The revolutionary woman knows the world she seeks to overthrow is precisely one in which love between equal human beings is well nigh impossible. We are still part of the ironical working-out of this, our own cruel contradiction. One of the most compelling facts which can unite women and make us act is the overwhelming indignity or bitter hurt of being regarded as simply __he other_, __n object_, __ommodity_, __hing_. We act directly from a consciousness of the impossibility of loving or being loved without distortion. But we must still demand now the preconditions of what is impossible at the moment. It is a most disturbing dialectic, our praxis of pain.
I once asked her if she was happy. __hat depends on what I am able to get done today,_ she said, laughing. She told me that the completion of her daily tasks was the only thing she felt she had control over. They were a form of meditation, of salve. Kept busy, she had no time to ruminate and no time for opinions, certainly not feminist ones. I pressed her: __ mean, are you happy with your life, Rajima?_ __ don__ know,_ she said uncomfortably, as if she__ never really considered such a question. __hen there is little you can do, you do what you can._ Happiness for my grandmother seemed to be a verb rather than a noun. She had so little control over her own life. Yet she took control, out of thin air for herself, when she could.
Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir
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I once asked her if she was happy. __hat depends on what I am able to get done today,_ she said, laughing. She told me that the completion of her daily tasks was the only thing she felt she had control over. They were a form of meditation, of salve. Kept busy, she had no time to ruminate and no time for opinions, certainly not feminist ones. I pressed her: __ mean, are you happy with your life, Rajima?_ __ don__ know,_ she said uncomfortably, as if she__ never really considered such a question. __hen there is little you can do, you do what you can._ Happiness for my grandmother seemed to be a verb rather than a noun. She had so little control over her own life. Yet she took control, out of thin air for herself, when she could.
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