Rough Drafts: Recent Episodes
Madison T. Clark
Sitting down to write this newsletter has been tough, y’all. There are so many stressors up in the air right now - for me and for the world - and that has not proved particularly conducive to writing a reflective or summative newsletter on my preferred weekly timeline.
But recently, my school at Queen’s sent out a call for international students to take part in their ‘Reflections on the US Election’ blog post series. Unsurprisingly, I had things to say. So while this might be a version of ‘recycled’ material, I am 1. Here for the environmental consciousness of that and 2. Also including an audio recording of the mini-essay, so I do hope you enjoy. If you’d like to read this on my university’s blog, you can also find that here. And as always: critiques, comments, and ideas are welcome.
I was born and raised in a state where being ‘nice’ is upheld as the golden standard. All too often, however, this ‘nice’ approach boils down to public smiles coupled with behind-the-scenes racism, misogyny, homophobia, and xenophobia. Microaggressions rule the day in my home state. Attempts to have important, difficult conversations tend to result in silence from oppressors and/or wild gesticulations at their personal church attendance records and what that surely signifies about their character. All of this was true when I was born, and all of this continues to be true today.
None of the structural issues in the United States begin or end with Donald Trump’s single term in office. Did he behave in ways that explicitly and implicitly empowered racists, white nationalists, misogynists, Islamophobes, and other such groups? Yes. Did he appoint morally reprehensible and/or wholly unqualified people, resulting in increased violence against millions of already-marginalized communities? Yes. Concurrently, the truth of the matter is that the United States has never worked through any reconciliation process. Agreeing to a shared history is an early step in nearly all conflict resolution and transformation efforts. Across the board, Americans can’t even agree on basic historical facts about the oppression and violence that our entire country is built upon and continues to perpetuate.
For better or worse, I’m a product of the U.S. public education system. Rather than learn about the Indigenous genocides that led to the presence of our original colonizers, we learned cutesy rhymes revolving around the names of Columbus’ ships. Rather than learn the true devastations of slavery or the ways in which it and white supremacy continue to impact our everyday lives, we learned how terrible the South was, how wonderful the North was, and how the conditions of slavery weren’t particularly ideal. In the American public education system, we learn the ‘nice’ version of our country’s history, rather than the truth of it.
To this day, such ‘niceness’ is predominantly perpetuated and upheld by white people across the country; these are the same people who elect to apply their colonizer mindsets to all people. This, paired with white fragility, is what created the ‘angry and loud Black woman’ trope, which continues to be used in order to invalidate and ignore what Black women have to say; it is why ‘speak English’ is an incredibly common refrain from U.S. nationalists, even as they simultaneously pride themselves on tired ‘melting pot’ imagery; it is why ‘sexy Indian costumes’ are popular each Halloween, yet the subject of missing and murdered Indigenous women is rarely brought up in public discourse.
The ‘niceness’ that a childhood in Missouri tried to teach me is the same ‘niceness’ that so much of our country revolves around. So it’s no wonder the pollsters have struggled to produce any sort of accurate numbers in the last two elections. It was not necessarily ‘nice’ to admit to a stranger that you’d be voting for Trump, but it was simultaneously seen as ‘the American thing to do.’ The irony of this dichotomy is not lost on me.
When the results from Pennsylvania came through, officially pushing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris past that 270 mark (don’t get me started on the racist and classist disaster that is the Electoral College), I let out a sigh that I didn’t know I’d been holding for the past four years. While I absolutely wish Biden and Harris were the progressives that far-right media has painted them to be, I know that is not the case. But I believe in our organizers, in our local politicians, in our everyday community builders, in our conflict mediators, in every person who prides themselves not on being seen as ‘nice’ but on building a more just and equitable future for all people. I believe that we can and must hold Biden, Harris, and their entire administration accountable, demand meaningful systemic change, and shift our nation closer to one that actually provides liberty and justice for all for the first time in its history.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madisontclark.substack.com
For the last few years, I’ve been obsessed with sending and receiving voicenotes in lieu of text messages. With that in mind, the above ‘podcast’ contains the audio of me reading the below newsletter aloud, wee bits of background noise included.
