Sarah Orne Jewett wasn't just a writer—she was a goddamn literary revolutionary who told the world to fuck off while she lived her truth in broad daylight.
I am puzzled by this apparent need to be "recognized". From my point of view, it is sufficient to be able to live my life as I choose to live it even though it is lived anonymously. I am not going to change the world other than providing my miniscule dollop of kindness wherever I can. And I have no inner need to do otherwise. My ancestors were anonymous with no great acts of heroism or literary significance but they managed to produce children who were decent and/or indecent without being noteworthy. I aspire to nothing more that that. I rather think that most people, gay or straight, probably want the same.
Their “anonymity” wasn’t chosen solitude but enforced invisibility, where even a lingering glance between lovers could trigger scandal. Our peaceful obscurity today exists because others before us endured the suffocating weight of secrets that could destroy lives with a whisper. The recognition they craved wasn’t celebrity—it was simply the right to exist without fear, to love without shame corroding their souls daily. Holding hands in public back then under the wrong contexts could have been gravely consequential.
I am puzzled by this apparent need to be "recognized". From my point of view, it is sufficient to be able to live my life as I choose to live it even though it is lived anonymously. I am not going to change the world other than providing my miniscule dollop of kindness wherever I can. And I have no inner need to do otherwise. My ancestors were anonymous with no great acts of heroism or literary significance but they managed to produce children who were decent and/or indecent without being noteworthy. I aspire to nothing more that that. I rather think that most people, gay or straight, probably want the same.
Their “anonymity” wasn’t chosen solitude but enforced invisibility, where even a lingering glance between lovers could trigger scandal. Our peaceful obscurity today exists because others before us endured the suffocating weight of secrets that could destroy lives with a whisper. The recognition they craved wasn’t celebrity—it was simply the right to exist without fear, to love without shame corroding their souls daily. Holding hands in public back then under the wrong contexts could have been gravely consequential.