When I said Monday that I had a busy start to the week, I had not expected that not only would Monday not go as planned, but also that I would have meeting after meeting scheduled all throughout the week and more that I need to schedule.
When I arrived at the museum on Monday, I found that our environmental systems had gone haywire over the weekend, and it was over 90 degrees in the museum. It became quickly apparent that my class could not be held in the museum, so I had to find an alternate location and get the new classroom set up and ready to go. Once that was done, the day mostly went much smoother.
I have three meetings today, and more scheduled on Thursday and Friday. I’m on the hiring committee for two different positions in another department, and we are in the process of not only sifting through the applications and deciding who to interview. We are also scheduling first round interviews. We are trying to move quickly because we have found with other positions, we are losing the best candidates to other jobs. It’s been a difficult process.
With all that said, I really did not want to get out of bed this morning. I initially woke around 3:30 this morning and could not fully go back to sleep because I woke with a migraine; however, I have too much to do at work today to call in sick. I took my headache medicine first thing, and I am feeling better, so hopefully, I can make it through the day without too much of a problem.
I can’t remember my dad calling me a sissy, but he definitely told me not to be a sissy. I secretly (or not so secretly) liked all the sissy things. We had a hunting dog named Sissy. Really: Sissy. My father nicknamed my sister: Sissy. Still, he says, “How’s Sissy?” and calls her Sissy when she goes home to visit him. Belinda (Sissy) is one of the toughest people I know. My sissy (sister) has kicked someone’s ass, which isn’t sissy- ish, I guess, though I want to redefine sissy into something fabulous, tough, tender, “sissy- tough.” Drag queens are damn tough and sissies. I’m pretty fucking tough and a big, big sissy, too. And kind. Tough and kind and happy: a sissy.
About the Poem
Aaron Smith explains his poem: “As a queer person, I’ve had the word ‘sissy’ leveled against me as an insult. In this sonnet, I challenged myself to use the word ‘sissy’ as the ending word for each line in an attempt to reclaim the word, celebrate it, redefine it—as I say in the poem—as something ‘fabulous, tough, tender.’ I also wanted to celebrate drag queens. RuPaul [Andre Charles] is a national treasure.”
I’ve posted this poem before, and it is always one of those poems that really speaks to me. Like Smith, my dad never called me a sissy, but I heard more than once, “Don’t be a sissy.” I remember when I was in grammar school, all the boys played flag football at recess. I had no interest in playing football, so I spent recess with my friends, all the girls. My dad came to pick me up from school one day (recess was at the end of the day), and he noticed that I was not playing football with the rest of the boys. He told me that I had to play with the boys and “not be such a sissy.” So, from then on, when he would pick me up at school, I’d have to play flag football.
Years ago, I read a book, Mississippi Sissy. The book is a memoir by Kevin Sessums, a celebrity journalist who as the Amazon description says, “grew up scaring other children, hiding terrible secrets, pretending to be Arlene Frances and running wild in the South.” As he grew up in Forest, Mississippi, befriended by the family maid, Mattie May, he became a young man who turned the word “sissy” on its head, just as his mother taught him. In Jackson, he is befriended by Eudora Welty and journalist Frank Hains, but when Hains is brutally murdered in his antebellum mansion, Kevin’s long road north towards celebrity begins. In his memoir, Kevin Sessums brings to life the pungent American south of the 1960s and the world of the strange little boy who grew there.
There are words that haunt me because of the pain they caused me growing up: sissy, queer, faggot (fag), etc. I know many gay men use these as empowering words, such as Sessum and Smith do in their writing. Others celebrate their sexuality and gender non-conformity. As the poem says, “Drag queens are damn tough and sissies.” But it’s not just drag queens that are celebrating gender non-conformity. Many of us live our lives these days without the fear of being called a “sissy.” Though, there are still many like me who continue to care what others think. It’s difficult for us to break free from the traditional gender roles that were forced on us when we were young. Maybe more of us should realize that we are “pretty fucking tough and a big, big sissy, too. And kind. Tough and kind and happy: a sissy.”
About the Poet
Aaron Smith has an MFA in poetry from the University of Pittsburgh.
Smith is the author of three books of poetry: Primer (University of Pittsburgh Press); Appetite (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012); and Blue on Blue Ground (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. His other awards include fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and Mass Cultural Council.
Smith is an associate professor of creative writing at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Today is going to be a busy start to my week. I’m teaching a class first thing this morning. The class is supposed to last all morning. I was supposed to have a co-teacher for the class, but she tested positive for Covid over the weekend. Luckily, I have a contingency plan. If teaching has taught me nothing else, it has taught me to be flexible and adaptable.
