my grandma liked to SAY WHATEVER SHE WANTED (and i do, too. so, what do i want to say?)

an Iris Archives offshoot: "i didn't invent swear words but they sometimes flow into mevia hip-hop, via comedy, via society, via grandmother"

dear friends,

i’m glad you are here!
thank you for your presence!
and now, a slightly longer piece than i often share here.

context: throughout the lockdown phase of the pandemic, my friend lyssa mandel ran writing workshops, where she would give each participant a poem as a prompt, and then we would have 20-30 minutes to write whatever we wanted in response to that prompt, after which we would all share our creations.

and now, i share with YOU what i wrote in that workshop in response to ”Poem White Page White Page Poem” by Muriel Rukeyser, which contained the following line:

"something is streaming out of a body in waves"

here we go:

hello writing workshop

"something is streaming out of a body in waves"

sometimes when i write here, i respond Explicitly to the prompt poem
other times, i imagine that i respond Implicitly to it
it's hard to conceive of doing anything Other than that
responding in a way that has "nothing" to do with it?
that's a response as well

i talked with my mom today
about swearing and cleaning (up one's act?)
when she goes on dates (which she did today), she asks the people not to swear

her mother (my grandmother) swore,
and my mom thinks maybe
that's why she (my mother) doesn't like it

i asked if grandma swore when my mom was growing up
and
my mom was like "have you Met her?"
and
i was like, i hear you AND ALSO when i was growing up, i feel like she Didn't
around me at least

and my mom was like
”huh”
and
"that must have been me asking her not to"
and
i added
"and her respecting your request?"

my grandma liked to SAY WHATEVER SHE WANTED
she was proud of that
she was born in 1928
i can only imagine what it must be like for a woman to have been born then
i can only imagine what it must be like for a woman to have been born Ever
now
etc

rini and i just listened to glennon doyle on brene brown's podcast ¹
about her new book "untamed"
which sounds good ²
and
talks about the ways in which women (and probably all marginalized people, and probably all people) are "tamed" by the zookeepers of society, of culture
and
my grandmother seemed untamed
and

she respected my mother's wishes

my mom doesn't want swearing in her house or company
so
i don't swear at her, with her, near her
though
i Do sometimes swear in my comedy
i do Sometimes swear in my comedy
i do sometimes SWEAR in my comedy
i swear i do
sometimes
or
i don't Swear i do
but i do swear