Home and War: Dissertation Rumenations

“Form is condemned to an eternal danse macabre with meaning: I couldnʼt unpeach the

peaches,” Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (31).

The discourse of Home, the story of Home. When we tell a story we exert some kind of

agency and ownership over and within the experience. Popular TV show How I Met

Your Mother is predicated on the restructuring and reframing of life through storytelling

in order to transmit truths, origins, and meaning from generation to generation. The

Form of the show is built around the Meaning of making meaning in a fractured grand

narrative of the skeptical, flexible post-post modern world. How to we make meaning?

We use the frames actively, knowingly, and deliberately to expose meaning.

Annie Dillardʼs observation that form is “condemned” to its association with meaning is a

pessimistic beginning, but the eternal danse she speaks of is one of reframing.

Peaches are meaning and form so tightly woven that to take them apart is unthinkable

to Dillard. In some sense, the idea of separating them is obscene. However,

contemporarily we might play with the frame and form by trying on several--different

preparations, altered genetics, categorizing, contextualizing and so forth. The form and

the meaning seen through these different storytelling lenses allow us to recognize the

illusion of the peach, the truth of unpeaching and the sweetness that may or may not

be.

While the form of theatre may be condemned to dictate the types of meaning we can

expose within it, performance practitioners frame, reframe and unframe the

prosceniumʼs frame or black boxʼs lack there of. Form and Meaning, Function to Face-

Value. Theatre is an expository journalism matrixed into 3D tapestries. Not that theater

is superior, but that it is not inferior. It has been called 3D poetry.

Ephemeral, intralineal tapestries of embodied poetic exploration. Rather like this

performance--now framed by the internet and a computer screen. I seem to have more

and more questions and never enough answers.

Marco.

~~~~~~~

When I think about Home, I think about food and kitchens. Being at Home with my

mother means a clean kitchen and something in the works for eating. Something

delicious and filling. Being at Home means that I can read all day if I want; but that I

have the mobility to venture forth from the nest. The form of the kitchen where

nourishment is beaten, whisked, pulverized, fluffed, sliced, baked, and battered into

something delicious--meaning, the crucible of “where I belong” of “where (as bell hooks

notes) I am safe to make self”. To me the smells of food, disastrous and mysterious,

form the incense offerings to the hearth deity. Patchouli reeks; onions, garlic,

mushrooms and butter soar.

These smells and actions comfort me (something I never would have expected while I

lived in my motherʼs domestic space). I perform them away from that location and the

traditional relationships of Home; suddenly, I participate in the mythology of Home. It is

a comfort, when being at home (in my domestic space) is not necessarily comfortable.

When I am away from my motherʼs home, Home is not a place for bravery. Living

outside of home, trying to recreate Home requires bravery. Going back to home, where

Home originated should be a comfort. But the real trick is: Home is the mythology. It is

a created script, a photographic object, that we expect exists somewhere, that we are

willing to exert agency to (re)create.

Chris Hedges writes, “the potency of myth is that it allows us to make sense of mayhem

and violent death” (23). Hedges speaks specifically of myths about War, but his

observation still holds in discussions of Home. Moving out beyond the domestic spaces

we inhabit, the myths that we (re)create about Home give us ways to make sense of the

world around us.

Some observations about Home from my daily life map:

What is Home?

“a friend told me that home is rewarding relationships in a safe space. I like this

definition. is home where the heart is? I think it might be places I know well enough to

be in my underwear. There are more of these places than I think might actually be

proper, haha.”

“Today I think about the many homes I have . . . even my FB page [as somewhere I

make self]. Yesterday I said [its the] places I feel comfy in my underwear--the FB page

doesnʼt really fit . . .

wait there is an underwear pic of me (incognito--swimsuit style) . . . Home is

multitudinous”

On Thanksgiving, “All together in the house. Discussing zombie and assassin shooting

games. Weʼve got a video game paused, just ran around the house nerf warring &

miles & clare are on the comp. Laurel & Leazah on iphones, Rudy & Miles talking & Iʼm

writing. It feels homey. Interestingly, I feel more together with these people than I do at

times with my own fam. At least times in the past.”

“My home, our apt is colorful. Sari-beach fabric/ (tie around your waist> sarongs(!)

serve as curtains in the main room. a screen w/ a bright red flower is against a wall,

frames, paintings, blankets, pillows, all color. Even my pen is pink.”

 

“Phillip gave me his hat today. Itʼs a black stocking cap. It smells of cedar & the smell

(delicious) reminds me of home-- California. The mountains specifically, where itʼs dry

and crackly all year long.”

“I am responsible for the choices I make in regards to Home & Creation thereof.”

My myth of Home is full of agency and personal action, choices, and behaviors. I think

about its boundaries and fluidity > as I get ready to move again in the coming weeks. I

am ready to abandon this location for that. Itʼs so ephemeral. Because Home is about

agency--perhaps something learned from my parents--I am consistently ready to move

to a new place and make it into a unique home. Whether that location is a bunk bed in

a Jordanian college or a tent or a renovated house in Detroit or a garage in Peru or an

apartment in Las Vegas or a room in the house my uncle and aunt built, a couch in my

great grandmaʼs house, my boyfriendʼs apartment, my car, my dorm room, even a

clawfoot tub filled with hot water. All places I have made or felt at home.

How does agency interact with the myth that is Home? When I am sick, the myth of

Home becomes important. When I am unwell or not feeling myself, I yearn for the

places, spaces, and relationships in which I enact Home.

