Saoirse Ronan as Jo March in Little Women (2019), in her writing jacket relaxing after a long day of CREATING.
For the final assignment in my class, I asked my students to participate in a muster. Read more about the assignment here. This is a description of my uniform, and the answer to the question: What are you fighting for?
In one of my favorite scenes from my favorite adaption of my favorite book, Jo March (played by Saoirse Ronan) sits before a fireplace, burning copies of her old writing. She’s trying to give up on a dream. But then she sees a slim volume of tales she wrote for her beloved late sister Beth. She hesitates at the fire.
Next we see Jo in her “writing attic,” long dormant. She fishes around in an old trunk for a jacket – a worn, green military jacket that she uses when writing. Then Jo is at the desk, wearing her jacket like a uniform. A beeswax candle glows beside her, and the book of family stories with Beth’s name on it sits before her, like a muse. She dips her pen in the ink, and begins.
In a recent interview, writer and director Greta Gerwig talked about the origin of Jo’s jacket in that scene:
“Saoirse and Jacqueline [Durran, the costume designer] are the people who came up together with this idea of when Jo writes, she wears a military jacket,” Gerwig said. “The military jacket is based on actual jackets from the 1840s that Jo would’ve gotten in some rag bag or something. She came up with the idea that, the way Jo writes, it’s like a military campaign where she’s literally taking over space.”
This is the way wars used to be fought, remember? As battles for space, for taking up land and territories as a sign of strength and power. I have plenty of qualms about the use of too much military language as a metaphor here. I’m pretty much a pacifist and I hate guns as agents of destruction. I resist the language of domination in favor of the language of a beloved community. But still – sometimes I know there are things worth fighting for.
I’m fighting for the space and time to create. Because making things (stories, articles, character ideas, lecture plans, devised work, slide decks, jokes, dishrags, course outlines, comedy sketches, clown routines, blogs posts etc. etc. forever) is an act of hope for the future.
All creation is bricolage – using the materials at hand to make something new. There is indeed nothing new under the sun. The act of creation is always a community act, a joint effort embedded in systems and memory and relationships and historical moments. No one creates something all on their own.
If creation is like a military campaign, who is the enemy? The enemy of creating things is apathy. What does it matter? Does the world rally need another _______ (insert here)? What will you DO with this? What is the point? Hasn’t this been done before? Notice that all of these questions assume that the object produced is the most important thing. I hope that my drive to create is not bound up in my ego or in my desire to create something great or wholly original, but rather in my love of a process– the engagement, the deep and busy work of my brain, the preoccupation that won’t let me go.
I don’t have a military uniform, but I do have a uniform – my favorite piece of clothing. I love where it came from and I would wear it all the time if I could. It’s technically an apron, made of sturdy linen which has grown soft from washing. It slides on top of all kinds of clothes: tank tops in the summer, sweaters in the winter; it is also compatible with dresses, jumpsuits, pajamas, and kaftans.
The most important feature of my uniform is POCKETS. They are huge and sturdy. In my pockets I have room for my glasses so I can see things better, a small book for inspiration, a notebook to capture ideas, a fountain pen to admire and chew on, and trinkets/baubles/scraps from nature that I pick up along my way. I also like it when my pockets are empty; I like to walk around the room and thrust my hands deep in my pockets and THINK. Pockets make my brain work better.
It can be hard to take up the space you need to create. But unlike a military campaign in which space is a limited quantity up for grabs, there is always space for new things in this world. Boundaries are stretched, and the land below our feet groans and expands in order to accommodate what is being made. Creating things is an act of courage, but the ground below you will always hold you up.