rest

It would be so lovely to think that, if I were a man, I could explain the law and people would listen and say 'OK.' That would be so restful.

Laura, Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt, 2016)

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Today (International Women's Day 2017) I am on strike.

I am on strike because I was struck.

Struck by the history of international women's strikes.

Struck by debates about their effectiveness,¹ their inclusion and exclusion.²

And literally, physically struck: shoved aside hard while trying to buy food on Sunday, I defended myself verbally and then (running away from Mr. Pushy 'I didn't see you') injured myself physically, some kind of proleptic self-harm: getting the blow in first by tripping over a bike frame and falling headlong into a muddy puddle.

Sara Ahmed says, throughout Living a Feminist Life, that coming up against racism and sexism is like coming up against a wall; that it can be palpable.

Trust me to somatise the literal shit out of that. And then treat it as a note to self to take the day off.

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A rest, in the sense of pause, is the distance between two resting points on a marked route, says the OED helpfully. It is also a measure, in music-or rather, a measure of silence in music.

It may possibly be cognate to the Indo-European root ro, and related to the Greek ἐρωή): cessation, rest.

Which is nothing to do with rest: that which remains or is left over- and interestingly, also a sum of money remaining to be paid. I never stop being amazed by how much of our language is endebted to capital.

Rest. From the classical Latin restāre, to remain where one is, to hold one's ground, resist, to be left unchanged, remain, to survive, to be left as a residue, to be left in a specified condition, to remain to be dealt with, to lie in store.

And then there's the rest that derives from, or abbreviates, arrest: a different etymology again. A form that stops some and not others; allows some to rest (or remain, or take a stand) and not others.

Three ways of stopping or being stopped, of leaving or being left behind, of pausing or being put on hold. To remain where one is (held) is different from pausing and then moving on.

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The homonyms (and homographs) offer a productive confusion: what if rest (from ro)-that which is restful-is or could be a form of resistance (remaining in place, holding one's ground)? Not just in the sense of Yoko Ono and John Lennon's Bed-In for Peace, which did after all bring the homely, everyday practices of sleeping, sexuality, intimate conversation, and mutual care into the public eye in order to protest the destructive results of the will to action.

Resist, from re + sistere.

Nothing to do with sisters, although @a_treaclemine gives an example of the clever and needful slogan 'Resisters not Recisters,' which appeared at the recent Women's Marches.³

stāre and sistere are from related Greek roots meaning to stand or make to stand. So rest (from restāre) and resistance are deeply entangled.

Ono and Lennon's Bed-In was a salutary reminder, among other things, that to resist (be made to stand) effectively, we need to rest (gather the energy to enable ourselves to take a stand).

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I wear badges as a small act of resistance (to expectations of adult professionalism as much as anything).

On my coat lapel I have a badge, made by Dreamland Cinema, blazoned with the aubergine-haired head of French filmmaker Agnès Varda. People stop me in the street to ask about it, and I tell them about how she dressed as a potato, documented the Black Panthers, invented the Nouvelle Vague, made an abortion musical, and hung out with Mos Def (not simultaneously, although she could have done if she wanted).

But this week Varda is my protest symbol because she knows that rest is resistance.

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Here is film critic and programmer Kiva Reardon...