experiments, group presentations, intense readings, and field trips. It should be challenging, but also fun.

Needless to say, I barely slept last night. I will come back here to post when class is out. Wish me luck!

Yesterday, I sent my class out into the city with digital cameras to snap pictures of symbols & icons. When they came back to class, we downloaded the pictures onto a laptop and projected them on a screen for discussion. The students surpassed all my expectations. Not only did they find complex, interesting symbols, but they were eager & willing to discuss them in many different contexts. Overall, it was a great first day of class. (Though I admit, I was nervous and perhaps moved a tad too fast because of that.)

Their assignment for the weekend is to select a magazine cover and analyze it in terms of personal reaction, cultural symbols, signs, context, etc. So I figured I should complete something similar. I chose the most recent issue of Bitch, which is not something I normally read. This cover, however, caught my attention:

First of all, my personal response: I love this cover. I actually giggled when I first saw it. Almost any American woman can tell you that jeans are the "new bra." They are tight, restrictive, overly expensive, and with their ever-intense focus on body shape, cut, wash, and style, they have transformed into a symbol of our body-obsessed culture. Burning a pair of jeans has the same liberatory vibe as torching a bra. Although, I should admit, I never torched a bra. Never saw the need. Heck, if I wanna go braless, I just do it. Jeans, on the other hand, I cannot imagine dressing without. I love my jeans. But ever since the whole "7 for all Mankind" phenonemon forced denim designers to switch to premium fabric, tailored cuts, and fancy pockets, throwing on a pair of jeans feels a bit too much like a beauty pageant. Points for cut. Points for pocket. Points for flare or boot-cut or stretch. It is enough to make you want to ... burn them.

Which is not to say that I don't like all those designer jeans. I love them. But as the song goes: I hate myself for loving ...

Composition: It's interesting to me how centered the jeans are in this image. They hang from the clothesline in what appears to be the horizontal dead-center. The waist is a little lower than center on the vertical axis, but the flames fan upward enough to make up for it.

Placing the jeans dead-center makes it impossible not to focus on them. It also hints at something beyond what is visible. Bitch magazine seems to be telling us: Torching your jeans is a centered (or centering) thing to do.

I notice the text at the top shares the same orange shade as the flames: 96 pages of gossip, tell-alls, and sex. Because of this, I cannot help but relate the text to the flames, and I wonder if the gossip & hoaxes are made (metaphorically) from the ashes of burnt denim. Like maybe this gossip is not the same as, say, Cosmo gossip.

The flames shoot up into the same space as the chimney, which is a nice touch - literally and metaphorically. You could see that chimney as a chimney, or you could see it as a phallus. In which case, the burning jeans are outdoing the chimney. Ahem. But I only said that because Freud figures into the readings for my students this week. Not because I normally see phalluses all over the place.

Intended Audience: Well, feminists. The magazine tagline says "feminist response to pop culture," making it quite clear who this is for. But who is a feminist? That cuts across a lot of lines. I know men who consider themselves feminists. I know women who don't. So I do not want to assume who the "ideal" reader is for this publication. I can guess, however, that the magazine does not cater to the squeamish. I mean, it's called Bitch. And then there are the flaming jeans.

But the cursive, almost sweet font for "feminist response to pop culture" suggests that many kinds of feminists are welcome. And the lower case letter in "bitch" hints that the name is tongue-in-cheek. It is a name, but not a proper name. It is, of course, also a verb. This all suggests that the magazine is not meant for "bitches," but rather, for those who are unafraid of the label - those who can approach it with all those meanings and understandings intact.

Oh - and should I also point out how the flames seem strongest at the crotch area of the jeans? As in a burning bush? As in crotch on fire? As in attitude.

Since I count myself as a feminist, I have to wonder: Does this cover represent me well? The burning jeans most definitely do, as does the overall attitude. I am not a big fan of the title, however. Not because I shrink from the word bitch, but because I take a much different approach to political discussion. Although, I suspect this has something to do with the large font, too. Maybe if it were smaller? I am not sure. I need to think more about this one.

Has it really been a week?

My life has changed so radically in these past seven days that I can hardly find the energy to write. I went from complete anonymity & solitude to constant, kinetic contact with students, faculty, department heads, etc.

I miss the quiet, and I especially miss writing.

What I am dealing with now - and what I did not quite expect - is how my students occupy almost every thought. I worry about them, wonder about them, hope their assignments make sense, wonder if class bored them to tears, hope their financial aid came through. I expected to worry. I just never expected the students to march into my subconcious the way they have, pitching little tents and demanding all my time.

Slowly, I am coming back to my work, and I will post here on a much more regular basis.

