“Refusing to utter this curse is my everyday act of resistance.” How an author discovered a new curse word, and contended vehemently against it…
by: Diana L. Gustafson
A swear-chain of events began one fateful Friday morning in March 2020 when I flew into Montreal to facilitate an academic writing workshop, only to learn the university had locked its doors. Richly oblivious to the impending doom, I told my hosts, “No problem. We can hold the workshop tomorrow.” Tomorrow never came. Instead, COVID-19 crashed into my world (and yours).
Fear not, dear reader. This is not a COVID story. The pandemic was merely the event that triggered a transition in my professional life as a university professor, culminating in my discovery of a new curse word. Like so many of us trying to navigate the dizzying daze of social isolation and uncertainty, I was confused, angry, and frustrated. As the ground fell away under my feet, my cheeks bulged with expletives vying to lead the violent spray of curse words spewing from my mouth.
This new curse word I speak of is a familiar word that begins with the letter R, one you may use when planning your future. If you live a long and productive life (and I hope you do), you will be forced to choose between welcoming this word into your self-definition, or spurning it like the curse I believe it to be. My daughter is in the first category. I am in the second. I do not allow this word to cross my lips, so when it appears in this story, it is because I am quoting others. Refusing to utter this curse is my everyday act of resistance, my quiet protest against a society that threatens to define me, a woman of a certain age, and establish limits on my creativity.
The swear-chain of events began when public health restrictions irrevocably changed my satisfying living and working arrangements. Until March 2020, I commuted between the Toronto home I shared with my partner for one week each month and a rewarding job on the Canadian East Coast, where I lived alone for the remainder of the month. Overnight, many of us were forced to work from home. I chose my Toronto base, where I wouldn’t be alone for an indeterminate length of time.
When travel restrictions eased, my workplace and everything that had made the commute worthwhile changed dramatically. Most of my colleagues continued to work off-campus. On campus, there was no one to share lunch with and no hallway chats. It became difficult to justify the cost and time away from my Toronto-based partner for a chance greeting at my university office. The Toronto space felt like a home, not just a monthly destination. After two years of trying to make things work, as B.B. King sings, the thrill was gone. As much as I was going to miss teaching and supervising the research of bright and talented students, I knew it was time to embark on my next big adventure, becoming a short story author.
As with my four previous career changes, planning was key. I consulted with family and friends, created a pros and cons list, and enrolled in a graduate program to develop my creative writing skills. When I left my university position, I had accumulated a pension that ensured a modest income and the freedom to write. There were no wild aspirations about being the next Alix Ohlin or Annie Proulx, publishing award-winning stories. The joy was in confronting a fresh challenge with a new network of like-minded souls and discovering a new way of being productive.
Soon, I realized others didn’t regard my transition the way I did. The unsettling reality crashed into me each time I faced questions from neighbours who asked, “How are you enjoying your retirement?” Or friends who said, “Now that you’re retired, you have time to travel.” Even my daughter said, “It’s time to spend our inheritance.” (She probably didn’t mean it. She’s got a big mortgage.)
Unceremoniously demoted, that R-word jettisoned me to an end-of-life space. My life cleaved in two: the meaningful before and the meaningless after. A defining line emblematic of who and what we value. Show me a retiree who doesn’t feel diminished when a new social introduction or party conversation begins: Where do you work? Or, What do you do for a living? Even dating apps like Bumble include occupation or job title, as if paid work were the wellspring of one’s identity. I was offended that otherwise kind and intelligent people felt compelled to apply the R-word to people like me.
That concept, a blessing for some, a bête noire for me, dates to 1881, when Otto von Bismarck, the conservative prime minister of Prussia, was pressured by his progressive opponents to provide financial support to older citizens. He wrote, “those who are disabled from work by age and invalidity have a well-grounded claim to care from the state.” That proclamation resonates today as many social democratic countries regard it as a social and moral responsibility to provide for the well-being and dignity of all who are physically and mentally limited, regardless of age.
The average R-age in Canada is 65, although this varies by profession, gender, health, and economic circumstances. For people like my daughter, the time can’t come soon enough, and more power to her and others like her. That is not how I labelled my career move. Creative writing was a transition precipitated by a global pandemic, not an old lady’s excuse to wax rhapsodic about a life well-lived or to access public pensions due to mental or physical frailty. I’m of sound body (except for a cranky knee), and sound mind, except for the occasional (okay, not so occasional) crazed outburst of swearing, neither condition being age-related.
I want the same things anyone moving into a new career wants: camaraderie, respect, and opportunities to learn and grow. I don’t want my worth and aspirations judged solely on chronological age. I don’t need government support (and I recognize what a privilege that is). Therefore, I don’t want anyone using the R-word to describe me against my expressed wishes. It feels like a curse.
One morning, I asked the beautiful, gently wrinkled, 72-year-old face gazing back at me from my bathroom mirror whether this R-word qualifies as a curse word. She said yes. Here’s my logic.
Ask an etymologist, the word expert (not an entomologist, the bug expert) who’ll say there are different types of curse words: the vulgar, the obscene, and the profane. Vulgar, from the Latin vulgis, meaning “the common people,” refers to crude or coarse words such as bastard and whore that would offend my mother (maybe not yours, especially if she’s a sailor). Racial, ableist, and homophobic slurs may also fall into this category, but I hope all mothers, sailors or not, reject these unspeakable words. This R-word is a term crudely used by the masses to describe those at the unfortunate destination at the end of a purposeful life. Is that vulgar? Yes.
An obscene curse is regarded as offensive, impure, or indecent and comes from the Latin obscenus, or maybe 16th-century French obscène (these are the things etymologists love to argue about). Obscene words such as fart, shit, and the ultimate obscenity, fuck, typically refer to sexual or bodily functions. Why do we consider natural body processes unspeakably nasty? Damned if I know (which, if you’re paying attention, is a vulgarity, not an obscenity). My R-word may not be as provocative as fuck. It is, nonetheless, associated with offensive, ageist attitudes about cognitive decline and lack of vitality that make that destination the answer for the maturing female body, as if we were unfit for productive and meaningful work. Obscene? Definitely.
Profanity, unlike obscenity and vulgarity, dates to Judeo-Christian tradition when the Ten Commandments were delivered to man, warning them not to speak sacrilegiously. Maybe women are exempt from uttering blasphemies, but probably not. The Bible never mentions the R-word. My cautious interpretation of biblical traditions (I’m a scientist, not a theist, so caution is always the best path in such cases) suggests quite the opposite. Aging is a gift, and as long as we breathe, we have work to do on earth. So, is the R-word profane? Absolutely.
Today, my mouth, full of polished white teeth (all mine, give or take), refuses to whisper my newly discovered curse word. Perhaps tomorrow, I will test the sound of the R-word in the solitude of this transitional career space. Or maybe I will trip while doing the EdgeWalk at the CN Tower, crash to the cement floor, suffer a traumatic brain injury, and qualify for a forever bed in an old age home. Or more likely, I will continue to rail against ageism and all the other -isms as I expand my swear-chain of smut vocabulary until hell freezes over.
Diana L. Gustafson is an academic and emerging creative author who lives and writes in Toronto, Canada. As a health researcher, she has published dozens of articles (and three books), many about women’s health. She completed an MFA in creative writing at the University of British Columbia under the expert tutelage of award-winning author Alix Ohlin. She has published flash fiction, speculative fiction, memoir, and cultural criticism. She is an active member of three writing collectives and a reader for Flash Fiction Magazine.
