#454: Stain
Plus: Two articles on Alzheimer’s, plus a podcast series on protecting children
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This week’s search for great articles on race, education, and culture took me across the Internet. As you know, part of the point of Article Club is to immerse ourselves in various viewpoints from a range of publications, toward the goal of noticing nuance and expanding our empathy.
This means my looking through the annals of the literary journal Shenandoah, from Washington and Lee University. The publication has a storied history — once edited by Tom Wolfe, and having helped writers like e e cummings, William Faulkner, and Flannery O’Connor get their starts. Shenandoah is where I found this week’s lead article, “Stain,” written by Sarah Fawn Montgomery. The piece explores menstruation, pregnancy, abortion, and the policing of women’s bodies. The writing is riveting and thought-provoking, and I urge you to read it.
If reading about women’s reproductive rights does not interest you, do not fret. I have three more great pieces for you in today’s issue. They’re all on the serious side (as is my wont). (I blame summer being over.) Here they are:
A memorable daughter-father trip to Europe, in the midst of Alzheimer’s
What it’s like living with the knowledge that you’re at a higher risk of dementia
A look inside a community fighting about how to protect their children
If you like one or more of the articles, go ahead, hit reply or email me. I’d love to hear from you. Or if you prefer, tell your friends and family to sign up for Article Club.
1️⃣ Stain
Sarah Fawn Montgomery: “The day I begin to menstruate, my mother picks me up from middle school. She is off work early to celebrate. We go to Kmart, and she takes me to the aisle where the feminine-hygiene products sit on shelves next to diapers. The pads are huge, and I’m worried people will know that I am bleeding. I hope the boys at school tomorrow don’t write slut on my music stand.
“On the way home I cry because my mother is going to tell my father. The boys at school shout ewww whenever a girl bleeds through her pants, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to climb in bed with my parents on Saturday mornings anymore. My mother laughs and says my father would never think I am gross, but she reminds me again to carefully roll up my used pads into tiny balls, wrap them in the packaging of the new pad, then in several layers of toilet paper. Like wrapping a present or a mummy. My father doesn’t think I’m gross, but he does not want to see any evidence of my body.
“I cry and cry, and my mother buys me a chocolate milkshake and tucks me into her bed to watch TV. When my father comes home, my mother tells him, and he pokes his head in the door to check on me but does not come inside. He asks if I’m feeling better but does not speak about why. I know, instinctively, not to burden him with the details of my body.
“At dinner we eat in silence, each of us staring at our plates stained with the meat’s dark blood.”
By Sarah Fawn Montgomery • Shenandoah • 29 mins • Gift Link
2️⃣ Before Dementia Takes Everything
Francesca Mari’s father is losing his memory. He’s 72 years old. A few years back, he took a battery of tests, and his doctor diagnosed him with Alzheimer’s. “Your cognitive abilities aren’t going to get any better,” he said.
Ms. Mari remembers that when she was growing up, her dad talked about taking a trip to Europe with his parents when he was 14. It was to Switzerland and Sicily, and it was glorious — the “window boxes fizzing with flowers,” the alcoves filled with “drying clothes” and “warming bread.” With her father’s dementia progressing, Ms. Mari decides it’s time to embark on a daughter-father trek back to the homeland.
This is the touching story of that trip. It’s a testament to the power of families spending time together. It’s also a testament to the effectiveness of reminiscence therapy, which argues that reviewing one’s strongest memories helps people with dementia to live better in the present.
By Francesca Mari • The New York Times Magazine • 26 min • Gift Link
✚ Ms. Mari joined us at Article Club in April 2021, when we discussed “A Lonely Occupation,” about gentrification and the housing crisis in Los Angeles. Here’s her interview with me and Sarai.
3️⃣ When You Know You Might Forget Everything
Have you taken a DNA test? I have, on 23andMe. It was mostly for fun — but also to confirm what my dad made sure I understood growing up, that Italy is where we’re from.
But in no way was I tempted to take up 23andMe’s offer to “discover [my] past” and “take charge of [my] future” by unlocking the optional health report. When it comes to Alzheimer’s, I don’t want to know. It’s too scary.
But some people find comfort in finding out if they carry the APOE4 gene variant, associated with a higher likelihood of developing the disease. In this article, you’ll meet 10 people — young and older — with two copies of the gene. They explain, in a wide diversity of ways, how their lives have changed.
By Amelia Schonbek • Intelligencer • 24 mins • Gift Link
4️⃣ The Girl And Her English Teacher
Last month, I featured a podcast series called Southlake, which explored how an affluent, mostly white suburb in Texas failed miserably to address racism in its schools. Many of you let me know that you found the podcast transfixing. I did, too. It was wonderful to interview co-author Mike Hixenbaugh and to discuss the series with a group of you last Sunday afternoon on Zoom.
While I was listening (and re-listening!) to Southlake, I noticed that Mr. Hixenbaugh and co-author Antonia Hylton had completed another podcast series about another affluent suburb in Texas. Of course I was intrigued, and so, of course, I listened to the whole thing. And I have a little secret: I think this one — called Grapevine — is even better. It’s about faith, power, and what it means to protect LGBTQ+ children.
By Mike Hixenbaugh and Antonia Hylton • NBC News • 43 min • Apple Podcasts
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“The Stain” and the end of Roe has got me thinking about all I experienced and never considered abuse, but accepted as my lot as a female. From boys to men, from crude jokes in grade school to intimidation and threats for sex in high school, in college—“You can live with me, if you don’t have stinky farts like my mother”—through sexual harassment at work and 33 years of isolation in marriage, my body now broken and scarred. The shame I carried, from age 3 when an unknown man at a family party put me in a garbage can after I cringed away from his demand for a kiss. At 11, when a boy I barely knew suddenly punched me so hard in my breast, that side never developed. At 17, when a cigarette-smoking, male gynecologist told me I “could spit babies like watermelon seeds,” which was such a lie. Yesterday I read an article about the Ballerina Farm, where an influencer tradwife caring for 8 children has suffered a physical and mental breakdown from exhaustion. How happy I am, now, old and at home with only adult daughters. How much more enjoyable life is, without the threat of my sex, where we women can just BE. And I realize, now, it wasn’t me who ever needed to feel shame. I only wish I’d known to decenter from men long before this.
None of the gift links appear to be working for me? For each, I’m getting a blank white page with the usual “Done” at top left. Is it me, or—?