WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.220 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.220 --> 00:00:07.235 align:middle line:90% Testing 1, 2. 00:00:07.235 --> 00:00:07.735 align:middle line:90% Testing. 00:00:07.735 --> 00:00:23.480 align:middle line:90% 00:00:23.480 --> 00:00:25.280 align:middle line:90% Good evening. 00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:26.480 align:middle line:90% I'm Lynn Fleischman. 00:00:26.480 --> 00:00:30.890 align:middle line:84% And on behalf of the Southwest Institute for Research on Women 00:00:30.890 --> 00:00:34.100 align:middle line:84% and my conference co-director Judy Lensing, 00:00:34.100 --> 00:00:36.170 align:middle line:84% I'd like to welcome you to the opening 00:00:36.170 --> 00:00:40.550 align:middle line:84% event of our conference, Midlife Crisis, funded by the Arizona 00:00:40.550 --> 00:00:42.290 align:middle line:90% Humanities Council. 00:00:42.290 --> 00:00:44.720 align:middle line:84% Tillie Olsen's reading tonight is also 00:00:44.720 --> 00:00:47.210 align:middle line:84% co-sponsored by the Poetry Center. 00:00:47.210 --> 00:00:48.710 align:middle line:84% Following the reading, you are all 00:00:48.710 --> 00:00:52.550 align:middle line:84% invited, as Lois Shelton usually stands up here and says, 00:00:52.550 --> 00:00:56.480 align:middle line:84% to meet Tillie Olsen and have some punch and cookies. 00:00:56.480 --> 00:00:59.660 align:middle line:84% Before I introduce Tillie Olsen, I have a few announcements 00:00:59.660 --> 00:01:01.280 align:middle line:90% to make. 00:01:01.280 --> 00:01:05.390 align:middle line:84% The Midlife Conference will run tomorrow from 9:00 AM 00:01:05.390 --> 00:01:07.610 align:middle line:90% until 4:30 PM. 00:01:07.610 --> 00:01:10.490 align:middle line:84% It will feature a variety of distinguished U of A 00:01:10.490 --> 00:01:14.420 align:middle line:84% and visiting scholars including Lily and Reuben, Loretta 00:01:14.420 --> 00:01:18.530 align:middle line:84% Coleman, Daniel Callahan, and David Maldonado. 00:01:18.530 --> 00:01:22.010 align:middle line:84% The panel on work will begin at 9:00 00:01:22.010 --> 00:01:26.510 align:middle line:84% followed by a panel on family at 10:45 and one 00:01:26.510 --> 00:01:29.330 align:middle line:90% on health at 1:15. 00:01:29.330 --> 00:01:32.120 align:middle line:84% Four workshops, in which you'll have the opportunity 00:01:32.120 --> 00:01:35.060 align:middle line:84% to speak with each of the visiting scholars, 00:01:35.060 --> 00:01:39.050 align:middle line:90% will run from 2:45 until 4:15. 00:01:39.050 --> 00:01:41.870 align:middle line:84% And the panels and workshops will address such topics 00:01:41.870 --> 00:01:46.220 align:middle line:84% as family and career changes at midlife, multicultural 00:01:46.220 --> 00:01:51.560 align:middle line:84% perspectives of midlife, media images, midlife sexuality, 00:01:51.560 --> 00:01:54.650 align:middle line:84% and the ethics of the youth cult. 00:01:54.650 --> 00:01:58.910 align:middle line:84% Programs detailing all speakers topics, times, and locations 00:01:58.910 --> 00:02:03.560 align:middle line:84% are available here tonight right over on this chair, as well as 00:02:03.560 --> 00:02:05.600 align:middle line:90% tomorrow at the conference. 00:02:05.600 --> 00:02:07.550 align:middle line:84% All panels will be held in the Gallagher 00:02:07.550 --> 00:02:09.259 align:middle line:90% Theater of the Student Union. 00:02:09.259 --> 00:02:13.040 align:middle line:84% And workshops will be in various meeting rooms in the Student 00:02:13.040 --> 00:02:13.610 align:middle line:90% Union. 00:02:13.610 --> 00:02:18.110 align:middle line:84% Incidentally, copies of Tillie Olsen's books will be available 00:02:18.110 --> 00:02:21.440 align:middle line:90% for sale between twelve -- 00:02:21.440 --> 00:02:24.410 align:middle line:90% noon and 4:30 tomorrow. 00:02:24.410 --> 00:02:26.900 align:middle line:84% Also, tomorrow night at 8 o'clock 00:02:26.900 --> 00:02:30.200 align:middle line:84% in the Junior Ballroom of the Student Union, speech 00:02:30.200 --> 00:02:33.500 align:middle line:84% communications doctoral candidate Cynthia Meyer 00:02:33.500 --> 00:02:36.800 align:middle line:84% will present a recital of Tillie Olsen's short story 00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:38.660 align:middle line:90% I Stand Here Ironing. 00:02:38.660 --> 00:02:42.260 align:middle line:84% Tillie Olsen will herself be available after the performance 00:02:42.260 --> 00:02:45.050 align:middle line:90% for discussion and questions. 00:02:45.050 --> 00:02:47.390 align:middle line:84% And Lois has asked me to announce, first, 00:02:47.390 --> 00:02:49.970 align:middle line:84% that the April 12 reading by John Williams 00:02:49.970 --> 00:02:53.600 align:middle line:84% has been canceled, and second, that the next Poetry Center 00:02:53.600 --> 00:02:56.030 align:middle line:84% reading will be in the terrace lounge of the Student 00:02:56.030 --> 00:03:01.520 align:middle line:84% Union on Wednesday, April 13 at the usual 8 o'clock time. 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:04.160 align:middle line:84% Students whose work appears in Persona, 00:03:04.160 --> 00:03:08.045 align:middle line:84% the university's undergraduate literary magazine, will read. 00:03:08.045 --> 00:03:10.880 align:middle line:90% 00:03:10.880 --> 00:03:15.950 align:middle line:84% Tillie Olsen has lived much of what this conference is about. 00:03:15.950 --> 00:03:21.320 align:middle line:84% She completed more high school than most of her generation 00:03:21.320 --> 00:03:23.780 align:middle line:90% although she did not finish. 00:03:23.780 --> 00:03:26.090 align:middle line:84% She wrote and published during this time, 00:03:26.090 --> 00:03:29.390 align:middle line:84% educating herself in public libraries. 00:03:29.390 --> 00:03:31.520 align:middle line:84% Supporting and raising four children, 00:03:31.520 --> 00:03:35.480 align:middle line:84% however, created in her a 20-year silence. 00:03:35.480 --> 00:03:39.650 align:middle line:84% It wasn't until she was in her mid-40s, her mid-life, 00:03:39.650 --> 00:03:43.650 align:middle line:84% that she began to write and publish again. 00:03:43.650 --> 00:03:47.150 align:middle line:84% Since that time, her works have become classics. 00:03:47.150 --> 00:03:49.880 align:middle line:84% She is the recipient of Ford Foundation 00:03:49.880 --> 00:03:52.850 align:middle line:84% and National Endowment for the Arts grants, 00:03:52.850 --> 00:03:56.810 align:middle line:84% a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an award for, quote, 00:03:56.810 --> 00:04:00.440 align:middle line:84% "very nearly constituting a new form of fiction" 00:04:00.440 --> 00:04:03.380 align:middle line:84% from the American Academy and National Institute 00:04:03.380 --> 00:04:05.270 align:middle line:90% of Arts and Letters. 00:04:05.270 --> 00:04:08.390 align:middle line:84% She has been awarded two honorary doctorates 00:04:08.390 --> 00:04:11.420 align:middle line:84% and has taught at Amherst College and Stanford 00:04:11.420 --> 00:04:12.500 align:middle line:90% University. 00:04:12.500 --> 00:04:16.970 align:middle line:84% She was writer in residence at MIT, distinguished visiting 00:04:16.970 --> 00:04:20.390 align:middle line:84% professor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, 00:04:20.390 --> 00:04:23.600 align:middle line:84% and a fellow of the Radcliffe Institute. 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:26.660 align:middle line:84% Her books have been published in many European countries, 00:04:26.660 --> 00:04:30.660 align:middle line:90% the USSR, and Japan. 00:04:30.660 --> 00:04:33.650 align:middle line:84% Her stories are available on numerous recordings. 00:04:33.650 --> 00:04:36.740 align:middle line:84% And her list of readings and speaking engagements 00:04:36.740 --> 00:04:41.000 align:middle line:84% is about that long, and I'm not going to tell you about them. 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:43.550 align:middle line:84% Tillie Olsen has also been instrumental in bringing 00:04:43.550 --> 00:04:46.550 align:middle line:84% eclipsed and forgotten books of importance 00:04:46.550 --> 00:04:49.310 align:middle line:90% back into use and into print. 00:04:49.310 --> 00:04:53.720 align:middle line:84% In 1980, in conjunction with their issuance of stamps 00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:58.460 align:middle line:84% commemorating Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, 00:04:58.460 --> 00:05:00.050 align:middle line:90% and Elizabeth Gaskell. 00:05:00.050 --> 00:05:03.950 align:middle line:84% The British Post Office selected her for a special award 00:05:03.950 --> 00:05:08.150 align:middle line:84% as, quote, "the American woman writer best exemplifying 00:05:08.150 --> 00:05:12.950 align:middle line:84% in our time their ideals and literary excellence." 00:05:12.950 --> 00:05:16.730 align:middle line:84% Her books include Tell Me a Riddle whose title novella 00:05:16.730 --> 00:05:21.350 align:middle line:84% won the O. Henry Award as the best story of 1961, 00:05:21.350 --> 00:05:24.620 align:middle line:84% and critics have said permanently changed 00:05:24.620 --> 00:05:27.380 align:middle line:90% and expanded American fiction. 00:05:27.380 --> 00:05:29.420 align:middle line:84% The four pieces in this collection 00:05:29.420 --> 00:05:34.970 align:middle line:84% have been anthologized 72 times, performed numerous times, 00:05:34.970 --> 00:05:39.050 align:middle line:84% and adapted into three films and an opera. 00:05:39.050 --> 00:05:41.900 align:middle line:84% Yonnondio from the '30s is a novel 00:05:41.900 --> 00:05:47.840 align:middle line:84% written originally in the 1930s but not published until 1974. 00:05:47.840 --> 00:05:51.320 align:middle line:84% Thought lost, portions of the original manuscript 00:05:51.320 --> 00:05:54.080 align:middle line:84% were unexpectedly found, and the novel 00:05:54.080 --> 00:05:57.410 align:middle line:84% reconstructed by in Tillie Olsen's words 00:05:57.410 --> 00:06:01.190 align:middle line:84% "the work of this older writer in arduous partnership 00:06:01.190 --> 00:06:04.220 align:middle line:90% with that long ago younger one." 00:06:04.220 --> 00:06:06.950 align:middle line:84% And finally, Silences, a collection 00:06:06.950 --> 00:06:09.620 align:middle line:84% of her essays along with testimony 00:06:09.620 --> 00:06:14.310 align:middle line:84% from other writers that attests to the power of circumstances 00:06:14.310 --> 00:06:19.190 align:middle line:84% including class, color, and sex to determine the flowering 00:06:19.190 --> 00:06:23.060 align:middle line:84% or withering of creative capacity. 00:06:23.060 --> 00:06:25.580 align:middle line:84% What Tillie Olsen has said of the informing purpose 00:06:25.580 --> 00:06:30.290 align:middle line:84% and passion of Silences could be applied equally to its author's 00:06:30.290 --> 00:06:33.170 align:middle line:90% purpose and passion in life. 00:06:33.170 --> 00:06:35.690 align:middle line:84% "Love for my incomparable medium, 00:06:35.690 --> 00:06:40.730 align:middle line:84% literature; hatred for all that, societally, rooted, 00:06:40.730 --> 00:06:44.660 align:middle line:84% unnecessarily lessens, and denies it; slows, 00:06:44.660 --> 00:06:47.960 align:middle line:90% impairs, silences writers. 00:06:47.960 --> 00:06:52.040 align:middle line:84% It is written to rededicate and encourage." 00:06:52.040 --> 00:06:55.713 align:middle line:84% It is an honor for me to introduce to you Tillie Olsen. 00:06:55.713 --> 00:07:13.970 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:07:13.970 --> 00:07:19.520 align:middle line:84% I never quite recognize myself in those introductions. 00:07:19.520 --> 00:07:21.530 align:middle line:84% That was wonderful, and thank you. 00:07:21.530 --> 00:07:28.740 align:middle line:90% 00:07:28.740 --> 00:07:34.490 align:middle line:84% It may be that I shall have to hold up this book Silences 00:07:34.490 --> 00:07:42.610 align:middle line:84% and exemplify it because even in an age, old age, I'm 70 or 71, 00:07:42.610 --> 00:07:45.620 align:middle line:90% one has virgin experiences. 00:07:45.620 --> 00:07:50.180 align:middle line:84% And tonight, for the first time, I do not have my usual voice. 00:07:50.180 --> 00:08:03.760 align:middle line:90% 00:08:03.760 --> 00:08:08.230 align:middle line:84% This is not going to be the kind of reading it would have 00:08:08.230 --> 00:08:10.480 align:middle line:90% been if the Poetry Center-- 00:08:10.480 --> 00:08:11.740 align:middle line:90% is my voice all right? 00:08:11.740 --> 00:08:14.350 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:08:14.350 --> 00:08:15.460 align:middle line:90% Had sponsored it. 00:08:15.460 --> 00:08:19.030 align:middle line:84% It's not going to be a pure reading. 00:08:19.030 --> 00:08:25.690 align:middle line:84% It is at the service of the Midlife Crisis question 00:08:25.690 --> 00:08:30.260 align:middle line:84% mark, that's what they have on the program, Conference. 00:08:30.260 --> 00:08:34.850 align:middle line:90% 00:08:34.850 --> 00:08:41.169 align:middle line:84% I do believe that literature can, 00:08:41.169 --> 00:08:47.380 align:middle line:84% that the best literature, that does not necessarily mean I 00:08:47.380 --> 00:08:52.330 align:middle line:84% include myself in it, though, I am as good as I can be. 00:08:52.330 --> 00:08:56.590 align:middle line:84% But to me, one of the great purposes of literature 00:08:56.590 --> 00:09:04.840 align:middle line:84% is to help us comprehend reality so that we 00:09:04.840 --> 00:09:12.190 align:middle line:84% may know what is good, what is harmful, what we wish to cling 00:09:12.190 --> 00:09:16.240 align:middle line:84% to, what we need to change, and arouse 00:09:16.240 --> 00:09:19.960 align:middle line:84% in us our capacity as human beings 00:09:19.960 --> 00:09:23.470 align:middle line:84% to make changes when they are necessary. 00:09:23.470 --> 00:09:34.330 align:middle line:84% I am going to do what really mutilates my work, in the sense 00:09:34.330 --> 00:09:39.220 align:middle line:84% that I am going to take shreds and patches of it. 00:09:39.220 --> 00:09:43.120 align:middle line:84% And only those of you who are familiar with it 00:09:43.120 --> 00:09:48.850 align:middle line:84% will be able to fill it in completely, but perhaps 00:09:48.850 --> 00:09:54.550 align:middle line:84% even so, enough will come through 00:09:54.550 --> 00:09:56.980 align:middle line:84% so that it will have some meaning. 00:09:56.980 --> 00:10:24.490 align:middle line:90% 00:10:24.490 --> 00:10:31.060 align:middle line:84% I've spent all day between saltwater gargling, 00:10:31.060 --> 00:10:34.720 align:middle line:84% honey and lemon, a little swig of whiskey 00:10:34.720 --> 00:10:44.540 align:middle line:84% just as I left, [LAUGHTER] vitamin C, all the other home 00:10:44.540 --> 00:10:47.720 align:middle line:84% remedies including a wonderful turkey 00:10:47.720 --> 00:10:52.640 align:middle line:84% soup made by your director of the Poetry Center. 00:10:52.640 --> 00:10:56.480 align:middle line:84% If all these have failed, it is perhaps 00:10:56.480 --> 00:11:00.950 align:middle line:84% retribution for writing a book called Silences. 00:11:00.950 --> 00:11:03.280 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:11:03.280 --> 00:11:08.930 align:middle line:90% Many years ago, I used-- 00:11:08.930 --> 00:11:11.480 align:middle line:84% I still like to walk in cemeteries, 00:11:11.480 --> 00:11:16.010 align:middle line:84% but in my native Omaha, Nebraska, 00:11:16.010 --> 00:11:19.670 align:middle line:84% there was a certain part of the cemetery near our house 00:11:19.670 --> 00:11:25.400 align:middle line:84% where of that vintage, many people or their families 00:11:25.400 --> 00:11:29.390 align:middle line:90% wrote their own epitaphs. 00:11:29.390 --> 00:11:34.070 align:middle line:84% And never will I forget the one that said-- 00:11:34.070 --> 00:11:39.830 align:middle line:84% there were many that said rest at last or sweet rest at last. 00:11:39.830 --> 00:11:46.760 align:middle line:84% It was that period of very hard work, which really has not 00:11:46.760 --> 00:11:48.660 align:middle line:90% changed all that much. 00:11:48.660 --> 00:11:58.370 align:middle line:84% But one said after the hard living, rest at last, 00:11:58.370 --> 00:12:03.860 align:middle line:84% the crisis, the crisis of living is past. 00:12:03.860 --> 00:12:06.440 align:middle line:90% 00:12:06.440 --> 00:12:11.000 align:middle line:84% Whether or not, how to separate out 00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:15.830 align:middle line:84% what is the crisis of living from what may or may not 00:12:15.830 --> 00:12:19.970 align:middle line:84% be a midlife crisis, it is of use 00:12:19.970 --> 00:12:29.600 align:middle line:84% I think to go back to what lives were before us. 00:12:29.600 --> 00:12:32.960 align:middle line:84% I'm not going to go back to the beginning of the century 00:12:32.960 --> 00:12:36.860 align:middle line:84% when certainly our midlife crisis, if we had one, 00:12:36.860 --> 00:12:42.080 align:middle line:84% would have been at the age of 25 as a woman. 00:12:42.080 --> 00:12:47.480 align:middle line:90% But I am going to go back. 00:12:47.480 --> 00:12:53.150 align:middle line:84% And I also hope my voice will last so I can talk a bit. 00:12:53.150 --> 00:12:54.065 align:middle line:90% Can you all hear me? 00:12:54.065 --> 00:12:59.510 align:middle line:84% It bothers me to have to cling to that. 00:12:59.510 --> 00:13:02.330 align:middle line:90% 00:13:02.330 --> 00:13:06.920 align:middle line:84% I do want to have my opportunity to say just a little 00:13:06.920 --> 00:13:12.950 align:middle line:84% about what I feel is inherent in a time that 00:13:12.950 --> 00:13:16.250 align:middle line:84% is close to the middle of our lives, 00:13:16.250 --> 00:13:19.790 align:middle line:84% that is, assuming that we live out lives 00:13:19.790 --> 00:13:24.780 align:middle line:84% according to the so-called normal span of our generation. 