Eli Clare writes about many things, from gender to the environment. But for now, let’s focus on the gender part, or more specifically, the queer part. A lot of Clare’s writing thus far focuses on the idea of gender and how that influences the world. Something in particular that stood out to me was a single sentence on page 19, which can be read very differently than it seems. There are a few parts of this statement to examine.
The idea that I wish to focus on is simple; no one can fully understand someone else’s experience with the world. It’s hard for two people to experience the same things. As Clare says in this sentence, “he has never walked a logging road, listened to the idle roar of a chainsaw, or counted growth rings on an old growth stump…” (Clare, 19), not everyone understands the same parts of the world. This is the primary focus of my reading.
While this is about Clare’s past and how his friend can’t understand the exact experiences that he’s had in life, but that there is something shared regardless. I am taking this to be interpreted as this; while another person can’t always fully understand how a person identifies, they can still hold that human empathy and understand that there is a complex backing to an identity. In this particular example, Clare ends the statement saying “…but we share sensibility about environmental destruction.” While this is about the world around them, it could still be about their personal experiences and identities.
I really appreciate how you emphasized empathy in your interpretation. It reminds me of Clare’s section about the mountain. We are all climbing this mountain to reach what society deems true “success”, except aspects of our identity hold as back because they are not accepted by society and thus stop us from reaching the top. But the truth is that everyone has their own personal mountain that is personalized to how we understand and what we define our identities or our own success. While our own mountains look different from each other and we don’t all have the same life experiences, we can still have empathy for each other and understand that we are all just trying to reach the top of our mountain.