I grew up in a house with a septic system. The lid was right under my bedroom window. The tank would flood every time we had a heavy rain and my father would have to dig it up to put a pump in. It just now occurred to me that I don't know where it pumped to. Yikes.
This reminds me though, I have a prayer card for my favorite Estruscan/Roman goddess, Cloacina. I'll send you the prayer when it surfaces again. Which should be soon because I'm in the midst of purging our apartment of all the crap that accreted during covid lockdown.
Shudder—where was he pumping it to?!?! I find septics so wildly weird and deeply symbolic: Oh you know, the place where we put all our excretions, for years, and try not to think about until we need to hire someone to purge it and carry it away.
Incredible, really.
I need to know more about Cloacina. I know I could google it but I would rather hear it from you. Accretion should be an official verb for this condition of collecting clutter, as all but the most minimalist amongst us surely do. Bonne courage, I know you can do it!
It's not an inaccurate metaphor for my family dynamic. unfortunately. Generate a lot of shit and then it goes.... away. Somewhere. Let's not dwell on it. ;-)
On to Cloacina-- her origins are a bit murky, but most of the things I've read point to her being an Etruscan river deity of some kind, or a nymph. I think maybe the kind of local friendly spirit people made a shrine for where they could leave little trinkets in the hopes their kids wouldn't drown in the stream and the water would stay fresh. Then she came down from the hills into Rome, where she grew with the city and became one of several personas of Venus. She presided over the Cloaca Maxima, a walled off section of stream near the Forum that carried waste away to the Tiber. Eventually the big public baths latrines were connected to the Cloaca Maxima too, and a shrine to Venus Cloacina was erected there because obviously people were more concerned with the water staying fresh than ever and really wanted to appease her as thoroughly as possible. There's not much of the shrine left, but lots of coins were minted that depict it.
Fantastic, well-written vignette of life in France, skillfully interwoven with biting memoir. This piece really hit home for me. First, because I have secondhand experience of nonfunctioning, overloaded European sewer systems, being an agog observer of the cosdidetto "poop trucksthat work throughout Florence and Tuscany, but also as a GenX writer type in the TX/OK cultural axis who never fit in, who longed to do so, if only to survive the whole mess, and who subsequently secreted a healthy protective carapace of "dont fcuk with me" in the form of aloofness, intellect, sarcasm, and emotional distancing.
To wit, THIS:
***
My entire youth was spent in the shadow of angry young men wielding the puffed-up, projected sword of their intellect to cut the world down to size—if only in their minds. Riding high on the misogyny, casual racism, and homophobia of the 80s, the men dominating the scenes I orbited created a toxic atmosphere where the only way to thrive as a young woman was to become one of them. Sleeping with them lowered you to below their level, but meeting them where they were—laughing along, cultivating a snide cruelty of one’s own—could at least ensure a place at the table. I took my seat and feasted, realizing too late that intellect without compassion is the blade of the vivisectionist, rather than the surgeon. I was a bleeding heart surrounded by butchers and their apprentices.
***
So much truth here. Thank you for presenting it. Cheering from the cheap seats.
Thank you, Monica! WE MADE IT and by "it" I mean we became functional, awestruck, dumbstruck, empathy struck, decent human beings who are raising healthy children outside the country that still specializes in exceptionalism (I typoed "expectionalism" and I think we should shove that one into the lexicon) that makes people outsiders in their own lives anfd communities.
I want to know more about the Italian poop trucks because to be perfectly frank, this was the first time I have ever been able to schedule with a French tradesperson and have them show up pronto, i.e inside a week. It's as if they actually really don't want us to miss out on the convenience of indoor toilets! No waiting months for an appointment! Quelle chance!
Thank you always for your kind encouragement and reading of my little rants.
Spike, I thought of you while writing this, thinking precisely that: Oh I bet Spike has some septic tales to tell. I seem to recall having to have my newly-installed septic system at Whirlaway emptied and repaired when it was being inspected for the property sale because something was done wrong and it wasn't going into the leach tank or whatever. I STILL don't understand septics and still don't want to and hopefully never will. I definitely blocked out all the details and never looked back on that shit.
Hahaha. I love that you don’t understand septics. I also don’t understand them, despite having two. I feel inspired now to never try to learn. (Not that that was on my To Do List or anything.)
Wow. I admire the strength, energy and bravery you, your family and neighbors possess to live so REAL and so unlike us in suburban U.S.A. We are wusses.
Oh, I assure you your rural neighbors in the US are living with septic systems too! At the farm I had 2 composting toilets and...let's just say that what happened in those toilets stayed in those toilets...until I had to empty them out, usually after large events. I still gag at the thought. No none could accuse me of anything short of keeping it REAL.
My kingdom for some golden years of wussdom, or at least housecat-level comfort, lol.
I grew up in a house with a septic system. The lid was right under my bedroom window. The tank would flood every time we had a heavy rain and my father would have to dig it up to put a pump in. It just now occurred to me that I don't know where it pumped to. Yikes.
This reminds me though, I have a prayer card for my favorite Estruscan/Roman goddess, Cloacina. I'll send you the prayer when it surfaces again. Which should be soon because I'm in the midst of purging our apartment of all the crap that accreted during covid lockdown.