~~~~~~~

I wonder if, in combat, the soldier yearns for Home in the same way.

I have made the connection before that if a family represents Home for a single soldier,

then America represents Home for the whole armed services. To my senses, the lack of

agency within the armed services intrudes on my sense of oneʼs ability to make home.

Hedges observes that in the moments before battle all thoughts--beyond making it

through the next moment--disappear. The fight becomes zeroed into the weapon in

oneʼs hands and the souls to either side. The myth of War states that bravery in a

combat zone is immediate, necessity; on the other hand, the myth of Home states that

bravery is neither immediate, nor a necessity. Home is comfort, it is all things warm and

easy.

The American national anthemʼs words that most citizens consistently know (since so

few really know them all) are:

“and the Hoooooooooooooooooome of theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaave”

not the place to be brave, but where the brave return to roost and rest from their

bravery. Home and War are separate places, entities, and behaviors.

 

This separation is at the root of the anxiety that I sense about the military. The

behaviors that we condone in War--killing, maiming, the celebration thereof--must be

separate from the domestic sphere.

In my daily life map, I observed an encounter between my boyfriend and a soldier that

we passed in the street. My boyfriend said, “thank you” as we walked by. I observed: “I

couldnʼt look at [the soldier] hardly, why? the feeling of shame is it? Embarrassment?

Desire to avoid notice? Uncertainty about how to proceed? Desire not to do the wrong

thing. . . I didnʼt even realize what the exchange was until 30 secs or so later. I actually

tried to figure out why Miles had thanked him. A la, he mustʼve done something I didnʼt

see . . .”

There is an anxiety about it.

In discussing military life with a former student, I mentioned my anxiety, and he

dismissed it, offering to introduce me to other veterans.

I think my anxiety has something to do with the blurring lines between Home and War

that Dora Apel writes about in her book War Culture and the Contest of Images. She

points out that new medias permeate the line between here and there. She argues that

the TV let war images--their mythologies and realities--invade the domestic sphere,

while the internet allows a kind of backwash in which the domestic sphere can

“interactively explore the world of war” (18). As Apel points out, these sources both

 peddle and poke holes in the myths of War and Home by providing a multiplicity of

narratives.

As a civilian who has little to no contact with most military personnel, the narratives I

encounter are often second hand, frequently edited by news sources and narrators, and

have very definite perspectives. I find myself responding awkwardly and passionately to

the prospect of soldierʼs return, what Nancy Sherman observes is “war lived vicariously

[becoming] intimate” in the soldiersʼ embodied return (215).

Socially there are rules of conduct and behavior ascribed to the domestic sphere and

the combat zone. The anxiety of the domestic sphere squeezes out as an alternate

mythology in narratives that are told. Consider the difference between youtube videos

of soldiers on their first day back state-side greeting children and spouses, which

highlight the sacrifice of the noble soldier and the joy of their return, and movies like The

Return and Brothers, which portray deeply distanced relationships and frighteningly

inappropriate behaviors. The counter-narratives in the movies strike the chord of

anxiety, while the youtube videos try to allay fear and replace it with warm, fuzzy

feelings.

