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I Learned to Suffer From my Dad

I had a realization recently that I learned something specifically from my dad: sometimes life is suffering. 

In July I went on a trip with him, just us on a cruise ship for eleven days along with about 250 other people in their 60s and older. It was strange and calming, fun, a little spooky. Our first destination was Dublin, it was uncommonly warm and my dad took my picture in front of some flowers. We had lunch, Irish stew and a Guinness, in the restaurant that James Joyce met his wife. 

On the second day a woman in our tour group tripped over a small door stopper and fell, hard. I turned around to see her face down on the ground like she’d been shot, arms akimbo, and another guest slowly trip too, over her body. He was fine but she spent the night in an Irish hospital and came back with a crutch, two fractures in her leg and one in her elbow. 

The day before we had all introduced ourselves to each other, and she shared that she’d been cast in a local community play as a certain character of which she’d give us a clue to who it was. Leaving no time for anyone to guess, she cackled shockingly loud, everyone jumped a little and was briefly confused, then she revealed wicked witch of the west. 

The third day after dinner we went to the lounge for live music, then on our way back to our rooms we noticed many of the housekeeping staff heading toward the dining room. Someone had puked all over the floor just in front of the entrance. So much puke, everywhere. 

*****

We went from Ireland to Scotland, our first stop the beautiful little town of Luss. We walked through a cemetery with viking grave markers from the 10th and 11th centuries, 18th century headstones of people and a few pets. I stood on the shore of Loch Lomond and for a moment I felt the ghosts and my ancestors, energy churned across my back.

When I was on the ship I floated around, unencumbered by anyones interest in me, except for maybe some of the staff. My fellow guests had little to no interest in knowing me and I appreciated that. Coming out of the prime of my youth I’m still mostly fatigued by strangers wanting to know much about me. Only a few of the folks in my tour group were curious about why I was there, everyone else almost eager to ignore me. I took pleasure in noticing that, and sat back without any need for guarding myself. 

This was the most time I’ve ever spent with my dad, in my whole entire life. We ate every meal together, had wine every day, and played many games of gin rummy. It was uneventful and it was good. Only one night at dinner did we talk about our lives, my childhood. The details don’t matter, but we were both honest. 

The beauty of Scotland is unreal, I’m not worthy of trying to describe it. It was powerful to be a witness to it. There was a retired doctor of geology on board who gave lectures on the terrain and on the history of how Scotland formed, the many volcanoes that created it’s breathtaking mountains, it’s treeless fields, it’s cold waters. Some of the rocks in Scotland have been dated over four billion years old. 

In The Orkney Islands we had a tour guide named Melba, a tough older lady who laughed and talked shit easily. Her Scottish accent was the most classic Scottish accent, thick and all her Rs rolled musically. She was proud of these islands she was from, and said that she and her fellow natives don’t think of themselves as Scottish but Orcadian, a different origin and history than her fellow Scots. She had a certain optimism I admired that was invigorating among the grey skies and strong winds of Kirkwall. I felt a kinship with her and an admiration for her. 

*****

About halfway through the trip I started to feel a little nag of disappointment that I hadn’t had a big moment, some life changing realization, some heavy crash of wonder. I was able to not let that nagging grow too big, but I admit I did want that. Even with a couple delicious moments of feeling the spirits of my ancestors, I wanted something more, something bigger. 

*****

We spent a lot of time on the North Sea. I stood on the deck every day watching islands go by, gazing at the deep dark water chopping against our ship. Sometimes the wind was so strong it would push even me around. I let my hair down and it whipped into knots.

I really wanted to see whales. I’d make my vision soft so I could take more of the water in, aggressively hoping for a show from some ocean beasts, but eventually would go inside when it wasn’t happening even though I was sure they’d show up as soon as my back was turned. 

After a few days of this, I did see a whale. Only one, and it was only a leisurely glimpse of its massive back, a small flip of its tail. I gasped and waited for more, but there wasn’t more. My dad already in for the night, I went back to my room and thought about what the whale sighting could mean. What message was the whale sending me? These holders of history, these ancient creatures. 

