Tag Archives: woman

All Your Birthday Are Belong To Us

11 Wednesday Apr 2018

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you would never believe how big you can be
until your bellybutton turns inside out.
you would never believe how much pain you can take
(your mission, should you decide to accept it)
until you accept it, knowing
the pain train was coming,
ready to deliver a full body-blow
that you’d forget it like nothing,
all that stretching and bursting a shadow
a breeze on a mountain you left below
like the chat you made with the guy who
tattooed “always” on your tender skin
or the reason you put it there.

you would never believe how much you can figure out
curled up on a towel in the dark,
a hard plastic piece in somebody’s endgame,
you become your own mother
when you figure out the gore will stop when it’s ready
and not a minute before
like it does sometimes
so sweat it out, sister,
allow yourself a whimper, walk the floor
you ain’t dying though it feels like you’re birthing the whole damned world
tonight.

you would never believe that the body can shut off the faucet
a freaking morning miracle that you can breathe pain-free now
the clot-o-rama paused
courtesy of healthy organs the doctor said he would never remove
because you are fifty and want a reprieve
but you get what you get and you don’t get upset because
there are one hundred more birthdays waiting to burst through
before this is done.

Pacifice et nimis incommode morior

05 Tuesday Dec 2017

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Another day of life, another day I get to choose. Hold on, let me light some sage and pace the floor and forsake the waiting page because I’m not ready yet. Willing, able, but not ready to commit words to page, creating something from nothing.

Another day of life, another day I get to choose not to hate, to clench my jaw, to think and feel and say terrible things though you surely earned it.

Another day I get to give up. To throw in the towel. To say fuck it, nothing matters. (Insert leaping rainbow dolphin meme here.)  Another day to despair and ask, “Why do I give a shit? What’s the point? I’m wasting my time and energy. A woman’s voice does not matter and will never be heard.” Another day to wallow, to feel helpless, to watch things not go my way, to watch sufferings and wrongs that cannot be curtailed by the wave of my wand that means well, but has the exact power of a mythical unicorn. Another day to spend in tears because the child hurts, the women hurt, the world hurts, and can I point to anything at all I have done or have yet to do that will make real, lasting change?

Another day to to choose hedonism in favor of being in this world because wouldn’t I rather just live on Vanuatu and never give another flying fuck about this world ever again? My tick tock clock is countdown calling, and wouldn’t it just be better to surrender to the good life, a life of living moment to moment without sadness for the past or fear of the future, just hand to mouth and embrace that dirt nap when it comes in volcanic soil, without caring that I never had a soul to begin with? It’s just easier believing we are a parasite on a rock, hakuna matata, the end.

Another day to acknowledge the pain in my bones and my skin when I hear that no one believes the women, another day to acknowledge the betrayal of all I hold sacred if I turn my back on us. Another day of life to not give up on doing what’s right. To choose action, to speak out, to make a stand, to do what’s right, parasite or no.

Men and women are different. The guys have the upper body strength, but women have the gift of stamina. We keep going. You and I wouldn’t be here if we didn’t keep up with you all those colicky nights. No matter the shit or the threats, the bruises or the cum on our dresses, our fear to speak honestly because “No,” or “I will have,” “I deserve,” “I need” equals “No one will believe you,” women find ways to keep going.  And if I curl up and say fuck it and stay in my bed and wallow and wait for the soil then how could I ever deserve to requiescat in pace? I know that right now the few are running the world for the rest of us. Lying down and letting them steamroll us hurts our daughters and sons in ways that’s hard to see when we don’t know where dinner is coming from, but we must never give up. It’s hard to see a better future when we’re unbelieved today, but we just  have to keep going.

Another day of life to choose to keep going.

Sexist Me

21 Tuesday Nov 2017

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In 1984, at the age of sixteen, I heard about female genital mutilation.  I was horrified and angry, but I had nowhere to share this information or how I felt, no way to make a change. People at home were too busy fighting, and everyone at school was all about everything you can imagine going on in high school. Horrified, angry, and helpless make for flinty bedfellows. I internalized and built me a case for hating men.

In 1991, five years after I graduated from high school, Anita Hill testified that Clarence Thomas, supreme court nominee, sexually harassed her.  I thought she was brave for coming forward, I believed her, and after he was confirmed my hatred for men accelerated.  How could anyone let this pig become a judge?  (Side note: I didn’t even understand at the time that he would be a judge for a lifetime and what that meant, or how his wife’s politicking everyone ignores.)

