The metaphor of stones and heat recurs throughout the chapter “Stones in my pockets, stones in my heart” by Eli Clare. He talks about how not aligning with the identity he was “stamped” with as well as the damage and violence that resulted from the ableist, homo- and transphobic perceptions of others that did not match his internal sense of self stole his body from him, leaving him with the stones in his heart and his pocket as the only home he had left. Throughout the chapter, he repeatedly asks “how do I write not about the stones, but about the heat itself”.
I would argue that, in order to reach and write about the heat and go beneath the skin, we cannot ignore the stones but have to face and embrace them. The stones, resulting from the abuse and violence based on the marginalized aspects of identity function like a mask or a protective shell to assure Clare’s survival, they are a refuge home for him since his body was stolen from him. I think that to get back to the “heat”, i.e., to the passion and true, raw self, lying beneath the stones, we have to carefully dismantle and work through the stones and the pain that is stored in them. That is because by confronting them, we can change the narrative and reclaim power about our own story as well as reclaiming our own identity and multi-facetity of our identity.
Many people who belong to a marginalized group encounter their identity being reduced to that one aspect of experienced violence when in fact we all consist of countless aspects resulting in complex, multifaceted identities. The process of “facing” and “observing” the stones helps us to overcome the idea that violence is the definer of our identity, that our identity equals our experienced abuse, like we talked in class.
I tried to combine the description of being queer feeling like a loss of home in Clare’s “Losing home” with his proposal in “the mountain” that our body as a home has to be understood as not singular and as something that can be reclaimed, and connect these two to the liberating view of “queer” being able to represent possibilities, as Sedgwick proposes in her text “Queer and Now”. Thereby, it becomes visible how reclaiming our queerness and embracing our stones can help us overcome the feeling of loss of home and help us to “climb” the stones we have to deal with in life, so that ultimately we are able to reach the heat again that is lying beneath the surface of our skin.
I definitely agree with several things that you have said here. It can be extremely difficult to face and observe the stones, because oftentimes in a situation like this it can feel like violence is an absolute defining trait. Clare definitely displays this, as much of his life was marked by abuse and violence. However, he strives to find home in his body nevertheless. Clare’s feeling that he was “stamped” with a certain identity that does not fit him was extremely resonant, because it shows how lost he felt when he was pressured to dress or act “feminine”.
to tie this back to another reading, Houska discusses the importance of true community in “Sacred Resistance”. Clare feels that the description of being queer feels like a loss of home, but it could also, in some sense, offer a sense of community, which he acknowledges in his essay.