Shudder—where was he pumping it to?!?! I find septics so wildly weird and deeply symbolic: Oh you know, the place where we put all our excretions, for years, and try not to think about until we need to hire someone to purge it and carry it away.
Incredible, really.
I need to know more about Cloacina. I know I could google it but I would rather hear it from you. Accretion should be an official verb for this condition of collecting clutter, as all but the most minimalist amongst us surely do. Bonne courage, I know you can do it!
It's not an inaccurate metaphor for my family dynamic. unfortunately. Generate a lot of shit and then it goes.... away. Somewhere. Let's not dwell on it. ;-)
On to Cloacina-- her origins are a bit murky, but most of the things I've read point to her being an Etruscan river deity of some kind, or a nymph. I think maybe the kind of local friendly spirit people made a shrine for where they could leave little trinkets in the hopes their kids wouldn't drown in the stream and the water would stay fresh. Then she came down from the hills into Rome, where she grew with the city and became one of several personas of Venus. She presided over the Cloaca Maxima, a walled off section of stream near the Forum that carried waste away to the Tiber. Eventually the big public baths latrines were connected to the Cloaca Maxima too, and a shrine to Venus Cloacina was erected there because obviously people were more concerned with the water staying fresh than ever and really wanted to appease her as thoroughly as possible. There's not much of the shrine left, but lots of coins were minted that depict it.
omg Rachel, HI. I was like, who else would mention the goddess Cloacina in a comment ... wait a minute ....ODDIO IT IS AVERY
Yes! It is I! She wafted into our AirBnB in Florence on the poop truck vapors and followed me home.
Fantastic, well-written vignette of life in France, skillfully interwoven with biting memoir. This piece really hit home for me. First, because I have secondhand experience of nonfunctioning, overloaded European sewer systems, being an agog observer of the cosdidetto "poop trucksthat work throughout Florence and Tuscany, but also as a GenX writer type in the TX/OK cultural axis who never fit in, who longed to do so, if only to survive the whole mess, and who subsequently secreted a healthy protective carapace of "dont fcuk with me" in the form of aloofness, intellect, sarcasm, and emotional distancing.
To wit, THIS:
***
My entire youth was spent in the shadow of angry young men wielding the puffed-up, projected sword of their intellect to cut the world down to size—if only in their minds. Riding high on the misogyny, casual racism, and homophobia of the 80s, the men dominating the scenes I orbited created a toxic atmosphere where the only way to thrive as a young woman was to become one of them. Sleeping with them lowered you to below their level, but meeting them where they were—laughing along, cultivating a snide cruelty of one’s own—could at least ensure a place at the table. I took my seat and feasted, realizing too late that intellect without compassion is the blade of the vivisectionist, rather than the surgeon. I was a bleeding heart surrounded by butchers and their apprentices.
***
So much truth here. Thank you for presenting it. Cheering from the cheap seats.
Thank you, Monica! WE MADE IT and by "it" I mean we became functional, awestruck, dumbstruck, empathy struck, decent human beings who are raising healthy children outside the country that still specializes in exceptionalism (I typoed "expectionalism" and I think we should shove that one into the lexicon) that makes people outsiders in their own lives anfd communities.
I want to know more about the Italian poop trucks because to be perfectly frank, this was the first time I have ever been able to schedule with a French tradesperson and have them show up pronto, i.e inside a week. It's as if they actually really don't want us to miss out on the convenience of indoor toilets! No waiting months for an appointment! Quelle chance!
La galette. . . hahahahaha. THANK YOU for this excellent essay!
" We learned how to criticize a world we despised, but not how to imagine and construct one we loved."-Indeed, that sums up my teens and twenties.
La galette, lol. I assume that because the French are more or less obsessed with food it just had to be a food item but... cookie?!? HOW DARE THEY?
Thank goodness we made it out of the clutches of Gen X apathy and cynicism. It really did get better.
I love the shit out of this. Oh the septic nightmares I have endured. Congratulations. And, as ever, your writing is so breathtaking. Thank you.
Thank you always for your kind encouragement and reading of my little rants.
Spike, I thought of you while writing this, thinking precisely that: Oh I bet Spike has some septic tales to tell. I seem to recall having to have my newly-installed septic system at Whirlaway emptied and repaired when it was being inspected for the property sale because something was done wrong and it wasn't going into the leach tank or whatever. I STILL don't understand septics and still don't want to and hopefully never will. I definitely blocked out all the details and never looked back on that shit.
Hahaha. I love that you don’t understand septics. I also don’t understand them, despite having two. I feel inspired now to never try to learn. (Not that that was on my To Do List or anything.)
Wow. I admire the strength, energy and bravery you, your family and neighbors possess to live so REAL and so unlike us in suburban U.S.A. We are wusses.
Oh, I assure you your rural neighbors in the US are living with septic systems too! At the farm I had 2 composting toilets and...let's just say that what happened in those toilets stayed in those toilets...until I had to empty them out, usually after large events. I still gag at the thought. No none could accuse me of anything short of keeping it REAL.
My kingdom for some golden years of wussdom, or at least housecat-level comfort, lol.