It’s in the small stuff, you. You’re looking for a big show but the secrets are in the small stuff. You’ll miss the magic if you only look for something big. 

*****

We saw so many castles and beautiful gardens. Occasionally my dad and I would leave tours and walk around on our own. We ate Haggis in Edinburgh and watched a local bagpipe and drum band, their music tuning in to my heartbeat and churning my blood, goosebumps as I briefly felt like I could fight an army with that music behind me. My dad starting to give way to some of his mannerisms that historically slightly trigger the kid in me, but this trip changed that a little (I think). Mostly I felt unaffected and stayed the course.

*****

My dad has always had this, I don’t know, *thing* attached to him. A thing that I have too. This thing that cuts everything with a bit of suffering. I think he’s tried, like I have, to remove it from himself but it’s always there. Looking for something bad even when things are not at all bad. This depression that can’t be shaken, but that you learn to live with. An anxiety that gets lit like a torch with just the smallest bit of tinder. Joy is hard sometimes. It’s gotten easier over the years but this *thing* still lives with him, lives with me. Lives with my siblings.

I’ve realized recently though, that it might have equipped me to survive. Like I think it did for my dad. In the deepest, hardest parts of life there was a version of myself that has kept moving my legs through the waist deep mud. And only recently did I begin to get a broader sense of it, of the secret nature of it, the unknown origin. A ghostly energy. That maybe it isn’t even ours, we just have to live with it. 

 *****

Our first stop in England was the small town Alnwick. It started out a breezy, sunny day and we had a breezy and sunny tour guide. I can’t remember her name but she was younger than our past guides, and seemed to enjoy immensely meeting everyone and talking about her town. We went to Alnwick Castle, it rained a lot, we moved on to Alnwick Garden. Waiting for a tour of the Poison Garden, my dad chatted with our lovely tour guide. He shared that he had many ancestors from England who had immigrated to America in the 19th century. When he told her where they lived she said “oh interesting! Whenever I hear of people from that area taking that massive journey, I’m never surprised. It was such a hard life to live in that region, away from any coast. It was the Reaving Lands, dealing with reavers regularly…people who came to take their belongings as they pleased. It was really a challenge to carve out some piece of life there, but I always thought maybe it…gave them some kind of…sturdiness, to leave and seek out a new life.”

There it is. 

*****

The rest of the trip I thought about those ancestors. What they looked like, what their personalities were like. What their days were like. I imagined myself living their lives, being in their skin. Waking up to grey skies and working all day. Living with this *thing* that felt like an albatross was across their shoulders all day, all night. But something else lived there too. Something that made them think there was more, a churning in their backs too. 

They kept moving through the mud and are still moving, through me. Maybe I’ve gotten it wrong this whole time and this thing is them, living with me, living in me. Across my shoulders, around my waist, in my blood; pushing me through the mud, whispering joy exists.

Harvey Weinstein and everyone else

The other day I was talking with my husband and some friends about Harvey Weinstein and I told them I didn’t have the energy for it, because of how every day his and his victims stories are. I shared a couple of my own stories of harassment and was surprised by their surprise at what I told them, because of how normal it was for me and every other woman. Not even every woman I know, just every woman. 
Things that happened years ago have been popping in my head, being reignited by Harvey and the endless number of women speaking up to say ‘yeah me too’, and the age old question being asked “Why didn’t she say anything??!”
Well because they’re god damn tired. Tired from the constancy of it, the every day/every other day occurrence of it, and just want to move on with their day or week. There’s work to be done, meals to be eaten, sleep to be had. 
Or maybe they’re scared. Saying something could mean an end to your career, it could mean huge disruptions in your life, or it could mean straight up violence.
Or maybe they had parents or a significant other or have just been so perfectly conditioned by the way things are, that they can’t say no. They could be the most outspoken and aggressive person for all others but themselves because the pathology in their brains is so ingrained that they don’t feel allowed to say no. Maybe their fight or flight response is to freeze and they’re not physically able to do anything.
But all the same, the question is asked. 
I’ve been doing jiu jitsu for over 13 years and have fought back plenty of times. Yelled, talked shit, even gotten physical. But I’ve also not done anything. Sometimes I’m one of the above. Sometimes I’m alone, far from my car, in an unpopulated area and don’t feel safe saying anything. Sometimes it’s a customer at one of the service industry jobs I’ve worked and I can’t do anything without risking my job. 
And even in that instance, I started avoiding a customer who repeatedly asked me out. Nothing overt, just switching with someone else so I didn’t have to interact with him, and one day he came in and yelled at me and my boss because it hurt his feelings that I didn’t stay put when he came in.

