Sensory Occupation
I just got back from Italy and things felt different there. Aside from the airport, I didn’t see a single TV, not in any restaurant, not in any room I stayed. And I kept noticing most of the restaurants weren’t playing music over loudspeakers. Instead, we could hear the sounds of a busy kitchen with knives chopping, sauces stirring, and bowls banging; and a sometimes lively, sometimes quiet dining room with the lyrical sounds of many languages converging while forks clinked against plates and wine poured from carafes. It was truly lovely.
Except for the occasional (and massive) H & M ad covering renovation scaffolding, I didn’t encounter many billboards and the ones I did see were more likely for Vodafone than for selling style or ‘ideal’ bodies. Even though Italy is a fashion hub and the stores in the shopping districts the stores do have large window ads and impossibly proportioned mannequins, being there offered a noticeable break from the constant static vying for my attention that’s just the normal backdrop in America.
I love my home but coming back to America felt like an instant assault on my senses. Not 3 minutes after landing, a TV in the customs line shouted about the democratic debates, the Newark Marriott had 4-5 loud TVs positioned in the lobby and bar, and the café in Whole Foods blared pop music. So much for a quiet lunch… Everywhere I turn, I hear a cacophony of voices trying to allure me to pay attention to anything but myself. The contrast with the previous 2 weeks in Italy was stark and unnerving. Nothing like stepping outside of everyday life to clearly see the water we’re actually swimming in.
When I arrived home and heard about the short course my colleagues cooked up for this Sunday, “Our Bodies as Occupied Territory”, I could viscerally relate to the feeling of being Occupied – media and culture’s insidious attempts to rule our space, time, attention, and most importantly, ideas, is an Occupation of sorts (with respect to actual Occupied Territories like the West Bank). Who really owns our ideas about anything and why do we either seem to choose to spend exorbitant amounts of money and time to fit the cultural script and feel beautiful or spend our mental and emotional capital ‘just loving and accepting our bodies as they are’ without wondering what’s really behind the struggle to love and find a true home in our bodies? Outside influences that thrive on our insecurity and consumption live in us, probably more than we think, even in those of us who tend our inner worlds and landscapes in community we trust.