A Feminist Editorial on Death
Linda Van Leuven
I never thought my mother’s death would come in handy. It’s not something you can easily put on your C.V., or trot out in job interviews to demonstrate your skills managing untenable situations – your abilities to navigate the unthinkable (the unfathomable). There is no T-Shirt that says, “I Survived Death;” no shirt or PR campaign to make it more user friendly -- no “Got Death?” or “This is what (a)Death looks like” or “Death, the Other Experience.” Nope. And certainly no happy-face icon proclaiming, “Death is Good.”
***
When Monica asked me to co-edit this journal, I said yes. Sure. I was qualified. But who isn’t? We are all steeped in Death. We are all death experts and hacks.
There is the goldfish, hamster, and dog. The first death, and the latest death. The endless news reports – the loss of strangers and Beloveds. The embodied deaths, and those more symbolic. The death of friendship and relationship. The everyday blows to self – the dismantling and dismembering. The shifting mental allegiances – the mind defecting thru age or condition. There are religious excommunications and social banishments; the impact of economic downturns – the loss of home, or just a sense of place. The Infertility, and Menopause. There are media influences: spectacular, highly stylized deaths; consuming celebrity deaths; anonymous/impersonal deaths; technically assisted deaths; the necessary death for justice. We are both participant and spectator in Death. And then there are the Gendered Deaths: a history of women’s burnings, the ritual practices, the killing campaigns; death as a response to/against difference.
These experiences are coupled with everyday understandings of Death. The social and cultural standards, including how to make sense of death, how to think, behave, and feel; which emotion to express, when, and for how long before you must move on, let go, just get over it, get “closure.”
We often talk about death in the monolithic, singular, as a thing. A thing with a position: at the end of Life. In this, Death is relational, and linear. It is both a part of Life, and distinct from it. It is after life.
Feminists tend to talk about death in the context of dead women as a category and point to structural causes of dead women, specifically male violence. So “death” is talked about in ways that are important politically but in a narrow context. Death as existential experience, its meaning, relationship, spiritual, and consciousness-raising aspects—these aren’t much discussed.
***
They say the only thing we know about Death is its certainty. Not the time or circumstances. They say it in such a way that it almost brings relief. The adage, “If you are going to die by Fire, don’t worry about swimming with sharks.” Death, it seems, is either a crapshoot, or pre-determined – but either way, it is something we don’t have to worry about. And yet, we do. Worry, that is.
Much of life is spent in fear of Death. Such that living is preparation for, part of, and defiance of dying. Take any feminist topic, and you can find fear of death: access to food/shelter/housing, health care, reproduction, money, sexuality, gender, race, control of one’s body, violence, safety, and Voice. Death and its proxy, Fear of Death, inform our lives.
I will be killed.
For my thoughts, for my beliefs, for my voice, for my actions.
For being.
I will cease to exist.
However, Death is also unobviously a Feminist issue, and it carries some ambivalence. For example, the original Call for Submissions for this issue of TRIVIA included the following line:
You might ask: why would a feminist literary journal focus on death? And we would reply: why not?
When I read this, I was both puzzled and exasperated. “What do you mean, why not? It felt flip. But at the end of my outrage was a pause – a sense of space in the echo. It was room enough to realize that I didn’t know the answer. I had never thought about Death and Feminism, how they were connected, beyond my own sense that they were. And where better to house stories and narratives of death than a feminist literary journal?
So, I searched for linkages online -- and read about: the Death of Feminism, the end of the Women’s Movement, the end of Women’s Rights, the end of women, and various permutations on this theme. Also listed were the deaths of well-known feminists. I read that Carolyn Heilbrun killed herself – a moving tribute to the complications of one woman’s life – her friends and colleagues searched for meaning and clues – and most importantly, a sense of congruency in her life and death. I read about Shulamith Firestone, her brilliance infused with isolation and struggles. So while there were many links, there was no clear-cut relation drawn between Death and Feminism. No paradigm shifting or flashes of insight. No sense that something radical and transformative was at hand.
***
I tell people I have good news.
“Really? What’s going on?”
“I’m co-editing a Feminist Journal on Death.”