Four years later, 1995,  I married my best friend. My high school years and many after did nothing to help me learn and grow into becoming the best person I could be. I was a man-hating woman hell-bent ready to punish everyone and everything who brutalized women. I. Won’t. Be. Your. Victim. Anymore!!!   Those years were tumultuous, years without a strong support system. I hated men less because my husband was kind, but the lurking vigilante shadow was never far away, and I did little to banish it.

In 1998 my son was an infant, and I was enmeshed in the daily life of being wife and mother.  I kept up with the news in a fairly background noise kind of way.  I heard that Clinton was being accused and dragged to court and impeached for lying under oath. Well that was stupid, Bill, what the hell were you thinking?  I heard the woman he was with was a willing, if not eager, partner, and I gave him a pass.  What?   Yes.  I gave him a pass.  He seemed like a charming dude, really good on camera whether it was an address or a spot on a talk show.  I mean, how could a dude who seemed so decent (yes, he had a dalliance and he’s all humbled by it) be the predator these other women and politicians made him out to be?  I felt like the women coming forward were the unfortunate victims of those who had a political axe to grind.  I felt like, if Hillary stood by him, why shouldn’t I?  I gave Bill Clinton a Democratic pass because he favored the same things I did, he was charming, and I was not paying attention to the deeper, more relevant, issues.

Twenty-eight years after I graduated high school, 2014, I found myself in the lobby of a hospital waiting to visit my son.  I picked up a copy of Vanity Fair which I don’t normally read, but this issue caught my attention.  I read about Monica Lewinsky’s life after the scandal.  The focus of the article was humiliation and bullying. 2014 was a pivotal time for me in so many ways, and this article was part of it.  Ms. Lewinsky describes her life after the scandal and her hopes for what women need to do going forward.  Monica had been a throwaway for me. She was a willing participant in an affair, so what, let’s move on. After reading the article I learned how wrong I was.

In October of 2016 I became enraged and sickened by the words of a president-elect caught on tape. I looked forward to his sad-faced confession and withdrawal from the race, but that did not happen.  People did not seem to care that he admitted to groping women without their consent, enjoying it without fear of retribution because when you’re famous you can get away with it.  The Narcissist-in-Chief is our president, and I mourn every day.

It is November 2017 and I am questioning everything I know about myself as a woman and everything I believed right up until this day.  Three women accused Bill Clinton of rape or misconduct. No one cared. Sixteen women came forward to describe being abused by Trump before his inauguration. No one cared.  Harvey Weinstein was exposed, a tap was opened and it appears the floodgates are breached. Every day more women and men are coming forward to share stories of their abuse by the famous and the unknown.  As I sit back in amazement at the revelations I cannot help but look at myself for being complicit.  I gave Bill Clinton a Democratic pass, ignoring the women he abused. Should I give that same treatment to Al Franken because his sins were not that big a deal? Why turn my back on Roy Moore but not Charlie Rose?

The harder we put men’s bad behavior under the microscope, the harder I take a look at myself, the closer I listen to my internal tape recorder. I am shocked by what I find. I read a female journalist’s book and in several places I felt annoyed and frustrated that she was complaining about her hair, or her choice to give up her relationship and comfortable life in exchange for face-time on air covering a presidential candidate. I heard my inner voice saying to the cashier where I buy groceries, “Geez, lady, would it kill you to smile?”  I am sexist just like all the rest, but at least now I know it and I am willing to work hard to do better. I no longer want to exercise vigilante justice under the cover of my superpower, invisibility.  I know now that knowledge is power, and so is my voice. I have to stand up and speak out equally for what is right, instead of giving a pass to the folks I kinda like because they’re cute or funny on a talk-show.  Justice looks so different to me now. I hope my voice will add geometrically and make a real, lasting change.  I pray for equal vision, equal treatment, and an open heart and mind always.

