03.01.01

i have a dilemma.

i don't want to be a genre writer.

which is to say, if and when (two very big questions, indeed) somebody ever finds me interesting enough to publish, i don't want to relegated to the dark corners of barnes & noble, shelved with "postcolonial studies" or "gender & sexuality" or "cultural studies."

not that i don't love those sections. i do. but to perform as a woman of color writer, as a queer writer, as a third world woman writer is to perform a dissection of self-- even an amputation. one necessarily places an undue importance on one aspect of the self, a forced distinction at best.

it seems akin to having to introduce myself as only one part of my body.

"Hi, I'm Elbow."

have i lost you yet?

i was perusing a used bookstore a few weeks ago, and came out with two prizes. a novel, sister safety pin by lorrie sprecher, and a small place by jamaica kincaid. they were both hidden away, sister safety pin stuck under "alternative sexualities" (alternative to what?) and a small place inexplicably put in the travel section.

and although i think i had a point i was going to elucidate, i'm going to abandon that and instead give you a dose of jamaica kincaid. because everybody needs one.

***

That the native does not like the tourist is not hard to explain. For every native of every place is a potential tourist, and every tourist is a native of somewhere. Every native everywhere lives a life of overwhelming and crushing banality and boredom and desperation and depression, and every deed, good and bad, is an attempt to forget this. Every native would like to find a way out, every native would like a rest, every native would like a tour.

But some natives--most natives in the world--cannot go anwhere. They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. They are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place where they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go-- so when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you, they envy your ability to leave your own banality and boredom, they envy your ability to turn their own banality and boredom into a source of pleasure for yourself.

-jamaica kincaid a small place

***

happy march first, dear reader. enjoy the new beginning!

***

xoxo,

moonbird

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