It is a simple statement. But when I say it, their faces crinkle and withdraw -- as if encountering a bad smell. Something I have said is not only unexpected, it is unpleasant. (I wonder what’s offensive: Death? Feminism? My Joy?) It happens every single time. The twenty-something gay black male checker at Whole Foods adds, “Oh. I’m not a Feminist, but…” A sixty-year-old white female artist was down with Death, but recoiled at Feminism. Another woman laughs, “I hope you are turning this into a book – it would be hysterical. Death & Feminism, can you imagine?”
Actually, I can. And while I wasn’t prepared for this type of response, it started conversations about what Feminism was, and what it could be. Mostly, it just seemed that people were far more interested in Death than in Feminism.
***
In some way, all Deaths are symbolic. All Deaths are real and imagined. All Deaths are true and not true -- though we spend our time trying to get the facts straight. The how’s and why’s of loss. The “if only’s” of retrospection. We stay present and look back. But how do we keep a sense of reality going when things are incomprehensible? We tell stories.
My mother didn’t like surprises -- I wonder if she knew what hit her? The Police Report says it was a Toyota Previa Mini-Van, driven by a woman going 50 mph -- speeding, because she was late to work. The next day I read the story of my mother’s death in the paper. Her death is news. I read about the phone call, and the detective telling me she’d been hit. I read about her groceries and belongings, strewn in the street -- the lettuce on the asphalt. I read that her body was carried on the windshield for a distance, and that the impact totaled the mini-van. It totaled her, too.
How we tell stories is often summed up by form and structure. This is a poem, that is creative non-fiction, this is fiction. How we tell stories also delineates reality, and our position on Death. Over the course of this editing, I have heard myself say:
She was Killed.
She Died.
She Passed.
Three true statements, telling different stories about death in general, and her death in particular. Killed. Died. Passed. Each shifts the boundaries of the conversation. And in telling Death stories, whose life are we talking about? We often try to locate ourselves in a life story that has somehow changed. And while I think it is impossible for the human mind to comprehend death, still, we try and share the experience.
So when we write our stories, how do we punctuate death? Is it a period, a comma, a colon, or a semi-colon. Maybe a well-placed dash of things to come -- a linear, or circular, To Be Continued… However we formulate (or punctuate) death, gives us insight into how we hold Life, how and what and why and when we believe Life to be. Which lives (and deaths) matter. What is the underlying story? This is at least one provocative relationship between Death and Feminism.
***
“Read something fun.” Monica, who lost her own father two months ago, is talking about Death stories, and not being sarcastic. “Read something Fun,” are the instructions as I lay on the couch, wanting to re-read the Submissions for this Issue. You see, I am already missing them, missing something. It is thirty minutes since we have finished organizing the Issue. Monica is sending emails, and taking care of other work. I am watching video clips from “The Voice,” a reality show vocal competition. It is often how I wind down; how I get inspired to keep trying: watch people pursuing their dreams.
But the process of finding the next vocal talent can’t compare to what I’ve been listening to in this other Reality Show: Female Voices. Feminist Voices - and Visions. Voices that take many artistic forms, textures, and tones. Voices speaking of Death in flesh and white bone. Voices speaking of Death in metaphor and allusion. Voices speaking of death through image and art. We have also been looking for The Voice, and have found many. This issue of TRIVIA is a statement of Inclusion.
That the Submissions are sad and devastating and heartbreaking is still true. They are also joyous, and complicated, and inspiring. If not the story, then the writing. If not the writing, then the story, and a woman’s willingness to tell it -- to stay with the telling of it. Sometimes it is even funny. Creepy. Disturbing. Mostly it feels real and true, even the Fiction. Here is a woman’s voice: go listen. Here is a woman’s voice: take a look. This Reality is addicting. The freedom to swim in Death. To play with Loss, try Grief on for size. Feel shocked by a juxtaposition - a position. The intimacy of shared experience. Shocked Alive.
Yes. That’s it. That’s what I am missing. Or maybe it’s something else?
But this is not how it began. The usual resistance to starting a project had new incentive: Death. All I know is that I was afraid to read the Submissions. (Just start). So I went on a three-day binge of reading that coincided with the Blue Moon. I hadn’t planned it that way, I just couldn’t stop. The pieces were beautiful – and it was devastating to feel so much; be so disturbed, and in awe. Mostly, I was inspired to tell the truth(s) because I was surrounded by it.