When I was a kid, my family drove down to Louisiana to visit my Uncle Dorr. He lived in a trailer in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by swamps and literally steaming in humidity.

Uncle Dorr used to wrap his arm around my hips as I walked past, pulling me close. "You see that?" He would say, pointing at the swamp. "Another submarine. They made it up this far."

Then he would let me go and rub his fingers - so grimy you could see every wrinkle and crack - down his chin. "Goddamned Nazi submarines. "

He believed Nazi submarines hid out in the Gulf of Mexico, watching. Germans waiting for the right moment to charge the shore.

It was 1984.

___

I fell in love with New Orleans, so different from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Here was a place without time, without tomorrow, without yesterday. Everything was of the moment. In New Orleans, I realized cities had souls.

And the soul of New Orleans was pure fatalism. It was not defiance. Not denial. Not resignation. But a joyous, boisterous, salacious, sexy embrace of death & damnation.

Which also made it intensely spiritual.

In New Orleans, people used to joke that Lake Pontchartrain would become Lake New Orleans if a big enough hurricane ever hit.

Fatalism. The Big Easy. I wanted to be like that.

___

Fast forward to 1989. I met a Dead Head who told me you could literally reinvent your life in San Francisco. That you could start anew and nobody would know or mind. That you could fall off the map there, too. Not even the government could find you.

The idea of going missing out west, of starting anew, sounded magical. I wanted it. I wanted to step onto a bus with the name Karrie, and step off with something else entirely.

And then I saw the live coverage of the World Series quake. I saw bridges collapsed, cars smashed in between upper and lower ramps. And I immediately crossed San Francisco off my list.

Total devastation wasn't worth it. I wanted redemption with my reinvention, the chance to live the new life I would create.

___

2000. My husband and I need to move out of Iowa, but where? At first, we settle on New Orleans. If we can make it in the Big Easy, we can make it anywhere. We revel in the idea of southern heat and humidity.

But then I remember Lake Pontchartrain and the levee. How the city sits below sea level. How a hurricane could slam right into it. Drowning has always been one of my worst fears. I picture the city streets raging with dirty rapids, dead bodies flushing through the streets, the water a toxic gumbo.

We decide on Portland, Oregon. In that city, we have heard you can start anew, too. But with the chance to live out that new life. No earthquakes. No hurricanes. No Lake Pontchartrain breaking the levees.

We pack up our belongings and head west. We feel brave, heading into a strange city. No jobs. No connections. Just an apartment, and lots of hope.

___

Our first day in Portland, we learn our apartment tower sits directly atop a fault. And the fault is alive.

Few of the buildings here were ever retrofitted, and nobody seems to accept the possibility of devastation. Total destruction.

I tell a friend we are headed for utter devastation, and he laughs. "It is not like California," he says.

That is what everybody says.

But that is precisely the problem: Portland is not like Los Angeles or San Francisco. It is not a city of fatalists, accepting the possibility it could be wiped off the map. Fatalists at least spot the acopalypse on the horizon - even if they do stick around for the show. And they prepare. Los Angeles & San Francisco build to withstand temblors.

Portland is not like that. Portland is a city in denial. Denial sometimes seems like fatalism, as people shrug off disaster and seem to live without a care. But denial is different. It is not about the now; it is about the tomorrow. It is about wanting tomorrow so bad you cannot accept the possibility it might never come. It is the precise opposite of fatalism.

We are overdue for a 9.0 earthquake in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, and when it comes, Portland will literally shatter - masonry suddenly fragile as glass.

Most people here do not even believe the 9.0 could ever come. Or that it would harm us if it did. Seattle will bear the brunt, they say. Not us. I have been teased and laughed at for obsessing about the faults, for writing doomsday essays and preparing for the worst.

And this strikes me as the essential characteristic of Portland:

Portland is the city where everything is planned. Everything. And not just the urban renewal. But every party, every lunch, every event. One thing that drives me nuts about the place is its utter lack of spontaneity. It is not of the moment; it is of the plan.

And yet, it fails to prepare for the Big One because it denies it can ever happen. Destruction at that scale makes no sense in this rational, planned city. Portland cannot accept the irrational on any scale. Just look at the tight, perfect downtown grid. That says it all.

___

2005. I watch the coverage of Hurricane Katrina, and I can't hold back tears. If New Orleans is lost, then something essential to America's character is lost, too. A dark little corner of its subconscious.

Even if the city rebuilds, I wonder if its soul will ever be the same. Update: I am not the only one.

Someday, I had always hoped to overcome my doomsday fears and live in the Big Easy. To embrace that fatalism and smile at the apocalypse on the horizon, even as I prepared for the worst. To live in no time at all.

If a city disappears, does its soul disappear, too? Or does it haunt the landscape like a ghost?