Exile and Pride pt. 3

This is the last one ascribed to a specific subsection, "Mountain." The posts will be fewer and describing more of her poetic aspects of it, unless I feel something warrants a post.

III. Home

The body is a home. She will never find home on the mountain. Disabled people will not find home on that mountain, that mountain that is booby-trapped into never reaching what people say they want us to reach. We have multiple mountains and none are homes.

She calls her body disabled, violated, white, queer, and describes them all as home.

The body is a home, but only if “understood that bodies are never singular” – we are shaped by people and our reactions and we “need the bodies of trees” – the trees that gave her refuge – queer bodies and disabled bodies – she could not live without them (Clare, 9). And we can't live without each other. We are disabled and we need each other.

The body is a home, only if it is “understood that place and community and culture burrow deep into our bones.” (Clare, 10). We are shaped by culture and community and we need culture and community. We need a disabled culture. Our bodies and minds are different, and we have a culture.

The body as home, only if it is understood that “language too lives under the skin” and can “mark between self-hatred and pride.” (Clare, 11) We can be called these things, we can be insulted for disability and queerness and what have you, but we can reclaim. We can call ourselves these things with pride, take it back.

The body as home, only if it is understood that it “can be stolen, fed lies and poison.” (Clare, 12) We can be told that we will not amount to anything, that our lives are not worth living, that we cannot live with our own sense of dignity and must ascribe to others' concept of our dignity.

The body as home, if it is understood that it can be stolen, but “reclaimed.” (Clare, 12) We can. We can reclaim.