Transformations: What IS Labor 2 Bear Down?

by Lucy S.

I began this blog in the heart of winter (mid-January in this upper Midwest) thinking about the ways in which we labor to bring life into existence – new human beings who have not been in this world before, or something new in ourselves and each other, or something we create with an essence of life somehow infused in it.  And now I’m thinking about the ways in which humble steadiness is braided with bursts of passion and grueling pushes at crucial moments and a different humility which is the willingness to vulnerably open ourselves up and which is paradoxically humble enough to be proud enough to just try and then keep trying. I keep thinking about questions of creation and care and labor. Where does one leave off and the other begin?

What is work? It is no accident that the word is used in such down-to-earth and lofty ways (“Hey, so where do you work?” and “We’re studying the work of [this great painter or that vital poet]” and “I’m working in the garden” and I’ve got a lot of housework to do” and “It takes work to raise a child.”) Why is some work lauded and other work (and the long hours and years of people’s lives who do it) taken for granted? Why is some work materially compensated fairly and other work compensated poorly or not at all? Why do some workers have autonomy over their work and others have little or none?

What is the work of our own lives and our own selves? What is the painting called “Gloria: the Adult Years” or the musical collection called “Justin: Son, Brother, Friend, Tutor, Writer, Worker, Composer”? What is the massive tapestry depicting “Josefina: Birth to 35”? What is the miraculous garment with moving beings enacting “Marion: a Life Working”?  (That is my mother, who can take on almost any project she sets her mind to by just methodically determining what is needed and then working away at it, step by step.) What is the epic poem called simply and yet complexly “Amir”? What is the course we might teach based upon the literary-pedagogical-creative nonfiction narrative of the same name: “Dan: Teacher-Learner-Reader-Writer-Seeker”? What is the classic movie: “Sean Michael”? What is that multi-part play, experimentally unfolding even as the audiences watch – the performance: “Jonathan: Enacting Movement”? What is the biography entitled: “Kevin: Making of a 21^st Century Wobbly”? And what is that unclassifiable other musical collection called “Ryan Nathaniel: a Childhood in Place”?

(I find myself wanting to go on with this: “Ana: the Dance of a Life”….)

Every life matters. That is what I believe and what I’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, over and over.

There are times when our lives are especially in transition. The past four years have been that way for me. Going back to school to finish my B.A. and then continuing on into a master’s program to now find myself at long last in a position to teach college classes has radically changed, and continues to change, my life. 

It is so strange and amazing to find myself able to do things that I could not do before, whether because I didn’t have those skills or because I lacked the certifications or training. All along the way, there have been so many times when I kept thinking, “I can’t do this; I can’t do this; I can’t do this.”  I feel sorry for myself too often; I don’t trust fully enough; I forget to be adequately thankful; I find so many flaws in myself.  I try to meaningfully critique the system (and its smaller, specific instantiations) and hit the wall short of the mark, sliding down. But it seems to me that this might be how lives are actually lived and how transformations occur. 

Sometimes, as on this sunny late June day with tomatoes finally turning red and the doors and windows wide open and me on my way to talk with a professor I know and like about the possibilities of teaching after talking with a great friend last night who reminded me that so much is possible (as he has always made me realize) – sometimes we can be gracious and hopeful and throw off self-pitying despair to take a look around and really see ourselves and each other and what these lives of ours are, and how splendid they are in their steady, humble, bold, brave, clumsy, exquisite beauty.

It is time for a change in this project here, time to bring in others by talking with them about their own lives, hopes, despairs, insights, transformations across time – their deep wells of care, their labor.