New Honorable Ancestors: Dolly Parton and Wendell Berry
With all the tomfoolery and bullfuckery afoot in this world right now, those fighting for life, for love, for our neighbors and kin of the natural world, must be celebrated and appreciated.
I was on a much-needed vacation, celebrating my best friend’s birthday, when I heard of Dolly’s passing. My besty is someone who lives very much in the moment, fully engaged in the tangible world before her. For her birthday, we went camping somewhere in Florida, where we tubed down a lazy river (only seeing one alligator, amid many many river creatures!), had actual campfires (no wildfire risk in the swamp!), and shared so much delicious food and conversation. On one of those sumptuous days, I checked my phone and gasped, telling my friend that I’d received some distressing celebrity news. When I told her it was Dolly Parton who had passed, she said, “I didn’t think any celebrity death would affect me in any way…but that one.” That night, I played Jolene and we all sang it together. Dolly would have loved it.
Dolly had an amazing ability to bridge connections between people of all kinds. Conservatives love her, leftists love her, and people who hate celebrity culture love her. She also bridged paradoxes of self and representation. For me, Dolly showed me how to perform femininity in a joyful and genuine way, beyond non-contradiction. Her exaggerated displays of femininity were never without a wink, an honesty that was refreshing, especially when it comes to celebrities and the pressure on women to perform femininity with such narrow and unattainable margins. Dolly took these expectations and went further with them. She unapologetically modeled her look on “the town tramp” and often spoke of how she enjoyed the contrast of looking “ridiculous,” all while running her own life and career with humor, a sharp wit, and intuition. She both didn’t take things too seriously and also took things extremely seriously (like the fact that she could have hoarded her wealth to the point of being a billionaire, but she was too giving to attain that status; she preferred to share that wealth with the economically oppressed communities she came from).
Her playfulness with her look and the way she enjoyed her own body inspires me so much, especially doing the work I do. I celebrate her in many ways, and hope I can embody her sexiness and generosity in my own style. I honor you, Dolly Parton.
In seeming contrast to Dolly was the loss of a beloved nature poet, Wendell Berry. Wendell believed in many of the same principles as Dolly: community engagement, kinship ties, respect for the land and strengthening the small community structure. All I can do is share the poet’s own words, for I couldn’t express it better. Here’s a poem I picked just for you, my Mysterious Reader.
A Homecoming
One faith is bondage. Two
are free. In the trust
of old love, cultivation shows
a dark graceful wilderness
at its heart. Wild
in that wilderness, we roam
the distances of our faith,
safe beyond the bounds
of what we know. O love,
open. Show me
my country. Take me home.