the Piper Paradigm.

The first draft of this piece I originally wrote free-form while struggling with what to write about for a class I took through Fishtrap in February 2023. The class was titled, “Writing About Money & Class Identity.” During the class, a comment was made along the lines of, “I wish more white women would write about their experience of being white in this country.”

Challenge accepted.

I had the opportunity to read this piece at Fishtrap Fireside, a monthly reading series featuring local writers, on November 1st, 2024. The three of us that read that evening had no communication in advance about what we would be sharing, and yet we had a thread of commonality throughout our pieces. It was one of those magical alignments that just happens sometimes. Needless to say, the evening sparked quite a lot of ongoing discussion. If you would like to check it out, here’s the recording:

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Thoughts From A Privileged White Woman During Black History Month.

I find myself wanting to write about The Dynamite Shack – the tiny, 530-ish square foot structure I dwell in, rumored to have once stored dynamite in a nearby logging community before being hauled to town, plopped on a foundation over a dirt hole in the ground during an unknown year, though property sale records date back to 1888. It was then occupied by unknown persons until the structure was purchased by my grandmother for $11,000 on a credit card, the first and only house she ever owned, where even in that year of purchase, 1999, it did not have a working toilet.

It was not a nice little house. It carried no charm or nostalgia, and yet, I had a small but growing obsession with it. This house said something about me. It carried with it a story of an East Prussian World War II refugee (East Prussia being a place that no longer exists), a woman with (not officially diagnosed) schizophrenia who somehow carved out an existence, a shelter, a place where she just existed – until she didn’t anymore.

I watched this Shack become a burden to my mother, as did the hoard of trash and miscellaneous belongings my grandmother left her to contend with when she died. And yet I wanted to buy it someday. I wanted to buy it badly. It was emblematic of something – of an inherited resilience, of my own drive to figure out how The (capital THE) System works, of an ability to get incrementally closer to… something.

And so I did it. I bought it. I stripped it. I remodeled it. I made the dirt hole under the house into a real finished basement. I added a bathroom (plenty of working plumbing now). I replaced plastic bags in the walls with real insulation. I updated the electrical wiring (so one would never have to choose between operating a hair dryer and, say, the refrigerator at the same time). I made it beautiful. I made it into so much more of a home than it deserved to be made into. And now I want to talk about it. I want to write about it. But how dare I?

This is Black History month. Not Granddaughter of Woman Who Fled Russian Soldiers When She Was A Teenager And Nearly Died of Frostbite (and Other Much More Unspeakable Horrors) While Her Home Burned And Ceased To Exist On Any Map And She Never Mentally Recovered -month.

“That’s not really the voice we’re amplifying right now.” (I can already hear the loudly-whispered “There’s so many people that had it harder than you did” comments).

Yet I am proud of the story this Shack represents. I am proud of my own story, even though I am so often told, “It’s just not the right time”—especially not when someone else is dealing with tragedy or injustice. And yes, I may be a woman, which gives me some Marginalized Person credibility, but I am still a white woman.

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I find myself participating in a “Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion” class designed to help women like me understand how privileged we are. I attempt to complete a survey as part of pre-discussion work. The answer options for each question are “Yes” or “No.” 

Survey question: “Do your parents have any college debt?” My answer to this is No. Presumed meaning of answer “No” – My grandparents were wealthy enough to pay for my parents to go to college without student loans.

Real meaning of answer “No” – My parents have no college debt because they did not go to college. I abandon the survey. 

In the next class, I attempt to explain why I could not complete the homework, how I’m not sure if the box I’ve been put in is the one I belong to. The DEI instructor responds by sharing how she remembers her own struggles from college – how she dreaded asking her parents for more money. There are head nods around the room. All these women feel they can relate.

The presumption is that our experiences were the same – that all of our parents had money that could be asked for. I do not feel like explaining this. I abandon this discussion too.

Did these women go on dates with the types of boys that received classic cars as graduation gifts, just to avoid eating a plain flour tortilla with hot sauce for dinner once in a while?

Did they ever analyze the actual monetary cost of breaking up with a boyfriend from whom cans of soup could be stolen a few times a week without notice? A boyfriend that needed breaking up with, before he broke any more of their bones?

I wonder about these things, while it also strikes me that I am now privileged enough to have the privilege of being educated about how privileged I am. 

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I read an article this morning trashing a young white woman who was murdered by her boyfriend – the article was about how dead white women receive too much attention.

While there is certainly something to be examined here, I find it hard to feel bad about the attention I may have received had I been murdered by the aforementioned ex. And yet… I find I do feel at least vaguely bad for not feeling bad about this.

So how dare I write a story about The Dynamite Shack? A story about my white grandmother? How could I dare to write a story about me?

A former colleague recently accused me of flaunting my wealth. While I was initially appalled, being perceived as having wealth to flaunt felt like Accomplishment.

Success against impossible odds is inspiring, but the incremental progress of our neighbors breeds resentment. How strange that I begin to relate to the affluent friend I had in college, who felt he needed to manufacture pain through the tool of addiction, to have proof of permission to create his art under the authenticity of suffering.

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