Hey Amigos!
Thanks for your cards and letters, your well wishes and your kind remarks. Many of you asked how Julia and I survived this week's workshop. Here's my short answer, "It was OK. I got some good feedback and only made a partial fool of myself." If that satisfies, you can stop reading now.
My classmates - (the workshoppERS, in this case, me being the workshoppEE ) stumped me with a question, "What is it about Julia that you find so fascinating?" I stuttered out some forgettable nonsense about incongruity. But their voices echoed this morning in the shower. What is it about anything that fascinates us? Is it about the thing? or about us? Lance has me thinking metaphysically, hence the title.
What is it about Julia? The juxtaposition of inner beauty and outer . . . difference? A fetish for the exotic? The impossible overlap between other and self? Her uniqueness? Her universality? Her star qualities? I know I'm not alone in this, but words escape me.
I hink of this as a post-colonial project. I see Julia as a subaltern who appropriated the dominant narrative to define herself on her own terms. She left her indigenous family and was raised in the Sanchez household, a bastion of Spanish culture. Her move to the United States -- however it was accomplished -- gave her the opportunity to establish a new identity as entrepreneur. What could be more American? Turning down Barnum's offer of employment gestured towards her hard-won independence. The move to London took her into the belly of the imperial beast and she managed very well thank you, charming the Brits to the point where several wanted to marry (own) her. These offers were likewise declined. Julia married Lent, who had just begun teaching her to read and write when she died in childbirth.