00:13:24.780 --> 00:13:26.720 align:middle line:84% But I'm going to start by reading 00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:37.430 align:middle line:84% a little from I Stand Here Ironing 1955, 1956, 00:13:37.430 --> 00:13:39.545 align:middle line:90% skipping so often. 00:13:39.545 --> 00:13:42.440 align:middle line:90% 00:13:42.440 --> 00:13:46.520 align:middle line:84% I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves 00:13:46.520 --> 00:13:50.420 align:middle line:84% tormented back and forth with the iron. 00:13:50.420 --> 00:13:52.640 align:middle line:84% I wish you'd manage the time to come in and talk 00:13:52.640 --> 00:13:54.230 align:middle line:90% with me about your daughter. 00:13:54.230 --> 00:13:56.930 align:middle line:84% I'm sure you can help me understand her. 00:13:56.930 --> 00:13:59.000 align:middle line:84% She's a youngster who needs help, 00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:02.360 align:middle line:84% and who I'm deeply interested in helping. 00:14:02.360 --> 00:14:04.070 align:middle line:90% Who needs help. 00:14:04.070 --> 00:14:06.770 align:middle line:84% Even if I came, what good would it do? 00:14:06.770 --> 00:14:09.710 align:middle line:84% You think because I am her mother, I have a key 00:14:09.710 --> 00:14:12.710 align:middle line:84% or that in some way you could use me as a key? 00:14:12.710 --> 00:14:15.230 align:middle line:90% She's lived for 19 years. 00:14:15.230 --> 00:14:18.620 align:middle line:84% There's all that life that has happened outside 00:14:18.620 --> 00:14:20.900 align:middle line:90% of me, beyond me. 00:14:20.900 --> 00:14:26.870 align:middle line:84% And when is there time to remember, to sift, to weight, 00:14:26.870 --> 00:14:29.520 align:middle line:90% to estimate, to total? 00:14:29.520 --> 00:14:32.180 align:middle line:84% I'll start, and there will be an interruption, 00:14:32.180 --> 00:14:35.150 align:middle line:84% and I'll have to gather it all together again. 00:14:35.150 --> 00:14:39.440 align:middle line:84% Or I'll become engulfed with all I did or did not do, 00:14:39.440 --> 00:14:44.870 align:middle line:84% with what should have been, and with cannot be helped. 00:14:44.870 --> 00:14:49.310 align:middle line:84% She was a beautiful baby, the first and only one of our five 00:14:49.310 --> 00:14:51.410 align:middle line:90% that was beautiful at birth. 00:14:51.410 --> 00:14:53.000 align:middle line:90% I skip. 00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:55.610 align:middle line:84% She blew shining bubbles of sound. 00:14:55.610 --> 00:14:59.840 align:middle line:84% She loved motion, loved light, loved color and music 00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:00.980 align:middle line:90% and textures. 00:15:00.980 --> 00:15:03.710 align:middle line:84% She'd lie on the floor in her blue overalls 00:15:03.710 --> 00:15:06.410 align:middle line:84% patting the surface so hard in ecstasy. 00:15:06.410 --> 00:15:08.930 align:middle line:90% Her hands and feet would blur. 00:15:08.930 --> 00:15:13.950 align:middle line:84% She was a miracle to me, but when she was eight months old, 00:15:13.950 --> 00:15:18.200 align:middle line:84% I had to leave her daytimes with the woman downstairs 00:15:18.200 --> 00:15:23.420 align:middle line:84% to whom she was no miracle at all, for I worked or looked 00:15:23.420 --> 00:15:28.610 align:middle line:84% for work and for Emily's father who could no longer endure, 00:15:28.610 --> 00:15:33.420 align:middle line:84% he wrote in his goodbye note sharing want with us. 00:15:33.420 --> 00:15:34.880 align:middle line:90% I was 19. 00:15:34.880 --> 00:15:38.870 align:middle line:84% It was the pre-relief, pre-WPA world of the depression. 00:15:38.870 --> 00:15:42.710 align:middle line:84% I'd start running as soon as I got off the streetcar, running 00:15:42.710 --> 00:15:46.550 align:middle line:84% up the stairs, the place smelling sour, and awake 00:15:46.550 --> 00:15:48.710 align:middle line:90% or asleep to startle awake. 00:15:48.710 --> 00:15:52.770 align:middle line:84% When she saw me, she'd break into a clogged weeping 00:15:52.770 --> 00:15:58.040 align:middle line:84% that could not be comforted, a weeping I can yet hear. 00:15:58.040 --> 00:16:01.820 align:middle line:84% After a while, I found a job hashing at night 00:16:01.820 --> 00:16:05.750 align:middle line:84% so I could be with her days, and it was better. 00:16:05.750 --> 00:16:09.560 align:middle line:84% But it came to where I had to bring her to his family 00:16:09.560 --> 00:16:11.210 align:middle line:90% and leave her. 00:16:11.210 --> 00:16:12.980 align:middle line:90% Again, I skip. 00:16:12.980 --> 00:16:17.240 align:middle line:84% She was too old enough for nursery school, they said. 00:16:17.240 --> 00:16:19.580 align:middle line:84% And I did not know then what I know 00:16:19.580 --> 00:16:24.710 align:middle line:84% now, the fatigue of the long day and the lacerations of group 00:16:24.710 --> 00:16:28.340 align:middle line:84% life in the kinds of nurseries that are only 00:16:28.340 --> 00:16:30.920 align:middle line:90% parking places for children. 00:16:30.920 --> 00:16:36.410 align:middle line:84% Except that it would have made no difference if I had known. 00:16:36.410 --> 00:16:38.960 align:middle line:90% It was the only place there was. 00:16:38.960 --> 00:16:41.990 align:middle line:84% It was the only way we could be together, 00:16:41.990 --> 00:16:45.500 align:middle line:90% the only way I could hold a job. 00:16:45.500 --> 00:16:49.340 align:middle line:84% And even without knowing, I knew. 00:16:49.340 --> 00:16:50.450 align:middle line:90% And I skip again. 00:16:50.450 --> 00:16:53.660 align:middle line:90% 00:16:53.660 --> 00:16:56.360 align:middle line:84% Apologizing to those who do not know this. 00:16:56.360 --> 00:17:02.850 align:middle line:90% 00:17:02.850 --> 00:17:04.530 align:middle line:90% Ronnie is calling. 00:17:04.530 --> 00:17:07.109 align:middle line:90% He is wet, and I change him. 00:17:07.109 --> 00:17:10.079 align:middle line:84% It is rare there is such a cry now. 00:17:10.079 --> 00:17:12.869 align:middle line:84% That time of motherhood is almost 00:17:12.869 --> 00:17:16.380 align:middle line:84% behind me when the ear is not one's own 00:17:16.380 --> 00:17:20.760 align:middle line:84% but must always be racked and listening for the child cry, 00:17:20.760 --> 00:17:22.349 align:middle line:90% the child call. 00:17:22.349 --> 00:17:25.349 align:middle line:84% We sit for a while, and I hold him, 00:17:25.349 --> 00:17:28.380 align:middle line:84% looking out over the city spread in charcoal 00:17:28.380 --> 00:17:30.780 align:middle line:90% with its soft isles of light. 00:17:30.780 --> 00:17:34.650 align:middle line:84% Shoogily, he breathes and curls closer. 00:17:34.650 --> 00:17:38.010 align:middle line:90% I carry him back to bed asleep. 00:17:38.010 --> 00:17:44.250 align:middle line:84% Shoogily, a funny word, a family word, inherited from Emily, 00:17:44.250 --> 00:17:48.240 align:middle line:90% invented by her to say comfort. 00:17:48.240 --> 00:17:52.800 align:middle line:84% In this and other ways, she leaves her seal, 00:17:52.800 --> 00:17:56.350 align:middle line:84% I say loud and startle at my saying it. 00:17:56.350 --> 00:17:57.600 align:middle line:90% What do I mean? 00:17:57.600 --> 00:17:59.970 align:middle line:84% What did I start to gather together 00:17:59.970 --> 00:18:01.860 align:middle line:90% to try and make coherent? 00:18:01.860 --> 00:18:06.000 align:middle line:84% I was at the terrible growing years, war years. 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:08.130 align:middle line:90% I do not remember them well. 00:18:08.130 --> 00:18:09.420 align:middle line:90% I was working. 00:18:09.420 --> 00:18:11.670 align:middle line:84% There were four smaller ones now. 00:18:11.670 --> 00:18:13.560 align:middle line:90% There was not time for her. 00:18:13.560 --> 00:18:18.300 align:middle line:84% She had to help be a mother and housekeeper and shopper. 00:18:18.300 --> 00:18:21.000 align:middle line:90% She had to set her seal. 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:24.930 align:middle line:84% Mornings of crisis and near hysteria trying to get lunches 00:18:24.930 --> 00:18:27.120 align:middle line:84% packed, hair combed, coats and shoes 00:18:27.120 --> 00:18:30.300 align:middle line:84% found, everyone to school or childcare on time, 00:18:30.300 --> 00:18:32.820 align:middle line:84% the baby ready for transportation. 00:18:32.820 --> 00:18:36.840 align:middle line:84% Running up to that huge school where she was one, 00:18:36.840 --> 00:18:42.300 align:middle line:84% she was lost, she was a drop, suffering over unpreparedness, 00:18:42.300 --> 00:18:46.120 align:middle line:84% stammering, and unsure in her classes. 00:18:46.120 --> 00:18:46.620 align:middle line:90% Again. 00:18:46.620 --> 00:18:49.230 align:middle line:90% I skip about Emily. 00:18:49.230 --> 00:18:50.760 align:middle line:90% She is coming. 00:18:50.760 --> 00:18:55.860 align:middle line:84% She runs up the stairs two at a time with light graceful step, 00:18:55.860 --> 00:18:58.260 align:middle line:90% and I know she's happy tonight. 00:18:58.260 --> 00:19:03.270 align:middle line:84% Whatever it was that occasioned your call didn't happen today. 00:19:03.270 --> 00:19:05.850 align:middle line:84% Aren't you ever going to finish the ironing, Mother? 00:19:05.850 --> 00:19:08.580 align:middle line:84% Whistler painted his mother in a rocker. 00:19:08.580 --> 00:19:12.930 align:middle line:84% I'd have to paint mine standing over an ironing board. 00:19:12.930 --> 00:19:15.450 align:middle line:84% This is one of her communicative nights, 00:19:15.450 --> 00:19:18.870 align:middle line:84% and she tells me everything or nothing 00:19:18.870 --> 00:19:23.670 align:middle line:84% as she fixes herself a plate of food out of the icebox. 00:19:23.670 --> 00:19:25.680 align:middle line:90% She is so lovely. 00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:28.110 align:middle line:84% Why did you want me to come in at all? 00:19:28.110 --> 00:19:29.700 align:middle line:90% Why were you concerned? 00:19:29.700 --> 00:19:32.070 align:middle line:90% She'll find her way. 00:19:32.070 --> 00:19:34.800 align:middle line:90% She starts up the stairs to bed. 00:19:34.800 --> 00:19:37.230 align:middle line:84% Don't get me up with the rest in the morning. 00:19:37.230 --> 00:19:39.780 align:middle line:84% But I thought you're having midterms. 00:19:39.780 --> 00:19:44.640 align:middle line:84% Oh those, she comes back in, kisses me, 00:19:44.640 --> 00:19:48.182 align:middle line:84% and says quite lightly, in a couple of years, 00:19:48.182 --> 00:19:49.140 align:middle line:90% we'll all be atom-dead. 00:19:49.140 --> 00:19:52.020 align:middle line:90% They won't matter a bit. 00:19:52.020 --> 00:19:54.420 align:middle line:90% She has said it before. 00:19:54.420 --> 00:19:56.190 align:middle line:90% She believes it. 00:19:56.190 --> 00:20:01.230 align:middle line:84% But because I have been dredging the past and all that compounds 00:20:01.230 --> 00:20:05.460 align:middle line:84% a human being is so heavy and meaningful in me, 00:20:05.460 --> 00:20:08.040 align:middle line:90% I cannot endure it tonight. 00:20:08.040 --> 00:20:10.290 align:middle line:90% I will never total it all. 00:20:10.290 --> 00:20:16.350 align:middle line:84% I will never come in to say, she was a child seldom smiled at. 00:20:16.350 --> 00:20:20.070 align:middle line:84% Her father left me before she was a year old. 00:20:20.070 --> 00:20:22.950 align:middle line:84% I had to work on outside jobs her first six 00:20:22.950 --> 00:20:25.770 align:middle line:84% years when there was work, or I sent her home 00:20:25.770 --> 00:20:27.450 align:middle line:90% and to his relatives. 00:20:27.450 --> 00:20:30.810 align:middle line:84% There were years she had care she hated. 00:20:30.810 --> 00:20:33.960 align:middle line:84% She was dark and foreign-looking in a world 00:20:33.960 --> 00:20:36.930 align:middle line:84% where the prestige goes to blondenes and curly hair 00:20:36.930 --> 00:20:38.220 align:middle line:90% and dimples. 00:20:38.220 --> 00:20:42.540 align:middle line:84% She was slow where glibness is prized. 00:20:42.540 --> 00:20:45.360 align:middle line:84% We were poor and could not afford 00:20:45.360 --> 00:20:48.630 align:middle line:90% for her the soil of easy growth. 00:20:48.630 --> 00:20:50.190 align:middle line:90% I was a young mother. 00:20:50.190 --> 00:20:52.320 align:middle line:90% I was a distracted mother. 00:20:52.320 --> 00:20:56.460 align:middle line:84% There were the other children pushing up, demanding. 00:20:56.460 --> 00:20:59.550 align:middle line:84% There were years she did not let me touch her. 00:20:59.550 --> 00:21:02.160 align:middle line:90% She kept too much in herself. 00:21:02.160 --> 00:21:07.020 align:middle line:84% Her life is such she has had to keep too much in herself. 00:21:07.020 --> 00:21:10.440 align:middle line:90% My wisdom came too late. 00:21:10.440 --> 00:21:15.840 align:middle line:84% She has much to her and probably little will come of it. 00:21:15.840 --> 00:21:24.090 align:middle line:84% She is a child of her age, of depression, of war, of fear. 00:21:24.090 --> 00:21:28.980 align:middle line:84% Let her be so all that is in her will not bloom, but in 00:21:28.980 --> 00:21:30.840 align:middle line:90% how many does all of it? 00:21:30.840 --> 00:21:34.110 align:middle line:84% There is still enough left to live by. 00:21:34.110 --> 00:21:37.890 align:middle line:84% Only help her to know, help make it 00:21:37.890 --> 00:21:40.170 align:middle line:84% so there is cause for her to know 00:21:40.170 --> 00:21:44.640 align:middle line:84% that she is more than this dress on the ironing board 00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:46.680 align:middle line:90% helpless before the iron. 00:21:46.680 --> 00:21:49.200 align:middle line:90% 00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:59.690 align:middle line:84% 1953, 1954, and still, and still that 00:21:59.690 --> 00:22:07.520 align:middle line:84% world and that threat to the end of all life. 00:22:07.520 --> 00:22:12.470 align:middle line:84% Though now, there's half a million times 00:22:12.470 --> 00:22:17.240 align:middle line:84% the explosive power of when that was written. 00:22:17.240 --> 00:22:24.020 align:middle line:84% And still the need to rouse in ourselves and in the young, 00:22:24.020 --> 00:22:26.360 align:middle line:84% the knowledge that we are more than the dress 00:22:26.360 --> 00:22:31.010 align:middle line:84% on the ironing board, helpless before the iron. 00:22:31.010 --> 00:22:37.730 align:middle line:84% Part to me of the midlife time, when 00:22:37.730 --> 00:22:41.720 align:middle line:84% is there time to sift, to weigh, to ponder, 00:22:41.720 --> 00:22:45.170 align:middle line:90% to estimate, to total? 00:22:45.170 --> 00:22:49.010 align:middle line:84% For those who are in the motherhood years 00:22:49.010 --> 00:22:56.240 align:middle line:84% and have the older ones, some sense already 00:22:56.240 --> 00:22:59.885 align:middle line:90% of that life, some looking back. 00:22:59.885 --> 00:23:04.130 align:middle line:90% 00:23:04.130 --> 00:23:06.770 align:middle line:84% And much else, I shall not speak of. 00:23:06.770 --> 00:23:11.720 align:middle line:90% 00:23:11.720 --> 00:23:16.970 align:middle line:84% With this mother, at least, freedom from guilt. 00:23:16.970 --> 00:23:19.850 align:middle line:84% She knew she was not experiencing guilt. 00:23:19.850 --> 00:23:26.720 align:middle line:84% She knew what the institutions were, what the world was, 00:23:26.720 --> 00:23:31.700 align:middle line:84% that world into which our children must grow. 00:23:31.700 --> 00:23:36.200 align:middle line:84% And they are to that world no miracle at all. 00:23:36.200 --> 00:23:40.460 align:middle line:84% A world not always fortunately for some children, 00:23:40.460 --> 00:23:45.830 align:middle line:84% but to most, hostile or hard for human unfolding. 00:23:45.830 --> 00:23:55.470 align:middle line:90% 00:23:55.470 --> 00:24:00.750 align:middle line:84% And what I wrote the title piece Tell Me a Riddle 00:24:00.750 --> 00:24:04.980 align:middle line:90% in what is still-- 00:24:04.980 --> 00:24:08.310 align:middle line:90% I am not a sociologist. 00:24:08.310 --> 00:24:18.610 align:middle line:84% What I assume, and I may be in error, is midlife-- 00:24:18.610 --> 00:24:25.600 align:middle line:84% and already, though, it begins some years before, 00:24:25.600 --> 00:24:29.860 align:middle line:90% I was close to 50. 00:24:29.860 --> 00:24:36.250 align:middle line:84% In my late 40s, when I began and wrote the title piece of 00:24:36.250 --> 00:24:43.150 align:middle line:84% Tell Me a Riddle, the sense of mortality 00:24:43.150 --> 00:24:46.750 align:middle line:84% that comes partly because of the beginning 00:24:46.750 --> 00:24:52.960 align:middle line:84% of the dying off in numbers of the generation before us. 00:24:52.960 --> 00:24:59.620 align:middle line:84% That generation to whom we were young, who knew us as young. 00:24:59.620 --> 00:25:06.330 align:middle line:90% 00:25:06.330 --> 00:25:11.580 align:middle line:90% The sense of time fleeting. 00:25:11.580 --> 00:25:13.620 align:middle line:84% That need that was already written 00:25:13.620 --> 00:25:16.170 align:middle line:84% into that first beginning story, I 00:25:16.170 --> 00:25:22.770 align:middle line:84% Stand Here Ironing, that time to weigh, to sift, to estimate, 00:25:22.770 --> 00:25:24.940 align:middle line:90% to total, to comprehend. 00:25:24.940 --> 00:25:28.710 align:middle line:90% 00:25:28.710 --> 00:25:33.900 align:middle line:84% And among that generation before us. 00:25:33.900 --> 00:25:37.950 align:middle line:84% I'll read only two things from Tell Me a Riddle. 00:25:37.950 --> 00:25:42.270 align:middle line:90% Now this is when the old woman-- 00:25:42.270 --> 00:25:44.820 align:middle line:84% the old woman who is really, when 00:25:44.820 --> 00:25:49.350 align:middle line:84% I wrote this, two years younger than I am now. 00:25:49.350 --> 00:25:51.900 align:middle line:90% So long ago was it. 00:25:51.900 --> 00:25:58.020 align:middle line:84% Now one by one, the children came, those that were able. 00:25:58.020 --> 00:26:00.964 align:middle line:84% Is my voice all right or should I give up? 00:26:00.964 --> 00:26:03.870 align:middle line:90% No. 00:26:03.870 --> 00:26:05.880 align:middle line:90% Something comes through. 