Sometimes I am not in a mind frame where my instinct says fight, and I freeze. I don’t feel like I can disrupt the status quo by saying something. And sometimes I’m just so fucking tired. Sometimes I lose it and sometimes I do absolutely nothing. And it always feels bad both ways. 
To give some scope to it, I recalled several times of harassment that happened around the same short period of time. One time, I was walking to class in college after parking my car and a man came around a corner and was walking behind me. He was big, like 6’4”, and had the hands and dress of a tradesman, rugged and strong. After about 10 seconds he starts quietly saying, while walking maybe 3 feet behind me, “That ass is nice…lemme get my face in there mmm…nice and round…” etc etc. 
I turned around and said “man shut the fuck up!” 

“WHAT!! I CANT SAY SOMETHING NICE!”

“Get the fuck away from me!”

“You nasty bitch I should slap the SHIT OUTTA YOU YOU FUCKING BITCH!”

At the time I was a purple belt in jiu jitsu and I was so angry that I didn’t care if he slapped the shit out of me. So I told him “Come here and slap the shit out of me then!”

At that point several people walking had stopped and were watching us, one of which was a slightly older man who looked very worried. The worry on his face made me come to, so to speak, and I crossed the street and walked fast, away from this man as he threatened me. 

Around that same time I was at work, at a coffee shop, and I had a few bruises on my face (from the story in another post about fighting). A regular of the store, a man around 50, came in and while getting his coffee he asked how I got the bruises. I told him, and while I was talking he got a look on his face, shiny unblinking eyes, and a small smile.
“I kind of…like it. It’s… hot.”

“That’s a really weird and creepy thing to say.”

“Oh is it?” Still smirking. 

“Yeah, it is.”

And another- one day at jiu jitsu I submitted a young guy with a triangle. A man around 30, a doctor at a children’s hospital, said from across the room, laughing: “That’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him! He never wanted to tap!”
A triangle is a submission where you trap an arm and the head in your legs, squeezing at a certain angle, and it chokes off the blood to the brain. The head is by your crotch. 

“Leo don’t ever say some shit like that again!”

His face drops and turns to anger and he says “It’s a jooooke!”

“It’s not a joke and don’t ever say something like that again!”

Getting up, he gets about one foot away from me (he’s 6’ and 190ish, we’re both purple belts) and said “Ok we don’t ever need to speak again!” 

No one, not one of the other 20+ men in the room, my instructor included, said a word. Later my instructor called and asked what happened, told me I handled it well, and it was never spoken of again by him or anyone. Leo was never told by anyone but me not to say something like that.

Out at a club for my birthday and a good friend introduced me to a friend of his. We exchanged pleasantries and then he leaned in close to my ear and said “Do you need some birthday dick?” 
This time, this time- the shock and the discomfort and the fatigue won and all I said was no. 