After this morning’s class, I have to grab a quick lunch before I have to interview a job candidate. After that, I have at least three more job applications to look over. There are a few more things on today’s agenda, but needless to say, it will be a busy day.
Tomorrow, I will be working from home because I need to be at the museum on Friday when a former coworker will be coming by. At least it will probably a less hectic and less stressful day tomorrow while working from home.
Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.
— 1 Thessalonians 5:11
When I was in high school, I worked at a Subway restaurant with this girl who was a year below me in school. She no longer went to my school, but she had a few years before. There was always talk that she slept around a lot, and they were most likely true. However, we became friends while working together. So that year when it came to our annual homecoming dance, I asked her to be my date. It was not a romantic thing, but just two friends. At one point, she went to talk to some friends who had been in her class when she attended my school. I remember how they asked her, “Why are you with him? He’s a fag!” or something along those lines. She said, “He’s a very nice guy, and he’s been kind to me, which I can’t say about everyone.” (Again, or something similar.) I had always been nice to her, and though I had not been fond of the girls she had been friends with, I never judged her for that.
At that same homecoming dance, my best friend at the time went with her boyfriend, who was one of, if not the, most beautiful man I have ever known. He was older than she was, by a few years. He had been in the military and had even moonlighted as a stripper. The man was gorgeous. (He also had a brother who was a police officer in town who was almost as good looking.) I was not the only person who noticed how strikingly handsome he was, so did my date. He and my best friend didn’t date much longer after that, but eventually he began to date the girl who was my date. He got her pregnant, and her father, who was not a kind man, forced them to get married. As I understand it, it was a literal shotgun wedding. They were not married but a few years, but in those years, she gave birth to two beautiful sons. One was as strikingly handsome as his father, and the younger one looked more like his mother, but was still quite handsome.
After a few years, she got a divorce and raised those boys on her own. Her now ex-husband went to work for his father’s logging company, where he suffered an accident that paralyzed him. He had been so handsome and vibrant, and now, he had very limited mobility and was unable to do much of anything. It was obviously devastating for him, and sometime after that, he ended his own life. Those boys were raised by their single mother who I have no doubt was struggling to make ends meet, and now, they had lost their father completely. I don’t know what all went on in their lives because I did not keep in touch with their mother. Several years ago, she got her realtor’s license, fell in love with a fellow (and wealthy) realtor, and got married for a second time. Even though I was living in Vermont, she added me as a friend on Facebook just in case I was ever in the market for a house. Her life seemed to be going well. She was happy. She had a man she loved and who adored her. She lived very comfortably and eventually made enough money in real estate to buy a house on the beach and move to the Alabama Gulf Coast. She also had two very beautiful boys who she loved dearly.
However, not all was well with her boys. The oldest had apparently became a drug addict. Three years ago, my sister called* to say the kid, who was in his by then in his 20s, had either overdosed or took a drug laced with fentanyl (or both). His mother and brother were absolutely devastated over his death. A few days ago, my sister called to tell me that the younger son had committed suicide. According to his mother’s post on Facebook, it was just days before the three-year anniversary of his brother’s death. She said that he had demons in his head and had never gotten over his brother’s death. Though she did not mention it, I would venture to guess that he was also still grieving the loss of his father. I cannot imagine the pain and grief she must be feeling.
The truth is, we don’t know what demons people are struggling with. I have known several people who lived with nightmares and night terrors because of things that happened in their past. They can be happy people on most days, but their nights are filled with a terror we may not know about. We just don’t know what someone is going through. As Christians, we can offer comfort to those we know are suffering, but what can we do for those who hide their pain? The Bible gives us the best answer for this: Behave Like a Christian. Roman 12:9-21 tells us how to do this.
9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. 10 Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; 11 not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; 12 rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; 13 distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. 16 Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.
17 Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. 18 If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. 19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 Therefore
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”
21 Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.
If you are suffering from pain reach out to someone you trust. If you are considering suicide, in the US, you can call Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or the National Hopeline Network, Suicide & Crisis Hotline 1-800-442-HOPE (4673). You are not alone. Others are suffering to but there is help. Please seek that help. If you are from another country, would you please leave the number of your suicide prevention lifeline in the comments below?
If you know of someone who is suffering, be there for them. We cannot always know the struggles that people are dealing with, so if we treat everyone with kindness and Christian love, then maybe we will influence their day in a way that helps them out or just to know that kindness exists. Sometimes, all a person might need is a kind word or a smile to brighten their day.
The Closet Professor 