00:26:05.880 --> 00:26:09.580 align:middle line:84% That's the marvelous thing about effort. 00:26:09.580 --> 00:26:14.880 align:middle line:84% Even if it's not perfect, something comes through. 00:26:14.880 --> 00:26:18.450 align:middle line:84% I've had to like the rest of us, most of us 00:26:18.450 --> 00:26:21.990 align:middle line:90% learn to live by that. 00:26:21.990 --> 00:26:27.810 align:middle line:84% Now one by one, the children came, those that were able. 00:26:27.810 --> 00:26:30.420 align:middle line:90% Anna Paul Sammy. 00:26:30.420 --> 00:26:33.270 align:middle line:84% Too late to ask, and what did you 00:26:33.270 --> 00:26:38.850 align:middle line:84% learn with your living mother, and what do we need to know? 00:26:38.850 --> 00:26:42.330 align:middle line:90% Clara, the eldest clenched. 00:26:42.330 --> 00:26:44.490 align:middle line:90% Pay me back, Mother. 00:26:44.490 --> 00:26:47.910 align:middle line:84% Pay me back for all you took from me. 00:26:47.910 --> 00:26:50.830 align:middle line:84% Those others you crowded into your heart. 00:26:50.830 --> 00:26:54.810 align:middle line:84% The hands I needed to be for you, the heaviness, 00:26:54.810 --> 00:26:57.390 align:middle line:90% the responsibility. 00:26:57.390 --> 00:26:59.700 align:middle line:90% Is this she? 00:26:59.700 --> 00:27:04.440 align:middle line:84% Noises the dying make, the crablike hands 00:27:04.440 --> 00:27:08.190 align:middle line:90% crawling across the covers. 00:27:08.190 --> 00:27:11.340 align:middle line:90% The ethereal singing. 00:27:11.340 --> 00:27:16.020 align:middle line:84% She hears that music, that singing from childhood 00:27:16.020 --> 00:27:18.030 align:middle line:90% for cotton sound. 00:27:18.030 --> 00:27:21.540 align:middle line:90% Not heard since, since. 00:27:21.540 --> 00:27:24.570 align:middle line:84% And the hardness breaks like a cry. 00:27:24.570 --> 00:27:30.990 align:middle line:84% Where did we lose each other, first mother, singing mother? 00:27:30.990 --> 00:27:34.950 align:middle line:84% Annulled: the quarrels, the gibing, 00:27:34.950 --> 00:27:39.360 align:middle line:84% the harshness between; the fall into silence 00:27:39.360 --> 00:27:41.220 align:middle line:90% and the withdrawal. 00:27:41.220 --> 00:27:44.630 align:middle line:90% I do not know you, Mother. 00:27:44.630 --> 00:27:48.120 align:middle line:90% Mother, I never knew you. 00:27:48.120 --> 00:27:51.870 align:middle line:84% Lennie, suffering not alone for her 00:27:51.870 --> 00:27:56.550 align:middle line:84% who was dying but for that in her, which never lived, 00:27:56.550 --> 00:28:00.000 align:middle line:84% for that which in him might never live. 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:03.690 align:middle line:90% From him too, unspoken words. 00:28:03.690 --> 00:28:08.340 align:middle line:84% Goodbye, Mother, who taught me to mother myself. 00:28:08.340 --> 00:28:11.970 align:middle line:84% Not Vivi, who must stay with her children. 00:28:11.970 --> 00:28:16.050 align:middle line:84% Not Davy, a dead son killed in war, 00:28:16.050 --> 00:28:22.650 align:middle line:84% but he is already here, having to die again with her this time 00:28:22.650 --> 00:28:26.625 align:middle line:84% where the living take their dead with them when they die. 00:28:26.625 --> 00:28:30.380 align:middle line:90% 00:28:30.380 --> 00:28:36.470 align:middle line:84% Of that time of motherhood and that time of motherhood, 00:28:36.470 --> 00:28:40.820 align:middle line:84% I believe is still and has come back, and it's different. 00:28:40.820 --> 00:28:47.150 align:middle line:84% But even more than ever, the old form in which difficult indeed 00:28:47.150 --> 00:28:49.610 align:middle line:84% was it ever to have time to mother 00:28:49.610 --> 00:28:52.340 align:middle line:84% because you were at the maintenance of life 00:28:52.340 --> 00:28:56.990 align:middle line:84% and the getting of the living tasks in one way 00:28:56.990 --> 00:29:01.220 align:middle line:84% or another when the older children had 00:29:01.220 --> 00:29:07.370 align:middle line:84% to so often be the mothers to the younger ones. 00:29:07.370 --> 00:29:12.650 align:middle line:84% And of that time when much more than those of us who 00:29:12.650 --> 00:29:15.980 align:middle line:84% now may or may not be in midlife crisis 00:29:15.980 --> 00:29:24.410 align:middle line:84% but certainly are in mid-life when so much more in them 00:29:24.410 --> 00:29:27.890 align:middle line:90% did not bloom. 00:29:27.890 --> 00:29:34.280 align:middle line:84% And yet, what great expression of self and of a capacity 00:29:34.280 --> 00:29:40.130 align:middle line:84% was there in that life that to the outside 00:29:40.130 --> 00:29:45.320 align:middle line:84% might seem only tradition or sacrifice of self. 00:29:45.320 --> 00:29:51.980 align:middle line:84% I hope to flesh out some of that when I read you of Anna now. 00:29:51.980 --> 00:29:57.800 align:middle line:84% This was something that before there was a midlife crisis, 00:29:57.800 --> 00:30:01.190 align:middle line:84% many of us can remember when there was an empty nest 00:30:01.190 --> 00:30:02.540 align:middle line:90% syndrome. 00:30:02.540 --> 00:30:06.980 align:middle line:84% That was before there was a women's movement. 00:30:06.980 --> 00:30:11.540 align:middle line:84% And underneath that, underpinning 00:30:11.540 --> 00:30:15.950 align:middle line:84% that, an economic necessity that again 00:30:15.950 --> 00:30:23.600 align:middle line:84% drove but in a recognizable form a paid outside of the home 00:30:23.600 --> 00:30:24.260 align:middle line:90% form. 00:30:24.260 --> 00:30:28.290 align:middle line:84% Except we know of course that for many, many women, 00:30:28.290 --> 00:30:33.110 align:middle line:84% particularly women of color and many working class women, 00:30:33.110 --> 00:30:39.120 align:middle line:84% you also were in both places, had to be in both places, 00:30:39.120 --> 00:30:43.880 align:middle line:84% but nobody having invented cloning oneself 00:30:43.880 --> 00:30:46.430 align:middle line:90% at the same time. 00:30:46.430 --> 00:30:52.610 align:middle line:84% But this was written before even there was talk of an empty nest 00:30:52.610 --> 00:30:54.020 align:middle line:90% syndrome. 00:30:54.020 --> 00:31:00.320 align:middle line:84% And yet, that younger writer, that almost quarter 00:31:00.320 --> 00:31:05.540 align:middle line:84% of a century younger writer, who was I, wrote of it differently. 00:31:05.540 --> 00:31:08.810 align:middle line:90% 00:31:08.810 --> 00:31:12.290 align:middle line:84% I will read a little more than is necessary. 00:31:12.290 --> 00:31:18.440 align:middle line:84% And it is strange for me to read only for-- 00:31:18.440 --> 00:31:21.440 align:middle line:90% 00:31:21.440 --> 00:31:26.480 align:middle line:84% let's call it-- they call it a didactic purpose. 00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:28.760 align:middle line:84% Of a sociological value, I believe 00:31:28.760 --> 00:31:32.570 align:middle line:84% is the put down term for literature that concerns itself 00:31:32.570 --> 00:31:35.120 align:middle line:90% primarily with these things. 00:31:35.120 --> 00:31:36.110 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:31:36.110 --> 00:31:42.230 align:middle line:84% This is in the midlife time of this story, 00:31:42.230 --> 00:31:47.030 align:middle line:84% but not of this woman, who has not yet 00:31:47.030 --> 00:31:50.880 align:middle line:84% been told that she is dying of cancer although her body knows 00:31:50.880 --> 00:31:51.380 align:middle line:90% it. 00:31:51.380 --> 00:31:54.110 align:middle line:84% And she's being taken on those trips 00:31:54.110 --> 00:31:58.550 align:middle line:84% to child after child, the farewell trips. 00:31:58.550 --> 00:32:05.420 align:middle line:84% And she comes now to the home of her youngest daughter, the one 00:32:05.420 --> 00:32:09.920 align:middle line:84% who, in a way, has the dearest and the most loving 00:32:09.920 --> 00:32:14.000 align:middle line:84% memories of her mother because she is the youngest 00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:16.430 align:middle line:90% and remembers her mother too. 00:32:16.430 --> 00:32:20.600 align:middle line:84% Well, I shan't go into that, but they put a baby 00:32:20.600 --> 00:32:24.590 align:middle line:90% in her lap, a new baby. 00:32:24.590 --> 00:32:31.190 align:middle line:84% Oh Vivi, was so happy to be having this baby because as she 00:32:31.190 --> 00:32:34.280 align:middle line:84% remembered her mother, a baby was 00:32:34.280 --> 00:32:38.180 align:middle line:84% going to make her mother happier than anything else. 00:32:38.180 --> 00:32:40.880 align:middle line:84% And to her, of course, she wished 00:32:40.880 --> 00:32:46.280 align:middle line:84% to keep that mother intact, the mother of that time. 00:32:46.280 --> 00:32:52.550 align:middle line:84% She was not yet enough in a midlife time to know 00:32:52.550 --> 00:32:55.580 align:middle line:84% that in her mother too, there might 00:32:55.580 --> 00:33:01.550 align:middle line:84% be other aspirations, other possibilities, other needs, 00:33:01.550 --> 00:33:02.870 align:middle line:90% other growth. 00:33:02.870 --> 00:33:04.880 align:middle line:90% And this is about that. 00:33:04.880 --> 00:33:07.670 align:middle line:84% You see, I do not need to do this 00:33:07.670 --> 00:33:10.640 align:middle line:84% if I could have read you all of Tell Me a Riddle, 00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:16.130 align:middle line:84% but it's necessary and excerpting in this harmful way. 00:33:16.130 --> 00:33:17.630 align:middle line:90% In the aeroplane-- no. 00:33:17.630 --> 00:33:22.580 align:middle line:84% A new baby, how many warm seductive babies? 00:33:22.580 --> 00:33:27.980 align:middle line:84% She holds him stiffly away from her so that he wails, 00:33:27.980 --> 00:33:31.550 align:middle line:84% and a long shudder begins and the sweat 00:33:31.550 --> 00:33:33.710 align:middle line:90% beads on her forehead. 00:33:33.710 --> 00:33:37.730 align:middle line:84% Hush, shush, croons the grandfather, lifting it back. 00:33:37.730 --> 00:33:40.310 align:middle line:84% You should forgive your grandma, Little Prince. 00:33:40.310 --> 00:33:44.900 align:middle line:84% She's never held a baby before, only seen them in glass cases. 00:33:44.900 --> 00:33:48.740 align:middle line:84% Hush, shush, you're tired, Ma, says Vivi. 00:33:48.740 --> 00:33:51.020 align:middle line:90% The travel and the noisy dinner. 00:33:51.020 --> 00:33:54.260 align:middle line:90% I'll take you to lie down. 00:33:54.260 --> 00:34:01.220 align:middle line:84% A long travel from, to, what the feel of a baby evokes. 00:34:01.220 --> 00:34:06.080 align:middle line:84% In the airplane, cunningly designed to encase for motion. 00:34:06.080 --> 00:34:08.630 align:middle line:90% It's her first airplane trip. 00:34:08.630 --> 00:34:11.389 align:middle line:90% No wind, no feel of flight. 00:34:11.389 --> 00:34:15.110 align:middle line:84% She had sat severely and still, her face 00:34:15.110 --> 00:34:20.929 align:middle line:84% turned to the sky through which they cleaved and left no scar. 00:34:20.929 --> 00:34:26.300 align:middle line:84% So this was how it looked, the determining, the crucial sky, 00:34:26.300 --> 00:34:29.030 align:middle line:84% and this was how man moved through it, 00:34:29.030 --> 00:34:34.699 align:middle line:84% remote above the dwindled Earth the concealed human life. 00:34:34.699 --> 00:34:39.440 align:middle line:90% Vulnerable life that could scar. 00:34:39.440 --> 00:34:41.270 align:middle line:90% I must skip. 00:34:41.270 --> 00:34:43.820 align:middle line:90% Now they put a baby in her lap. 00:34:43.820 --> 00:34:46.550 align:middle line:84% Do not ask me, she would have liked to beg. 00:34:46.550 --> 00:34:51.889 align:middle line:84% Enough, the worn face of Vivi, the remembered grandchildren. 00:34:51.889 --> 00:34:53.636 align:middle line:90% I cannot, cannot. 00:34:53.636 --> 00:34:55.340 align:middle line:90% Cannot what? 00:34:55.340 --> 00:35:01.040 align:middle line:84% Unnatural grandmother, not able to let herself embrace a baby. 00:35:01.040 --> 00:35:04.220 align:middle line:84% She lay there in the bed of the two little girls, 00:35:04.220 --> 00:35:08.720 align:middle line:84% her new hearing aid turned full, listening 00:35:08.720 --> 00:35:11.660 align:middle line:84% to the sound of the children going to sleep, 00:35:11.660 --> 00:35:16.250 align:middle line:84% the baby's fretful crying and hushing, the clatter of dishes 00:35:16.250 --> 00:35:18.440 align:middle line:90% being washed and put away. 00:35:18.440 --> 00:35:20.420 align:middle line:90% They thought she slept. 00:35:20.420 --> 00:35:23.540 align:middle line:90% Still she wrote on. 00:35:23.540 --> 00:35:28.190 align:middle line:84% It was not that she had not loved her babies, her children. 00:35:28.190 --> 00:35:31.130 align:middle line:84% The love, the passion of tending, 00:35:31.130 --> 00:35:33.860 align:middle line:84% had risen with the need like a torrent. 00:35:33.860 --> 00:35:38.730 align:middle line:84% And like a torrent, drowned and immolated all else. 00:35:38.730 --> 00:35:42.380 align:middle line:84% But when the need was done, oh, the power 00:35:42.380 --> 00:35:45.290 align:middle line:84% that was lost in the painful damning 00:35:45.290 --> 00:35:51.560 align:middle line:84% back and drying up of what still surged but had nowhere to go. 00:35:51.560 --> 00:35:56.060 align:middle line:84% Only the thin pulsing left that could not quiet, 00:35:56.060 --> 00:36:01.280 align:middle line:84% suffering over lives one felt but could no longer hold 00:36:01.280 --> 00:36:03.020 align:middle line:90% nor help. 00:36:03.020 --> 00:36:07.310 align:middle line:84% On that torrent, she'd borne them to their own lives. 00:36:07.310 --> 00:36:11.660 align:middle line:84% And the riverbed was desert long years now. 00:36:11.660 --> 00:36:15.560 align:middle line:84% Not there would she dwell, a memoried wraith. 00:36:15.560 --> 00:36:18.650 align:middle line:90% Surely, there was not all. 00:36:18.650 --> 00:36:20.670 align:middle line:90% Surely, that was not all. 00:36:20.670 --> 00:36:22.650 align:middle line:90% Surely, there was more. 00:36:22.650 --> 00:36:24.720 align:middle line:90% Still the springs. 00:36:24.720 --> 00:36:27.180 align:middle line:90% The springs were in her seeking. 00:36:27.180 --> 00:36:31.470 align:middle line:84% Somewhere an older power that beat for life. 00:36:31.470 --> 00:36:37.440 align:middle line:84% Somewhere coherence transport, meaning, community. 00:36:37.440 --> 00:36:39.750 align:middle line:84% If they would but leave her in the air 00:36:39.750 --> 00:36:44.070 align:middle line:84% now stilled of clamor in the reconciled solitude 00:36:44.070 --> 00:36:46.290 align:middle line:90% to journey on. 00:36:46.290 --> 00:36:48.960 align:middle line:90% And they put a baby in her lap. 00:36:48.960 --> 00:36:55.020 align:middle line:84% Immediacy to embrace and the breath of that past, warm flesh 00:36:55.020 --> 00:36:58.410 align:middle line:84% like this that had claims and nestled away 00:36:58.410 --> 00:37:02.220 align:middle line:84% all else and with lovely mouth devoured. 00:37:02.220 --> 00:37:05.940 align:middle line:84% Hot living like an animal, intensely and now, 00:37:05.940 --> 00:37:09.510 align:middle line:84% the turning maze, the long drunkenness, 00:37:09.510 --> 00:37:13.080 align:middle line:84% the drowning into needing and being needed. 00:37:13.080 --> 00:37:18.060 align:middle line:84% Severely, she looked back, and the shudder seized her again, 00:37:18.060 --> 00:37:19.170 align:middle line:90% and the sweat. 00:37:19.170 --> 00:37:20.550 align:middle line:90% Not that way. 00:37:20.550 --> 00:37:21.690 align:middle line:90% Not there. 00:37:21.690 --> 00:37:23.370 align:middle line:90% Not now could she. 00:37:23.370 --> 00:37:24.540 align:middle line:90% Not yet. 00:37:24.540 --> 00:37:29.925 align:middle line:84% And all that visit, she could not touch the baby. 00:37:29.925 --> 00:37:34.380 align:middle line:90% 00:37:34.380 --> 00:37:40.060 align:middle line:90% Know I'm going on to Yonnondio. 00:37:40.060 --> 00:37:44.670 align:middle line:90% 00:37:44.670 --> 00:37:52.080 align:middle line:84% In that time of that kind of motherhood-- 00:37:52.080 --> 00:37:55.590 align:middle line:84% and I don't want to place it only in the past 00:37:55.590 --> 00:38:01.090 align:middle line:84% because I do believe it still goes on. 00:38:01.090 --> 00:38:07.080 align:middle line:84% But now you see there are re-entry programs, community 00:38:07.080 --> 00:38:10.350 align:middle line:84% colleges, state colleges, city colleges that 00:38:10.350 --> 00:38:15.420 align:middle line:90% take students of all ages back. 00:38:15.420 --> 00:38:21.780 align:middle line:84% There is much else that was not there in that particular far 00:38:21.780 --> 00:38:24.120 align:middle line:90% more restricted time. 00:38:24.120 --> 00:38:27.840 align:middle line:84% And never was there the kind of ceremony, 00:38:27.840 --> 00:38:34.680 align:middle line:84% the kind of celebration, the kind of ritual that took place 00:38:34.680 --> 00:38:43.560 align:middle line:84% supposedly in some societies when a girl gets to be 13 or so 00:38:43.560 --> 00:38:44.610 align:middle line:90% in our time. 00:38:44.610 --> 00:38:48.270 align:middle line:84% Right now, I guess it would have to be 10 or 11. 00:38:48.270 --> 00:38:52.560 align:middle line:84% No graduation ceremonies, no commencements, 00:38:52.560 --> 00:38:58.920 align:middle line:84% no kind of recognition of the years put into that. 00:38:58.920 --> 00:39:04.695 align:middle line:84% And now, one had commenced onto something else. 00:39:04.695 --> 00:39:07.740 align:middle line:90% 00:39:07.740 --> 00:39:12.060 align:middle line:84% I like to say these things in fictional form when I can, 00:39:12.060 --> 00:39:19.530 align:middle line:84% but sometimes it's necessary to say them not so gracefully. 00:39:19.530 --> 00:39:26.940 align:middle line:84% I want to read a little bit more than a bit from Yonnondio. 