And who do I share this with? Monica is at the Hospital with her Father. So, I turned to books and feminism. Books often find me when I need them: they pop off shelves and fall at my feet; my hand reaches and finds the one I didn’t know I needed. And what I needed was Mary Daly – and Feminism. A way to understand alternate realities and temporal shifts. Reading Death Submissions can break you open, because you read with your Heart. It connects you to women’s lives, theirs, yours, others. And I have begun to feel into the lives of women who will come after me. Pulling me forward. I often feel the lives of women who came before me – their lives available here and now. And it seems my feminism has returned thru reading TRIVIA.
And it didn’t matter that I hadn’t experienced the specifics in each author’s story. Each story was mine. A sense of “Yep. That’s mine, too.” You often find this perspective and sentiment in Buddhism, where relatability is a way to soften into a present moment -- a way to decrease the distance between you and someone else, or you and some experience. In feminism, relatability is often suspect, conflated with concerns about colonialism, vulturism, and co-optation. Perhaps, there is a way to recognize and appreciate difference, without being stopped by it?
***
"I feel that I have had a blow; but it is not as I thought as a child, simply a blow from an enemy hidden behind the cotton wool of daily life; it is or will become a revelation of some order; it is a token of some real thing behind appearances; and I make it real by putting it into words. It is only by putting it into words that I make it whole; this wholeness means that it has lost its power to hurt me; it gives me, perhaps because by doing so I take away the pain, a great deal of delight to put the severed parts together." -- Virginia Woolf, “A Sketch of the Past,” Moments of Being cited in Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology, 322.
Editing is the visible way that things come together, and how they (are made to) come together can create something new. For this Issue, we had a few options: we could organize materials by Genre, Topic/Subject, or Theme. Each of these strategies would create a different end result/Issue. I wanted the pieces to talk to each other – to tell a story (of Death) that was its own Becoming – a decidedly more woven, tantric approach. So we edited intuitively. Monica says the organizational strategy we ended up with feels like a roller coaster. This sensation of being in the midst of something wild was also grounded in Monica's house, where we worked: there were dead snakes at the bottom of the pool; and one night after I went to bed, she poked her head in and said, “Hey, sorry to bother you, but Mason just got stung by a scorpion. I wanted you to know we haven’t secured the scorpion yet. Didn’t want you to just get up and put your foot down. Nite.”
There were also insights during editing: Reflections on Death thru editing. We had a preference for complexity, and for emotional stories of death – where the author was in the grips of something. Emotion seemed to form the basis for authenticity – to being present. This preference in writing struck me as odd, as we generally find death too emotional or complex in everyday life. A bit too embarrassing or awkward. Maybe we are just not interactionally prepared for death.
However, TRIVIA celebrates many voices, and this is not simply a nod to categorical difference --but the ways we occupy our own voices in the stories we tell. Some are full throttle, some barely a whisper. And while we might have preferences or understandings or suppose that the Truth of Death looks or feels one particular way, it is a woman’s voice, from where she stands, which is not always complex or emotional.
Many submissions came in with tales of loss and grief and had what we began (affectionately) calling “the last paragraph syndrome” – where after pages of dread (trauma) all issues suddenly were resolved, and tied up neatly. (Monica referred to this as the Redbook ending.) The question for us became: how do you end a story of Death? Is there always resolution? Can you just stop? In grief ? And what if you did? What if there was no end, but just an opening -- a Zen slap, or gasp?
We were also struck by the preponderance of clichés. How so unremarkable death is, that there are tropes about its telling. (Though maybe this is more about the clichéd story of Life). This was instructive. I wonder how fear of death, ambivalence toward death, linear thinking, duality consciousness, and unexamined belief systems forestall alternative languages of Death?
Can we hold a bigger perspective?
We were interested in the types of submissions we received. What we got. We had cast a wide net, suggesting many possible topics of social and global concern, the use of technology in deaths, social inequity in death, cultural spectacles, and so on…What showed up is the punch line to this Issue:
Women wanted to share their personal experiences, and move from there. It seems that the most powerful entry point to locate beginning feminist conversations about death is in one’s own experience. A reboot of old school consciousness-raising, through Death.