Who Are You

05 Tuesday Sep 2017

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doula, catching newborns in your hands after trudging miles in the snow collecting data of an earth so very old

husband who drove so many roads, tired of Christian books on tape they sell in the truck stops

officer whose pale son is skraeling, but you love him all the same, watching him cough and wheeze while he vapes in the shade

son who sports the sigil of darkness, too lost, too tired, too lazy to find goodness in the blessing of his hands

body in the sand, shot at close range and dumped because he couldn’t pay for his own bad news

father, born late, naked and gnarled because he gave all his shirts away

lady who wears a black vinyl cape, sandals, nothing more, watching us behind her secret door

woman who writes by candlelight, looking for truth and finds reckoning

Growing Up

09 Wednesday Aug 2017

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Interesting things happen when people put their confidence in you.  Suddenly you have to perform. I’ve heard Hollywood stars say, “Fake it ’till you make it,” and that resonates. I think most of us do the same daily, because our ancestor, that shadowy Prometheus, pushes us out of our comfort zones into the hallways we’ve wanted all our lives. We’ve got the fire, we stole it from on high and now we’re not sure what to do with it, but by god we’re not going to give it up.   Sometimes the hallways aren’t the dream we dreamed they would be, and that’s all right. We find ourselves in new lands, new challenges, successes and failures await.  Will we fight or will we succumb?

I must have asked my coworkers how to get to the building in Manhattan where the boss was sending me. I’m not sure he believed in me, but he assumed I was capable of finding my way in the garment district. I was happy that he thought I was capable, perhaps I’d esteemed myself at the front desk and I wanted to continue to perform and elevate myself in the company.  There was no internet for me to ask, like some kind of Magic 8 Ball or Medusan cauldron how to get around. I was still living at home but had my own car, and I had to figure out Manhattan on my own.  Best I can recall I told mom I’d call her when I got there at some point, as cellphones and Android were not available.  I got there somehow by the Beacon train and walked some blocks to their building, excited to be dressed fairly fashionably (for a country mouse, anyway), walking around like I knew what I was doing, smelling the smells, observing everything hungrily, and warily. In the office, I observed the goings-on, ate their delivered subs with relish, no pun intended and made small talk. They gave me very little to do. I got home somehow and the next day was interviewed by the boss.  He didn’t send me there to observe the office so I could become a fixture there, something I was hoping for. It appears that I was a spy, a weak one, nothing more, telling him what was going on while he was away. I told him what he wanted to know, then he put me back into my receptionist chair where I felt weak and ineffectual.  I wanted to climb higher, all that ambition without internet or cell phone. Well. I left his company eventually because I was tired of cleaning the bathroom, pitting dates, repackaging soaking, stinking apricots, and dealing with a zealous employee.

I drove to Omaha last July because I wanted to (and for many reasons.) I laugh now thinking about how we relied on his magic talking box to help us find a restaurant nearby.  God, the soaking Blue Ridge parkway in West Virginia, steaming after the rain….  I drove through Tennessee and Alabama so I could see what makes this world, my world. I am grateful for GPS to get me through the wrong turns I made. My spiral-bound road atlas is large and I’ve traced pink lines across the places I’ve been so far.  I drove those lines without calling momma for directions or my dad for anything.

I’m faking it until I make it as a person. A woman. A writer.  And I’m not ashamed to say it.

Of Gemini, Vanilla, and Truth

11 Sunday Jun 2017

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It’s the dog-walking hour, the hour before the sun takes your breath away. It’s the hour of elderly neighbors standing on the sidewalk telling naughty jokes, or breakfast with a neighbor before church lets out so we are guaranteed a seat in the cafe.

And now is the writing hour, the time before my gumption heads for a sofa and a dogeared book, the hour that I will stand barefoot on the cement balcony to watch neighbors go by with their groceries or work on their next hangover before they deploy, thinking about things I cannot repair or undo with a swish of my wand.

Nothing is the same as it was last year on this spit of land, least of all me.  The beach is wide and flat now. Neighbors are missing and favored dogs have passed away. New dogs and new neighbors have come.  But always, the pastel sky and the wonder of the wheel is present. I opened a journal to read where my heart was on this day last year. Nothing is the same, as it should be, but some things I still carry forward I see.

Today would have been Mom’s birthday, a Gemini through and through. She wouldn’t appreciate that pagan description, but oh well. One thing you could count on with Mom: you never knew who you were getting in a day.  Her moods shifted quickly, and I wonder now if the happy happy joy joy sing-song Mom was for real or just one way she masked her pain? Or maybe both? I will never know, and that’s okay.  But in those days, watching her devolve from parent to child trapped in a desperately lonely life frightened me.  She used to sit at the kitchen table paging through a big Sears catalog picking out rugs and clocks and furniture that she said would look great in the house she imagined. These were not casual musings.  It was hard feigning pleasant conversation about how this rug would go with that sofa, hey how about this one, but I couldn’t tell her I didn’t want to be part of her game.