I love looking for jobs. I love the excitement of finding an open post where I think I would fit and be able to make a difference I believe in. I also love interviews. It’s the chance to chat away about one subject I’m particularly confident in talking about: myself. Similarly, I love building a spreadsheet to track this information.
The title of my current job-related spreadsheet? ‘Post-MA Job Hunt’
However, there’s job hunting pre-Covid (as outlined above) and then there’s job hunting right now. My current job hunt is not the most delightful experience I’ve ever had. For the first time ever, my criteria are specific in terms of location and type of work. My current visa keeps me in Belfast until late March 2021, and very few other countries are willing to accept a United States passport at this time. Additionally, my grumpy lungs/heart keep me firmly in the category of ‘seeking remote work.’
I thrive in grassroots-level community roles. When I entered my Master’s program, I quickly began to lay the groundwork for wrapping up the year with a job in a community centre or local arts program or community education outreach group. Each of these roles, the types of roles I prefer (and am quite good at, if I do say so myself), are rooted in generalist capabilities: one day is education-centric, the next is media-centric, the next is wiping down surfaces in between art events-centric, and the next is collaborating with another local organization for a community event-centric. But, you know, Covid.
And while yes, this is challenging, and yes, this is not at all how I imagined my Master’s program would pan out when I very first decided I would eventually move to Belfast and pursue this degree (way back in 2013), it is what I have now. And what I have now is still one hell of a privileged position.
This is the first time I’m facing the struggle of having your home country’s passport be unwelcome in a majority of other places. Completely disregarding Covid-related thoughts of safety, this circumstance shrinks the world significantly. In terms of specificity apart from my job hunt, I have beautiful humans who I care for spread across so many countries, and am now unable to imagine the next time I’ll see them, specifically due to passport limitations.
My unenthusiastic feelings toward my likely return to the U.S. are just that: unenthusiastic. They are nothing like the daily dangers that Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color face simply by existing in the United States. I would also be returning to a newly built home on acreage in the Midwest. I would not be cramped in a city where Covid concerns increase, nor would I potentially experience houselessness. The most difficult aspect of this move would probably be my Mom having me reduce my belongings from taking up two full bedroom closets to just one.
The nature of my job hunt itself is a privilege. I have current part-time positions that enable me to continue perfectly fine until March 2021 while looking for remote work. Even these positions are done from the comfort of my safe and heated apartment. I’m also not looking for just any remote work, but for remote work that I believe in, which I align with on a moral level, and which continues to move us towards more justice and the feminist peace I envision for the future. All of this means my job hunt does not take me to the shelver opening at the Tesco nearest my apartment. And that is absolutely a privilege.
All of this is not a guilt trip i.e. ‘Your problems could be worse so get over it.’
This is also not praise-seeking i.e. ‘Good job white millennial woman for acknowledging your privileges.’
This is a public acknowledgement of what I’ve been internally pulling back and forth between since submitting my dissertation. The nuance and underlying aspects of every choice we make are truly innumerable, and it really can be overwhelming to go down the proverbial rabbit hole of ‘well if Covid hadn’t happened…’
Once more, there’s no neat wrap-up to be found. This is an ongoing experience and circumstance. I’m incredibly thankful to have the parents that I do, and to know that my unenthusiastic feelings towards heading stateside have nothing to do with my Mom, my Dad, or the kitties who wreak exceptionally cute havoc in that house each day.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madisontclark.substack.com
For the last few years, I’ve been obsessed with sending and receiving voicenotes in lieu of text messages. With that in mind, the above ‘podcast’ contains the audio of me reading the below newsletter aloud, wee bits of background noise included.
I went to a dinner party! Which is to say, I logged into a Zoom call from the comfort of my Belfast apartment, with a bowl of almonds and a pint of water within arm’s reach.
The Dinner Party is an organization which calls itself “a platform for grieving 20- and 30-somethings to find peer community and build lasting relationships.” I would call it ‘a gathering of people who have lost various important people for various terrible reasons and who are currently experiencing varying relationships with grief.’