***
I am reading poems on Abortion, at least I think I am. Sometimes it is unclear whether it is abortion, pregnancy, or miscarriage. But I am uncomfortable. There are things you just don’t say. And while silence creates an untruth -- a sense of separation -- well, feminists just don’t talk about Abortion as Death. I didn’t realize this until I read a submission (or several) that could be seen/interpreted as being about Abortion (because they were). It was startling. What does it mean to include this in a Feminist Issue on Death? Death presupposes that something has Life, is or was A-live, or at least was experienced as a Life/Death. Maybe it is just a complicating lens.
I called an academic feminist friend who cautioned, “There are women who work their whole lives for choice, spend twenty-five years in careers on Abortion Rights, and you’re going to include this? This will be seen as a Feminist endorsement. The Right will love this!” And yet TRIVIA is The Many Voices of Feminism. What gets included is not just a question for Editors.
So I am thinking in terms of Feminism, and Death, and discourses on (what constitutes a) Life, and whose lives matter. Some say Life begins at Conception -- does this include how we think about things, how we conceive them?
Be offended, maybe, but please don’t stop there. We (feminists) don’t have the luxury of being offended. And this is not simply because the need for coalition-building is so urgent. It is because what’s underneath the offense is so instructive. So rich. And seriously, “What was Offended?” My pride, my sensibilities, my thinking? My individual personality structure? It seems there has been a slight misunderstanding, a conflation of the Person with personality, with social trappings, roles, standards, and categories of meaning. Send a Thank You note to things that offend -- they are clarifying.
Maybe you will find some shifts in awareness through reading women’s varied, sad, beautiful stories of Death. Perhaps the most shocking thing about Death is that it is not personal. Maybe this is offensive, too.
***
We tell stories to remember, we tell stories to find connection. We tell stories to tell stories. We tell stories as simply another way to scream.
But what stories do we tell of Death, and how do we frame them? What are our assumptions? How do these point to and highlight our assumptions of Life? Engagement with Death is a consciousness-raising experience. Not in the sense of passing to a distant realm, but passing into a new paradigm of living that is dimensionally different. Here. Now. And making friends with Death is not simply a Buddhist undertaking; it is Feminist. As Monica pointed out, “it seems more profound than ‘live in the moment.’ Maybe we should say, live in ALL moments.” Yes. Maybe we can say, “All is Welcome Here,” even when it isn’t.
This is the Invitation of Death, and the Heart of Feminism.
***
The connections brought through this Issue continue to expand – and the Issue isn’t even Live yet. One TRIVIA reader heard of Monica’s loss, and sent her a poem as a gift (we decided to print it). There were emails with authors about losing fathers, and losing family members to knee surgeries; new and deepening friendships, working relationships, and with authors who have inspired us. The generosity of all these women is overwhelming. The most amazing reconnection has been with Monica – we met in 1994 on a conference panel. I like to say we met as the result of one-liners and bad puns. Her paper title (co-authored with Lisa Jean Moore) was “Is that a Rocket in your Pocket?” (a study of sexuality and NASA). Mine was “I Need a Screw” (a study of sexualizing at an optical shop). We hadn’t been in touch beyond Facebook and her invitation last year to join the TRIVIA Advisory Board.
When Monica told me her dad had fallen ill after a routine knee surgery, I had a bad feeling. Life has this odd humor and coherence. Julie’s dad was also in the hospital. My Aunt was dying (and dies), and it was the anniversary of my mother’s passing and birth. And you find yourself in the middle of something surprising…a special Issue on Death. Agency might need a second look.
When Monica’s father passed, I knew I was supposed to be here for her. I was not prepared for how much she was there for me, and how this experience has changed my life. I will be forever grateful to Monica and Julie for having me be part of this issue. For our wonderful authors, and all women who sent Submissions to TRIVIA. I am ecstatic to be part of the lineage of TRIVIA, and this ever-expanding Circle.
In reading this Issue, may you be moved to tell a story, to find the Life in Death -- and the Feminism of it all.
With love,
lvl
I never thought my mother’s death would come in handy. It’s not something you can easily put on your C.V., or trot out in job interviews to demonstrate your skills managing untenable situations – your abilities to navigate the unthinkable (the unfathomable). There is no T-Shirt that says, “I Survived Death;” no shirt or PR campaign to make it more user friendly -- no “Got Death?” or “This is what (a)Death looks like” or “Death, the Other Experience.” Nope. And certainly no happy-face icon proclaiming, “Death is Good.”
