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A tip of the cap to the late bell hooks, who died this week.
I was introduced to her work in my first semester of grad school in 1990. Her Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center packed quite a punch. Not only was she doing intersectional work before the term caught on, but she wrote accessibly. Doing conceptually sophisticated work that challenges deeply held assumptions, and doing it in readable prose, is a feat. She made it look easy. It isn’t.
I won’t claim to have agreed with everything she wrote, but that wasn’t the point. She wrote so well that even a relatively clueless, if well-meaning, 22-year-old straight white guy from the suburbs in 1990 was able to get it.
I was surprised to read that she was only 69 when she died. She seemed like someone who had always been there, an institution in her own right. In retrospect, she had to have been in her 30s at the time. That doesn’t seem possible. Someone once said of Tom Waits that his songs seem less “written” than “unearthed,” as if they had always been there. It seemed like bell hooks had always been there. And she just kept going.
My friend Lori Messinger kept a paperback copy of From Margin to Center on the rear shelf of her car, under the rear window, for so long that the cover bleached from sunlight; I remember it going from a darkish red to a vague pink over time. It was always there. It’s hard to imagine that bell hooks was ever not there, or that she won’t still be there. That is a real loss.
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The Boy comes home today for a couple of weeks, returning to Virginia in time for New Year’s.
When I went home for breaks during college, I always wondered if I was a burden. Seeing it from the parental side, I can say that having him back for a while is an unalloyed joy.
I can’t quite fathom how it’s possible that he only has three semesters of college left.
Part of the joy of parenting is seeing your kids grow into themselves over time. TB is already plotting his postcollege life, with talk of a year of fieldwork before applying to med school. He has thoughts on the parts of the country he’d like to see. He thinks nothing of making the six-hour drive home—or more, depending on D.C.—and he has an appealing mix of confidence and self-awareness. Yes, I’m biased, but he’s a terrific young man.
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The Girl got her first college acceptance! It came via text Thursday afternoon, because that’s how it happens now.
When I saw the reference to the “Class of 2026,” I had to sit down. That seems like science fiction. But given how fast TB has blazed through college, I know it will be here before long.
This one isn’t her first choice, but it’s a very good one, and I think she’d love it. (It’s in a location I’d love to have an excuse to visit repeatedly over the next several years, which is a nice bonus.) More to the point, now she at least has one yes in her back pocket. That matters more than I think she lets on.
Let the games begin …