In writing about the “Wounded Body at Home,” Apel compares and contrasts two

photographers who use the frame of their cameraʼs to show differing stories about who

veterans are at Home. She brings out the competition of the narratives, which are polar

opposites of veterans defeated or triumphant from their experiences. In her book Drift:

The Unmooring of American Military Power, Rachel Maddow comments on the shift in

public narrative about War that uses words of power and fear to incite popular support.

Apelʼs examples of the soldierʼs body as a site of mythical contest exemplify that the

language has translated into art forms as well--that those who want to change the

overwhelming mythos of War and Home utilize some of the same framing tools that

incite and take advantage of the passionate responses of the populace.

Many times the rhetoric and storytelling around the soldiers, from pro and con

narratives, deepens my anxiety rather than helping me deal with it. I feel that both sides

are seeking to manipulate me. In an effort to try to interact with or see soldiers for their

own personal narratives rather than through the frames with which I am bombarded, I

often find myself in a quagmire of confusion. What is the right way to respond? While a

“thank you” on the one hand seems appropriate, on the other it feels far too impersonal,

not enough. Yet, trying to go deeper without knowing the soldier seems like going in

blind, walking into a snafu (situation normal all fucked up).

Recognizing the unfairness in the noble soldier archetype, I shrink from applying higher

standards to soldiers than to any other person. In my daily life map, I recorded hearing

NPRʼs coverage of General Petreusʼs resignation following the discovery of his extramarital

affair. I observed, “I think itʼs unfortunate that personal indiscretions make

martyrs. Media crucifixion. Having heroes is important. The Media circus is a

nightmare. Ok, I think all people should be held accountable; but I donʼt believe soldiers

OR their wives should be crucified. Maybe we solve this with no standing army.” The

back and forth broad statements I made reflect my discomfort with trying to pass

judgement or decide on the actions of a soldier living in the domestic sphere.

I think the anxiety rests in this crux. When a soldier is at war, they receive a special

dispensation to break sacred rules of social conduct. The trade off is the expectation

that they will keep the mythological sense of Home close so that the breakage of those

rules remains where Home has deemed it appropriate & that the soldier will perform the

other rules of society even more stringently in order to off-set the rule breaking. Hedges

remarks about the archetypal returning soldier, “the very qualities that served him in

battle defeat him in peace” (12). When soldiers return to the domestic sphere, they

bring the myth of War in their bodies and behaviors; their multiple narratives poke holes

into the dominant myths created in America.

Based on Judith Hermanʼs research on Trauma and Recovery, Apel observes that “it is

imperative for the larger society in which [a] trauma resides, and in which secondary

trauma ripples outward through the families of victims, to act as civic witness and take

responsibility for acknowledging and addressing the effects of trauma on its

citizens” (36). At this point, Apel brings in art as a form of expanding the act of

witnessing. Most of the art that she deals with is performance art, photography, and

installation art. She writes that “the language of documentary has increasingly become

the predominant language in contemporary art” specifically mentioning photography,

video and film (9). I add theatre to this list.

~~~~~~~~

In the history of dramatic literature, military plays abound. But in the last ten years,

plays focus on witnessing the phenomenon of reintegrating, those who have lived in a

combat zone--and therefore the embodied return of War--(re)becoming part of the

domestic sphere, thereby challenging the mythology of Home. The form of these plays

have been both documentary and fiction. Realistic and non-realistic.

As Annie Dillard noted form and meaning are deeply connected. The forms of

photograph, video, script, and live performance are frames, the use of which reveal,

conceal, and dictate the meaning they exhibit. As here a video of me, however live,

relaying my research to you creates specific parameters for the meaning I

communicate.

Where do I conclude this particular study of self and myth? Home and War?

Quite simply, I donʼt. As I continue to move forward in my explorations, I intend to make

use of multiple forms for that research in order to expand the knowledge and meaning

that I am ingesting and expelling. I am also happy to discuss any of my work further, to

take questions, suggestions, or other comments.

Polo.

 

Works Cited

Apel, Dora. War Culture and the Contest of Images. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP,

2012. Print.

Dillard, Annie. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. New York: Harper Collins, 1974. Print.

Hedges, Chris. War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. New York: Anchor Books, 2002.

Print.

hooks, bell. “Homeplace (a site of resistance).” 1990.

Maddow, Rachel. Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power. New York: Crow

Publishers, 2012. Print.

Sherman, Nancy. The Untold War: Inside the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of Our Soldiers.

New York: Norton, 2012. Print.