***
When Monica asked me to co-edit this journal, I said yes. Sure. I was qualified. But who isn’t? We are all steeped in Death. We are all death experts and hacks.
There is the goldfish, hamster, and dog. The first death, and the latest death. The endless news reports – the loss of strangers and Beloveds. The embodied deaths, and those more symbolic. The death of friendship and relationship. The everyday blows to self – the dismantling and dismembering. The shifting mental allegiances – the mind defecting thru age or condition. There are religious excommunications and social banishments; the impact of economic downturns – the loss of home, or just a sense of place. The Infertility, and Menopause. There are media influences: spectacular, highly stylized deaths; consuming celebrity deaths; anonymous/impersonal deaths; technically assisted deaths; the necessary death for justice. We are both participant and spectator in Death. And then there are the Gendered Deaths: a history of women’s burnings, the ritual practices, the killing campaigns; death as a response to/against difference.
These experiences are coupled with everyday understandings of Death. The social and cultural standards, including how to make sense of death, how to think, behave, and feel; which emotion to express, when, and for how long before you must move on, let go, just get over it, get “closure.”
We often talk about death in the monolithic, singular, as a thing. A thing with a position: at the end of Life. In this, Death is relational, and linear. It is both a part of Life, and distinct from it. It is after life.
Feminists tend to talk about death in the context of dead women as a category and point to structural causes of dead women, specifically male violence. So “death” is talked about in ways that are important politically but in a narrow context. Death as existential experience, its meaning, relationship, spiritual, and consciousness-raising aspects—these aren’t much discussed.
***
They say the only thing we know about Death is its certainty. Not the time or circumstances. They say it in such a way that it almost brings relief. The adage, “If you are going to die by Fire, don’t worry about swimming with sharks.” Death, it seems, is either a crapshoot, or pre-determined – but either way, it is something we don’t have to worry about. And yet, we do. Worry, that is.
Much of life is spent in fear of Death. Such that living is preparation for, part of, and defiance of dying. Take any feminist topic, and you can find fear of death: access to food/shelter/housing, health care, reproduction, money, sexuality, gender, race, control of one’s body, violence, safety, and Voice. Death and its proxy, Fear of Death, inform our lives.
I will be killed.
For my thoughts, for my beliefs, for my voice, for my actions.
For being.
I will cease to exist.
However, Death is also unobviously a Feminist issue, and it carries some ambivalence. For example, the original Call for Submissions for this issue of TRIVIA included the following line:
You might ask: why would a feminist literary journal focus on death? And we would reply: why not?
When I read this, I was both puzzled and exasperated. “What do you mean, why not? It felt flip. But at the end of my outrage was a pause – a sense of space in the echo. It was room enough to realize that I didn’t know the answer. I had never thought about Death and Feminism, how they were connected, beyond my own sense that they were. And where better to house stories and narratives of death than a feminist literary journal?
So, I searched for linkages online -- and read about: the Death of Feminism, the end of the Women’s Movement, the end of Women’s Rights, the end of women, and various permutations on this theme. Also listed were the deaths of well-known feminists. I read that Carolyn Heilbrun killed herself – a moving tribute to the complications of one woman’s life – her friends and colleagues searched for meaning and clues – and most importantly, a sense of congruency in her life and death. I read about Shulamith Firestone, her brilliance infused with isolation and struggles. So while there were many links, there was no clear-cut relation drawn between Death and Feminism. No paradigm shifting or flashes of insight. No sense that something radical and transformative was at hand.
***
I tell people I have good news.
“Really? What’s going on?”
“I’m co-editing a Feminist Journal on Death.”
It is a simple statement. But when I say it, their faces crinkle and withdraw -- as if encountering a bad smell. Something I have said is not only unexpected, it is unpleasant. (I wonder what’s offensive: Death? Feminism? My Joy?) It happens every single time. The twenty-something gay black male checker at Whole Foods adds, “Oh. I’m not a Feminist, but…” A sixty-year-old white female artist was down with Death, but recoiled at Feminism. Another woman laughs, “I hope you are turning this into a book – it would be hysterical. Death & Feminism, can you imagine?”