00:39:26.940 --> 00:39:32.070 align:middle line:84% Again, about the-- and I speak primarily of my sex 00:39:32.070 --> 00:39:34.575 align:middle line:90% although Jim too is in this. 00:39:34.575 --> 00:39:38.400 align:middle line:90% 00:39:38.400 --> 00:39:44.584 align:middle line:84% The two great silencers of humanity 00:39:44.584 --> 00:39:50.370 align:middle line:84% are the bearing and rearing of another generation, 00:39:50.370 --> 00:39:53.940 align:middle line:84% the maintenance of life on Earth, 00:39:53.940 --> 00:39:57.100 align:middle line:84% and the work that makes ongoing life possible. 00:39:57.100 --> 00:40:00.280 align:middle line:90% 00:40:00.280 --> 00:40:02.940 align:middle line:84% And of course, this has had most to do 00:40:02.940 --> 00:40:09.630 align:middle line:84% with those who do that everyday work, working people, half 00:40:09.630 --> 00:40:11.730 align:middle line:90% of whom are women. 00:40:11.730 --> 00:40:19.050 align:middle line:84% And that bearing and rearing of children and the maintenance 00:40:19.050 --> 00:40:23.550 align:middle line:84% of life, in other ways, has been the special work of our sex, 00:40:23.550 --> 00:40:27.240 align:middle line:84% although we shared with men the other work 00:40:27.240 --> 00:40:31.740 align:middle line:84% of the world in that universal farm time 00:40:31.740 --> 00:40:38.400 align:middle line:84% or in that time that never got into the economic records 00:40:38.400 --> 00:40:40.800 align:middle line:84% when so much of our work was at home. 00:40:40.800 --> 00:40:45.720 align:middle line:84% We're very close to the taking in of borders, of washing, 00:40:45.720 --> 00:40:51.810 align:middle line:84% I mean my generation, of sewing, of other children, 00:40:51.810 --> 00:40:57.930 align:middle line:84% of invalids, of doing this, of doing that. 00:40:57.930 --> 00:41:04.440 align:middle line:84% Yonnondio, I will explain the title to you. 00:41:04.440 --> 00:41:12.030 align:middle line:84% It is from a short poem by Walt Whitman, 00:41:12.030 --> 00:41:15.720 align:middle line:84% a poem he explains-- the only poem he 00:41:15.720 --> 00:41:19.930 align:middle line:84% has an explanation of its title in parentheses. 00:41:19.930 --> 00:41:25.280 align:middle line:84% An Iroquois term meaning lament for the lost. 00:41:25.280 --> 00:41:29.390 align:middle line:90% The word itself a poem, a dirge. 00:41:29.390 --> 00:41:32.150 align:middle line:84% I thought it was pronounced Yonnondio 00:41:32.150 --> 00:41:36.650 align:middle line:84% because it sounded right in the two sentences that 00:41:36.650 --> 00:41:40.040 align:middle line:84% made me cling to what my publisher told me truly 00:41:40.040 --> 00:41:44.540 align:middle line:84% was an absolutely non-commercial title. 00:41:44.540 --> 00:41:48.680 align:middle line:84% But three years ago in Grand Rapids, Michigan, 00:41:48.680 --> 00:41:52.520 align:middle line:84% of all places, I met an Iroquois, 00:41:52.520 --> 00:41:55.340 align:middle line:84% and I understood why Walt Whitman 00:41:55.340 --> 00:41:57.650 align:middle line:90% had to write such a poem. 00:41:57.650 --> 00:42:02.240 align:middle line:90% And he tried to instruct me. 00:42:02.240 --> 00:42:07.820 align:middle line:84% But when we were six months old or so, give or take a few 00:42:07.820 --> 00:42:14.900 align:middle line:84% weeks, we made all the sounds, give or take a few weeks, 00:42:14.900 --> 00:42:18.980 align:middle line:84% out of which come all the languages of the world, 00:42:18.980 --> 00:42:27.320 align:middle line:84% that babble, B-A-B-B-L-E, B-A-B-E-L, that we have now. 00:42:27.320 --> 00:42:32.570 align:middle line:84% And some of the sounds, as we become more and more imprisoned 00:42:32.570 --> 00:42:37.460 align:middle line:84% most of us in only one or if we're luckier by cultural 00:42:37.460 --> 00:42:44.480 align:middle line:84% or we're educated more than one, there are certain sounds, 00:42:44.480 --> 00:42:49.040 align:middle line:84% like other things, atrophy cease to be because we have not 00:42:49.040 --> 00:42:50.570 align:middle line:90% exercised them. 00:42:50.570 --> 00:42:57.020 align:middle line:84% And I cannot quite say it right, but this is the way it really 00:42:57.020 --> 00:42:58.540 align:middle line:90% should be. 00:42:58.540 --> 00:43:00.114 align:middle line:90% [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]. 00:43:00.114 --> 00:43:03.080 align:middle line:90% 00:43:03.080 --> 00:43:09.890 align:middle line:84% Know picture, poem, statement passing us to the future. 00:43:09.890 --> 00:43:11.750 align:middle line:90% Yonnondio. 00:43:11.750 --> 00:43:15.010 align:middle line:90% [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]. 00:43:15.010 --> 00:43:20.990 align:middle line:84% Unlimnd, U-N-L-I-M-N-D, we disappear, 00:43:20.990 --> 00:43:27.230 align:middle line:84% as indeed so much of the lives of those before us and our own 00:43:27.230 --> 00:43:32.780 align:middle line:84% lives still, though, now we have the tools, many of us, to limb, 00:43:32.780 --> 00:43:37.190 align:middle line:84% to picture, to place into the records, into history. 00:43:37.190 --> 00:43:43.640 align:middle line:84% Still, are we midlife crisis or younger crisis 00:43:43.640 --> 00:43:48.800 align:middle line:84% or older crises in our way at the old silencing 00:43:48.800 --> 00:43:50.945 align:middle line:90% tasks, too many of us? 00:43:50.945 --> 00:43:54.680 align:middle line:90% 00:43:54.680 --> 00:43:57.740 align:middle line:84% This, for those of you who don't know it, 00:43:57.740 --> 00:43:59.660 align:middle line:90% is about a young family. 00:43:59.660 --> 00:44:03.380 align:middle line:84% The parents in their 20s already with five children. 00:44:03.380 --> 00:44:06.890 align:middle line:84% It was the time before there was much knowledge 00:44:06.890 --> 00:44:09.020 align:middle line:90% of Margaret Sanger. 00:44:09.020 --> 00:44:15.980 align:middle line:84% And women did not know too much about their bodies either. 00:44:15.980 --> 00:44:19.550 align:middle line:84% And even if some of them knew better, 00:44:19.550 --> 00:44:23.340 align:middle line:84% they might like Anna who is pregnant at the time-- 00:44:23.340 --> 00:44:25.310 align:middle line:90% I first start to read to you. 00:44:25.310 --> 00:44:28.130 align:middle line:90% 00:44:28.130 --> 00:44:31.970 align:middle line:84% I still thought or think that nursing a baby 00:44:31.970 --> 00:44:34.430 align:middle line:84% was going to keep you from getting pregnant again. 00:44:34.430 --> 00:44:39.540 align:middle line:90% 00:44:39.540 --> 00:44:47.390 align:middle line:84% 28 and 27, five children, and the sixth yet to come. 00:44:47.390 --> 00:44:51.200 align:middle line:84% And this is set in the late '20s, early 00:44:51.200 --> 00:44:54.660 align:middle line:90% '30s, and a family-- 00:44:54.660 --> 00:45:00.160 align:middle line:90% 00:45:00.160 --> 00:45:05.110 align:middle line:84% I think again of that word crisis. 00:45:05.110 --> 00:45:10.780 align:middle line:84% But in the old way of mobility when 00:45:10.780 --> 00:45:22.930 align:middle line:84% you can have it because what was so criminal with slavery that 00:45:22.930 --> 00:45:26.530 align:middle line:84% once covered most of the ancient Earth 00:45:26.530 --> 00:45:31.180 align:middle line:84% and existed in the last century, as we know in our country, 00:45:31.180 --> 00:45:35.440 align:middle line:84% in the old czarist Russia, and in a few other places, 00:45:35.440 --> 00:45:38.590 align:middle line:90% still in a few places exists. 00:45:38.590 --> 00:45:44.530 align:middle line:84% And serfdom, one was fixed to the land 00:45:44.530 --> 00:45:48.940 align:middle line:84% always, especially in the last century slavery. 00:45:48.940 --> 00:45:53.140 align:middle line:84% There were those also that used at risk of death 00:45:53.140 --> 00:46:00.670 align:middle line:84% that right to pick oneself up and move, run away. 00:46:00.670 --> 00:46:03.160 align:middle line:84% And this family in a different way 00:46:03.160 --> 00:46:05.260 align:middle line:84% of mobility that human beings have 00:46:05.260 --> 00:46:11.050 align:middle line:84% used emigration, not immigration, that brought many 00:46:11.050 --> 00:46:14.770 align:middle line:90% to this country and still is. 00:46:14.770 --> 00:46:18.460 align:middle line:84% But the picking oneself up from one place 00:46:18.460 --> 00:46:22.900 align:middle line:84% in which one was trying to make a living to another place 00:46:22.900 --> 00:46:25.660 align:middle line:90% where it might be better. 00:46:25.660 --> 00:46:29.650 align:middle line:84% Now, with others, it may be changing a college 00:46:29.650 --> 00:46:32.980 align:middle line:84% or going into college or doing this or that. 00:46:32.980 --> 00:46:40.750 align:middle line:84% But they had gone from mine to farm and both places. 00:46:40.750 --> 00:46:42.700 align:middle line:84% Though they loved the farm, it was not 00:46:42.700 --> 00:46:47.380 align:middle line:84% injurious like the mining town and work in the mines. 00:46:47.380 --> 00:46:49.420 align:middle line:84% But they could not make it there, 00:46:49.420 --> 00:46:53.470 align:middle line:84% and now they were in the city in the packing house part. 00:46:53.470 --> 00:46:57.250 align:middle line:84% And Jim, even if it was a prohibition time, 00:46:57.250 --> 00:47:01.660 align:middle line:84% Saturday, six-day week, had stopped off 00:47:01.660 --> 00:47:05.470 align:middle line:84% after a humiliating day at work and had a few too many but not 00:47:05.470 --> 00:47:08.890 align:middle line:90% enough, and had raped Anna. 00:47:08.890 --> 00:47:14.260 align:middle line:90% Anna who then had a miscarriage. 00:47:14.260 --> 00:47:21.070 align:middle line:84% And her oldest daughter, nine, who was one of those mothers, 00:47:21.070 --> 00:47:23.050 align:middle line:84% had to be to the younger children 00:47:23.050 --> 00:47:26.470 align:middle line:84% as well as-- as I read you and that morning of I Stand 00:47:26.470 --> 00:47:30.220 align:middle line:84% Here Ironing, had to be assistant, housekeeper, 00:47:30.220 --> 00:47:34.220 align:middle line:84% shopper, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 00:47:34.220 --> 00:47:39.160 align:middle line:84% Here's what is going on and has to go and find her mother. 00:47:39.160 --> 00:47:40.900 align:middle line:90% And her mother is very-- 00:47:40.900 --> 00:47:43.330 align:middle line:84% find her mother unconscious on the kitchen floor, 00:47:43.330 --> 00:47:46.270 align:middle line:84% try to wake up her father who's passed out, 00:47:46.270 --> 00:47:48.160 align:middle line:90% run and get a neighbor. 00:47:48.160 --> 00:47:52.420 align:middle line:84% And Anna is very conscious of the fact 00:47:52.420 --> 00:47:59.920 align:middle line:84% that her young daughter will not look her in the face anymore. 00:47:59.920 --> 00:48:07.660 align:middle line:84% And that too is now between them, between the two of them. 00:48:07.660 --> 00:48:11.470 align:middle line:90% 00:48:11.470 --> 00:48:17.920 align:middle line:84% And in the scene just before, where she stands in the bedroom 00:48:17.920 --> 00:48:22.330 align:middle line:84% after having had the only holiday that women like 00:48:22.330 --> 00:48:25.630 align:middle line:84% her had, which was when you were so damn sick, 00:48:25.630 --> 00:48:28.540 align:middle line:84% you couldn't really literally do a thing, 00:48:28.540 --> 00:48:31.540 align:middle line:84% so others did for you the best they could. 00:48:31.540 --> 00:48:34.510 align:middle line:90% And life went on in some way. 00:48:34.510 --> 00:48:47.950 align:middle line:84% In that few days, well, little time to sift, to wander, 00:48:47.950 --> 00:48:50.710 align:middle line:90% and to ponder. 00:48:50.710 --> 00:48:56.740 align:middle line:84% And a first experience in a city clinic that she also 00:48:56.740 --> 00:48:59.350 align:middle line:84% had to place behind her, and having 00:48:59.350 --> 00:49:03.550 align:middle line:84% to stop nursing the baby, which they'd instructed 00:49:03.550 --> 00:49:06.910 align:middle line:90% her to do at the clinic. 00:49:06.910 --> 00:49:12.440 align:middle line:84% But in a sudden fury of work, her first one, 00:49:12.440 --> 00:49:18.110 align:middle line:84% which didn't last too long, she gets up, 00:49:18.110 --> 00:49:19.615 align:middle line:90% sees the mess in the house. 00:49:19.615 --> 00:49:24.970 align:middle line:90% 00:49:24.970 --> 00:49:29.740 align:middle line:84% And it was that she felt so worn, so helpless, 00:49:29.740 --> 00:49:33.850 align:middle line:84% that it loomed gigantic beyond her, impossible ever 00:49:33.850 --> 00:49:37.000 align:middle line:84% to achieve, beyond any effort or doing 00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:41.410 align:middle line:84% of hers, that task of making a better life for her children 00:49:41.410 --> 00:49:47.170 align:middle line:84% to which her being was bound, because she was before the time 00:49:47.170 --> 00:49:53.140 align:middle line:84% when we thought in terms both of life for others and other life 00:49:53.140 --> 00:49:55.420 align:middle line:90% for ourselves. 00:49:55.420 --> 00:50:00.480 align:middle line:84% Wanted both or perhaps wanted only one or the other. 00:50:00.480 --> 00:50:03.970 align:middle line:90% 00:50:03.970 --> 00:50:09.000 align:middle line:84% And now when Jim comes home, she's sitting on the back stoop 00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:12.540 align:middle line:84% directing Will to hook up the stubbly ground. 00:50:12.540 --> 00:50:16.260 align:middle line:84% Hey, what are you doing up, he asks gently coming up to her. 00:50:16.260 --> 00:50:19.410 align:middle line:84% Forget them, take it easy, stay in bed orders? 00:50:19.410 --> 00:50:23.100 align:middle line:84% She clenched her teeth and fists and huddled farther back 00:50:23.100 --> 00:50:24.990 align:middle line:90% into the twilight shadow. 00:50:24.990 --> 00:50:27.300 align:middle line:84% You feeling that much better, Honey? 00:50:27.300 --> 00:50:30.600 align:middle line:84% Then let's go in, hesitantly touching her arm. 00:50:30.600 --> 00:50:33.060 align:middle line:84% And you can set up and tell us how to fix supper, 00:50:33.060 --> 00:50:34.860 align:middle line:90% so it tastes better. 00:50:34.860 --> 00:50:35.640 align:middle line:90% Come on, Anna. 00:50:35.640 --> 00:50:37.140 align:middle line:90% The kids are waiting. 00:50:37.140 --> 00:50:39.960 align:middle line:84% Maybe they'll be waiting for supper someday, 00:50:39.960 --> 00:50:41.640 align:middle line:90% and there will be none to give. 00:50:41.640 --> 00:50:43.560 align:middle line:90% You ever think like that? 00:50:43.560 --> 00:50:45.360 align:middle line:84% We're putting in a garden like you 00:50:45.360 --> 00:50:47.730 align:middle line:84% are supposed to have helped on and never done. 00:50:47.730 --> 00:50:49.290 align:middle line:90% That's what I'm doing up. 00:50:49.290 --> 00:50:52.890 align:middle line:84% And I'm starting laundering work again if I can get it. 00:50:52.890 --> 00:50:54.790 align:middle line:90% Go on in yourself. 00:50:54.790 --> 00:50:57.480 align:middle line:84% Don't get me mad now, Anna, beseechingly. 00:50:57.480 --> 00:50:59.820 align:middle line:90% Anna, you've been so sick. 00:50:59.820 --> 00:51:01.560 align:middle line:90% You know you shouldn't be up. 00:51:01.560 --> 00:51:03.150 align:middle line:90% And shouldn't I? 00:51:03.150 --> 00:51:04.890 align:middle line:90% Pulling herself erect. 00:51:04.890 --> 00:51:06.300 align:middle line:90% And shouldn't I? 00:51:06.300 --> 00:51:07.440 align:middle line:90% Let the dirt stay. 00:51:07.440 --> 00:51:10.350 align:middle line:84% Let the kids run wild and not a decent stitch on them. 00:51:10.350 --> 00:51:12.630 align:middle line:84% Let there be no make and do on the money. 00:51:12.630 --> 00:51:14.220 align:middle line:90% I shouldn't be up. 00:51:14.220 --> 00:51:15.510 align:middle line:90% Don't touch me. 00:51:15.510 --> 00:51:18.720 align:middle line:84% And who's to cook and clean and look after the kids 00:51:18.720 --> 00:51:19.650 align:middle line:90% if I'm in bed? 00:51:19.650 --> 00:51:21.720 align:middle line:90% Who, our servants? 00:51:21.720 --> 00:51:24.090 align:middle line:90% The fine servants we keep? 00:51:24.090 --> 00:51:25.090 align:middle line:90% Stop it, Anna. 00:51:25.090 --> 00:51:25.840 align:middle line:90% Stop it. 00:51:25.840 --> 00:51:27.750 align:middle line:90% You're making yourself sick. 00:51:27.750 --> 00:51:29.610 align:middle line:90% Oh, Anna, Honey, don't. 00:51:29.610 --> 00:51:31.590 align:middle line:90% Don't sweet Anna me. 00:51:31.590 --> 00:51:33.960 align:middle line:90% Who's to do it if I'm not up? 00:51:33.960 --> 00:51:34.690 align:middle line:90% Answer. 00:51:34.690 --> 00:51:38.850 align:middle line:90% Who, who's to look out for-- 00:51:38.850 --> 00:51:40.110 align:middle line:90% gasping hoarsely. 00:51:40.110 --> 00:51:42.450 align:middle line:84% Who's to care about him if we don't? 00:51:42.450 --> 00:51:44.070 align:middle line:90% Who? 00:51:44.070 --> 00:51:47.850 align:middle line:84% Fighting off his attempt to unfold her to quiet. 00:51:47.850 --> 00:51:48.960 align:middle line:90% He's broken. 00:51:48.960 --> 00:51:50.100 align:middle line:90% Anna, don't. 00:51:50.100 --> 00:51:51.540 align:middle line:90% Please don't. 00:51:51.540 --> 00:51:52.440 align:middle line:90% Who? 00:51:52.440 --> 00:51:53.820 align:middle line:90% Answer me. 00:51:53.820 --> 00:51:58.380 align:middle line:84% Oh, Jim, giving in, collapsing into his reaching embrace. 00:51:58.380 --> 00:52:01.260 align:middle line:90% The kids, over and over broken. 00:52:01.260 --> 00:52:04.150 align:middle line:84% The kids, what's going to happen with them? 00:52:04.150 --> 00:52:07.260 align:middle line:84% How are we going to look out for them in this damn world? 00:52:07.260 --> 00:52:09.030 align:middle line:90% Oh, Jim, the kids. 00:52:09.030 --> 00:52:13.200 align:middle line:84% Seems like we can't do nothing for them. 00:52:13.200 --> 00:52:18.480 align:middle line:84% And that I think is part of what midlife crisis is embedded 00:52:18.480 --> 00:52:22.980 align:middle line:84% in for those who have to do still with growing life 00:52:22.980 --> 00:52:27.300 align:middle line:84% or responsibility for any other life that 00:52:27.300 --> 00:52:31.770 align:middle line:84% is left with the individual, the committed person, 00:52:31.770 --> 00:52:32.715 align:middle line:90% and the family. 