Tag Archives: Feminism

Evolving Reflections on ‘Home’

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My husband and I raised our two sons in Northfield, Minnesota — a progressive, two-college town where I always felt safe, where we rarely locked the side door off the driveway at night, where our kids rode their bikes freely around town. Back when we sold our family home in 2013, I wanted to write an ode to the place where I had lived for 20 years, the longest stretch of my lifetime.

That house was home, full of two decades’ worth of meaning and memories, family and friends, a center of activity for sleepovers and potlucks, where boisterous boys and loving dogs (rest in peace, Skip and Lucy) were a dominant, delightful presence.

The small-town house in Northfield, Minnesota, where our two sons grew up: 20 years of memories. Photo by Amy Gage

No one else in the family seemed to share my nostalgia for the white Dutch Colonial with a three-season front porch, a black roof and red trim, built in 1900 within eyesight of Old Main at St. Olaf College. It “looked appropriate” to see two little girls dash out the front door, my younger son said after he showed the house to his girlfriend during a trip back to town. That was all he would concede.

Eventually, I moved on, too, giving my heart to the smaller, 1906-era empty-nest house my husband and I have now in St. Paul, with a quaint wraparound porch that I fell for on sight. My shifting allegiances make me wonder: Is it the house itself that makes a home? Much as I love the expanded, updated kitchen in my current place and the egress window in the basement that fills my workout room with natural light, are those amenities what have bonded me to this place? Or could I comfortably, given time, call any place home?

Our city house today: walking distance to a library, four bus lines and two colleges, and a short bike ride to the Saint Paul Grand Round. Photo by David Studer

I’ve always reveled in the creative expression of home, the furniture and wall hangings and house plants that reflect my moods and tastes. These days, I am grateful not only for the safety and security I feel at home but for the privilege of being able to afford a house at all.

I root where I am planted. Whether it’s an upper duplex in northeast Minneapolis, a rental house on the edge of Indian Mounds Park in St. Paul or the first house that my husband and I purchased, and subsequently detached from when two teenagers burned a cross on the front lawn of a Black family down the street: Home is structure for me, a physical location, a place where I can put my stamp and comfortably be myself.

I had breakfast recently with a friend who had returned from a summer in Finland, her home country. She talked about the relatives she visited, described a mass transit system that allowed her and her wife to get along without a car, spoke fondly of the concerts they attended and the greater sense of ease in a society less gun crazy and politically polarized than ours.

“So, where is home,” I asked her.

“Home is where your people are,” she said.

My people, literally defined — the family I was raised in — are either dead or have moved away. My three surviving siblings are scattered around the country (the brother who died in 1988 lived just blocks from where I am now). At 67, I have few older relatives left in Minnesota. My mother, father and stepmother died in fairly quick succession, and all during autumn, in 2015, 2017 and 2018. In fact, my only extended family in a state where people are known for staying put is one sister-in-law in Minneapolis, an uncle who spends half the year in Florida, a first cousin in a far southern suburb and another first cousin about two hours north, a DFLer who keeps up the good fight in what is now solid red Trump country.

After seeing my older son off to London for graduate school in August, I feel lucky to have my younger son and his partner just a 10-minute bike ride away.

I describe my closest friends as “intentional family” — the folks who are no blood relation but with whom I share a history, the ones who hung with me through the messes and mistakes of young adulthood. After a 40-year career, I rarely go anywhere in St. Paul or Minneapolis without running into some colleague or connection. I worked with my next-door neighbor at St. Catherine University, shared a cubicle with the neighbor behind me for seven years in a newsroom and knew the woman who lives kitty-corner from my house at Minnesota Public Radio, when I was an editor on its magazine.

So, yes, as my friend says, people constitute “home.” My friendly neighborhood — with its walkability to mass transit, college campuses, and both fun and functional shopping — also enhances my sense of community. I thrive on the convenience of urban living, especially at an age when I feel less inclined to drive and more inclined to do good for the planet.

My parents divorced when I was 14. My childhood home was sold and my foundation ripped away at too tender an age for an awkward, uncertain girl. Perhaps that accounts for my love of home now, my reluctance to travel much with my long-retired husband. As my own career winds down, I have a growing desire just to stay home. To cook and tackle projects. To read and chat with neighbors.