Actually, I can. And while I wasn’t prepared for this type of response, it started conversations about what Feminism was, and what it could be. Mostly, it just seemed that people were far more interested in Death than in Feminism.
***
In some way, all Deaths are symbolic. All Deaths are real and imagined. All Deaths are true and not true -- though we spend our time trying to get the facts straight. The how’s and why’s of loss. The “if only’s” of retrospection. We stay present and look back. But how do we keep a sense of reality going when things are incomprehensible? We tell stories.
My mother didn’t like surprises -- I wonder if she knew what hit her? The Police Report says it was a Toyota Previa Mini-Van, driven by a woman going 50 mph -- speeding, because she was late to work. The next day I read the story of my mother’s death in the paper. Her death is news. I read about the phone call, and the detective telling me she’d been hit. I read about her groceries and belongings, strewn in the street -- the lettuce on the asphalt. I read that her body was carried on the windshield for a distance, and that the impact totaled the mini-van. It totaled her, too.
How we tell stories is often summed up by form and structure. This is a poem, that is creative non-fiction, this is fiction. How we tell stories also delineates reality, and our position on Death. Over the course of this editing, I have heard myself say:
She was Killed.
She Died.
She Passed.
Three true statements, telling different stories about death in general, and her death in particular. Killed. Died. Passed. Each shifts the boundaries of the conversation. And in telling Death stories, whose life are we talking about? We often try to locate ourselves in a life story that has somehow changed. And while I think it is impossible for the human mind to comprehend death, still, we try and share the experience.
So when we write our stories, how do we punctuate death? Is it a period, a comma, a colon, or a semi-colon. Maybe a well-placed dash of things to come -- a linear, or circular, To Be Continued… However we formulate (or punctuate) death, gives us insight into how we hold Life, how and what and why and when we believe Life to be. Which lives (and deaths) matter. What is the underlying story? This is at least one provocative relationship between Death and Feminism.
***
“Read something fun.” Monica, who lost her own father two months ago, is talking about Death stories, and not being sarcastic. “Read something Fun,” are the instructions as I lay on the couch, wanting to re-read the Submissions for this Issue. You see, I am already missing them, missing something. It is thirty minutes since we have finished organizing the Issue. Monica is sending emails, and taking care of other work. I am watching video clips from “The Voice,” a reality show vocal competition. It is often how I wind down; how I get inspired to keep trying: watch people pursuing their dreams.
But the process of finding the next vocal talent can’t compare to what I’ve been listening to in this other Reality Show: Female Voices. Feminist Voices - and Visions. Voices that take many artistic forms, textures, and tones. Voices speaking of Death in flesh and white bone. Voices speaking of Death in metaphor and allusion. Voices speaking of death through image and art. We have also been looking for The Voice, and have found many. This issue of TRIVIA is a statement of Inclusion.
That the Submissions are sad and devastating and heartbreaking is still true. They are also joyous, and complicated, and inspiring. If not the story, then the writing. If not the writing, then the story, and a woman’s willingness to tell it -- to stay with the telling of it. Sometimes it is even funny. Creepy. Disturbing. Mostly it feels real and true, even the Fiction. Here is a woman’s voice: go listen. Here is a woman’s voice: take a look. This Reality is addicting. The freedom to swim in Death. To play with Loss, try Grief on for size. Feel shocked by a juxtaposition - a position. The intimacy of shared experience. Shocked Alive.
Yes. That’s it. That’s what I am missing. Or maybe it’s something else?
But this is not how it began. The usual resistance to starting a project had new incentive: Death. All I know is that I was afraid to read the Submissions. (Just start). So I went on a three-day binge of reading that coincided with the Blue Moon. I hadn’t planned it that way, I just couldn’t stop. The pieces were beautiful – and it was devastating to feel so much; be so disturbed, and in awe. Mostly, I was inspired to tell the truth(s) because I was surrounded by it.
And who do I share this with? Monica is at the Hospital with her Father. So, I turned to books and feminism. Books often find me when I need them: they pop off shelves and fall at my feet; my hand reaches and finds the one I didn’t know I needed. And what I needed was Mary Daly – and Feminism. A way to understand alternate realities and temporal shifts. Reading Death Submissions can break you open, because you read with your Heart. It connects you to women’s lives, theirs, yours, others. And I have begun to feel into the lives of women who will come after me. Pulling me forward. I often feel the lives of women who came before me – their lives available here and now. And it seems my feminism has returned thru reading TRIVIA.