It’s funny how you can pick up pretty seashells to keep or share, or pick up grocery bags full of cigarette butts, plastic bags and bottles from the same spit of land: the ocean just coughs up more of both every day.  I have two good hands that can manage both, and I struggle to remember this.  Sometimes I feel a very distinct two of me, truly torn, and on those days I worry for my spirit.  I recognize the gentle, rational, creative me and then there is the angry, fightful one, and often the angry one wins, the one that cannot handle the song Hallelujah.   I forget that I have the ability to manage whatever the world throws at me with both hands.  It’s the reason I don’t reply to most social media posts, or the reason I give you one word responses: Momma said if I don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.  Well.  On those Two-of-me days I want to create new social media sites where I give myself permission to vent and rant and troll the trolls, to hate the hate– a “safe” place to curse the darkness instead of being the light.   On those days, it is easy to judge others, to rage at injustice or simply complain about a visitor disparaging another person’s sweet dog.  On those days I forget I am free to seek another venue where I can return myself to kindness because anger is just too easy. Now, I am not wrong to feel pissiness, anger, or the rage, just as I am not wrong to want the peace that lives in me, that wells up and allows me to cry.  But feeling the peace, the beauty, the truthful good, when it wells up wide and deep, it often makes me feel overwhelmed and afraid.  It nudges out the anger, my protective shield:  how can I face you, or anything, anyone, naked?  I feel like a piece of beached jellyfish that everybody pokes with a stick or scoops up and tosses back into the ocean.  Most days, for the sake of my peace, I will show you some calm vanilla, a quiet void of non-words. On the days I don’t feel torn in two, when I feel strong and whole, viable and certain, useful and creative, I can speak and write truthfully and happily from my vulnerable place.  I can manage me and you with both hands, but those days are rare, and I want something more.   So.

Here’s to weaving the All-of-me’s together, the polyester, cotton, paper, leather, seaweed, barbed wire, and spider silk together, to threading them with my glitter beads and wampum and balsa, to painting them with silver stars and onyx night, adding a touch of unobtainium, and everything will be just all right — so you and me can know who you are getting on more than any given day.

A Day Of Silence

06 Tuesday Jun 2017

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Soft.  Soft.

Yesterday, full of meditation.

Full focus on being present.

Refocus. Refocus. Refocus.  Because the mind wanders so easily,

treading paths that sound like jealousy, heresy, inadequacy

detours around

a little girl’s pain

a woman’s leaving

music that reverberates in my bones

dredging a stick through embers

igniting memories and regrets

calling me back to my body that sits in silence, suffering

writing thank you notes and apologies in ink and in blood

so much good will that do unless I put these hands to use.

Yesterday, full of silence.

No candle, no ritual.

Reflection,  insomnolent

Your pure truth was a light for me, your woman’s authenticity.

I’ve never been clear with anyone and not sure I ever will be,

but I learn from you and I hear and remain sleepless.

All I can be is grateful for voices I trust in a field where I walk

looking for wisdom, peace, and silence

amid chuckholes that break a horse’s leg.

Sleeping, Unconservatively

25 Thursday May 2017

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I peeled my sad, angry, frustrated clothes off and went to bed, though I still wore a layer of it on my face. It occupied some of my heart.  As I lay on my side and looked out the window I noted the orange sky.  That means weather. The kind that brings lightning. I can’t sleep when I know the lightning is coming, especially after that last storm that seemed to want to eat the Hampton roads. I was tempted to stay up all night so I could be prepared for the blast, no matter how long it would take for it to come, but I really wanted to sleep.  I chose to peel off my layers of anger, to turn over and breathe and meditate and pray and hope for relaxation to take over so I could sleep.  I chose to sleep, and I would deal with the storm, the adrenaline rush of fear that comes when a little girl sleeps in her bed and her parents crash the door… if and when it came.  Meanwhile, there’s nothing. i. can. do. about. it.  Any of it.

