My attempts to woo her were disastrous
Tried to tempt her with food and drink
She snubbed me most atrociously
Then I thought I saw her wink
I called out to her repeatedly, but all to no avail
First she gave me her back, then she sat there moving just her tail
I finally gave up and left the room, and fell into a fitful sleep
What a surprised when I awoke: there she was, in a purring heap
Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: disastrous
In Loving Memory of Sabrina
I can still taste it
The soil that you rubbed my face in
What did you feel
As you looked at the fear in my eyes
Did you feel stronger
Having made me feel small
Or did you know down deep inside
That nothing you did to me
Could ever make it all better
I can still taste it
But it only reminds me
Of how far I have come
And what little I’ve left behind
Growing up in the 70’s, my sexuality was shaped by what are now considered to be pretty tame resources.
Remember that this was before the internet brought free porn into our homes, and nudity and sex acts were the norm in film and television.
It’s true: “free love,” second-wave feminism, women’s liberation, and the sexual revolution were making major strides in the 1960’s and 70’s. The 70’s saw many influential innovations. Edible underwear was invented. (Still being sold today.) Video Home Systems (or VHS) and Beta Systems were made available to buy in the mid-late-70’s, which the porn industry apparently mavericked for their retail use.
Like many middle class Americans, my parents didn’t have a VHS machine until the 80’s, so videos were not available to me. (We were also the last family I knew to get cable. My parents were against paying for TV for some reason. Maybe there were late night cable porn resources around in the later 1970’s, but not in our house.)
Despite there being many women who were battling for my future and the future of many young girls like me against the woman-as-sex-symbol stereotype, I remained steeped in the cultural and mass media imagery, messages and attitudes that kept that stereotype alive and well. And boy, did it all do a number on me.
I grew up in Houston, Texas, in a mostly white, middle class neighborhood.
Other than my brothers and the time this one guy was driving around the neighborhood without pants on, fondling himself, asking kids for directions, who I had the misfortune of being “exposed to,” I was not exposed to male nudity as a child.
But female nudity abounded, and shaped not only how I thought about myself and my body, but how I thought everyone else thought about me and my body.
So much so that the “me” in the sentence above and “my body” became synonymous in my mind. I WAS my body. My body was me. As in, I based my entire self worth on my appearance and whether or not I felt men were attracted to me.
(I still struggle with this encoding. But I digress. More to come on that later.)
Though I was born into the “Golden Age of Porn,” the “porno chic” years of 1969-84, I was not exposed to any of the films that were made famous during those years, notably Warhol’s Blue Movie, Mona, later The Devil in Miss Jones and Deep Throat. (They probably didn’t make it to mainstream theatres in Houston at the time, but even if they had, I’d never have gotten to see one.)
But we had magazines. Playboy and Hustler. Others. It was the photographic depictions of women in men’s magazines that primarily influenced how I saw myself as a woman.
My first memory of seeing and being influenced by a photo of a naked woman was actually a record cover, and this woman was not exactly naked. It was the cover of Herb Albert & The Tijuana Brass album “Whipped Cream and Other Delights” (1965.)
This was one of my parents’ favorite albums to play. I heard it often from an early age, and I loved dancing to the music, making up dances to the songs, which were saucy, sexy jazz concoctions.
But more than that, I was obsessed with the woman on the cover. I was attracted to her. (Maybe it was the appeal of the whipped cream. I was already way too into food: my eating disorder was gesticulating already.)
But it was more than that. On some level, I knew she was considered exciting, attractive and desirable, and I wanted to grow up to be just like her.
Also, TV shows such as “Love, American Style” Rowan & Martin’s “Laugh-In” were popular during my early years. Both had racy sexual references and innuendo and young women dressed in sexy outfits. From these shows, I learned that if you were sexy and young, you got positive attention from men. Think young Goldie Hawn dancing in those strobe lights in that green bikini with her painted body. The young women on the show actually wore babydoll dresses and Mary Janes because those were in fashion. Talk about confusing messages!
True story: If little me was asked at the time (when I was 4 or so) what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said “a go-go dancer.” I even had little patent white go go boots at 3!
These were my role models. This was the kind of woman I wanted to be!
Later, I found my brother’s girlie mag stashes and would go in when they were out to pore over them. I was fascinated by the women’s bodies, so different than mine. I knew that I fell way short, but I remained hopeful that maybe someday, with enough hard work, I could create a body close enough to rate some man’s favor.
When I was old enough, I started to read the articles (yes, I really did) and the infamous “Letters to Playboy.” These were my education in what was interesting to men about women. Through them, I discovered what men really thought about women. What they really wanted of us. And it all had to do with our bodies.