00:52:32.715 --> 00:52:40.368 align:middle line:90% 00:52:40.368 --> 00:52:41.660 align:middle line:90% What's going to happen to them? 00:52:41.660 --> 00:52:46.430 align:middle line:84% Well, I want to read a little before I 00:52:46.430 --> 00:52:49.580 align:middle line:84% read the segment on work because I never finished that. 00:52:49.580 --> 00:52:52.040 align:middle line:84% And no one stopped me and said, you 00:52:52.040 --> 00:52:56.570 align:middle line:84% didn't finish out what you started to say. 00:52:56.570 --> 00:53:00.080 align:middle line:84% I guess I did say I would want to read about the two 00:53:00.080 --> 00:53:01.940 align:middle line:90% great, yes, silencers. 00:53:01.940 --> 00:53:05.030 align:middle line:84% You see I'm really not all here tonight, 00:53:05.030 --> 00:53:09.590 align:middle line:84% either it has to do with whatever almost robbed me 00:53:09.590 --> 00:53:11.330 align:middle line:84% of my voice, and certainly robbed 00:53:11.330 --> 00:53:14.100 align:middle line:90% me of my best reading voice. 00:53:14.100 --> 00:53:14.600 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:53:14.600 --> 00:53:17.180 align:middle line:90% 00:53:17.180 --> 00:53:19.340 align:middle line:90% Always, while Jim worked-- 00:53:19.340 --> 00:53:20.930 align:middle line:90% I'd put him down in a sewer. 00:53:20.930 --> 00:53:22.970 align:middle line:84% Being a young rider, I put him there 00:53:22.970 --> 00:53:25.610 align:middle line:84% before I put him on at the slaughterhouse where 00:53:25.610 --> 00:53:27.960 align:middle line:90% I knew a lot about. 00:53:27.960 --> 00:53:36.965 align:middle line:84% And in this place, he had rendered his poncho, mackinaw 00:53:36.965 --> 00:53:38.660 align:middle line:90% and boots. 00:53:38.660 --> 00:53:41.570 align:middle line:84% Always while Jim worked, down underground 00:53:41.570 --> 00:53:44.870 align:middle line:84% the dripping water diamonds, his hair trickles down his neck, 00:53:44.870 --> 00:53:47.570 align:middle line:84% makes a gay sound on his canvas poncho. 00:53:47.570 --> 00:53:50.870 align:middle line:84% No mackinaw and boots, but it means a buck more a week, 00:53:50.870 --> 00:53:51.380 align:middle line:90% don't it? 00:53:51.380 --> 00:53:53.900 align:middle line:84% It means stuff for the baby, don't it? 00:53:53.900 --> 00:53:56.270 align:middle line:84% Heavy and sore in his breast would 00:53:56.270 --> 00:53:59.780 align:middle line:84% lie the torment of the questions Anna had asked, 00:53:59.780 --> 00:54:04.310 align:middle line:84% and such a sad baffled flame of tenderness flicker above. 00:54:04.310 --> 00:54:08.520 align:middle line:84% Work through, with a heart that ran far ahead of his feet, 00:54:08.520 --> 00:54:12.260 align:middle line:84% he would hurry, hurry home, a nameless fear on him. 00:54:12.260 --> 00:54:17.840 align:middle line:84% And his hello be almost a sob of joy as he flung open the door 00:54:17.840 --> 00:54:21.830 align:middle line:84% and saw that all seemed as it had been. 00:54:21.830 --> 00:54:24.560 align:middle line:84% A gaunt Anna who could not understand 00:54:24.560 --> 00:54:27.710 align:middle line:84% this body of hers that tired so quickly 00:54:27.710 --> 00:54:31.910 align:middle line:84% and quivered like a naked nerve, this stranger self. 00:54:31.910 --> 00:54:35.120 align:middle line:84% One minute, her old competence and strength. 00:54:35.120 --> 00:54:38.600 align:middle line:84% The next, addled, nervous, brutal, lost. 00:54:38.600 --> 00:54:42.980 align:middle line:84% Not managing, having to give under to let things go. 00:54:42.980 --> 00:54:47.690 align:middle line:84% Any effort wearing her out, everything an effort. 00:54:47.690 --> 00:54:51.470 align:middle line:84% Seeing her so, with the look of exhaustion on him, 00:54:51.470 --> 00:54:55.430 align:middle line:84% Jim would ask, is there something I can do to help? 00:54:55.430 --> 00:54:58.520 align:middle line:84% Sometimes she did not answer at all. 00:54:58.520 --> 00:55:01.640 align:middle line:84% Sometimes say, you look right tired. 00:55:01.640 --> 00:55:04.100 align:middle line:84% Why don't you just go ahead and set. 00:55:04.100 --> 00:55:08.630 align:middle line:84% But once she blazed if you can't see what needs doing, 00:55:08.630 --> 00:55:10.250 align:middle line:90% just don't trouble to ask. 00:55:10.250 --> 00:55:11.090 align:middle line:90% You hear? 00:55:11.090 --> 00:55:12.830 align:middle line:90% Just don't trouble to ask. 00:55:12.830 --> 00:55:16.690 align:middle line:90% 00:55:16.690 --> 00:55:19.840 align:middle line:90% I read that because she-- 00:55:19.840 --> 00:55:22.390 align:middle line:84% in all this book and in the fragments that 00:55:22.390 --> 00:55:28.270 align:middle line:84% are in this book, only once did she ever say that, 00:55:28.270 --> 00:55:31.160 align:middle line:90% but it's on the agenda. 00:55:31.160 --> 00:55:42.460 align:middle line:84% Now these nearly 50 years after, and our crises 00:55:42.460 --> 00:55:47.230 align:middle line:84% are embedded in this too, those of us who are in the situation. 00:55:47.230 --> 00:55:50.050 align:middle line:90% 00:55:50.050 --> 00:55:53.260 align:middle line:84% And not necessarily just in the situation 00:55:53.260 --> 00:55:58.060 align:middle line:90% of when one is getting well. 00:55:58.060 --> 00:56:01.630 align:middle line:84% I'm going to skip about the children. 00:56:01.630 --> 00:56:04.210 align:middle line:84% She began to neglect the already neglected 00:56:04.210 --> 00:56:07.990 align:middle line:84% house to go out and weed and work in the garden. 00:56:07.990 --> 00:56:10.750 align:middle line:84% The washtubs and wringer sat out in the yard 00:56:10.750 --> 00:56:14.720 align:middle line:84% now, before, of course, the automatic washing machine, 00:56:14.720 --> 00:56:21.250 align:middle line:84% which having just come from Las Cruces, very close to where 00:56:21.250 --> 00:56:23.530 align:middle line:90% the first-- 00:56:23.530 --> 00:56:26.290 align:middle line:84% where we entered the nuclear age. 00:56:26.290 --> 00:56:29.890 align:middle line:84% And I say from time to time, it's 00:56:29.890 --> 00:56:33.040 align:middle line:84% in the second talk, reprinted in Silences too, 00:56:33.040 --> 00:56:43.120 align:middle line:84% the 1971 talk that such was the ignoring of the work of women 00:56:43.120 --> 00:56:47.830 align:middle line:84% that we'd had the technological sublime for 200 years 00:56:47.830 --> 00:56:54.520 align:middle line:84% and had already, had already produced 00:56:54.520 --> 00:56:57.040 align:middle line:84% the capacity for a nuclear explosion 00:56:57.040 --> 00:57:00.700 align:middle line:84% before we got the first automatic washing 00:57:00.700 --> 00:57:03.400 align:middle line:90% machine for women. 00:57:03.400 --> 00:57:09.790 align:middle line:84% And in the 20-year of silence, my hands-- 00:57:09.790 --> 00:57:13.480 align:middle line:84% well, I'd have to say longer than the 20-year of silence, 00:57:13.480 --> 00:57:16.720 align:middle line:84% but I'd say at least two years maybe went 00:57:16.720 --> 00:57:21.070 align:middle line:90% into washing before diapers. 00:57:21.070 --> 00:57:26.830 align:middle line:84% And I just learned in an exhibit how recently the mop 00:57:26.830 --> 00:57:29.500 align:middle line:90% was invented. 00:57:29.500 --> 00:57:32.470 align:middle line:84% And I wonder what happened to our sex that 00:57:32.470 --> 00:57:37.780 align:middle line:84% created so much of food, clothing, shelter, language, 00:57:37.780 --> 00:57:40.960 align:middle line:84% and decorated everything, utilitarian as 00:57:40.960 --> 00:57:47.410 align:middle line:84% well, that somehow we waited so long to even have a mop. 00:57:47.410 --> 00:57:51.190 align:middle line:84% And in that time, when your profession demanded, 00:57:51.190 --> 00:57:52.360 align:middle line:90% you were judged by-- 00:57:52.360 --> 00:57:55.960 align:middle line:84% I'm speaking in Western cultures primarily, 00:57:55.960 --> 00:57:57.970 align:middle line:84% that you scrub everything, including 00:57:57.970 --> 00:58:02.050 align:middle line:84% sometimes the front steps on your hands and knees. 00:58:02.050 --> 00:58:03.250 align:middle line:90% I remember that. 00:58:03.250 --> 00:58:08.140 align:middle line:84% Forgive all this that I said I prefer just 00:58:08.140 --> 00:58:10.900 align:middle line:84% to have in the reading, but all right. 00:58:10.900 --> 00:58:14.980 align:middle line:90% 00:58:14.980 --> 00:58:17.650 align:middle line:84% She began to neglect the already neglected 00:58:17.650 --> 00:58:21.700 align:middle line:84% house to go out and weed and work in the garden. 00:58:21.700 --> 00:58:24.400 align:middle line:84% The washtubs and wringer sat out in the yard 00:58:24.400 --> 00:58:28.420 align:middle line:84% now besides Bess's basket, Bess's baby. 00:58:28.420 --> 00:58:32.170 align:middle line:84% She would have liked to range the stove alongside too, 00:58:32.170 --> 00:58:34.480 align:middle line:90% even cook over an open fire. 00:58:34.480 --> 00:58:37.990 align:middle line:84% Inside suffocated her, outside too 00:58:37.990 --> 00:58:40.000 align:middle line:84% when there was packing-house stench. 00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:44.890 align:middle line:84% But a need was in her to be out under a boundless sky, 00:58:44.890 --> 00:58:49.510 align:middle line:84% in unconfined air, not between walls 00:58:49.510 --> 00:58:51.610 align:middle line:90% under the roof of a house. 00:58:51.610 --> 00:58:55.060 align:middle line:84% The accumulating vision of overwhelming, hostile forces 00:58:55.060 --> 00:58:58.900 align:middle line:84% surrounding, which had come to Anna that week of the clinic, 00:58:58.900 --> 00:59:00.280 align:middle line:90% never left her. 00:59:00.280 --> 00:59:04.090 align:middle line:84% But she was not strong enough to contend with it now. 00:59:04.090 --> 00:59:07.210 align:middle line:84% Only sporadically did she try to order, 00:59:07.210 --> 00:59:09.520 align:middle line:90% do something about their lives. 00:59:09.520 --> 00:59:15.010 align:middle line:84% And a separation, a distance, something broken and new 00:59:15.010 --> 00:59:18.160 align:middle line:84% and tremulous had been born in her, 00:59:18.160 --> 00:59:23.380 align:middle line:84% lying by herself, those long unaccustomed hours free 00:59:23.380 --> 00:59:24.610 align:middle line:90% of task. 00:59:24.610 --> 00:59:28.240 align:middle line:84% One dusk time when Jim got home, she and Mazie 00:59:28.240 --> 00:59:30.640 align:middle line:84% were still wringing and hanging clothes. 00:59:30.640 --> 00:59:33.550 align:middle line:84% Get in and see the dinner, Maze, while I finish up out here, 00:59:33.550 --> 00:59:35.590 align:middle line:90% Anna said, seeing him. 00:59:35.590 --> 00:59:39.850 align:middle line:84% Cheerfully, got my first laundering work again today. 00:59:39.850 --> 00:59:43.300 align:middle line:84% I see that, sinking down heavily onto the stoop 00:59:43.300 --> 00:59:44.740 align:middle line:90% as the light drained. 00:59:44.740 --> 00:59:47.830 align:middle line:84% Bitterly, you ain't well enough to keep us uns clean 00:59:47.830 --> 00:59:50.200 align:middle line:84% or get your other work done like you used to, 00:59:50.200 --> 00:59:52.830 align:middle line:90% let alone do for other folks. 00:59:52.830 --> 00:59:56.470 align:middle line:84% What's well enough or other work got to do with have to? 00:59:56.470 --> 01:00:01.030 align:middle line:84% she asked, and went on hanging up what was left in the basket, 01:00:01.030 --> 01:00:03.490 align:middle line:84% took down blouses, skirts, dresses, 01:00:03.490 --> 01:00:05.470 align:middle line:90% pants from another line. 01:00:05.470 --> 01:00:08.350 align:middle line:84% I said you ain't well enough for what 01:00:08.350 --> 01:00:11.410 align:middle line:84% you got to do for us uns now, he repeated. 01:00:11.410 --> 01:00:13.600 align:middle line:90% We never lived in such a mess. 01:00:13.600 --> 01:00:15.790 align:middle line:90% It's a dollar every time. 01:00:15.790 --> 01:00:19.330 align:middle line:84% Dreamily, that looks nice across the river, don't it? 01:00:19.330 --> 01:00:21.850 align:middle line:84% The mist coming up like way away, 01:00:21.850 --> 01:00:24.430 align:middle line:90% soft laundry blowing on a line. 01:00:24.430 --> 01:00:25.690 align:middle line:90% White. 01:00:25.690 --> 01:00:28.330 align:middle line:84% You fixing to get sick on me again? 01:00:28.330 --> 01:00:30.040 align:middle line:90% Forget that laundering, Anna. 01:00:30.040 --> 01:00:31.240 align:middle line:90% We'll get by. 01:00:31.240 --> 01:00:33.340 align:middle line:90% We ain't starved yet. 01:00:33.340 --> 01:00:35.170 align:middle line:84% She looked at him with an expression 01:00:35.170 --> 01:00:37.420 align:middle line:84% that, in the uncertain light, he thought 01:00:37.420 --> 01:00:41.500 align:middle line:84% might be anger or bitterness, but her voice came humble. 01:00:41.500 --> 01:00:42.850 align:middle line:90% I'm helping Jim. 01:00:42.850 --> 01:00:44.080 align:middle line:90% She came over. 01:00:44.080 --> 01:00:47.170 align:middle line:84% Her arms heaped, sagged beside him. 01:00:47.170 --> 01:00:49.420 align:middle line:90% Feels good to sit, don't it? 01:00:49.420 --> 01:00:51.430 align:middle line:90% You look mighty weary. 01:00:51.430 --> 01:00:54.490 align:middle line:84% Carefully, she smoothed and rolled the garments, 01:00:54.490 --> 01:00:56.410 align:middle line:90% arranged them in the basket. 01:00:56.410 --> 01:00:58.510 align:middle line:84% That's pretty how you do that, said 01:00:58.510 --> 01:01:00.340 align:middle line:90% Ben, rising from the shadows. 01:01:00.340 --> 01:01:02.260 align:middle line:90% Are you making it a sunflower? 01:01:02.260 --> 01:01:04.570 align:middle line:90% Can I try tree and branches? 01:01:04.570 --> 01:01:06.760 align:middle line:84% You touch that wash with your dirty hands, 01:01:06.760 --> 01:01:08.830 align:middle line:84% and you'll never touch another thing. 01:01:08.830 --> 01:01:11.140 align:middle line:90% How long since you washed up? 01:01:11.140 --> 01:01:14.560 align:middle line:84% Bess was laughing and laughing today, Papa, Ben reported. 01:01:14.560 --> 01:01:17.860 align:middle line:84% Looking cross-eyed at her hands, so we got laughing. 01:01:17.860 --> 01:01:20.890 align:middle line:84% When I say Bessie, Bess, Bonny Bess, 01:01:20.890 --> 01:01:22.630 align:middle line:90% she turns and looks for me. 01:01:22.630 --> 01:01:23.770 align:middle line:90% Don't she, Mama? 01:01:23.770 --> 01:01:25.540 align:middle line:90% Do you have a penny for Will? 01:01:25.540 --> 01:01:27.700 align:middle line:90% Your hair's still wet, Papa? 01:01:27.700 --> 01:01:29.530 align:middle line:90% How's yourself, old tricks? 01:01:29.530 --> 01:01:31.180 align:middle line:90% Drawing Ben close. 01:01:31.180 --> 01:01:34.000 align:middle line:84% I got a penny for you, all right. 01:01:34.000 --> 01:01:36.130 align:middle line:90% Jim, a man came by today. 01:01:36.130 --> 01:01:39.100 align:middle line:84% And for a quarter a week if we start now, 01:01:39.100 --> 01:01:44.410 align:middle line:84% a kid gets $300 when he's 16 for a surer education. 01:01:44.410 --> 01:01:47.350 align:middle line:84% Holding his father's hand, guess what, Papa? 01:01:47.350 --> 01:01:50.410 align:middle line:84% We blewed soap bubbles today with green onions. 01:01:50.410 --> 01:01:51.850 align:middle line:90% Mama showed us how. 01:01:51.850 --> 01:01:52.900 align:middle line:90% All shiny. 01:01:52.900 --> 01:01:55.690 align:middle line:84% Mine was the biggest, then Mazie's. 01:01:55.690 --> 01:01:58.840 align:middle line:84% Where do bubbles go with your breath when they bust, papa? 01:01:58.840 --> 01:02:00.190 align:middle line:90% Well, where's gone? 01:02:00.190 --> 01:02:02.560 align:middle line:84% What does nothing look like, Papa? 01:02:02.560 --> 01:02:06.010 align:middle line:84% I want it for Will, then he can help the others. 01:02:06.010 --> 01:02:07.540 align:middle line:90% Finish high school. 01:02:07.540 --> 01:02:09.190 align:middle line:90% A good job, Jim. 01:02:09.190 --> 01:02:10.720 align:middle line:90% You think I don't want it? 01:02:10.720 --> 01:02:13.960 align:middle line:84% Even to be sneaking timekeepers and office people 01:02:13.960 --> 01:02:16.030 align:middle line:84% that treats you like dirt, but you 01:02:16.030 --> 01:02:17.800 align:middle line:90% don't know nothing about it. 01:02:17.800 --> 01:02:20.500 align:middle line:84% Miss one week's pay and you lose it all. 01:02:20.500 --> 01:02:21.610 align:middle line:90% I asked him. 01:02:21.610 --> 01:02:24.070 align:middle line:90% He said the plan allows. 01:02:24.070 --> 01:02:26.950 align:middle line:90% He said it's a buck a month. 01:02:26.950 --> 01:02:27.940 align:middle line:90% A buck a month? 01:02:27.940 --> 01:02:28.990 align:middle line:90% Forget, Anna. 01:02:28.990 --> 01:02:31.000 align:middle line:90% Forget that laundering too. 01:02:31.000 --> 01:02:32.680 align:middle line:90% It's a buck a month. 01:02:32.680 --> 01:02:34.270 align:middle line:90% A buck a month. 01:02:34.270 --> 01:02:35.770 align:middle line:90% I'm sorry. 01:02:35.770 --> 01:02:38.860 align:middle line:84% Voices of children around the corner lamppost. 01:02:38.860 --> 01:02:42.790 align:middle line:84% Alley, alley ats in free, came shrill and sweet. 01:02:42.790 --> 01:02:47.890 align:middle line:84% Mist tendrils curled closer over the river bluff, heavier fog 01:02:47.890 --> 01:02:52.420 align:middle line:84% behind already blotting out the farthest line of clothes. 01:02:52.420 --> 01:02:56.130 align:middle line:84% Mama, Papa, why do people talk and dogs can't? 01:02:56.130 --> 01:02:59.110 align:middle line:84% But last night Shep, a dog from the farm, 01:02:59.110 --> 01:03:01.210 align:middle line:90% came back and talked words. 