This morning I awoke, still wearing my angry face, sad to say.  I could feel it, stuck to me like a wet leaf but not so easily plucked off and cast aside.  Reading the news did not help.  Last night’s echoes still reverberate, that a politician assaulted a journalist who the hell knows why, and my fear that it’s only going to get worse.  More, I can’t stay quiet when I see a young woman who wants to graduate barred from the ceremony because she broke her “morality” pledge and got pregnant. I’m supposed to stay quiet when girls can’t wear braids in their hair or barred from a graduation ceremony because they’re pregnant.  Both schools have rules and mores, and both girls broke them.  The pregnant girl broke the contract she signed when she had sex outside of marriage and got pregnant. But the strength she showed in keeping her child and choosing to move forward with her life, to finish school and graduate shows a lot of backbone.  Or… maybe a lot of pressure from her parents and society?  Either way, she’s barred from graduation because she broke the morality rule, and all I can feel is sorrow for all of us.  I guess I should fall in line and feel solidarity for the rule, because if they allowed her to attend it would mean the school condones her behavior, and then cats and dogs living together.

I ruined my 5-star morality rating years ago, and I’m betting we all have some tarnish on our souls.  Here we stand punishing young people for an act as simple as wearing braids or as troubling as premarital sex which results in pregnancy.  I am an angry woman this morning because females should not be punished for wearing braids, or for carrying a child.  I am in no way a pro-life person, because, you know, I hate babies and life and I just want to sin and fuck and eat embryos with my grits.  But I am a pro-life person in that I can’t stand seeing injustice, even though they signed a contract.  The contracts and handbook rules that regulate dress code and morality are in place to keep young people in line, and boy do they need keeping in line, what with all the things they’re privy to on social media and lack of guidance from home.  I get it.  But the angry woman of me feels that black girls banned from wearing braids and pregnant girls cannot attend graduation that they earned crosses a line and really pisses me off.  I am sad for all of us as a society.

And don’t even get me started on the politician that body-slammed a journalist for asking a question.  I feel like we’re all just losing sight of things that should matter more than offensive t-shirts, weaves, and a young woman who chose life, which is ironically what conservatives want to preserve at all costs.

It’s almost noon, and I have to decide what my diet of the day will contain.  As I write, I am playing action movies in the background.  The angry woman of me needs to hear fire power and powerful soundtracks, a catharsis for me that elevates the idea of justice because I cannot be the iron hand to wield it.  I see justice and common sense diminishing in my country.  And there’s nothing.i.can.do.about.it.

Aw shit, what do I care.  If you sign a contract, you’re bound. You fuck up, you get punished. No graduation for you.  Just like a president, I guess….

I Belong To Me (While Spite Laughs in the Background)

16 Tuesday May 2017

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I pledge allegiance to

Not You.

I will not kneel.  I will not bow. Kiss the tip of your sword, your robe, or your ring and swear fealty.

Imagine the day that I did not murder my neighbor, refused to sacrifice her exalted body on the altar to feed the god with her hot, muscular heart… but the sun rose still, my hands clean.  Again. And again.

Imagine the day that I did not offer the best of my wheat, meat, and wine to the god in his tent so he would overlook my sins because my children were hungry and needed every piece of that lamb to survive the winter? The sin is to let my children starve, buddy.

Imagine the day that I took my worship away from you. I suppose I should confess it was because you are no longer the salt of my pleasure but salt in the wound. It burned, then cleansed, and helped me see that our gods dissolve and cloud the water.  I cannot drink that water for it would kill me. I still need you, but I no longer worship you.

And the sun rose still.  Again. And again.

May 4 Dream

04 Thursday May 2017

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She was walking alone, but perhaps not a long way. She was dressed in a sari, her long hair lightly covered, her sari the color of poppies.  There is nothing in the dream but her, walking.  She stops walking and she knows at last it is time.  She lies down and leans up against something, but I do not know what, it’s not shown in the dream. I only see this woman in poppy red, reclining, her knees are up and she is ready to give birth now.  The rest happens so quickly and silently.  They all spill out of her body, five small babies and so much blood pours out of her onto the ground like fish falling from the fisherman’s net onto the deck,  but they are all dead.

The dream changes dramatically. This is black ink on white paper, she is artistically rendered into a soft, curving line drawing. The woman opens her sari, her abdomen is one wide open womb, and she gathers all five of the babies into her arms and pulls them back into her body. She closes her legs, straightens her sari. She reclines on the ground on her right side, closes her eyes, and she smiles the most peaceful sleeping smile.

She smiles. It was the only expression she ever showed throughout the entire dream.

This was a tough one for me to write, and I’m not sure why.