I learned that I was here to be attractive to men. That what I looked like and how attractive men found me was my purpose on this earth. That there was little value to me other than my sex appeal, and that if I wanted any happiness on this planet, I better work hard to be and stay appealing to men.
And so I did. I became the perfect female consumer. I bought into it all hook, line and sinker. The beauty products, the clothes, the way of being in the world.
I transitioned from my brother’s hidden away men’s magazines to the magazines of my adolescence. Though they were women’s magazines – Teen, Cosmo, Glamour, to name a few – the messages of their content were actually perfectly aligned with the former’s messages about the female role in society. In these magazines I found my road map, the formulas for winning and keeping a man, 100 ways to keep him satisfied in bed, and how to stay looking young and sexy forever.
Every issue of these magazines had different versions of these same themes, over and over. (And if you buy these kinds of magazines today, they still do.) And I bought them and bought into them all, every time.
How I related to boys and then men was all shaped by that early imprinting. I look back and feel like I didn’t really get to have real relationships with men (and women — since they were always the competition for the men) until much later in life. Because through all my dating and early relationships, I was living from the outside in, trying to be the women I had seen in those magazines pages. Trying to find and live the life promised to me in the ads in the magazines and on TV if I succeeded in making myself into one of those women in the pictures.
It took several years after moving to NYC as a young woman for me to learn how to leave my apartment without make up on.
It has taken many more years for me to unravel all of that social and cultural conditioning to find within my own idea of being a woman, of my own sexuality, of what I feel is my intrinsic value and purpose on this planet. It turns out, none of it depends on what men or society think of how I look.
It has been a tough going, this “unlearning.” I was thoroughly brainwashed. I drank the Koolaid. Despite years of hard work to reprogram myself, I still find little pockets within me that harbor beliefs like that Victoria Secret models are better people and deserve more than women like me. Or that if only I looked like this model or that model, my life would be perfect. Little pockets of self-hate that dismiss my worthiness as a human because I do not have large boobs and perfect thighs.
There’s still a part of me that is scared writing this blog post. That I will be labelled as “ugly” just thinking these thoughts/going against the grain.
I take those parts by the hand when they reveal themselves to me and I whisper the truth in a loving tone and tell them I am so sorry they have ever felt anything less than beautiful just as they are, inside and out.
Today, I try my very best to love my real body. I pour my resources into that. (I no longer buy those magazines nor do I need they ideas they sell.)
I love being in my body, and I love my awakening true sexuality. I love feeling desirable. (Who doesn’t?) But I no longer seek to feel this feeling from outside of me.
Today, feeling attractive and desirable is on my terms, made from an internal collage made out of my true essence – what I like and feels good to me. This inner imagery replaces the old template.
There is no longer a buxom babe at the centerfold of my spirit, beckoning to me with promises of happiness and fulfillment if I am able to become her.
There is me, and the unique beauty that I bring to the world this time I am here.
Like many women my now-age, I look back at the loss of all that time trying to be a sex symbol as a tragic loss of my life’s precious energy.
I waste no more such precious time today.
A kiss
Coming in to the air conditioner from sweltering heat outside
Time with a loved one
The sunset
A thank you
A heartfelt apology
A compliment
An unexpected but needed rain shower that breaks the humidity
A stranger’s smile
Someone holding the door open for you
The moment you free your body from tight clothes or shoes
Watching your lover, child or pet sleep
Holding their hand (really hold it)
The sound of their voice (one day you may long to hear it again)
Their touch
Being really listened to
A deep sleep
Getting lost (because you are never really lost, you’ve just found a new way to go)
A good laugh
How it feels after anger dissipates
A happy memory
A rainbow, anytime, anywhere
The stars in the sky
Being applauded in any way for any reason (exception: sarcastic applause)
That smell of breakfast
The smell of coffee
A pet’s demand for your attention
A really good turn of phrase
Sunlight
Long sips of cool water
Any moment in which you feel loved
Any moment you feel connected to the world
What would you add to the list?
I am going to do it.
I am!
Really.
I have begun to really think about getting to it.
I’ve been getting ready to start to consider doing it.
I’m preparing to be ready to start.
I am so totally going to do it.
I’ve already been doing it…in a way.
It’s what I’ve wanted to do my whole life!
So what if maybe deep down I don’t actually think I am very good at it?
Yeah, maybe I am afraid that I don’t really fit in with the whole industry,
I’m still going to do it!
I just have to find a way to do it while being secretly terrified of actually trying.
Because, like, what if I fail?
What if I finally try, and I actually fail?
What will I revolve my whole life around then?
Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: moxie
Take me
Tailor me
Suit me to your need
Wear me
Wash me
Make my colors bleed
It was an epic bumble
No other way to put it
It was an all-out fumble
But in the end, a silver bullet
“What is for me cannot pass me”
A saying I now know to be true
That fiasco was a double-whammy
But it led me straight to you
Bury me deep
Disappear me in the earth
Let the rich soil fill my mouth
Wanna lay to waste, lose my worth
Weave twigs in my hair
Sprinkle daisies on my chest
Do not cry, don’t despair
I’ve yearned a lifetime for this rest
My Dad and I had a very complicated relationship.
There were years we barely spoke, by my choice.
Our relationship was damaged in my early childhood, and afterwards, it was always in one phase or another of dysfunction.
I reached a point in my adulthood where I decided that it was best for my health to remove myself from the dynamic. And I thought that would pretty much be it for the remainder of my life, and I was OK with that decision.
Until, that is, my mother’s cancer.
Life is funny that way. You can think that a part of your life is beyond repair, and then lo and behold, Life brings you the only exact set of circumstances under which you would ever come together again.
In 2005, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. She underwent radiation therapy (two rounds) and then chemotherapies (2.) I traveled down to Texas to visit often to be with her, me tersely tolerating my father, and he giving me a wide berth out of hurt respect of my former choice. (I also always took my then-boyfriend with me as buffer.)
Then in 2006, after the family gathering at Christmas, which was more uncomfortable than usual, my parents called to tell me that they had been informed by my mother’s oncologist that no more could be done for her. (I will never forget the agony of that call.)
Just like that, all bets were off.
It had been decided that she would be having home hospice care to make her as comfortable as possible. As happens in such situations, we were still hopeful that she could live for some time. No one can predict how things will really go, you tell yourself.
I started going to Houston weekly to be with her. My father and I, out of necessity and shared concern, began to interact more and more, all having to do with her and her health needs.
We found our way to something new, something beyond the pain of the past, for her sake. And later, after the inevitable happened, for ours.
In the weeks following my mother’s death, my father was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Now, my father had been a strapping, big and tall and healthy man his entire life. Never much more than allergies. But I think the stress of losing his beloved sweetheart of 54 years created the perfect storm in his system, and the cancer that might have lain dormant for years just took over the weakened man.
In the midst of undergoing tremendous grief (he’d also lost his father the year before,) my father had to make decisions regarding his own illness, which was acute and generally swift-moving. The standard treatment available was quite harsh. He decided to go an alternative route in order to potentially benefit others by entering into an clinical trial at MD Anderson Hospital to receive experimental drugs instead of the standard approach, which was tough to survive in and of itself.
So I continued my visits. My remaining brother lived in Houston, so he became the primary caregiver, which I was grateful for. But I went down as often as possible and our new relationship began to grow into a new chapter, slowly, carefully.
And in the year following, when one of my two brothers also died, unexpectedly, again, all bets were off.
I watched this man who was so complicated for me, who had hurt me in such far-reaching ways, suffer the loss of his lifelong love and his son. These losses broke him apart. He went through pain that I would not have wished on my worst enemy.
(And he was my worst enemy.)
Somewhere there in the midst of it all, after a lifetime of seeing no way to ever being able to forgive this man, I suddenly was able to see that he was worthy of my forgiveness. That I had been given forgiveness in my life, and that he, too, should be given that as well. That he was not beyond forgiveness, in some separate category unlike anyone else on the planet.
I guess I was finally able to see him just as a flawed man, finally, and not as the monster I had experienced and protected my heart from for all those years. (Perhaps justifiably, one might argue. But things had changed. And those changes had allowed for a shift of my perception. And that shift allowed yet a new phase of our new relationship.)
In the remaining time of his life, we found our way to a loving father-daughter relationship.
How did this miracle happen?
I think for me, part of it was seeing the sacrifice and the bravery with which he committed himself to surviving his cancer for those of us who remained and loved him.
I know that in his heart he was grief-stricken and lost without my mother and would have loved nothing better than to close his eyes and just let go, to die and be with her. But he fought on, for us.
And after my brother died, that grief was multiplied by 30, and yet still he fought on, for my remaining brother and I. My then-boyfriend-turned-fiance after my mother died, and in the midst of it all we were planning a wedding: a wedding my mother and my father had always wanted for me. He was fighting to walk me down the aisle. And to carry her memory on for his two young grandchildren.
He withstood grueling chemo treatments and daily hospital trips where he sat for hours going through the process required of his treatment. Hours spent sitting and waiting and getting tests and giving blood and getting chemo. Medications at home. The affect the treatment had on his body and spirit. His diminishing physical strength.