01:03:01.210 --> 01:03:04.900 align:middle line:84% But I couldn't anymore, just say woof, woof? 01:03:04.900 --> 01:03:08.170 align:middle line:84% What did I say in woof, woof that made Shep mad? 01:03:08.170 --> 01:03:10.395 align:middle line:90% He bit me, Papa, bites all over. 01:03:10.395 --> 01:03:13.210 align:middle line:84% Do you see bites on my neck, Papa? 01:03:13.210 --> 01:03:16.220 align:middle line:84% That was a dream, Benjy, Anna said. 01:03:16.220 --> 01:03:17.410 align:middle line:90% Don't you remember? 01:03:17.410 --> 01:03:18.700 align:middle line:90% Mama, came in. 01:03:18.700 --> 01:03:21.730 align:middle line:84% I held you and showed you there wasn't no bites 01:03:21.730 --> 01:03:24.370 align:middle line:90% and sang you back to sleep. 01:03:24.370 --> 01:03:27.220 align:middle line:90% I skip a little, more questions. 01:03:27.220 --> 01:03:31.150 align:middle line:84% You need a muzzle, Kid, said Jim, spreading his hand gently 01:03:31.150 --> 01:03:33.490 align:middle line:84% over Ben's face to hold it still. 01:03:33.490 --> 01:03:37.360 align:middle line:84% For why and for why, huh, how am I supposed to know? 01:03:37.360 --> 01:03:41.410 align:middle line:84% Yeah, get educated, you get a little respect, no better 01:03:41.410 --> 01:03:43.210 align:middle line:84% than to ask fool questions that get 01:03:43.210 --> 01:03:48.160 align:middle line:84% lies or nothing for answers, like always happen to me. 01:03:48.160 --> 01:03:51.400 align:middle line:84% Rising, what's it all for anyhow? 01:03:51.400 --> 01:03:52.570 align:middle line:90% A buck a month? 01:03:52.570 --> 01:03:53.680 align:middle line:90% Forget it, Anna. 01:03:53.680 --> 01:03:56.470 align:middle line:84% Sharply, you're going to leave this kid out all night 01:03:56.470 --> 01:03:57.670 align:middle line:90% in this damp? 01:03:57.670 --> 01:04:00.580 align:middle line:84% Taking up Bess in her basket, let's eat. 01:04:00.580 --> 01:04:05.350 align:middle line:84% Now in the score of lemon light from the kitchen window, 01:04:05.350 --> 01:04:07.390 align:middle line:84% Anna picked up the laundry basket. 01:04:07.390 --> 01:04:11.230 align:middle line:84% The moistness and dimness were all around now. 01:04:11.230 --> 01:04:14.920 align:middle line:84% Mazie, slipping out to fetch Anna and Ben, 01:04:14.920 --> 01:04:18.610 align:middle line:84% stood transfixed in wonder and fear. 01:04:18.610 --> 01:04:22.180 align:middle line:84% Her mother was walking dreamlike round and round 01:04:22.180 --> 01:04:25.150 align:middle line:84% the yard, laundry basket on her head, 01:04:25.150 --> 01:04:28.000 align:middle line:84% disappearing in and out of the clutching mists, 01:04:28.000 --> 01:04:32.140 align:middle line:84% emerging, disappearing, an enchanted Ben following. 01:04:32.140 --> 01:04:36.670 align:middle line:84% Her voice came dreamy and disembodied. 01:04:36.670 --> 01:04:40.930 align:middle line:84% Yes, that's how they carries clothes, fair Benjy, baskets 01:04:40.930 --> 01:04:43.390 align:middle line:84% on their heads, hands on their hips, 01:04:43.390 --> 01:04:46.780 align:middle line:84% like I can't do, walking like queens. 01:04:46.780 --> 01:04:50.800 align:middle line:84% Hoop earrings big as bracelets in their ears, parrot birds 01:04:50.800 --> 01:04:54.790 align:middle line:84% that talk, flowers bigger than washed-ups all colors 01:04:54.790 --> 01:04:55.840 align:middle line:90% and smells. 01:04:55.840 --> 01:04:57.100 align:middle line:90% Where is it mama? 01:04:57.100 --> 01:04:59.050 align:middle line:90% Where is that place? 01:04:59.050 --> 01:05:00.640 align:middle line:90% I don't rightly know. 01:05:00.640 --> 01:05:02.440 align:middle line:90% I hadn't ever been Benjy. 01:05:02.440 --> 01:05:04.750 align:middle line:90% Only saw it in a picture book. 01:05:04.750 --> 01:05:08.140 align:middle line:84% She put the basket down, bent to him fiercely. 01:05:08.140 --> 01:05:09.310 align:middle line:90% You read books. 01:05:09.310 --> 01:05:10.600 align:middle line:90% You know all that. 01:05:10.600 --> 01:05:15.000 align:middle line:84% That's what books is, places your body ain't ever been, 01:05:15.000 --> 01:05:18.630 align:middle line:84% can't ever get to go to, inside people's heads. 01:05:18.630 --> 01:05:21.990 align:middle line:90% You wouldn't ever know. 01:05:21.990 --> 01:05:24.840 align:middle line:84% There's a place here, a library, where 01:05:24.840 --> 01:05:26.430 align:middle line:90% they lets you borrow books. 01:05:26.430 --> 01:05:29.550 align:middle line:84% Picture books, if you can't read yet. 01:05:29.550 --> 01:05:32.760 align:middle line:84% I want to go see the earrings, talk to the parrot birds 01:05:32.760 --> 01:05:33.480 align:middle line:90% that talk. 01:05:33.480 --> 01:05:35.340 align:middle line:90% Will the streetcar take us? 01:05:35.340 --> 01:05:37.500 align:middle line:90% It's a far place, Benjy. 01:05:37.500 --> 01:05:41.460 align:middle line:84% You have to be rich to go, take trains, and boats. 01:05:41.460 --> 01:05:44.880 align:middle line:84% Or when you grow up, you can go like your Uncle Ralphie, 01:05:44.880 --> 01:05:46.455 align:middle line:90% the one you never did see. 01:05:46.455 --> 01:05:50.230 align:middle line:90% 01:05:50.230 --> 01:05:56.290 align:middle line:84% She began stroking Mazie's hair in a kind of langer, a swoon. 01:05:56.290 --> 01:05:59.860 align:middle line:84% Gently and absolutely, she stroked. 01:05:59.860 --> 01:06:02.920 align:middle line:84% Around the springs of gray, my wild route 01:06:02.920 --> 01:06:07.990 align:middle line:84% weaves, traveler repose and dream among my leaves, 01:06:07.990 --> 01:06:10.030 align:middle line:90% her mother sang. 01:06:10.030 --> 01:06:14.020 align:middle line:84% A fragile old remembered comfort streamed 01:06:14.020 --> 01:06:17.170 align:middle line:84% from the stroking fingers into Mazie, 01:06:17.170 --> 01:06:22.480 align:middle line:84% gathered to some shy bliss that shone despairingly 01:06:22.480 --> 01:06:28.360 align:middle line:84% over separating hurt and want and fear and shamings. 01:06:28.360 --> 01:06:32.410 align:middle line:84% The harm of years, river wind shimmered and burnished 01:06:32.410 --> 01:06:33.880 align:middle line:90% the bright grasses. 01:06:33.880 --> 01:06:37.720 align:middle line:84% Her mother's hand stroked, stroked. 01:06:37.720 --> 01:06:41.650 align:middle line:84% I saw a ship assailing, her mother sang, 01:06:41.650 --> 01:06:43.960 align:middle line:90% assailing on the sea. 01:06:43.960 --> 01:06:48.130 align:middle line:84% Mazie felt the strange happiness in her mother's body. 01:06:48.130 --> 01:06:53.920 align:middle line:84% Happiness that had not to do with them, with her, happiness 01:06:53.920 --> 01:06:57.010 align:middle line:90% and farness and selfness. 01:06:57.010 --> 01:07:03.730 align:middle line:84% I saw a ship assailing, and on that ship was me. 01:07:03.730 --> 01:07:08.230 align:middle line:84% The fingers stroked, spun a web, cocooned Mazie 01:07:08.230 --> 01:07:12.640 align:middle line:84% into happiness and intactness and selfness. 01:07:12.640 --> 01:07:18.070 align:middle line:84% Soft wove the bliss round hurt and fear and want 01:07:18.070 --> 01:07:24.460 align:middle line:84% and shame, the old worn fragile bliss, a new frail selfless 01:07:24.460 --> 01:07:27.700 align:middle line:90% bliss, healing, transforming. 01:07:27.700 --> 01:07:30.400 align:middle line:84% Up from the grasses, from the Earth, 01:07:30.400 --> 01:07:33.100 align:middle line:84% from the broad tree trunk at their back, 01:07:33.100 --> 01:07:36.160 align:middle line:90% latent life streamed and seeded. 01:07:36.160 --> 01:07:39.820 align:middle line:84% The air and self shone boundless. 01:07:39.820 --> 01:07:45.550 align:middle line:84% Absently, her mother stroked, stroked unfolding, wingedness, 01:07:45.550 --> 01:07:46.390 align:middle line:90% boundlessness. 01:07:46.390 --> 01:07:49.480 align:middle line:90% I'm hungry, Ben said. 01:07:49.480 --> 01:07:52.540 align:middle line:84% Watch me jump, Jimmie called imperiously. 01:07:52.540 --> 01:07:54.310 align:middle line:90% Mama, Mazie, watch. 01:07:54.310 --> 01:07:56.350 align:middle line:90% You're not watching. 01:07:56.350 --> 01:07:59.530 align:middle line:84% The wind shifted, blew packing house. 01:07:59.530 --> 01:08:03.430 align:middle line:84% A tremble of complicity ran through Mazie's body. 01:08:03.430 --> 01:08:06.610 align:middle line:84% With both hands, she tethered her mother's hand 01:08:06.610 --> 01:08:09.610 align:middle line:90% to keep it stroking, stroking. 01:08:09.610 --> 01:08:10.900 align:middle line:90% Too late. 01:08:10.900 --> 01:08:14.890 align:middle line:84% Something whirred, severed, sank. 01:08:14.890 --> 01:08:19.960 align:middle line:84% Between a breath, between a heartbeat, the weight settled, 01:08:19.960 --> 01:08:22.359 align:middle line:90% the bounds reclaimed. 01:08:22.359 --> 01:08:24.970 align:middle line:90% I'm watching, Anna called. 01:08:24.970 --> 01:08:29.859 align:middle line:84% The mother look was back on her face, the mother alertness, 01:08:29.859 --> 01:08:33.850 align:middle line:84% attunement back in her bounded body. 01:08:33.850 --> 01:08:35.229 align:middle line:90% I skip. 01:08:35.229 --> 01:08:42.189 align:middle line:84% Never again, but once, did Mazie see that look, that other look 01:08:42.189 --> 01:08:44.229 align:middle line:90% on her mother's face. 01:08:44.229 --> 01:08:52.210 align:middle line:84% That look all of you are having now not in bounded bodies. 01:08:52.210 --> 01:08:59.350 align:middle line:84% Work, men and women because, of course, midlife, most of us 01:08:59.350 --> 01:09:03.250 align:middle line:90% have economic imperatives. 01:09:03.250 --> 01:09:09.640 align:middle line:84% And therefore, work is somewhere in midlife and perhaps part 01:09:09.640 --> 01:09:12.319 align:middle line:90% of midlife crisis. 01:09:12.319 --> 01:09:16.510 align:middle line:84% And when I read and there are some places where there's 01:09:16.510 --> 01:09:23.410 align:middle line:84% a single phrase, think that for these people, some of them, 01:09:23.410 --> 01:09:29.319 align:middle line:84% it was years and years at this single task. 01:09:29.319 --> 01:09:32.080 align:middle line:84% And don't think in terms of the past. 01:09:32.080 --> 01:09:37.510 align:middle line:84% Think in terms of right now in the telephone company 01:09:37.510 --> 01:09:44.770 align:middle line:84% or the bank or offices or 1,001 places, industries, 01:09:44.770 --> 01:09:46.060 align:middle line:90% service industries. 01:09:46.060 --> 01:09:46.810 align:middle line:90% All right. 01:09:46.810 --> 01:09:50.529 align:middle line:84% This is the fifth day of a Midwest heat spell. 01:09:50.529 --> 01:09:58.990 align:middle line:90% 01:09:58.990 --> 01:10:03.310 align:middle line:84% I'm trying to see-- well, all right. 01:10:03.310 --> 01:10:04.600 align:middle line:90% Not good. 01:10:04.600 --> 01:10:12.490 align:middle line:84% This is Mr. Kryckszi who is the neighbor of the Holbrooks. 01:10:12.490 --> 01:10:15.233 align:middle line:84% Jim is now on the slaughterhouse. 01:10:15.233 --> 01:10:20.430 align:middle line:90% 01:10:20.430 --> 01:10:21.210 align:middle line:90% Not good. 01:10:21.210 --> 01:10:23.250 align:middle line:90% This is 6:00 in the morning. 01:10:23.250 --> 01:10:24.600 align:middle line:90% Not good. 01:10:24.600 --> 01:10:26.520 align:middle line:90% 110 in kill room. 01:10:26.520 --> 01:10:28.140 align:middle line:90% More in Casings today. 01:10:28.140 --> 01:10:28.890 align:middle line:90% You see. 01:10:28.890 --> 01:10:29.760 align:middle line:90% Oven. 01:10:29.760 --> 01:10:33.450 align:middle line:84% Maybe already afraid for Marsalek, for Mary. 01:10:33.450 --> 01:10:36.240 align:middle line:84% I talked to Misho, to Huff, to Slim. 01:10:36.240 --> 01:10:39.480 align:middle line:84% We have to slow it, I tell him, get break too. 01:10:39.480 --> 01:10:41.730 align:middle line:90% Misho talk for us to Ed. 01:10:41.730 --> 01:10:45.810 align:middle line:84% Shaking his head, no good, that prick Ed, said Jim. 01:10:45.810 --> 01:10:48.240 align:middle line:90% How else did he make straw boss? 01:10:48.240 --> 01:10:50.880 align:middle line:90% Bull Young, tell him no sweat. 01:10:50.880 --> 01:10:52.530 align:middle line:90% We bunch lazies. 01:10:52.530 --> 01:10:53.310 align:middle line:90% Lazies. 01:10:53.310 --> 01:10:54.330 align:middle line:90% That pusher. 01:10:54.330 --> 01:10:58.650 align:middle line:84% Beedo, a speed up system of the '20s and '30s. 01:10:58.650 --> 01:11:00.900 align:middle line:90% Beedo hisself in person. 01:11:00.900 --> 01:11:02.730 align:middle line:90% They're over the viaduct now. 01:11:02.730 --> 01:11:06.120 align:middle line:90% You see, 110, maybe hotter. 01:11:06.120 --> 01:11:11.460 align:middle line:84% Be hell, says Jim, looking down at the plant, be hell, hell. 01:11:11.460 --> 01:11:14.460 align:middle line:84% Choreographed by Beedo, the B system. 01:11:14.460 --> 01:11:17.280 align:middle line:84% Star, speed-up, stopwatch, convey. 01:11:17.280 --> 01:11:20.220 align:middle line:84% Music by rasp crass, screech, knock, steamhiss, 01:11:20.220 --> 01:11:21.780 align:middle line:90% thud machinedrum. 01:11:21.780 --> 01:11:24.690 align:middle line:90% Abandon self all you enter here. 01:11:24.690 --> 01:11:30.210 align:middle line:84% Become component part, geared, meshed, timed, controlled. 01:11:30.210 --> 01:11:33.960 align:middle line:84% Hell, half-seen figures through hissing cloud vapor, 01:11:33.960 --> 01:11:36.900 align:middle line:84% the live steam from great scalding vats, 01:11:36.900 --> 01:11:41.850 align:middle line:84% hogs dangling dancing along the conveyor 300, 350 an hour. 01:11:41.850 --> 01:11:45.210 align:middle line:84% Mary running, running along the rickety platform to keep up. 01:11:45.210 --> 01:11:48.480 align:middle line:84% Stamping, stamping the hides to the shuddering drum 01:11:48.480 --> 01:11:51.900 align:middle line:84% of the skull crushed machine in the spectral vapor clouds, 01:11:51.900 --> 01:11:56.580 align:middle line:84% everyone the same motion all the hours through. 01:11:56.580 --> 01:12:00.870 align:middle line:84% Kryckszi lifting his cleaver, the one powerful stroke, 01:12:00.870 --> 01:12:05.430 align:middle line:84% long continuous arm swirl of the rippers, the gut pullers. 01:12:05.430 --> 01:12:08.310 align:middle line:84% Marsalek pulling leaf lard, already 01:12:08.310 --> 01:12:12.030 align:middle line:84% faint in the sweated heat, breathing with open mouth. 01:12:12.030 --> 01:12:15.390 align:middle line:84% Breathing with open mouth, the young girls and women 01:12:15.390 --> 01:12:18.780 align:middle line:84% in Casings where men will not work. 01:12:18.780 --> 01:12:21.600 align:middle line:84% Year-round breathing with open mouth, 01:12:21.600 --> 01:12:25.230 align:middle line:84% learning to pant shallow to endure the excrement reek 01:12:25.230 --> 01:12:29.340 align:middle line:84% of offal, O-F-F-A-L, the smothering stench from 01:12:29.340 --> 01:12:30.900 align:middle line:90% the bloodhouse below. 01:12:30.900 --> 01:12:34.020 align:middle line:84% Cloying, dinning, jutting, gnashing of noises, 01:12:34.020 --> 01:12:37.320 align:middle line:84% so overweening that only its scream pitch 01:12:37.320 --> 01:12:39.300 align:middle line:90% can the human voice be heard. 01:12:39.300 --> 01:12:42.780 align:middle line:84% Heat of hell year round for low on their heads 01:12:42.780 --> 01:12:44.460 align:middle line:90% from the lowering ceiling. 01:12:44.460 --> 01:12:48.660 align:middle line:84% The plant's steam machinery spurting steam geysers, 01:12:48.660 --> 01:12:52.170 align:middle line:84% slippery uncertain footing on the slimy platform, 01:12:52.170 --> 01:12:54.690 align:middle line:84% treacherous sudden torrent swirling, 01:12:54.690 --> 01:13:01.080 align:middle line:84% and the strong hose trying to wash down the blood, the oil, 01:13:01.080 --> 01:13:02.850 align:middle line:90% the offal, the slime. 01:13:02.850 --> 01:13:07.020 align:middle line:84% And over and over, the one constant motion, 01:13:07.020 --> 01:13:10.710 align:middle line:84% ruffle fat pullers, pluck separators, bladder, kidney, 01:13:10.710 --> 01:13:14.820 align:middle line:84% bung, small and middle gut cutters, cleaners trimmers, 01:13:14.820 --> 01:13:17.010 align:middle line:84% slimmers, flutters, and flitters. 01:13:17.010 --> 01:13:20.250 align:middle line:90% Meshed, geared, geared, meshed. 01:13:20.250 --> 01:13:21.390 align:middle line:90% The kill room. 01:13:21.390 --> 01:13:24.300 align:middle line:84% Knockers, shackers, pritcher-uppers, stickers, 01:13:24.300 --> 01:13:28.320 align:middle line:84% headers, rippers, leg breakers, breast in aitch sawyers, 01:13:28.320 --> 01:13:31.680 align:middle line:84% caul pullers, fell cutters, rumpers, splitters, 01:13:31.680 --> 01:13:34.590 align:middle line:84% vat dippers, skinners, gutters, pluckers. 01:13:34.590 --> 01:13:38.430 align:middle line:84% Ice hell, coolers, freezers, pork trim. 01:13:38.430 --> 01:13:41.970 align:middle line:84% Bone chill damp even in sweaters and over shoes. 01:13:41.970 --> 01:13:44.400 align:middle line:90% Hands always in iced water. 01:13:44.400 --> 01:13:45.840 align:middle line:90% Slippery knives. 01:13:45.840 --> 01:13:49.620 align:middle line:84% The Beedo piecework speed, safety signs, 01:13:49.620 --> 01:13:53.260 align:middle line:84% mockery, and all through the jumble of buildings 01:13:53.260 --> 01:13:57.720 align:middle line:84% old and buildings new of pens, walkways, slippery stairs, 01:13:57.720 --> 01:14:02.940 align:middle line:84% overhead chutes, conveys, steam pipes of death dismembering 01:14:02.940 --> 01:14:07.230 align:middle line:84% and vanishing entire for harmless creatures, meek 01:14:07.230 --> 01:14:10.080 align:middle line:90% and mild, seldom frisky, wild. 01:14:10.080 --> 01:14:11.190 align:middle line:90% Hell. 01:14:11.190 --> 01:14:13.830 align:middle line:84% Today, the fifth day of hell, heat 01:14:13.830 --> 01:14:20.310 align:middle line:84% added 104 degrees outside, 112 in Casings. 01:14:20.310 --> 01:14:23.310 align:middle line:90% 7 o'clock. 01:14:23.310 --> 01:14:26.970 align:middle line:84% This is 12 o'clock noon, 106 degrees. 