Wolfsmesch - Humanwolf

 

Are we humans still interested in our destiny?
Have we lost sight of our original path?
As we circle around on a meaningless carousel of blind consumption.
As we turn the world into a carnival.
As we become maimed creatures, odd ducks and dancing shadows.  
(Nexistentialist, 2007)

A quote by Thich Nhat Hahn on Instagram made me feel uncomfortable when I first read it.

“Continue practicing until you see yourself in the most cruel and inhumane political leader, in the most devastatingly tortured prisoner, in the wealthiest man, and in the child starving, all skin and bones. Practice until you recognize your presence in everyone else on the bus, in the subway, in the concentration camp, working in the fields, in a leaf, in a caterpillar, in a ray of sunshine.
Meditate until you see yourself in a speck of dust and in the most distant galaxy.”

I felt put off by the first statements and swiped away without liking, sharing or saving the quote. But it haunted me. Later, I remembered having come to a similar conclusion in my youth. So, I searched through social media to recover the quote. I also searched my house for the old journal, wherein I’d captured my past reflection.

Germany, 2006

I thought I wrote it down in a red or orange ring-bound notebook from when I was studying Cultural Science in Eastern Germany almost twenty years ago. I had captured those thoughts right after I suffered a xenophobic assault, right before we moved to Berlin. I got beat up on a street corner in a small university town with neo-Nazi elements on the Polish border. A town that had gotten beat up bad during the Second World War, as German and Russian troops moved through it back and forth several times. There was an old underground bunker with the most awful vibe, the sheer memory of which makes me shiver. But instead of the red-orange notebook, I found two other items, which I had searched for on another occasion but never found, until now.

Haiti, 2005

The first item is a drawing I deleted from my blog years ago, because I was starting a new chapter. I wanted to leave a Mexican and Haitian part of my life behind, which made me feel uncomfortable. A past that nonetheless managed to resurface during a different phase in Switzerland ten years later, when I wrote the post. Unresolved matters demand dealing. Life is unforgiving. I had pretended to distance myself from a challenging phase in my youth, one that made me feel ashamed. Back then, I had toyed around identifying as a wolf. And I expressed my experiences through a series of comic strips called La Chica Mala la del Barrio, which means “The Bad Gal from the Ghetto.” 
It’s silly, I know. But I feel ashamed no more. For years now, I’ve been looking for this image to restore its presence on that fated blogpost where I wrote about how the human wolf came back to haunt me. Now, it reappeared on its own terms with complete shamelessness to be posted here. Life is funny. The two most controversial comic strips of this series are still missing. They’re not part of the stack of drawings I found. I wouldn’t know where to look for them either! Who knows where I stashed them? I guess they’ll reappear when it’s time, if they choose. Would I want my children to see them though? All the explaining I would have to do! My nine-year-old daughter, who considers herself an artist, was all over the drawings. I could see a slightly disturbed look on her face as she read through the strips. A lot of it wouldn’t make sense to her, of course. Suddenly, she asked:

“Why did you draw a penis?”
“Because nudes are common in art,” I snapped back, “and this is grown lady stuff that you wouldn’t understand so just let it be.”

Then, she went and drew a cat. My older daughter, the avid reader, at one point was very curious about my journals. I told her that she was allowed to read whatever matched her age. So, obviously, as a mother I have responsibilities. Will I hide who I’ve been from my children? No. But I will wait until the time is right to reveal the details of certain stories. They can learn from my strife to avoid some of their own. I hope.

The other item I found turned up in the form of a single question I had jotted down on a random page without a date. Memory of the event related to that question remained in my mind, a strange story I told many times, incompletely, due to the details I was unable to recall, including that very question.

On a cold day in Berlin, I accompanied my friend to a lecture on Greek mythology at the Humboldt University. The lecture hall was large and filled to the brim with students and faculty. An old white man, a beloved German professor went on and on about the Odyssey with a passion that made him seem like a genuine expert on the topic. Something I couldn’t really judge because, I confess, I never read it more than was required for high school assignments. I felt kind of inspired. Perhaps, as a result of the setting, a majestic old university lecture hall, ornate and stony. I felt a question bubbling up inside of me that I couldn’t help but ask. But there was only silence, and no one even moved an inch, all eyes fixed on the lecturer. The lack of participation seemed odd to me for a classroom, especially in the context of “higher learning”.

Perhaps, in patriarchal, pseudo-authoritative traditions professors like to narrate unquestioned. But I couldn’t remain quiet and raised my hand, the only one in a sea of heads, stretched up with determination to catch the lecturer’s attention. A feminist arm pulled by the old man’s narrative. To my surprise, the professor called on me. Sadly, he was so offended by my question, which he was unable to answer clearly, that he made a point to prohibit any further questions from being asked in a loud voice that echoed through the large stone-walled lecture hall. There was some shuffling and a few heads turned with frowny faces before we returned to the silence that would shield the moody man’s words. It felt odd that a seasoned expert at a school of higher learning would be put off by student participation. But young as I was, I felt self-conscious about not having carefully read the Odyssey. Could my intuitive questioning be warranted in the face of “expertise”? True, I know little about Greek mythology. But I know a lot about being a woman.

* * * * *

TriversX 10 - Patriarchal Angst (A) 

She flipped him off.
Then, shoved the finger up his ass.
And he liked it.

Sie zeigte ihm den Mittelfinger.
Dann steckte sie ihn ihm in den Arsch.
Und es gefiel ihm.

Le enseñó el dedo.
Luego se lo metió al culo.
Y le gustó.

* * * * *

Outside the building, book sellers were selling used books spread out on wooden tables. I went up to a book man and asked:

“Do you by chance have the book the Odyssey?”