To redefine my purpose and until then, to be still.

When my husband presses me about why I won’t travel more, I hardly know how to begin explaining. Our six-year age difference and our differing parental roles, which made sense when the kids were young, have now become a chasm in our respective wants and needs. As a largely on-site parent, he worked at home; even when he earned a part-time paycheck, he was the one in town while I commuted to my family-wage job.

He loved being Mr. Mom, “but there were no breaks or paid vacations.” And even though I did enjoy raises and paid time off and validations for a job well done, I also spent years leaving home five days a week, including on mornings when I longed to stay back with the little boy in the footie pajamas who held his arms out as I headed to the car.

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Credit: Freepik

Being at home now is sustaining; it slows me down, allowing a reset from 40 years of pushing into the wind. There is much of the world I haven’t seen, large swaths of this country I’ve yet to cover. I dream about taking a train somewhere all by myself.

But for today, the simple pleasures of tucking in with a dog and a good book, learning how to cook tofu or repotting plants in my backyard while listening to a podcast are as much adventure as I want or need. Give it time, I tell my husband. This, too, shall pass.

We liberal women owe Hillary our support

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Five days before the all-important Iowa caucus, CNN ran a story about why “women” are wary of Hillary Rodham Clinton. The reporter based this generalized conclusion on one visit with a group of middle-aged women gathered for conversation and Chardonnay.

Their reservations were not the understandable concerns of conservative voters who differ with Clinton on issues from abortion rights to amnesty for immigrants.

These were liberal women — educated, middle-class, Midwestern voters like me who came of age at a time of unprecedented gains in women’s rights.Hillary magnet

Unlike me, these Iowa voters were women whose fear or reluctance to proclaim themselves feminists could tilt the race against a woman whom the New York Times is calling “one of the most broadly and deeply qualified presidential candidates in modern history.”

Let’s examine these women’s concerns point by point:

  • Point 1: Hillary is less “authentic” than Bernie Sanders, they said. She displays what one columnist calls a “plasticity” that leads some to conclude she is merely ambitious. She wants to be president and has cast herself accordingly — especially in the U.S. Senate and as Secretary of State.

Think again: Where some see plasticity, I see professionalism and poise. What some denigrate as ambition, I call a singular focus.

Unlike so many women her age — who have moved in and out of the work force, setting aside their careers for families and channeling their talents into unpaid labor — Hillary Clinton has built a career as a consistent champion of women, children and society’s marginalized. Her post–First Lady life has given her a global perspective that Bernie Sanders lacks. And one that none of the Republican candidates seems to value.

  • Point 2: Hillary stayed with Bill Clinton for political reasons, the Iowa women said. Like Eleanor Roosevelt, whom Mrs. Clinton admires, Hillary took a shrewd look at her marriage and concluded that the partners could do more good together than alone.

Consider: The Clinton Foundation has raised $2 billion, with more than 88 percent of those funds going directly to programs. The foundation’s five interest areas include climate change and global health, and its Clinton Global Initiative focuses on education for girls and reducing gender-based violence. Surely the wine-drinking women from Iowa aren’t opposed to that.

I find the criticism of Bill and Hillary’s marriage particularly odd — and disingenuous— when it is leveled by women, historically the keepers of family ties. What Hillary has chosen to live with in private is not the public’s business, but it is a matter of our concern. No divorced woman would be elected president. Hillary knew that. And whatever sacrifice she made on behalf of her ambition (a word considered pejorative only when applied to a woman) is not merely self-serving.

It’s time for feminist women to recognize the literal and symbolic importance of electing a liberal female president — just as African Americans saw the meaning in electing a first-term U.S. senator to the highest position in the land.

  • Point 3: Hillary and Bill represent the past. The Iowa women noted a malaise that they called “Clinton fatigue” and seemed to lean toward Sanders for the same reason that young people do — his impassioned if impractical call to throw out the old political system in favor of a “Democratic socialism” that no contemporary U.S. Congress would abide.