01:14:26.970 --> 01:14:29.850 align:middle line:84% Slow it, Kryckszi sends the message 01:14:29.850 --> 01:14:32.550 align:middle line:90% to Misha, to Huff, to Ella. 01:14:32.550 --> 01:14:34.100 align:middle line:90% We got to slow it. 01:14:34.100 --> 01:14:36.570 align:middle line:84% Ella's a Black woman, by the way. 01:14:36.570 --> 01:14:39.660 align:middle line:84% The 15 minute lunch break goes like nothing. 01:14:39.660 --> 01:14:41.580 align:middle line:84% Those who are against the rules have 01:14:41.580 --> 01:14:44.550 align:middle line:84% crowded into the cooler or the chill damp of pork 01:14:44.550 --> 01:14:47.010 align:middle line:84% trim to eat their lunch find their names up 01:14:47.010 --> 01:14:51.750 align:middle line:84% on the bulletin board with fines posted against them who ratted. 01:14:51.750 --> 01:14:53.910 align:middle line:84% Those who'd sluiced themselves down 01:14:53.910 --> 01:14:57.900 align:middle line:84% with the hoses and the yards for a momentary relief, also 01:14:57.900 --> 01:15:01.140 align:middle line:84% against the rules, suffer other punishment. 01:15:01.140 --> 01:15:05.880 align:middle line:84% Their clothes will not dry, cling, tighten, become 01:15:05.880 --> 01:15:08.580 align:middle line:84% portable sweat baths as they work. 01:15:08.580 --> 01:15:12.150 align:middle line:84% Aitch-Sawyer Crowley, the venerable faints. 01:15:12.150 --> 01:15:13.350 align:middle line:90% Prostration. 01:15:13.350 --> 01:15:16.080 align:middle line:84% By word or gesture or look of the eye, 01:15:16.080 --> 01:15:19.880 align:middle line:84% the message goes out in each department, spell Marsalek, 01:15:19.880 --> 01:15:24.290 align:middle line:84% spell Lena, spell Cleola, spell Salvatore. 01:15:24.290 --> 01:15:27.530 align:middle line:84% However possible, spell, protect those 01:15:27.530 --> 01:15:30.170 align:middle line:84% known near their limit of endurance. 01:15:30.170 --> 01:15:35.900 align:middle line:84% In Casings, it is 110 degrees, a steam kettle, thinks Ella, 01:15:35.900 --> 01:15:38.810 align:middle line:84% who has a need to put things into words, 01:15:38.810 --> 01:15:41.300 align:middle line:90% a steam kettle, an [AUDIO OUT]. 01:15:41.300 --> 01:15:44.150 align:middle line:84% Steamed, boiled, broiled, fried, cooked. 01:15:44.150 --> 01:15:47.060 align:middle line:84% Steamed, boiled, broiled, fried, cooked. 01:15:47.060 --> 01:15:50.090 align:middle line:84% Tony, I'm going to skip a little, 01:15:50.090 --> 01:15:53.840 align:middle line:84% Smokey's older brother lugging his hand truck from fire 01:15:53.840 --> 01:15:57.830 align:middle line:84% to chill to fire Casings to cooler to Casings. 01:15:57.830 --> 01:16:02.660 align:middle line:84% Fans the cooler door open for the women as long as he dares. 01:16:02.660 --> 01:16:06.590 align:middle line:84% Each time, the hands never ceasing their motions. 01:16:06.590 --> 01:16:09.440 align:middle line:84% Even those too far away for relief, 01:16:09.440 --> 01:16:12.650 align:middle line:84% turn their heads in unison toward the seconds different 01:16:12.650 --> 01:16:16.580 align:middle line:84% air, flare their nostrils, gulp their mouths, 01:16:16.580 --> 01:16:18.320 align:middle line:90% gulp with open mouths. 01:16:18.320 --> 01:16:22.070 align:middle line:84% The stench is vomit-making as never before. 01:16:22.070 --> 01:16:26.670 align:middle line:84% The fat and plucks, the bladders and kidneys and bungs and guts 01:16:26.670 --> 01:16:29.720 align:middle line:84% gone soft and spongy in the heat, 01:16:29.720 --> 01:16:34.430 align:middle line:84% perversely resist being trimmed, separated, deslimed, 01:16:34.430 --> 01:16:37.280 align:middle line:84% demand closer concentration than ever. 01:16:37.280 --> 01:16:42.020 align:middle line:84% Extra speed, hysterical, helpless laughter starts up. 01:16:42.020 --> 01:16:44.160 align:middle line:90% Indeed, they are in hell. 01:16:44.160 --> 01:16:46.280 align:middle line:90% Indeed, they are the damned. 01:16:46.280 --> 01:16:49.010 align:middle line:84% Steamed, boiled, broiled, fried, cooked. 01:16:49.010 --> 01:16:51.050 align:middle line:90% Geared, mashed. 01:16:51.050 --> 01:16:54.230 align:middle line:90% In the hog room, 108 degrees. 01:16:54.230 --> 01:16:57.260 align:middle line:84% Kerchiefs bound round foreheads to keep the salt 01:16:57.260 --> 01:17:00.920 align:middle line:84% sweat from running down into eyes and blinding, become 01:17:00.920 --> 01:17:02.030 align:middle line:90% saturated. 01:17:02.030 --> 01:17:05.060 align:middle line:84% Each works in a rain of stinging sweat, 01:17:05.060 --> 01:17:08.000 align:middle line:84% almost the steam from the vats seems 01:17:08.000 --> 01:17:11.390 align:middle line:90% cloud-cool, pure by contrast. 01:17:11.390 --> 01:17:14.930 align:middle line:90% Marsalek falls, a heart attack. 01:17:14.930 --> 01:17:18.050 align:middle line:84% Other hearts pound near to bursting. 01:17:18.050 --> 01:17:20.960 align:middle line:90% Relentless, the convey paces on. 01:17:20.960 --> 01:17:24.020 align:middle line:90% Slow it, we got to slow it. 01:17:24.020 --> 01:17:25.220 align:middle line:90% Is it a dream? 01:17:25.220 --> 01:17:26.810 align:middle line:90% Is it delirium? 01:17:26.810 --> 01:17:30.380 align:middle line:84% Arms lifted to their motion, geared, meshed, 01:17:30.380 --> 01:17:32.330 align:middle line:90% have nothing to move for. 01:17:32.330 --> 01:17:37.430 align:middle line:84% The hog has been split, has been stamped, yet still dangles. 01:17:37.430 --> 01:17:39.950 align:middle line:84% The leaf lard, the guts have been pulled, 01:17:39.950 --> 01:17:43.940 align:middle line:84% yet no new carcass is instantly in place to be worked on. 01:17:43.940 --> 01:17:45.890 align:middle line:90% Has life suspended? 01:17:45.890 --> 01:17:47.060 align:middle line:90% Are they dead? 01:17:47.060 --> 01:17:50.120 align:middle line:84% The skull crush machine still stomping down, 01:17:50.120 --> 01:17:52.700 align:middle line:84% sprays out its bone bits in answer. 01:17:52.700 --> 01:17:56.930 align:middle line:84% Fined, fined for carelessness, yells Bull Young. 01:17:56.930 --> 01:17:58.670 align:middle line:90% Who jammed the convey? 01:17:58.670 --> 01:18:02.300 align:middle line:84% Turning instinctively towards Kryckszi, towards Mary. 01:18:02.300 --> 01:18:05.870 align:middle line:84% At that moment in Casings, as if to demonstrate 01:18:05.870 --> 01:18:10.130 align:middle line:84% that there is a mightier heat, a higher superior heat, 01:18:10.130 --> 01:18:15.410 align:middle line:84% the main steam pipe breaks open and hissing live steam 01:18:15.410 --> 01:18:20.360 align:middle line:84% in a magnificent plume in a great boiling roll takes over. 01:18:20.360 --> 01:18:23.930 align:middle line:84% Pegg and Andra and Philomena and Cleola 01:18:23.930 --> 01:18:27.500 align:middle line:84% directly underneath fall and writhe in their crinkling 01:18:27.500 --> 01:18:30.380 align:middle line:90% skins, their sudden juices. 01:18:30.380 --> 01:18:32.840 align:middle line:90% Lena, pregnant, faints. 01:18:32.840 --> 01:18:36.990 align:middle line:84% Others tangle over her, try to rise, to help each other up. 01:18:36.990 --> 01:18:41.420 align:middle line:84% Ella, already at the work of calming, of rescue, 01:18:41.420 --> 01:18:43.400 align:middle line:90% thinks through her own pain. 01:18:43.400 --> 01:18:46.490 align:middle line:84% Steam, boiled, broiled, cooked, scalded. 01:18:46.490 --> 01:18:48.650 align:middle line:90% I forgot scalded. 01:18:48.650 --> 01:18:51.920 align:middle line:84% When the door to the hog room, always kept 01:18:51.920 --> 01:18:54.470 align:middle line:84% closed against the Casings' stench, 01:18:54.470 --> 01:18:56.930 align:middle line:90% the Casings heat is flung open. 01:18:56.930 --> 01:19:01.400 align:middle line:84% The steam boils in so triumphantly weds with the hog 01:19:01.400 --> 01:19:06.740 align:middle line:84% that vapors to create such vast clouds, such condensation. 01:19:06.740 --> 01:19:10.250 align:middle line:84% The running scalded figures of horror, human, 01:19:10.250 --> 01:19:13.820 align:middle line:84% women seem disembodied, flickering shadows 01:19:13.820 --> 01:19:17.450 align:middle line:84% gesturing mutely back to whence they have fled. 01:19:17.450 --> 01:19:19.490 align:middle line:90% Stay where you are, yells Bull. 01:19:19.490 --> 01:19:22.820 align:middle line:84% Carelessness, nobody's getting away with nothing. 01:19:22.820 --> 01:19:25.760 align:middle line:84% You'll be docked for every second you ain't working 01:19:25.760 --> 01:19:28.040 align:middle line:90% and fined for carelessness. 01:19:28.040 --> 01:19:30.890 align:middle line:84% Already, some are in Casings helping. 01:19:30.890 --> 01:19:33.950 align:middle line:84% Carrying Lena out of the scalding fog, 01:19:33.950 --> 01:19:38.660 align:middle line:84% Jim sees, plastered onto her swollen belly, the safety sign 01:19:38.660 --> 01:19:41.180 align:middle line:84% torn from the wall by the first steam 01:19:41.180 --> 01:19:45.890 align:middle line:90% gust, 3 o'clock, 107 degrees. 01:19:45.890 --> 01:19:50.090 align:middle line:84% I just have two more minutes to read. 01:19:50.090 --> 01:19:54.230 align:middle line:84% Anna geared mashed on her assembly line in the kitchen. 01:19:54.230 --> 01:20:02.980 align:middle line:84% But before I go on, having a very dear friend 01:20:02.980 --> 01:20:05.260 align:middle line:84% in a different kind of industrial-- 01:20:05.260 --> 01:20:08.080 align:middle line:90% 01:20:08.080 --> 01:20:09.340 align:middle line:90% not accident. 01:20:09.340 --> 01:20:13.450 align:middle line:90% It happened over a long time. 01:20:13.450 --> 01:20:19.090 align:middle line:84% Now near blind from having worked 01:20:19.090 --> 01:20:24.040 align:middle line:84% in one of the new printing processes 01:20:24.040 --> 01:20:27.730 align:middle line:84% with certain kinds of light since really 01:20:27.730 --> 01:20:30.310 align:middle line:84% the very beginning, but not that recently, 01:20:30.310 --> 01:20:35.590 align:middle line:84% but it has done terrible things to her eyes. 01:20:35.590 --> 01:20:37.720 align:middle line:84% Though I have such good hearing in this ear, 01:20:37.720 --> 01:20:41.770 align:middle line:84% seldom do you ever notice, but I'm totally deaf in this ear. 01:20:41.770 --> 01:20:43.600 align:middle line:90% Out of the days-- 01:20:43.600 --> 01:20:45.250 align:middle line:90% this happened in my mid life. 01:20:45.250 --> 01:20:48.880 align:middle line:84% I didn't even know I was having a crisis. 01:20:48.880 --> 01:20:51.370 align:middle line:84% In the old days of the transcription, 01:20:51.370 --> 01:20:52.820 align:middle line:90% I worked as a transcriber. 01:20:52.820 --> 01:20:55.570 align:middle line:90% 01:20:55.570 --> 01:20:58.360 align:middle line:84% You used to have a pedal thing and this thick thing 01:20:58.360 --> 01:21:01.810 align:middle line:90% in your ear sound as waves. 01:21:01.810 --> 01:21:04.510 align:middle line:84% Its vibrations, it destroyed my nerve. 01:21:04.510 --> 01:21:07.580 align:middle line:90% 01:21:07.580 --> 01:21:11.230 align:middle line:84% Now, there's some consciousness of what can happen to you, 01:21:11.230 --> 01:21:14.110 align:middle line:84% to your body, the only body you have, 01:21:14.110 --> 01:21:18.310 align:middle line:84% and then you have to live with it for the rest of your life 01:21:18.310 --> 01:21:20.090 align:middle line:90% the best you can. 01:21:20.090 --> 01:21:23.440 align:middle line:84% So I couldn't resist saying that it never would have occurred 01:21:23.440 --> 01:21:27.100 align:middle line:90% to me perhaps to have said-- 01:21:27.100 --> 01:21:30.580 align:middle line:84% I sometimes say that, hoping somebody 01:21:30.580 --> 01:21:33.670 align:middle line:84% will decide to do at least a master's or maybe 01:21:33.670 --> 01:21:35.350 align:middle line:90% a doctorate on this. 01:21:35.350 --> 01:21:39.520 align:middle line:84% That if all the books you're given 01:21:39.520 --> 01:21:43.960 align:middle line:84% to read in your literature classes 01:21:43.960 --> 01:21:47.710 align:middle line:84% were fed into a computer to see how much of them 01:21:47.710 --> 01:21:52.480 align:middle line:84% concerned human work, including that other human work 01:21:52.480 --> 01:21:56.120 align:middle line:84% of bearing and rearing and maintaining human life-- 01:21:56.120 --> 01:21:58.780 align:middle line:84% and by the way, in motherhood, I include 01:21:58.780 --> 01:22:04.060 align:middle line:84% those who were not biological mothers who had so many more 01:22:04.060 --> 01:22:09.760 align:middle line:84% babies than biological children, than biological mothers ever 01:22:09.760 --> 01:22:10.270 align:middle line:90% had. 01:22:10.270 --> 01:22:15.940 align:middle line:84% I'm referring to some of the sisters, some teachers, 01:22:15.940 --> 01:22:22.390 align:middle line:84% some others whose lives were involved with making 01:22:22.390 --> 01:22:24.600 align:middle line:90% other human beings possible. 01:22:24.600 --> 01:22:28.540 align:middle line:90% 01:22:28.540 --> 01:22:37.420 align:middle line:84% Anyway, my guess is maybe 3% of all the books in our courses 01:22:37.420 --> 01:22:41.470 align:middle line:84% deal with those two kinds of human work 01:22:41.470 --> 01:22:44.050 align:middle line:84% that has been most of human life. 01:22:44.050 --> 01:22:46.900 align:middle line:84% So I thought I would mention that and hope. 01:22:46.900 --> 01:22:52.960 align:middle line:84% Well, here is the last part Anna on her assembly 01:22:52.960 --> 01:22:55.780 align:middle line:90% line in the kitchen. 01:22:55.780 --> 01:23:04.900 align:middle line:84% Mazie, her mainstay help after being angry with her mother 01:23:04.900 --> 01:23:06.730 align:middle line:90% again for various reasons. 01:23:06.730 --> 01:23:10.420 align:middle line:84% But Willie her brother, the one right next 01:23:10.420 --> 01:23:14.560 align:middle line:84% to her, the one who's the next youngest 01:23:14.560 --> 01:23:18.520 align:middle line:84% gets to go out down by the river. 01:23:18.520 --> 01:23:21.520 align:middle line:84% And she is supposed to stay all day 01:23:21.520 --> 01:23:24.100 align:middle line:84% and help her mother because it's the day when 01:23:24.100 --> 01:23:28.870 align:middle line:84% you're going to can the peaches, both jelly and canned peaches. 01:23:28.870 --> 01:23:33.150 align:middle line:84% And she wants to know, she raises the question, 01:23:33.150 --> 01:23:36.460 align:middle line:84% why does Willie get to go out and play. 01:23:36.460 --> 01:23:39.400 align:middle line:84% And her mother says shortly, Willie is a boy. 01:23:39.400 --> 01:23:42.400 align:middle line:84% And she says, why can't I get born a boy? 01:23:42.400 --> 01:23:46.570 align:middle line:84% Meaning of course, she didn't so care so much about being a boy. 01:23:46.570 --> 01:23:50.440 align:middle line:84% She just wanted the same privilege. 01:23:50.440 --> 01:23:53.290 align:middle line:84% So her mother lets her go out for just a few hours, 01:23:53.290 --> 01:23:57.490 align:middle line:84% and she becomes sick with the heat and other things that 01:23:57.490 --> 01:23:59.050 align:middle line:90% happen on the dump. 01:23:59.050 --> 01:24:02.080 align:middle line:90% So she too is ill. 01:24:02.080 --> 01:24:05.920 align:middle line:84% And in the humid kitchen, Anna works on alone. 01:24:05.920 --> 01:24:10.300 align:middle line:84% Mazie lies swathed in sweated sleep in the baking bedroom. 01:24:10.300 --> 01:24:13.510 align:middle line:84% Jimmy and Jeff sleep under the kitchen table. 01:24:13.510 --> 01:24:17.230 align:middle line:84% Their exhausted bodies, their hair damp and clinging 01:24:17.230 --> 01:24:19.900 align:middle line:84% to their perspiring heads, giving them 01:24:19.900 --> 01:24:22.240 align:middle line:90% the look of drowned children. 01:24:22.240 --> 01:24:26.080 align:middle line:84% Ben lies in sleep or in a sleep of swoon. 01:24:26.080 --> 01:24:30.700 align:middle line:84% His poor heaving chest laboring on at its breathing. 01:24:30.700 --> 01:24:35.650 align:middle line:84% Bess has subsided in her basket on a chair where if she frets, 01:24:35.650 --> 01:24:37.810 align:middle line:84% Anna I can sprinkle her with water 01:24:37.810 --> 01:24:41.320 align:middle line:84% or try to ease the heat rash by sponging. 01:24:41.320 --> 01:24:44.860 align:middle line:84% The last batch of jelly is on the stove. 01:24:44.860 --> 01:24:48.460 align:middle line:84% Between stirring and skimming and changing 01:24:48.460 --> 01:24:53.260 align:middle line:84% the wet packs on Ben, Anna peels and cuts the canning peaches. 01:24:53.260 --> 01:24:55.630 align:middle line:90% Two more lugs to go. 01:24:55.630 --> 01:24:58.630 align:middle line:90% If only all will sleep while. 01:24:58.630 --> 01:25:03.970 align:middle line:84% She begins to sing softly, I saw a ship assailing, 01:25:03.970 --> 01:25:05.950 align:middle line:90% assailing on the sea. 01:25:05.950 --> 01:25:07.840 align:middle line:90% It clears her head. 01:25:07.840 --> 01:25:12.130 align:middle line:84% The drone of fruit flies, and Ben's rusty breathing 01:25:12.130 --> 01:25:16.150 align:middle line:84% are very loud in the unmoving heavy air. 01:25:16.150 --> 01:25:18.290 align:middle line:90% Bess begins to fuss again. 01:25:18.290 --> 01:25:19.540 align:middle line:90% There, there, Bessie. 01:25:19.540 --> 01:25:21.010 align:middle line:90% There, there. 01:25:21.010 --> 01:25:25.280 align:middle line:84% Stopping to sponge down that oozing sores on the tiny body, 01:25:25.280 --> 01:25:26.140 align:middle line:90% there. 01:25:26.140 --> 01:25:28.900 align:middle line:90% Skim, stir, sprinkle Bess. 01:25:28.900 --> 01:25:30.580 align:middle line:90% Pit, peel, and cut. 01:25:30.580 --> 01:25:33.340 align:middle line:90% Sponge, skim, stir. 01:25:33.340 --> 01:25:36.640 align:middle line:84% Any second, the jelly will be right and must not wait. 01:25:36.640 --> 01:25:39.610 align:middle line:84% Shall she wake up Jimmy and ask him to blow a feather 01:25:39.610 --> 01:25:41.050 align:middle line:90% to keep Bess quiet? 01:25:41.050 --> 01:25:41.620 align:middle line:90% No. 01:25:41.620 --> 01:25:42.820 align:middle line:90% He'll wake cranky. 01:25:42.820 --> 01:25:44.740 align:middle line:90% He's just a baby himself. 01:25:44.740 --> 01:25:47.740 align:middle line:90% Let him sleep. 