I want to tell you about a workshop I’m taking through Hugo House in Seattle. It’s called “Labors of Love: Writing with Silvia Federici.” The instructor is Amanda Montei who has a wonderful newsletter here on Substack. We read and discuss Federici, and then Amanda gives us a writing prompt, often somatic, and we write for a bit and share what we’ve written. All of the women in the class are fascinating with diverse careers, some are mothers and some are not, many are coupled and some are not. I wrote a bit about Silvia Federici a few months — or was it years — ago here on the old newsletter/blog. You can read a mainstream article about her, here. You can also dive into her writing which is clear and fascinating and difficult and makes you wonder where you’ve been and why you’ve never read her before. Like all things good, Federici came into my life right when I needed her: during the period of time I was involved in a post post post post divorce clusterfuckery that my ex initiated. I won’t go into it here, but it got me thinking about — well — the number of hours I had worked as a mother and caregiver, specifically. I didn’t have the language to express how devalued I felt in the Los Angeles Family Court, how even the word “value” with its capitalist underpinnings doesn’t begin to express the yadda yadda yadda, but when I sat up in the big chair (perhaps not actually big, but we are infantilized as women in courtrooms) and answered or clarified the judge’s questions about, let’s say, the cost of diapers and whether or not I was being truthful about buying diapers for Sophie each month or answered the question, “What do you do when you come home from work and still have a caregiver there with Sophie?”
Wait.
This is too much. Lawyers chip away and judges sit and try to understand. Here’s what the opposing lawyer asked me, after he painstakingly parsed out the hours that The Caregiver works with Sophie while I’m working away from home as a teacher. He seized on a GAP there. Chip chip. “So, you employ Caregiver A to watch Sophie?” And I answered, “Yes.” And the opposing lawyer — let’s call him Stan — asked, “Does The Caregiver stay after you get home from work?” Chip chip chip. And, I said, “Yes, sometimes, for a couple of hours.” And Stan asked, “What do you DO, then, when you’re at home?” and there was so much heaviness to the do, so much at stake, yet I knew in that moment that no one got it. No one gets it. And I said, “What?” and Stan repeated himself and I said, “Oh. I go to the drugstore and buy Sophie’s medicine? I buy food at the grocery store? I cook food? I talk on the phone or catch up with the mail. I deal with The Brothers? (Always me with the question at the end of the sentence because that’s what we do). I sit down? I lie on my back on my bed and stare at the ceiling and contemplate the last twenty-six years of my life, my entire adult life except for the first decade of my twenties that I spent with another man and then a glorious few by myself working in kitchens?
I understand now why being called amazing or hearing I could never do what you do sat heavy on me, was stifling, left me drowning, gasping, smothered.
What is it you will do with your one precious life, asked The Poet. Dear god.
And then Silvia Federici appeared.
I will get back to you on that last question after I dive into Federici a bit. Sounds like a great workshop. Seattle is a strong, if not great, place for “out of the mainstream” educative, eye opening opportunities. A course I took while living there, in “ Minority mental health” was taught by an Asian woman whose name escapes me at the moment. The class was probably one of the two most impactful and useful classes for my work as a social worker as My career developed. What made it so, was that we essentially got an education about the context of each groups life rather than some pablum about what it means to be Mexican for example, I.e., machismo, etc. A Native American elder, a Mexican professor, and various other members of different communities came in as presenters. As you might imagine, I had another opportunity to open my eyes to what was out there to what life was really like for folks. Anyway I’m getting on too Long. Thank you. For sharing your life.
I can be mad at the lawyer - and I am.
I can be frustrated with the judge - and I am.
But my fury is directed at the person who initiated this legal action and who knows good and goddamned well the the time and costs required for Sophie’s care including the time overlaps between you and Sophie’s other caregiver.
So now I hate him.