Greetings from someone who forgot it was Wednesday until just now and will therefore be giving you a shorter, much less considered dispatch than the Pulitzer-worthy work you have come to expect in this space (smirk). You have my permission to bail at the end of this sentence if you haven’t already.
I’m winding down my writer-in-residence duties and gave my final guest lecture of the year this morning to a communications class on visual rhetoric. They were an interesting and thoughtful group, and we did a fun exercise where they analyzed all the visual choices I’d made in a comic while pretending I didn’t exist—in keeping with Roland Barthes’ assertion that the author is dead.
I wasn’t dead, of course, but I did feel rather ancient and crone-like in my long, drapey cardigan, especially next to all the students in crop tops.
The professor, who is around my age, was also wearing a long cardigan. I wonder if, these days, it is simply part of the uniform for middle-aged women of a certain socioeconomic status? Or have older women always cloaked themselves in excess fabric to mark the end of fertility and signal that our bodies are closed for business? That was a joke, but suddenly it doesn’t feel like a joke.
During the walk back to my office, though, the wind gusted and, for a brief moment, my long cardigan flew up, billowing out like a cape—reminding me that, although I am getting older, I could still have some hidden powers. A few of them came to light during this residency, helping me accomplish things I never thought I could do. I can only hope the rest will reveal themselves in time.
:) Teresa
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Here’s to more moments of cardigans turning into capes reminding us of our power. ✨