And it didn’t matter that I hadn’t experienced the specifics in each author’s story. Each story was mine. A sense of “Yep. That’s mine, too.” You often find this perspective and sentiment in Buddhism, where relatability is a way to soften into a present moment -- a way to decrease the distance between you and someone else, or you and some experience. In feminism, relatability is often suspect, conflated with concerns about colonialism, vulturism, and co-optation. Perhaps, there is a way to recognize and appreciate difference, without being stopped by it?
***
"I feel that I have had a blow; but it is not as I thought as a child, simply a blow from an enemy hidden behind the cotton wool of daily life; it is or will become a revelation of some order; it is a token of some real thing behind appearances; and I make it real by putting it into words. It is only by putting it into words that I make it whole; this wholeness means that it has lost its power to hurt me; it gives me, perhaps because by doing so I take away the pain, a great deal of delight to put the severed parts together." -- Virginia Woolf, “A Sketch of the Past,” Moments of Being cited in Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology, 322.
Editing is the visible way that things come together, and how they (are made to) come together can create something new. For this Issue, we had a few options: we could organize materials by Genre, Topic/Subject, or Theme. Each of these strategies would create a different end result/Issue. I wanted the pieces to talk to each other – to tell a story (of Death) that was its own Becoming – a decidedly more woven, tantric approach. So we edited intuitively. Monica says the organizational strategy we ended up with feels like a roller coaster. This sensation of being in the midst of something wild was also grounded in Monica's house, where we worked: there were dead snakes at the bottom of the pool; and one night after I went to bed, she poked her head in and said, “Hey, sorry to bother you, but Mason just got stung by a scorpion. I wanted you to know we haven’t secured the scorpion yet. Didn’t want you to just get up and put your foot down. Nite.”
There were also insights during editing: Reflections on Death thru editing. We had a preference for complexity, and for emotional stories of death – where the author was in the grips of something. Emotion seemed to form the basis for authenticity – to being present. This preference in writing struck me as odd, as we generally find death too emotional or complex in everyday life. A bit too embarrassing or awkward. Maybe we are just not interactionally prepared for death.
However, TRIVIA celebrates many voices, and this is not simply a nod to categorical difference --but the ways we occupy our own voices in the stories we tell. Some are full throttle, some barely a whisper. And while we might have preferences or understandings or suppose that the Truth of Death looks or feels one particular way, it is a woman’s voice, from where she stands, which is not always complex or emotional.
Many submissions came in with tales of loss and grief and had what we began (affectionately) calling “the last paragraph syndrome” – where after pages of dread (trauma) all issues suddenly were resolved, and tied up neatly. (Monica referred to this as the Redbook ending.) The question for us became: how do you end a story of Death? Is there always resolution? Can you just stop? In grief ? And what if you did? What if there was no end, but just an opening -- a Zen slap, or gasp?
We were also struck by the preponderance of clichés. How so unremarkable death is, that there are tropes about its telling. (Though maybe this is more about the clichéd story of Life). This was instructive. I wonder how fear of death, ambivalence toward death, linear thinking, duality consciousness, and unexamined belief systems forestall alternative languages of Death?
Can we hold a bigger perspective?
We were interested in the types of submissions we received. What we got. We had cast a wide net, suggesting many possible topics of social and global concern, the use of technology in deaths, social inequity in death, cultural spectacles, and so on…What showed up is the punch line to this Issue:
Women wanted to share their personal experiences, and move from there. It seems that the most powerful entry point to locate beginning feminist conversations about death is in one’s own experience. A reboot of old school consciousness-raising, through Death.
***
I am reading poems on Abortion, at least I think I am. Sometimes it is unclear whether it is abortion, pregnancy, or miscarriage. But I am uncomfortable. There are things you just don’t say. And while silence creates an untruth -- a sense of separation -- well, feminists just don’t talk about Abortion as Death. I didn’t realize this until I read a submission (or several) that could be seen/interpreted as being about Abortion (because they were). It was startling. What does it mean to include this in a Feminist Issue on Death? Death presupposes that something has Life, is or was A-live, or at least was experienced as a Life/Death. Maybe it is just a complicating lens.
