This weekend marked the anniversary of my ten-year college
reunion. I was on my class committee,
but unfortunately ended up extremely sick on Friday. Consequently, I was stuck in bed most of the
weekend and only rallied to make it to the retirement party of a beloved campus
icon and staff member today because there was no way I was going to miss the
opportunity to celebrate a staff member who meant so much to me.
Unfortunately, being sick meant missing the opportunity to
spend time with the one person I really wanted to see at reunion: my sweet
friend Bonnie. Bonnie was a tremendously talented woman I had the good fortune,
not only to meet in college, but to work closely with during our individual and
joint quests to top each other as the bigger overachiever in the Lewis &
Clark College History Department. Bonnie
was every bit as passionate as I was about studying history, learning the
research and analytical skills to be a good historian in her own right, and ensuring
the stories of those who were likely to be overlooked or lost to the sands of
time be captured and retold, so that we might learn from all those who went
before, not only those who were privileged in moment of their lives.
Bonnie made me a better student. She was my partner when I faced the rare and dreaded
group project (something I have never been a fan of); she was my reciprocal
support system and study buddy when the nights of research went long; and she
was someone I respected enough to want to compete with, to want to earn the
respect of, and whom I desired to share my work with, so that it might be
improved in the sharing. When it came to
history, Bonnie was my cheerleader, champion, critique partner, and
friend.
But Bonnie helped me grow in a different and arguably more
important way. When I met Bonnie, she
was far further along in her feminism than I was. While I was trying to figure out what
feminism meant to me and the kind of feminist I wanted to be, Bonnie was
helping found the Womyn’s Center, organizing The Vagina Monologues, and
single-handedly putting together a week of Take Back the Night events. Most of the truly feminist programming that
happened while I was a student at Lewis & Clark was run, in large part, by
Bonnie. I spent most of my time in
college being a feminist academic, learning to parse thick texts and integrate
my radical feminism into my already established philosophical framework and
life experiences; meanwhile, Bonnie was busy being the hands-on activist and
advocate it would take me years to become.
When I met Bonnie, we both had the same dream: to become
American historians and professors of history like our shared academic mentors.
However, as way led to way, Bonnie stayed on the path to academia, while I
stumbled into other interests and opportunities. I don’t regret my choices, but I will say
that my own inability to maintain the kind of passion and dedication we once
shared deepened my respect and admiration for Bonnie as I watched her press on
in the face of adversity where I would have turned back.
I discovered today, upon receiving a copy of Bonnie’s now
completed doctoral dissertation, that my name appears in the
acknowledgements. Bonnie calls me her
“first friend to love history.” But if I
am her first friend to love history, then Bonnie was my first true feminist
friend. Without her, I wouldn’t be half
the person I am today; I am also fairly certain this blog would not
exist.
What stunned me about finding my name in Bonnie’s
dissertation acknowledgements most was that
I had no idea I’d made such an impact on her life. Similarly, I suspect she has no idea she had
such a significant impact on mine. At
the time, we were just two young women who shared a passion for history,
story-telling, and the secret untold stories of women and children. We ate together, studied together, grew
together, and never once did it occur to us at the time that we were shaping
each other into the adults we’d later become.
You never know who is going to happen into your life and,
though you don’t know it in the moment, change you in a subtle but fundamental
way, like a rock thrown into the pond of your being, rippling out and out
forever. It may be the girl with the
stripped stockings and spiky blonde hair with pink bangs who is willing to
match you late night minute-for-sleep-deprived-minute on a research project, and in turn
teaches you not just about history or feminism, but also of how much you are
actually capable of when you are pushed to do your best. It may be the lovely woman with the vintage
dresses and classic sense of style who introduces you to your first beautiful
perfumes, sparking a passion for olfactory art that changes forever the way you
interact with the world. It may be the
kindly old vice president who encourages you to stand up for yourself when
you’re fighting with the entire theatre department to bring new works of art
and new collaboration to a college; it may by the young, passionate sound
designing roommate whose work on a beautiful play inspires you to think about what art is and what it means to create something, then to pick up a pen
and start writing again for the first time in weeks.
You never know who will change your life; you never know
when you might change someone else’s. And since you don’t know, since you may
never know, whose life you are changing in the moment, then perhaps that makes
Wesley’s charge even more timely, and therefore appropriate:
Do all the good you can.
By all the means you can.
In all the ways you can.
In all the places you can.
At all the times you can.
To all the people you can.
As long as ever you can.
By all the means you can.
In all the ways you can.
In all the places you can.
At all the times you can.
To all the people you can.
As long as ever you can.
You just never know when you might be the person who makes
all the difference. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a copy of The Student Body: A History of the Stewart Indian School, 1890-1940 to read.