Sometimes you just don’t have the fucking energy. Sometimes it’s the 5th time in a week or two and you just want to move on with your life. But it’s truly endless. It’s pervasive and insidious and in all aspects of life. In the way men often don’t ever take a woman’s feeling seriously. Anger? Irritation? Sadness? Happiness? Excitement? It’s overblown. And she’s probably a bitch. It’s in the dudes on dates, with girls they really like who really like them, who move straight from making out to pushing her head down down down. It’s in the husbands who want dinner made every night but don’t ever make it. It’s in the men who exploit a girls obligation to her job to keep her attention on him in some way. It’s in the every day, in all of this and more, and I could go on and on and on but I’m really too tired.

A valentine for Renee Budge, and the girls of my youth

When I was in tenth grade our friend Renee killed herself. She and her boyfriend did it together, on Valentines Day. So this day will forever belong to her, even now, more than half my life later.

Jen called me and was crying, I imagined it had something to do with her boyfriend, a fight or something, but she said Renee’s dead. What? What? I said, and she told me how and what, what, and we cried. My sister drove me to Jens house where we all gathered, about twenty 15 and 16 year olds, very quickly shielding ourselves from all adults, from everything that wasn’t this island of us, intense and manic teenage grief and love.

Renee was a tiny pixie girl, short hair that she dyed often, the skinniest body and huge boobs she could barely support. She wore different makeup everyday, sparkly eyeshadow or dark lipstick, her skin always seemed kind of dirty. She was among the group of girls I met in high school who all seemed so special and so different than anyone I’d known before, making me feel so much cooler by being their friend.

In Jens basement we were all losing our shit; laughing and crying, indulging hard in our heartache and the distance this put between us and everyone else. We decided to cut our hair short, like Renees, half an inch all over. Not everyone did it, but doing it together felt cathartic and intense, and for whatever reason it scared the shit out of our parents. After the funeral, parents met with each other and shared their fears and concerns and many didn’t want their kids to be there anymore or to be friends with Renees friends.

I still don’t think Renee truly thought she was going to die. But maybe that’s just what I imagine I would’ve been thinking. Maybe she did know, maybe she was suffering more than I was ever aware of. It doesn’t matter now though I guess.

Seventeen years ago she died, and even now, 33 years old, married, a mother, living in the suburbs of New Jersey, I still think about her and the girls in my life then. Women now too, women I’ll forever feel tied to, women I follow on Facebook and Instagram, a tiny tug in my heart when they post new pictures or something. Women who were with me and I with them when, as girls, we entered a new and powerful level of grief and sisterhood, linked together by a girl who will be a girl forever.

An Ode to Fighting

In college I studied literature and came out with a degree in creative writing, a concentration in poetry. I often came face to face with chuckles or tiny jabs, people who didn’t quite understand poetry or had never connected to any, so they dismissed it as ‘easy’ or invalid in some way. Sometimes I’d get kind of embarrassed, internalizing their reactions, but after a while I realized they just didn’t really know much about it or didn’t connect with it, and that that was ok.

In doing jiu jitsu I saw a lot of that too, comments about how ‘gay’ it is, or ‘erotic’, or how silly it looked. Again, just a lack of knowing about it and maybe a discomfort in the not knowing. In the reverse I’ve heard, and definitely participated in in my early days, comments and laughter about other martial arts, how corny Karate or Tae Kwon Do are, how jiu jitsu is way better, etc. The need to validate my/ ones own craft or even self worth by invalidating everything else.

I think we all often want some validation, especially as we get older. We get it less and less as we get done with school, become parents, or whatever else, but it is very motivating to receive that message that we are doing the right things, the best things.

When Meryl Streep gave her acceptance speech at the Golden Globes last night, she had one of these moments in a big way. She did a wonderful thing, she attempted to use her moment to talk about something important, but in my opinion it quickly turned in to a tepid denouncement of Donald Trump and a commodification of her non-white peers.

Then there was the line that is bothering my community, the line about ‘football and mma are NOT the arts!’ And I felt a little embarrassed. Even with all Meryl’s age, experience, and grace, she couldn’t talk about her own craft and the state of the country without devaluing two things that weren’t very relevant or topical to her point and things that she most definitely doesn’t know much about, so she attempted to invalidate it to give more importance to her work and the work of those around her.