This big and tall, towering Texas man became a thin wisp of his former self, eventually walking with a cane.
And through it all, he never once complained.
Three months before my wedding date, he got a virus caught during one of the daily hospital visits. I went home on my usual trip but this time visited him in the hospital, where he had to be in a protected environment.
There, I could see that he was truly exhausted. Spiritually. Emotionally.
That the true grit that had been getting him through, that amazing reserve within that he had been tapping into for so long for our sake, was nearing empty. He had been fighting to give me these last acts of fatherhood, this time of repair, this time of untainted love. I knew this and I was so very grateful for it all. I knew that this time had been a supreme gift that would change the quality of my remaining time on the planet for the better. That my whole relationship to life had shifted for the better.
And so I gave him the last gift I could give him as a daughter. I gave him my permission to let go of the fight.
There are times when life provides you with an open door, and if you are paying attention, you see it and you walk through, somehow knowing that it is what you should do.
When a moment arose in the conversation that invited such a thing to say, I took it.
I told him we loved him and were thankful for everything he had been doing. For how hard he had been fighting for us, to be there for the wedding and for the kids. But that I would never want him to stay on if he truly no longer wanted to. That he had done it all, he had fathered through like a warrior, but that if, at any point, he was ready, that we would want him to let go. That we would be OK. That I would be OK. That he and I were OK.
It was just a few sentences. He knew and I knew what we were saying to each other. He said he wasn’t at that point quite yet but he could understand a time of coming to that point.
When it was time to leave, I told him I loved him, and meant it. I thanked him for being my father, and I meant that too. And I thanked him for fighting so hard to be there for me.
He passed away the next week, after returning home, having come through the virus. My brother found him laying alongside the bed, as if he’d gotten up in the night and collapsed.
I hope he felt at peace when the moment came. Perhaps he was walking towards the sound of my mother’s voice. I like to think so.
My love for him is complicted, yes. But it is true. As true as the grit that he was made of.
Dad and I at the civil ceremony of my marriage, 8 mo before he died.
Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: grit
When I was around seven, I became a criminal.
I started shoplifting from the neighborhood Safeway store. (It was more than just groceries then. It sort of had a bit of everything.)
My friend Vana and I did the stealing, together, at first. I don’t recall whose idea it was.
I think the first item we took was something really small and inexpensive, such as a candy. There was such rush of danger to it. An adrenaline high.
I know I enjoyed the risky feeling of it. Of getting away with something. Of doing something wrong and not being caught.
There were a few more items, leading up to the very difficult-to-steal stationary set. It was a large box set, and the fact that I somehow managed to get away with it was more the real prize, I think, than the stationary itself. (It was grown up stationary, not even something I wanted.)
But the pièce de résistance was a gold ring. The ring probably cost $50, but it was harder to get to and it carried higher stakes if caught. I don’t even think Vana was in on this one. I was egging my own self on by this point. Pushing my own limits and capabilities.
I am still not sure why I felt compelled to turn to such lowly capers. We were not rich, but we were not in need. I had a room full of things. My needs were mostly met, at least materially.
I did not even enjoy any of the items I stole. I felt so guilty. I tried to thrown them down the storm drain, but could only throw away the first thing I took, the candy. The rest I stashed on the top shelf in the corner of my closet.
From that corner, those items taunted me daily. They called me “Robber.” “Stealer.” I was nauseous with fear most of the time. Fear of being found out. Fear of what my parents would think of me if they knew. That stash kept me up at night. It felt as if it was alive on that shelf. As if I was harboring a defenseless animal or something.
Finally one night, when I could not stand it anymore, I went into my parents bedroom and announced that “their daughter was a shoplifter.”
In a rush of shame and tears, I told the whole dirty story. As I had been up until that point an incredibly reserved and careful girl who made perfect grades and never rocked the boat, I have the feeling they felt that I had probably been under the influence of Vana, who they judged as wilder than I.
I led them to my stash and showed them the evidence of my sickness. Instead of being concerned for my sanity, looking back, I think they were somewhat impressed by what I had gotten away with stealing.
As punishment, my parents had me take the items back to the store and confess my sins. Luckily and unluckily, there were no repercussions from the store.
My parents seemed to feel that my real punishment was knowing their disappointment in me. And they were right in that. It just leveled me.
I still feel shame around it, even though I work at forgiving my child of seven for needing to take those things. She needed something. It wasn’t those things.
I say it was unlucky that there were no repercussions.
I think that my seven year-old was really lost. I think I was terribly lost. I think I needed help and attention but had no idea how to ask for it.
I didn’t get the help I didn’t know I needed then.
But I never stole again.
Beyond the Skinny Branches 