01:25:47.740 --> 01:25:52.360 align:middle line:84% A skim stir, sprinkle, change the wet packs on Ben. 01:25:52.360 --> 01:25:53.950 align:middle line:90% Pit, peel, and cut. 01:25:53.950 --> 01:25:54.970 align:middle line:90% Sponge. 01:25:54.970 --> 01:25:57.190 align:middle line:90% This time, it does not soothe. 01:25:57.190 --> 01:26:00.310 align:middle line:84% Bess stiffens her body, flails her fists, 01:26:00.310 --> 01:26:05.680 align:middle line:84% begins to scream and misery just as the jelly begins to boil. 01:26:05.680 --> 01:26:08.320 align:middle line:84% There's nothing for it but to take Bess up, 01:26:08.320 --> 01:26:09.700 align:middle line:90% jaunce her on her hip. 01:26:09.700 --> 01:26:10.630 align:middle line:90% There, there. 01:26:10.630 --> 01:26:15.130 align:middle line:84% And with her one free hand, frantically, skim and ladle. 01:26:15.130 --> 01:26:16.510 align:middle line:90% There, there. 01:26:16.510 --> 01:26:19.540 align:middle line:84% The batch is poured and capped and sealed 01:26:19.540 --> 01:26:22.130 align:middle line:90% all one-handed, jiggling hip. 01:26:22.130 --> 01:26:23.140 align:middle line:90% There, there. 01:26:23.140 --> 01:26:26.680 align:middle line:84% It's done Anna's knees begin to tremble. 01:26:26.680 --> 01:26:28.480 align:middle line:90% No, she dare not sit. 01:26:28.480 --> 01:26:30.310 align:middle line:84% You know if you sat down, you'll never 01:26:30.310 --> 01:26:32.350 align:middle line:90% make yourself get up again. 01:26:32.350 --> 01:26:34.660 align:middle line:84% One of the jelly glasses has burst. 01:26:34.660 --> 01:26:38.140 align:middle line:84% The amber drips onto the floor, has to be mopped, 01:26:38.140 --> 01:26:40.330 align:middle line:90% and Bess still to be hushed. 01:26:40.330 --> 01:26:43.300 align:middle line:84% Hush you, hush, you'll wake every sleeping one. 01:26:43.300 --> 01:26:44.470 align:middle line:90% There, there. 01:26:44.470 --> 01:26:46.540 align:middle line:84% Transferring her to the other hip, 01:26:46.540 --> 01:26:49.030 align:middle line:84% and one-handed sponging her again 01:26:49.030 --> 01:26:51.720 align:middle line:84% and her own sweating face as well. 01:26:51.720 --> 01:26:53.560 align:middle line:90% There, there, poor baby. 01:26:53.560 --> 01:26:57.250 align:middle line:84% The tenderness mixes with the compulsion of exhaustion 01:26:57.250 --> 01:27:01.090 align:middle line:84% to have done, to put Bess outside in the yard where 01:27:01.090 --> 01:27:04.090 align:middle line:84% she can scream and scream outside of hearing. 01:27:04.090 --> 01:27:08.440 align:middle line:84% And Anna can be free to splash herself with running water, 01:27:08.440 --> 01:27:12.370 align:middle line:84% forget the canning and the kids and sink into a chair, 01:27:12.370 --> 01:27:15.940 align:middle line:84% lay her forehead on the table and do nothing. 01:27:15.940 --> 01:27:17.320 align:middle line:90% There, there, Bessie. 01:27:17.320 --> 01:27:20.635 align:middle line:84% There, there, we'll go out a spell, see what's outside. 01:27:20.635 --> 01:27:30.060 align:middle line:90% 01:27:30.060 --> 01:27:34.440 align:middle line:90% If you had seen on a stage-- 01:27:34.440 --> 01:27:37.800 align:middle line:84% I did not recognize this when I wrote that. 01:27:37.800 --> 01:27:41.130 align:middle line:84% It was almost 40 years later when 01:27:41.130 --> 01:27:44.550 align:middle line:84% I read that I recognized what I had written. 01:27:44.550 --> 01:27:50.850 align:middle line:84% If you had seen on a stage that perfect synchronization, 01:27:50.850 --> 01:27:57.540 align:middle line:84% that grace, that timing, that execution in the form 01:27:57.540 --> 01:28:01.470 align:middle line:84% of a dance, I mean any superb dance 01:28:01.470 --> 01:28:10.020 align:middle line:84% that demands timing, coordination, grace, et cetera, 01:28:10.020 --> 01:28:14.670 align:middle line:84% you would have broken out in applause. 01:28:14.670 --> 01:28:20.894 align:middle line:84% Every day, every day, and I see it still 01:28:20.894 --> 01:28:26.170 align:middle line:84% and still and still among the granddaughters of the Annas. 01:28:26.170 --> 01:28:33.660 align:middle line:84% Few of whom are dancers, but some are, but so many of whom 01:28:33.660 --> 01:28:39.690 align:middle line:84% are in a triple life where maximum timing, economy 01:28:39.690 --> 01:28:47.340 align:middle line:84% of movement, many, many, many multiple tasks 01:28:47.340 --> 01:28:53.400 align:middle line:84% must be done trying not to miss a beat. 01:28:53.400 --> 01:29:03.860 align:middle line:90% 01:29:03.860 --> 01:29:09.080 align:middle line:84% Past what used to be the tasks of the race 01:29:09.080 --> 01:29:11.510 align:middle line:84% demanded of women because few of us 01:29:11.510 --> 01:29:16.160 align:middle line:84% were asked to carry on those other tasks of writing 01:29:16.160 --> 01:29:18.650 align:middle line:84% the books or painting the pictures 01:29:18.650 --> 01:29:32.510 align:middle line:84% or spinning the philosophy or trying to understand of origins 01:29:32.510 --> 01:29:34.610 align:middle line:90% and all that of language. 01:29:34.610 --> 01:29:39.980 align:middle line:84% Although of course, as we know, we did, 01:29:39.980 --> 01:29:46.820 align:middle line:84% indeed speak and tell stories and make up or sing songs 01:29:46.820 --> 01:29:56.750 align:middle line:84% and is now being increasingly recognized and said 01:29:56.750 --> 01:29:59.420 align:middle line:84% over and over again and is buried 01:29:59.420 --> 01:30:04.190 align:middle line:84% in a little footnote in Silences about what we still 01:30:04.190 --> 01:30:09.290 align:middle line:84% need to trace how the great capacities that only are 01:30:09.290 --> 01:30:14.000 align:middle line:84% recognized when they come out in the form of something that's 01:30:14.000 --> 01:30:19.280 align:middle line:84% considered achievement, how they are exercised in every day. 01:30:19.280 --> 01:30:27.830 align:middle line:84% But I lived in a strange time because there 01:30:27.830 --> 01:30:35.780 align:middle line:84% are these remarkable women, women like have never 01:30:35.780 --> 01:30:38.240 align:middle line:84% been on our Earth before, though, indeed, 01:30:38.240 --> 01:30:41.570 align:middle line:90% they are our descendants. 01:30:41.570 --> 01:30:44.960 align:middle line:84% They are us as we might have been 01:30:44.960 --> 01:30:49.490 align:middle line:84% born in their time, bodies, circumstances. 01:30:49.490 --> 01:30:54.830 align:middle line:84% And they, of course, have to think of us, 01:30:54.830 --> 01:30:56.900 align:middle line:84% I'm speaking of all the generations 01:30:56.900 --> 01:31:00.680 align:middle line:84% back, as their lives would have been 01:31:00.680 --> 01:31:05.180 align:middle line:84% if they had been us in our bodies, our circumstances, 01:31:05.180 --> 01:31:05.870 align:middle line:90% our time. 01:31:05.870 --> 01:31:08.430 align:middle line:90% 01:31:08.430 --> 01:31:15.350 align:middle line:84% But when it comes to what the world recognizes as 01:31:15.350 --> 01:31:22.070 align:middle line:84% achievement because still are they most-- 01:31:22.070 --> 01:31:24.610 align:middle line:84% and I'm not speaking about in Casings. 01:31:24.610 --> 01:31:27.380 align:middle line:90% 01:31:27.380 --> 01:31:29.630 align:middle line:84% I don't even know if Casings still exist. 01:31:29.630 --> 01:31:31.370 align:middle line:90% I haven't been back. 01:31:31.370 --> 01:31:34.880 align:middle line:84% Packing houses have changed absolutely. 01:31:34.880 --> 01:31:38.580 align:middle line:84% But in other work, in the work that my generation, 01:31:38.580 --> 01:31:42.230 align:middle line:84% especially fought so hard to bring into being. 01:31:42.230 --> 01:31:44.810 align:middle line:84% Although other generations before us had also 01:31:44.810 --> 01:31:50.150 align:middle line:84% fought where you have teachers in large number. 01:31:50.150 --> 01:31:53.000 align:middle line:90% 01:31:53.000 --> 01:31:56.510 align:middle line:84% And we need them because in my time, 01:31:56.510 --> 01:32:01.280 align:middle line:84% there was only one university in all Nebraska 01:32:01.280 --> 01:32:08.180 align:middle line:84% and a few small mostly of religious denomination 01:32:08.180 --> 01:32:11.000 align:middle line:90% colleges. 01:32:11.000 --> 01:32:17.270 align:middle line:84% And as was said in the introduction to me, 01:32:17.270 --> 01:32:20.030 align:middle line:84% I did better than most of my generation. 01:32:20.030 --> 01:32:22.520 align:middle line:84% I got almost through high school. 01:32:22.520 --> 01:32:26.570 align:middle line:84% But now, so many of you are teachers 01:32:26.570 --> 01:32:31.460 align:middle line:84% because all across the land where previously were only 01:32:31.460 --> 01:32:35.030 align:middle line:84% an Aggie college, I was at Las Cruces yesterday, 01:32:35.030 --> 01:32:39.140 align:middle line:84% New Mexico State University, or nothing at all. 01:32:39.140 --> 01:32:42.260 align:middle line:84% And now, there are thousands and thousands and thousands 01:32:42.260 --> 01:32:43.290 align:middle line:90% of students. 01:32:43.290 --> 01:32:45.860 align:middle line:84% So you are the new working class that 01:32:45.860 --> 01:32:49.730 align:middle line:84% are old working class fought to bring into being. 01:32:49.730 --> 01:32:55.100 align:middle line:84% And if you are fortunate enough to have vacations with pay 01:32:55.100 --> 01:32:59.840 align:middle line:84% and maybe are old enough to even have had a house 01:32:59.840 --> 01:33:04.580 align:middle line:84% and maybe have education, those are things 01:33:04.580 --> 01:33:06.800 align:middle line:90% that do not change your status. 01:33:06.800 --> 01:33:09.380 align:middle line:84% You merely have some of those things that 01:33:09.380 --> 01:33:13.040 align:middle line:84% are part of the oldest aspirations in human beings 01:33:13.040 --> 01:33:18.800 align:middle line:84% to have, to lead the most dignified the fullest, 01:33:18.800 --> 01:33:23.630 align:middle line:84% the least, degraded, humiliating, et cetera, 01:33:23.630 --> 01:33:26.940 align:middle line:90% kind of a life. 01:33:26.940 --> 01:33:31.070 align:middle line:84% And we're also in a time, you see, when-- 01:33:31.070 --> 01:33:36.380 align:middle line:84% because I'm partly sponsored by women's studies. 01:33:36.380 --> 01:33:42.290 align:middle line:84% And in history, for instance, history has been changed. 01:33:42.290 --> 01:33:46.430 align:middle line:84% Not enough yet, but it has been turned upside down 01:33:46.430 --> 01:33:53.450 align:middle line:84% because women and children and also because so much 01:33:53.450 --> 01:33:55.400 align:middle line:84% of what has to do with women and children 01:33:55.400 --> 01:34:00.320 align:middle line:84% has to do with men, working men, but their contribution, 01:34:00.320 --> 01:34:04.340 align:middle line:84% what their life was like, it's such of rich, rich, 01:34:04.340 --> 01:34:06.230 align:middle line:90% rich, source is coming back. 01:34:06.230 --> 01:34:09.590 align:middle line:84% Anthropology, the knowledge, indeed, 01:34:09.590 --> 01:34:14.600 align:middle line:84% that we were not primarily hunting societies. 01:34:14.600 --> 01:34:17.990 align:middle line:84% Those societies were a small percentage, 01:34:17.990 --> 01:34:22.460 align:middle line:84% that mostly we were food-gathering societies. 01:34:22.460 --> 01:34:27.440 align:middle line:84% And it places an entirely different kind of understanding 01:34:27.440 --> 01:34:31.490 align:middle line:84% of human beings and what we were and where we came from 01:34:31.490 --> 01:34:34.820 align:middle line:84% and how we work together, and so forth and so on. 01:34:34.820 --> 01:34:39.740 align:middle line:84% But so many, many women who are the daughters 01:34:39.740 --> 01:34:43.260 align:middle line:84% and the granddaughters, as there are many men 01:34:43.260 --> 01:34:46.910 align:middle line:84% including in literature, some whose faces 01:34:46.910 --> 01:34:49.520 align:middle line:84% I saw when I walked into the Poetry Center 01:34:49.520 --> 01:34:53.870 align:middle line:84% today, the first generation of their family to come 01:34:53.870 --> 01:34:56.190 align:middle line:90% to the writing of poetry. 01:34:56.190 --> 01:35:00.290 align:middle line:84% But who knows what poetry was there generations 01:35:00.290 --> 01:35:06.320 align:middle line:84% and generations back in O-R-A-L-A-U-R-A-L oral-aural 01:35:06.320 --> 01:35:08.060 align:middle line:90% form. 01:35:08.060 --> 01:35:12.650 align:middle line:84% But there are so many of us, but I'm 01:35:12.650 --> 01:35:17.360 align:middle line:84% going to speak only of these young and middle-aged 01:35:17.360 --> 01:35:19.340 align:middle line:90% and sometimes older women. 01:35:19.340 --> 01:35:22.820 align:middle line:84% Some of them, the women, they were then 01:35:22.820 --> 01:35:24.350 align:middle line:84% called the re-entry women, the women 01:35:24.350 --> 01:35:27.350 align:middle line:84% who went back to school in the more fortunate time 01:35:27.350 --> 01:35:31.460 align:middle line:84% when there might be a place for you in the professions 01:35:31.460 --> 01:35:33.500 align:middle line:84% and a chance for you to go on and get 01:35:33.500 --> 01:35:37.250 align:middle line:84% your doctorate because there was support and all of that. 01:35:37.250 --> 01:35:38.000 align:middle line:90% Anyhow. 01:35:38.000 --> 01:35:40.940 align:middle line:84% But so many of these women, they have 01:35:40.940 --> 01:35:45.380 align:middle line:84% something so special to contribute not necessarily 01:35:45.380 --> 01:35:47.060 align:middle line:90% in the form of literature. 01:35:47.060 --> 01:35:49.850 align:middle line:84% Though, sometimes there, but in their own field 01:35:49.850 --> 01:35:55.580 align:middle line:84% of endeavor and discipline, in psychology, in sociology. 01:35:55.580 --> 01:35:58.790 align:middle line:84% Some of those who deal with literally 01:35:58.790 --> 01:36:01.310 align:middle line:90% thousands of other human lives. 01:36:01.310 --> 01:36:04.490 align:middle line:84% And they come across much that is not in the books 01:36:04.490 --> 01:36:05.840 align:middle line:90% and not in the studies. 01:36:05.840 --> 01:36:13.040 align:middle line:84% And they, like Anna and like June, but most like Anna, 01:36:13.040 --> 01:36:16.280 align:middle line:84% because many of them too are deeply committed 01:36:16.280 --> 01:36:21.290 align:middle line:84% to other human beings, whether in children or some other form. 01:36:21.290 --> 01:36:23.900 align:middle line:84% And they are deeply committed to their students. 01:36:23.900 --> 01:36:26.750 align:middle line:84% And it's a time of cuts and much harm, 01:36:26.750 --> 01:36:28.490 align:middle line:84% and many of their students too are 01:36:28.490 --> 01:36:30.500 align:middle line:90% first and second generation. 01:36:30.500 --> 01:36:33.320 align:middle line:84% And you go through college in a different way 01:36:33.320 --> 01:36:36.620 align:middle line:90% if it is still new to you. 01:36:36.620 --> 01:36:39.920 align:middle line:84% You are migrating into a different world 01:36:39.920 --> 01:36:42.540 align:middle line:90% in so many, many ways. 01:36:42.540 --> 01:36:46.010 align:middle line:84% So you have an added load and responsibility 01:36:46.010 --> 01:36:50.330 align:middle line:84% and seldom, seldom do you have time 01:36:50.330 --> 01:36:56.750 align:middle line:84% to get to finish that particular paper, that particular work. 01:36:56.750 --> 01:37:00.950 align:middle line:84% It gets divided more and more into a few that 01:37:00.950 --> 01:37:05.210 align:middle line:84% have the credentials already and the few books, and therefore, 01:37:05.210 --> 01:37:09.050 align:middle line:84% are enabled to go on and do more. 01:37:09.050 --> 01:37:14.390 align:middle line:84% And that is my contribution as of now 01:37:14.390 --> 01:37:20.510 align:middle line:90% to discussion on midlife crisis. 01:37:20.510 --> 01:37:28.490 align:middle line:84% It is agony to me that still, we are not harvesting, 01:37:28.490 --> 01:37:34.700 align:middle line:84% we are not enabling what is in human beings to be. 01:37:34.700 --> 01:37:38.780 align:middle line:90% So love, don't applaud please. 01:37:38.780 --> 01:37:42.200 align:middle line:84% If you want to have a response and discussion time, 01:37:42.200 --> 01:37:45.980 align:middle line:84% I took longer than should have been. 01:37:45.980 --> 01:37:50.060 align:middle line:84% But I'll be very happy to stand and talk. 01:37:50.060 --> 01:37:53.450 align:middle line:84% And if I see some of you tomorrow night, 01:37:53.450 --> 01:37:55.850 align:middle line:84% perhaps I shall have my normal voice. 01:37:55.850 --> 01:38:00.950 align:middle line:84% And I want to applaud Russian style, the quality 01:38:00.950 --> 01:38:08.210 align:middle line:84% of your listening, because what you read is falsified somewhat 01:38:08.210 --> 01:38:13.430 align:middle line:84% when it does not have the right whisper or the right loudness 01:38:13.430 --> 01:38:17.810 align:middle line:90% or the right texture and accent. 01:38:17.810 --> 01:38:18.932 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 01:38:18.932 --> 01:38:36.170 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 01:38:36.170 --> 01:38:38.690 align:middle line:84% You should certainly stand and stretch your bodies 01:38:38.690 --> 01:38:43.100 align:middle line:84% for a few minutes even if there are comments you want to make 01:38:43.100 --> 01:38:44.615 align:middle line:90% or questions you want to ask. 01:38:44.615 --> 01:38:48.262 align:middle line:90% 01:38:48.262 --> 01:39:00.680 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] on the city. 01:39:00.680 --> 01:39:07.130 align:middle line:84% I got to the same [INAUDIBLE] hear from Second World War. 01:39:07.130 --> 01:39:08.040 align:middle line:90% What is your name? 01:39:08.040 --> 01:39:08.900 align:middle line:90% My name is Louis. 01:39:08.900 --> 01:39:33.276 align:middle line:90% One goes to [INAUDIBLE] 01:39:33.276 --> 01:39:35.880 align:middle line:90% This one goes with the book. 01:39:35.880 --> 01:39:46.000 align:middle line:90%