Let’s get real: Sanders is 74 years old. He officially became a Democrat only after launching his presidential bid. His celebrated “America” ad — an emotional, narration-free pitch — is set to a 48-year-old Simon and Garfunkel song.

But no one declares him “dated” or “inauthentic.” None of the Iowa women claimed that his quarter century in Congress makes him a candidate of the past. Failing, perhaps, to remember that Ronald Reagan took office a month shy of 70 and began his battle with Alzheimer’s disease barely into his second term, supporters don’t see Sanders’ age as a potential handicap.

I respect Sanders’ doggedness and his focus on income inequality. His presence in the race has drawn Hillary to the left and rightfully earns him a spot in her cabinet. But I also believe he is getting a pass — on age, authenticity, ambition and temperament — that is not being granted to his more able and experienced challenger.

The women of Iowa better wake up, and quickly. I’m a fan of Paul Simon’s songs, too, but unless more women of all ages who benefit from feminism are willing to stand up and support one of the movement’s true champions, then come November, I fear, we’ll be humming not “America” but “Slip Slidin’ Away.”

Flipping the bird at Thanksgiving

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It’s not that I’m an ingrate or fail to recognize the many unearned blessings in my life.

I simply want no part of Thanksgiving.

I don’t need the 4,500 calories that the Average American consumes in the carbohydrate- and gravy-laden meal served on the fourth Thursday of each November.

I don’t want to expend the time or money shopping for food, and I’m even less interested in spending days preparing it.

Instead, after having to cancel a visit to see my sister in Colorado because of work, I am spending Thanksgiving the way I wish I spent more weekends — with no plans at all.Flipped Bird

Turkey rebellion

Here are five reasons why sitting out this most overrated of holidays feels like the right thing to do this year.

No. 1: The food is predictable. Dry turkey, drier stuffing. The only color on the traditional Thanksgiving table comes from whatever centerpiece the hostess has assembled. Everything else is shades of brown and tan, like those suburban subdivisions I used to pass on my commute to work.

And what guru decreed that the traditions can never change? Put fresh green beans instead of canned in the infamous Midwestern casserole? Heresy. Bake the sweet potatoes with soy milk and ginger instead of butter and brown sugar? I made that mistake only once with my German-Catholic in-laws.

No. 2: I hate football. It’s boring. It’s slow. Its players have inflated pocketbooks and egos. I’ve wasted way too many Thanksgiving “holidays” pretending to be interested because the noise of the television drowned out any conversation in the room.

If women spent Thanksgiving watching Norma Rae, Tootsie or name-your-favorite-Meryl-Streep-movie at full volume while men overworked themselves in overheated kitchens, Thanksgiving would have been cancelled years ago.

No. 3: Thanksgiving is a sexist holiday. (See above.) Dad’s job — the role of any father from a bygone era — was to sharpen the knife, carve the bird and later ask from the easy chair when pie would be served. Mom’s job was everything else.

Even in my own nuclear family, with sons raised to be progressive, the men turn to me (the one who works full time and is in graduate school) with the wide-eyed question: “So, what are we doing this year?”

No. 4: I feel too somber to host or attend a meal. My mother died in September, and I think the best way to honor the woman who introduced me to feminism and the necessity of breaking social codes is to avoid repeating the obligation she dreaded every year.

In fact, Thanksgiving hasn’t been the same since my husband’s sister and children’s godmother, Peggy Studer, died in January 2011. Peggy was the family’s center. She held us together. Sure, she cooked too many potatoes and preferred pumpkin pie to pecan, but her humor and bold bitching about the timeless traditions never failed to make them fun.

No. 5: I don’t need Thanksgiving to remind me to be grateful. A Buddhist friend introduced me to the practice of gratitude in 2010. We spent a year exchanging a gratitude list by e-mail every night.

On the inevitably difficult days — those low times that later help us recognize real joy — I can always lift my spirits by reciting or writing down a list of why I’m thankful.

For my health, my home, my husband and grown sons, my job, my friends and family, my silly dogs, my sense of purpose: I am truly grateful. And that’s enough for me to celebrate Thanksgiving this year.