As some of you may have deduced by the title, I began my summer reading with The Color Purple. It is the only novel on my list of “I’ve seen the movie, but”…which, as a literary person, is something I just can’t live with. Anyway, the novel got me thinking.
Without giving away the plot, the premise behind the title is the idea that we (I’m pretty sure the novelist means we as in blacks, but I’d argue that we could be universal) have been conditioned to look at the world a certain way, and as a result we are blind to so many things. It’s probably a combination of grad school, reading, and blogs. But for whatever reason, I’ve been thinking about this more and more.
In doing so, I have had to admit some hard things to myself. Most importantly, I’ve to come to grips with the fact that although I am able to see things from every different perspective, I can’t get rid of that other set of eyes. That is a cryptic way of saying that I’m not as confident as I look on the outside. In fact, I fear that I may be putting too much effort into looking the part than actually playing it.
For instance, two years ago, after my college graduation, I decided that I wanted to “go natural” as they say. So, I cut all of my hair off, 12 inches to be exact. And what I have now that it has grown out is a huge curly afro, that I really love. Lately, I have been feeling anxious about it, though. I worry that people will be put off by it. I fear that it won’t look professional enough. And I really hate the fact that I feel that way, because deep down I love my hair. Unfortunately, I can erase those European standards of beauty that have been embedded in my brain. And I think that my biggest fear is that I will never fully appreciate those things that make me who I am.
I go through the same things with my body. In my experience, my journey to self acceptance has been a lot easier than most. But somewhere along the way I forgot that self acceptance is a journey and not an epiphany. I thought that the moment I realized that standards of beauty are terribly one dimensional, and that the female body in all its shapes and sizes and colors is a beautiful thing that I had reached the end of the road. But sometimes, I do feel self conscious about things. And this frustrates me. I just can’t understand why with all this knowledge, I am still affected by these things. I let myself believe this for a long time. But that’s not where I am now.
I started my current grad program in gender and cultural studies because I believe in the interconnectedness of life. By that I mean that women everywhere are connected in that we have been swallowed by a very euro-centric male defined culture. So, my research is a part of me trying to climb out of a lifetime of socialization and replace it with the real and more complex version of myself. I have realized, in my thinking, however, that as long as I pretend like that other set of eyes isn’t still there, I will never be able to move forward.
And so, I suppose I felt very connected to Celie, while reading the novel. It is, after all, about her own journey to self acceptance, which started by coming to terms with her past and accepting that as a part of her future. She never forgot what had happened to her, but at the same time she began to use her new way of looking at life. It’s funny how literature can speak to you that way.
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