I had to write this for school, but I thought I'd hold up ok as a diary entry. I wasn't the standard MLA blah blah blah, it was all about me (and can't I go on about that):
A politics of location is a complicated work. By beginning to look at those things which shape the way I see the world, I�ve realized that everything I�ve done and everyone I�ve known has contributed in a way. In addition, the next logical step is to realize that I am continuing to grow and change, especially by this act of introspection itself. By examining the essence of myself, my gender, color, physical appearance, class, and education, I can get a clearer picture of why I think in the way that I do.
I began this endeavor with those things about me that are basic, and that I cannot really change. While in today�s modern world I suppose it is possible to change one�s gender, color, or physical appearance, it usually requires a lot of time, money, and effort, not to mention numerous surgeries. So to begin, I am a female. I was born in the early 80�s to a world where a female baby had numerous possibilities. My mother played a dual role as a stay at home mom, and a working woman. She was able to stay home and take care of me because her job was managing the family cranberry bogs. As a result I grew up with a rather rounded out view of womanhood. I learned on that motherhood and working weren�t mutually exclusive and both could be done if you were willing to work hard.
While I always had a grasp on the fact that I was female, and that this was a good and strong thing to be, it wasn�t until I entered school that I realized I was also white. It wasn�t until I was confronted with other children of different races that I realized I had a race of my own, and I wondered why there were so many more people who were white like me here in my town. Still, because the town was mostly like me, it never really hit home what kind of difference my whiteness would make in the world at large. Since entering college, and witnessing some of the events of the modern world, I�ve become more aware of it, and I�ve tried to make an active attempt to learn as much as I can about other races and cultures, so that I�ll know more about them, and also as a result more about myself.
As a segue between what can and cannot be changed about what makes up my politics of location, there is the issue of physical appearance. While I am relatively sure that if I invested in a personal chef, personal trainer, and a babysitter to make sure I didn�t disobey the other two, I could lose weight. Yet if you look at my family, they�re all large. Be it genetic, or psychological, we all share some sort of �be fat� mechanism, and like it or not, it�s been a huge part of who I am. I�ve built up armors to deflect the snide comments, and I�ve developed my brains for a snappy retort. I�ve also developed a huge well of compassion for anyone stuck in the role of �different�. I remember what it was like to be alone in the corner at a dance, and I can feel for everyone else who does. Though I�ve been lucky to find a partner who loves me for who I am, I remember those long dark nights when you imagine that love and life are for those who fit some mold you can�t ever attain.
Also, if it weren�t enough to be overweight, and lonely, my father died when I was 8 and all of a sudden, my mother and I were poor. We were so poor I had to get a lot of my clothes at K-mart, and trust me, they didn�t have a nice kids plus section. The only thing that saved me was the grunge movement, when all of a sudden ragged flannels and old jeans were fashionable. Things got even worse when my mother needed back surgery when I was in high school. I had to take over all the household duties, from bills, to grocery shopping. From that though I learned the value of hard work, and from being so poor for so long I learned how to stretch what you do have to get by. What gives me the most perspective on it, is when I think about how poor so many other people in the world truly are. With all the things I have, and all that are available to me just by virtue of where I live and who I am, I realize how truly lucky I am, and how poor I�m not.
Education is the last of the things I�ve examined. From the time I was a small child I relished school. I raced through my math and reading books, often finishing more than the class did all year before the Christmas break. Though it wasn�t easy for her, my mother managed to send me for two summers to a program at a local college called PCC, where I spent the summer essentially at college, which I loved. Learning has always been an important part of my life, and I think that the ability to learn is the kind of thinking that sets off the idea of something like a politics of location. To really learn something, you don�t just memorize facts, you apply it to your life. The deepest kind of learning makes you re-evaluate everything you think.
By taking a look at my own essence, and really examining these things that have made me who I am, I have become a little bit of a different person. I�d like to think a better one. To realize that you are a distinct person, made up of a million different moments that make you so different from everyone else, yet also in many ways make you so much like everyone, is a little gift. To know that you are never done learning, and thus never done changing and getting better, is another.