I called an academic feminist friend who cautioned, “There are women who work their whole lives for choice, spend twenty-five years in careers on Abortion Rights, and you’re going to include this? This will be seen as a Feminist endorsement. The Right will love this!” And yet TRIVIA is The Many Voices of Feminism. What gets included is not just a question for Editors.
So I am thinking in terms of Feminism, and Death, and discourses on (what constitutes a) Life, and whose lives matter. Some say Life begins at Conception -- does this include how we think about things, how we conceive them?
Be offended, maybe, but please don’t stop there. We (feminists) don’t have the luxury of being offended. And this is not simply because the need for coalition-building is so urgent. It is because what’s underneath the offense is so instructive. So rich. And seriously, “What was Offended?” My pride, my sensibilities, my thinking? My individual personality structure? It seems there has been a slight misunderstanding, a conflation of the Person with personality, with social trappings, roles, standards, and categories of meaning. Send a Thank You note to things that offend -- they are clarifying.
Maybe you will find some shifts in awareness through reading women’s varied, sad, beautiful stories of Death. Perhaps the most shocking thing about Death is that it is not personal. Maybe this is offensive, too.
***
We tell stories to remember, we tell stories to find connection. We tell stories to tell stories. We tell stories as simply another way to scream.
But what stories do we tell of Death, and how do we frame them? What are our assumptions? How do these point to and highlight our assumptions of Life? Engagement with Death is a consciousness-raising experience. Not in the sense of passing to a distant realm, but passing into a new paradigm of living that is dimensionally different. Here. Now. And making friends with Death is not simply a Buddhist undertaking; it is Feminist. As Monica pointed out, “it seems more profound than ‘live in the moment.’ Maybe we should say, live in ALL moments.” Yes. Maybe we can say, “All is Welcome Here,” even when it isn’t.
This is the Invitation of Death, and the Heart of Feminism.
***
The connections brought through this Issue continue to expand – and the Issue isn’t even Live yet. One TRIVIA reader heard of Monica’s loss, and sent her a poem as a gift (we decided to print it). There were emails with authors about losing fathers, and losing family members to knee surgeries; new and deepening friendships, working relationships, and with authors who have inspired us. The generosity of all these women is overwhelming. The most amazing reconnection has been with Monica – we met in 1994 on a conference panel. I like to say we met as the result of one-liners and bad puns. Her paper title (co-authored with Lisa Jean Moore) was “Is that a Rocket in your Pocket?” (a study of sexuality and NASA). Mine was “I Need a Screw” (a study of sexualizing at an optical shop). We hadn’t been in touch beyond Facebook and her invitation last year to join the TRIVIA Advisory Board.
When Monica told me her dad had fallen ill after a routine knee surgery, I had a bad feeling. Life has this odd humor and coherence. Julie’s dad was also in the hospital. My Aunt was dying (and dies), and it was the anniversary of my mother’s passing and birth. And you find yourself in the middle of something surprising…a special Issue on Death. Agency might need a second look.
When Monica’s father passed, I knew I was supposed to be here for her. I was not prepared for how much she was there for me, and how this experience has changed my life. I will be forever grateful to Monica and Julie for having me be part of this issue. For our wonderful authors, and all women who sent Submissions to TRIVIA. I am ecstatic to be part of the lineage of TRIVIA, and this ever-expanding Circle.
In reading this Issue, may you be moved to tell a story, to find the Life in Death -- and the Feminism of it all.
With love,
lvl
About the author
Linda Van Leuven, Ph.D. (“LVL”) is a sociologist and writer. A recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award at UCLA, she is inspirational; her unique educational approach has been branded by students as “the LVL Experience.” Now in private practice, she does educational consulting, and teaches classes on sexuality, gender, and consciousness from a sense of integration and wholeness – from a sense of Heart. Some days, she also works in a Mall, selling high-end designer eyewear and new perspectives. She lives in Long Beach, Ca., and shares the path with her Border Collie/Retriever mix, Maizie.
For an updated list of works published in TRIVIA, please see this author's contributor page.
For an updated list of works published in TRIVIA, please see this author's contributor page.