last post, i asked for a response about school. i didn't get one reply. this is extremely disheartening, but it was the first day of school. after the first week, do you now have something to submit? send it to me at urielspoet@aol.com
this is something that amber sent me. it's great. send email to amber at dollphini@aol.com
"Jigsaw Youth"
We live in a world that tells us we must choose an identiy, a career, a relationstiop and commit to those situations as if we know what's gonna hap pen tomorrow, as if we aren't ever gonna change, as if we dont' live in a world of constant flux, which we do.
Don't freak out cause the jigsaw is laying on the floor and it' snot all the way done and it's been laying rher for 4 whole hours now, resist the freak out. YOu will get to it..it's all part of the process
To force some forever identity on other people is stupid. Point out inconsistancies in their behaviour, explain how they are not truly what they say because you saw them do this one time..why? Because it's easier to dwal withcardboard cut outs than real people cuz a lot of us pretend like we're the center of the universise sometimes and everyone is just background 3extras in the movie we imagine we start in. WELL WHILE WE ARE ALL ARGING ABOUT WHOSE GONNA GET TO OPEN FOR THE MELVINS, WHOSE GONNA WEAR WHAT TO THE PARTY WHO IS LAME/TAME BECAUSE THEY PERBUATE THIS THING WE HATE, WHO IS NOT REALLY A PUNK ROCKER CUS "I remember when he/she used to listen to Duran Duran, tHE REVOLUTION IS GOING DOWN....not it's not happening without us, it is jus tplain not ahppening at all...it is going down under the gurgling sounds of our own voices, reproduing th evoices of our parents in a slgihtly altered way, the tv people...trying to dictate to each othe rwhat is and what isn't cool or revolutionary or true resistence, what is or isn't rue in other peoples lives wwe sit around making all these boxes and lables, nothing to put in them, we are wasting valuable time, fuck that shit, let's shart talking for real....
to be a stripper who is also a feminist, to be an abused child holding a microphone screaming all those thigns we were prosmised, in wone way or another "I won't tell" These are contradictions I have lived. They exist, these contradictions cuz i exist. Every fucking feminist is not the same, every fucking ril is not the same, okay? because i live in a world that hates women and i am one...who is struggling desperately not to hate myself and my bestgirlfrriends, my whole life is constantly felt by me as a contradiction. In order for me to exist i must belive that two contradictory things can exist in the same space. This is not a choice i make, it just is.
Jigsaw, a puzzle made up of all dfierent weidrd shaped pieces. IT seems like it will never come together, it makes no sense, but it can and it does and it will. Jigsaw, pieces like where you grew up and what in what kin of fucked up culture and do you have a penis or not and did your parents have money and did you get teased for wearing thesame coat four winters in a row and are you thai-american or black or mulatto? and what do all these things mean when you are trying to resisit, do something, have a good time?? I see the jigsaw , fuzzy in my head as everything else, sometimes clear. The fact that he grew up in a working class family has verything to do with how he is gonna express sexism, what kind of music he is gonna like, how i am gonna treat him. Jigsaw girl, she got fucked by her fatheer, 8 years, people say she's flakey and inconsisteny, lays in her bed eating donuts resisting going outside where the silence will engulf her, rather sit there eating than always be eaten up...her experience has everything to do with how the pieces are fitting togheter (or not) for her, judge her from your place without wondering what's going on in that there jigsaw mind of hers, yand yo uhave pushed her futher away from clicking, her heand wants so bad to feel, one edge againsta nother, together, one piece next to another locking into place...yo uhave to be able to see the puzzle before you start putting it together.
Resistence is everywhere, it always has been and always will be. Just because someoneone is not resisting in the same way you are (being a vegan, an "out" lesbian, a political organizer) does not mean that they are not resisting. Being told you are a worthless piece of shit and not believeing it is a form of resisitence. One girl calling another girl to warn her about a guy who date raped her ir another. And while she may look like a big haired makeup girl who goes out with jocks, she is a soldier along with every other girl, and even thought she may not be figting in the same loud way that some of us can (and do) is the fact that she is resisting that connects us, puts a piece toghether.
Jigsaw youth, I don't know what this means anymore than anyone...only what it means to me. Standing proud and saying, "I don't know who I am, I wanna know more, and I'm not afraid to say things matter to me."
Assumiping that poeple are either part of the problem or part of the the solution, disinclued a lot of people who, at this monent, do not feel (and therefore ARE NOT) safe enought emotionally/physically/ and/or finacilaly to reist in the same ways you might be. By judging people according to your standards or resistence or whatever...it makes it harder for people to recongize what they're doing as being important and political ext...it makes it harder for them to get inot safe enough situations where they can resist in more outward, comunity oreiented ways if they want to.
Jigsaw Youth, the island of lost and broken toys, feminists who wear lipstick, people who envision the land of to as you please, whose lives are not somimple and they are sick of trying to make themselves cohesive enought to fit into a box> Jigsaw Youth., listening, strategizing, toleration, screaming, confrtonting, fearless, girl solders, boy lovers, boofy haired teen girls scraping out the eyes on a photo o fRick Astley. Jigsaw Youth, the mistunderstood teeking to understand other people reality. Making mistates...making mistates...making mistates...feeling something. Knowing you will never see the puzzle but all together but trying always because each fucking piece reall ymatters and being with friends mathers. Jigsaw Youth, infenting and reinventing what these words mean"
BY: Kathleen Hanna
Jigsawy youth fanzine Spring 1991.
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