The Spaces In Between

As always it is hard to believe another year has passed, and this year we are not only moving into a new year, but a new decade! I have done a few recaps this year already, when I announced I would be leaving Amherst for Dickinson, and when I did my summer recap, but I still want to follow my tradition of an annual review. (See previous annual reviews here: 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, and 2018.)

I began 2019 in Maryland, spending quality time with my friends’ baby, River, and other loved ones, before returning to Massachusetts and Amherst College for the spring semester. I taught two courses in the spring, LGBTQ Life Trajectories, which I had taught previously at UMD, and a new course, Representations of Trans Identities.

I particularly enjoyed teaching Trans Representations, and was very impressed with their final projects for the end of the semester Art Showcase. One group created a series of collages accompanied by 3 original songs, another group created a geode museum box full of objects, referencing archaeological histories and the interactive nature of gender, another group created 4 collaged figures of trans ancestors, and the final group made a documentary that was accompanied by an original score. I particularly loved the details on each of the pieces–hand-made barbed wire and a delicate 3D butterfly and cocoon on a painting; a clay fungi on the outside of the museum box; Reed Erickson with butterfly wings made from dollar bills; and layers of poetry, story, and music in the video documentary. This spring semester I will be teaching this course again at Dickinson, and I am excited to see what my students create.

As I wrote in my 2018 review, I was a bit nervous about the experience of a northern winter but I actually had a wonderful time! The winter was certainly a colder one than I had ever experienced, although mild compared to New England winters past, and I saw more snow than I ever have in my life. I fell in love with the beauty of the sparkling white landscapes, and the solitude, and the quiet. I bought a warm winter coat that made me feel like I was walking in a warm cloud, and tall, sturdy boots to tromp through the fields and woods. Pippin and I spent hours outside. I would get home from class and we would go out into the fields behind the barn, and follow different animal tracks along the field edges and into the woods. Sometimes the owl would be perched in the tree by the barn, and we would see a fox or deer bounding across the field away from us. In the spring we enjoyed the songs of the frogs and red-wing blackbirds and found new trails when the thawing fields became inaccessible with deep mud.

In May, I was offered the job at Dickinson and said my goodbyes to Amherst. As I recounted in this post, I spent the summer moving and enjoying Camp life. I started sharing my new name, River, with people. I also explored they/them pronouns and found that it makes me happy to hear they/them but it makes me feel weird to only be called they/them. I like to hear a mix of they/them and she/her. Twenty-nineteen was a year of gender feelings and gender explorations for me.

In August, Pippin and I moved into a two bedroom apartment near the railway tracks in Carlisle, PA. We often hear the train pass by, and I enjoyed watching the gingko tree at the bottom of the garden turn yellow and then dramatically drop its leaves one October day. It has been an adjustment living in a more urban environment (although I know many of my colleagues are having the opposite adjustment–Carlisle feels small to many of the new faculty who are coming from cities) but Pippin and I have been slowly exploring our neighborhood and finding parks and green spaces around us.

Pippin and I also did a basic obedience class together this fall at Good Dog Rising which was a good bonding and learning experience for both of us. He has always been a well-behaved, easy to train dog, but I wanted to gain some new training skills, and boost his confidence around other dogs. I also want to do a scent-tracking class with him in the future once we have worked our way through the beginner classes together. He has been coming to my classes on campus, like he did at Amherst, which my students love. When he shows up in the classroom door they often exclaim, “Oh, my day has gotten so much better now that Pippin is here!”

My fall was a busy one in terms of teaching, as I was teaching two new classes: an updated Intro to Women’s and Gender Studies course with a new (to me) textbook, and Feminist Writing, Research, and Practice. Both of them went well, although my Intro course was a bit quiet and it took them a bit of time to warm up in discussion. My feminist research class was fantastic; I love teaching the research process to students, and watching students grow as scholars. A highlight of the semester was the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department field-trip to Philadelphia, where we went on an LGBTQ/Feminist History Walking Tour and visited one of the art museums. I am grateful to the generous donor who has made that an annual possibility, as it was not only a fantastic learning experience but also a great chance for faculty and WGSS majors and minors to bond with each other.

In terms of my own research, this year I have been working on an article about drag kids, focusing on Desmond is Amazing in particular, and the way that he challenges assumptions around sexuality and childhood, drag as play, and queer futurity. I have also continued working on my book and started laying the ground work for my next research project on LGBTQ summer camps.

Traveling on the weekends also kept me very busy; I think I was only home in PA three weekends from September to December! I attended birthday parties for little ones in DC, a wedding in Massachusetts, the National Women’s Studies conference in San Francisco, the play Letter to My Ex, directed by my friend Be Steadwell at Joe’s Movement Emporium, and the Christmas Bird Count back home in Caroline County. I also drove up to New England for a weekend with friends and went on the cog railway up to Mount Washington, and to the Housatonic Tunnel.

My favorite trip was down to DC for a private backyard ceremony to officially become baby River’s Earth Parent. River has four Elemental parents, who are like god-parents, without the god/Christianity part. We will help him grow and guide him through life, and will be there for him if anything should happen to his parents.

Other things that have occupied my time this fall include applying to jobs (this Dickinson position is temporary), hosting family and friends, making jars and jars of sweet potato and squash soup, morning yoga via video chat with loved ones in MA and NY, writing snail-mail letters, weekly dinners with my close college friend Megan who lives nearby, and watching Gentleman Jack, the Walking Dead, and His Dark Materials.

Overall, 2019 was a better year than 2018 for me, and I am excited to be moving into a new decade! I hope that you have all had a wonderful Holiday season, and that you have a happy new year!