He stared at me madly and began to yell:

“By chance!!!?? Nothing happens by chance!!!”

I was startled. The second man I managed to offend in a matter of an hour by merely asking a question.

 “So, you don’t have it?” I insisted, as I glanced over his collection of old books. He just continued to shout at me:

“Nothing happens by chance! Foolish verbiage of yours!”

He wouldn’t stop. My friend managed to buy a book from the neighbouring seller. We looked at each other with big eyes, slowly unlocked our bikes and walked away. I kept turning back as I climbed onto my bike careful not to fall off, hypnotized by his ferocious face. He continued to yell at me all the way to the end of the block, where I stood for one moment more, before turning the corner, to gaze at him as he screamed:

“Nothing happens by chance!!! Verbiage, nothing but verbiage!!!”

To be honest, I did not understand the German word he used for “verbiage” then, which is Floskeln, that is, expressions without meaning. I felt too embarrassed to ask my friend, who had witnessed me being made a fool twice already. It wasn’t until much later that I felt comfortable enough to ask another German university friend about the meaning of the word.

The two angry men insulted by my inquiry wouldn’t be the last. I have yet to read the yoga teacher’s letter after we fell out months ago because I annoyed him with my questions.  Who knows if and when the time might come? Life rarely leaves matters unresolved, I’ve learned. However, the hurt of humiliation stings deep. My daughter, protective as she is of me, read the letter immediately, but didn’t tell me what it said and insists that I must read it myself. Unfortunately, because the teacher was no stranger but so very dear to me, my heart became draped in protective pride. I don’t remember if I cried.

* * * * *

“If he already felt attracted to her, why would she have to seduce him?”

Is the question I jotted down in cursive blue ink back in 2006 or 2007. The question I asked the German professor of Greek mythology as he went on and on about a “profoundly erotic” scene in the Odyssey. Unfortunately, he made the dynamic between man and woman sound a whole lot like the old sexual assault cop-out: “Well, she shouldn’t have been wearing a mini skirt.” As if a man’s sexuality is somehow a woman’s responsibility. Hell to the no! A man’s sexuality is his own responsibility and a woman’s sexuality is hers. Both seduction and intercourse are inherently a matter of mutual respect and joint responsibility. The mythology professor’s unfair interpretation of the female triggered the feminist in me to speak out. My demand for male accountability pissed him off and he couldn’t answer properly, stuck as he was in his “unconscious” sexist and chauvinistic bias. As so many men still are. The truth is that I made a fool out of him that day. Because I may be ignorant of Greek mythology, but I know what it means to be a woman. And women, whether real or mythological, deserve proper recognition and respect.

* * * * *

Man-erism / Patriarchal Angst (B) *

He regarded her with curiosity, unsure about whether to consider her beautiful, as so many of her features did not correspond with the beauty standards he’d come to adopt. For one, she was no youth. He liked them young and skinny. Even though he was himself no longer young nor skinny. Nevertheless, his sense of beauty was as immature as the days when he would jack off to cheap porn, a realization that made him uncomfortable. As a result, he questioned the beauty of the magnificent matron radiating before him even more. Because it made him question himself, those parts he neglected in silence, afraid of growing up, of being the man he actually was.

* * * * *

I never found the red notebook, because it no longer exists. But I found a stack of pages from it that I ripped out. It is not unusual for me to leave unfinished business. Luckily, I also leave clues for future learning that will, hopefully, make sense later. I am a detective of my own thoughts, a seeker of my own philosophy. In the case of notebooks, sometimes I rip out the pages I wrote on and give the rest to my children. Thus, I found the reflection the Thich Nhat Hahn quote made me think of.

[As a human being] I live with being a criminal, abuser and adulterer. I’m also a child of fortune and a player, sometimes a swindler and a scoundrel. Sometimes I’m an observer, sometimes I’m the show. I love the existential carnival and want more. I also hate it and want to return to my mother’s womb.

Thus, I concluded that as a human being I cannot escape my kin. I am what they are, and they are what I am. In the meantime, I understand that beyond being merely human I am also biological, organic, terrestrial and cosmic. Now what?

* Hombrismo

La miraba con curiosidad. No estaba seguro si la consideraba bella, ya que tantos rasgos suyos no correspondían al estándar de belleza que él había adoptado. Para empezar, ella no era joven. A él le gustaban jóvenes y flaquitas. Aunque él ya ni estaba joven ni delgado. Por alguna razón su sentido de belleza seguía siendo tan inmaduro como en los días que se masturbaba viendo pornografía barata. Este reconocimiento lo incomodó y lo hizo cuestionar aún más la belleza de la magnífica matrona que irradiaba presencia ante él. Porque lo hacía cuestionarse a sí mismo, aquellas partes que había descuidado en silencio, temeroso de madurar, de ser el hombre que era en realidad.

Mannsbild 

Er hat sie neugierig betrachtet. War sich iher Schönheit nicht sicher. Viele ihrer Merkmale entsprachen nicht dem Schönheitsideal das er sich angeeignet hatte. Zum einen war sie nicht jung. Er mochte sie jung und dünn, obwohl er selber weder jung noch schlank war. Irgendwie war sein Schönheitssinn noch genauso unreif wir in den Tagen als er sich mit billigem Porno einen runterholte. Diese Einsicht beunruhigte ihn. Deswegen hinterfragte er um so mehr die Schöneit der herrlichen Matrone die prächtig vor ihm strahlte. Weil ihre Gegenwart ihn dazu herausforderte sich selbst zu hinterfragen, die eigenen Züge die er im Stillen vernachässigt hatte, die Angst vor dem Reifsein, davor ein wahrhaftiger Mann zu sein.