While I can’t recall how I first heard of The Dinner Party, I certainly remember the first one I attended while living an hour north of Boston, Massachusetts.
When the email came through with a sign-up sheet for the potluck event, I struggled to decide what dish can I make that is perfect to share with a room full of grieving people? Grief food for me is chocolate milk or Chipotle or nothing at all. After a bit of waffling between family favorite dessert recipes (lemon bars? peanut clusters?), I put myself on the non-alcoholic drinks list and made a note in my planner to pick up a gallon of chocolate milk before driving into the city.
I knew the dinner party was held in someone’s home, but until I walked through the front door of K’s apartment, kicking off my Vans into the other piled-up shoes, I hadn’t realized how important this was. We weren’t in a clinical space, nor were we in an office spruced up to feel falsely home-y. We were shoulder to shoulder in a kitchen and a living room that felt like anyone of my friends’ homes.
We ate and we talked and it was the first time I’d felt comforted in my grief by my peers. The majority of the other partiers had lost parents, but we all still recalled shared experiences: head tilts accompanied by oh I’m so sorry, being told our person is in a better place, the way year two after a loss is worse than year one. (I also don’t believe ‘partiers’ is the term The Dinner Party uses, but it makes me smile. Grief humor, I suppose.)
March 2021 will mark thirteen years since my big brother, Garrett, passed away. He was eighteen and I was fifteen. Next year will also mark twelve years for Tanner, eight years for Robert, six years for Taylor, and four years for Sonya. All young, all sudden, all loved, all missed.
I think people are likely to have one of two initial responses while reading that.
‘Oh, I had no idea. I can’t imagine. I’m so sorry. That must be so hard.’
‘I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it? Or do you want a hug? Or would you like a cat meme?’
The first response is what the majority of the public has learned about secondhand grief: respond, apologize, maybe feel that internalized shameful gratitude that you haven’t experienced this personally. (Nothing wrong with that, just a possible feeling.) The second response is what I’ve received predominantly from other people who have experienced grief out of the ‘natural’ order of things: a sorry that comes from a deep knowing, followed by a handful of action step-based questions, accompanied by the knowledge that my answers will likely change minute to minute.
The second response showcases the beauty of these dinner parties. This is not a club that any of us want to be a part of. I would absolutely love if my life hadn’t included any of these losses, if all of these people were still here today, if I hadn’t been touched by any of this. It is also a club that each of us are incredibly grateful to find community in.
I can speak about past daydreams where I let myself imagine that someone else’s brother was lost that day; as if the universe required some young man, but had selected a different one. I can say that and know there’s no shame around it and then continue with my meal or snack while hearing other daydreams from other partiers. It’s a gift to take part in these spaces.
During last week’s Zoom Dinner Party, I described my grief throughout COVID as feeling like it did back in year three after Garrett passed away. The reach of my empathy has tightened closer and closer around the people I love, because I can’t handle the overwhelming magnitude of empathizing with any others. My eating patterns have returned to ‘all the things’ or else ‘none of the things.’ I also cry more often and as intensely as I did then. (For the record, my year eleven involved very, very few tears, making this even more of an adjustment.)
Iterations of that phrase ‘back in year three’ were echoed throughout our party. Through tears, with smiles, in stories that some had never spoken aloud before. We talked about what still hasn’t changed, even with COVID. I mentioned how Garrett’s name and our parents’ new address have somehow gotten on home living / lifestyle magazine mailing lists, how these magazines tend to make us laugh now, rather than making us cry like mail with his name on it used to. I only feel comfortable telling stories like that when in spaces like these parties, where we each have experienced some version of every story that is being told, no matter who or when or how we lost our people.
I’ve been struggling with an internal expectation to wrap these newsletters up nicely, with a bow or a moral or a lesson or an action step. But sometimes, as I’m still (and probably always will be) learning, it’s okay to just feel and to listen and to be.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madisontclark.substack.com