It was a little funny too, because martial arts, fighting, and football have been the centerpiece and catalyst of beloved and award winning films. The Blind Side, The Fighter, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Rudy, Cinderella Man, Fox Catcher, not to mention the biopics of so many fighters and athletes. People that inspire fascinating and poetic stories, because their lives emerged out of that mythical, powerful ether that we are all always trying to touch, for even a moment. That bit of our cells that was made in the stars, that boundless power that was written about as soon as words could be written. The comebacks, the struggles, the will to fight out of who or what you were born in to; the relationships between siblings, parents and children, romantic love; the incredible willpower it takes to train for anything physical. They inspire all of us to be better at our own crafts, even in Meryl’s field, like Christian Bale as Dicky Ward in The Fighter, so many in the cast of Fox Catcher, De Niro in Raging Bull. Stories that I have no doubt will continue with biopics about mma fighters one day.

I’ve seen how martial arts can change the course of a life in movie magic ways; love stories, triumph, life long friendships. Full of all those things that movies are ultimately about, right? The human condition. Loneliness, will, love. In my own life I’ve found it all, I’ve used jiu jitsu as a tool to battle depression, anxiety, childhood and adulthood trauma and I’ve come out alive, still.

Even down to the beauty of the physical. Watch a 110 pound woman tomo nage a 180 pound man over her head to smash on his face or gently roll over his shoulders, and try to tell me it’s not art. Or watch Marshawn Lynch run a touchdown, or Damien Maia fight with unparalleled grace and skill,  or Amanda Nunes knock out Ronda Rousey.
Anyway, here’s a very old poem I wrote about fighting.

 

For Honey

A fight broke out
Between three girls
Late Saturday night
(Honey?? Who the fuck are you calling honey??),
Spilled blood-
Not mine-
And I do feel a little guilty,
Only because I think
I broke the smaller ones nose.

They just didn’t know
That out of everyone there

I was the most ready,

And that whiskey
Is a false sense
Of security.

I held one by her hair
As her nose poured
On to the sweet summer grass,
The other coming toward me,
Her neck
Fitting snugly in
The crook of my arm.
Both bent over,
Stuck in my grips
That would’ve taken weeks
To pry off.
I looked up
for someone to get them,
a perfect moment
To bring it to an end,
But I was met with wide eyes,
Still bodies,
And the bright light
Of a street lamp over head.

So we kept going.

Their blood covered
my torn shirt
In round,
Sloppy drips,
Front and back
Even on the collar,
And I laughed
at their bad luck
And at
the beaming,
Pounding pleasure
of feeling my power.

Here we go

When Trump became the nominee, many men in my life expressed shock and surprise because he was so clearly an awful person, and I smugly replied ‘I’m not surprised, every other man in the country is like Donald Trump’. But I still believed that despite that, there’s no way he could win. How could someone so ignorant, so inexperienced, so emotional, so privileged, so sexist, so bigoted ACTUALLY become president?

Throughout my life men like Trump have touched me, exactly like he described doing. When he wants, how he wants. Those men like him are most definitely going to feel freer to do so now. To me, to the women I know, to your daughters even thought you voted for Trump. They’re not safe from men like Trump just because you voted for him.

I am a white woman and I’ve seen men like Trump intimidate gay people and people of color, degrade them. If I’ve seen it, imagine what I haven’t seen? These men are going to feel a little freer, just like they have already since Trumps nomination.

People are angry and have had hard lives, have had to work too hard, and have been looking for a reason for it and Donald Trump gave them that. He gave them permission to misplace their fatigue, their struggles, their hard times on to groups that are already marginalized. He appealed to all of the wealthy white people and straight white men who don’t feel the burden of having to live outside of a bubble where all of these things exist and could continue to vote for their party because that’s what they’ve always done.

I don’t know what else to say. It’s hard to think in the big picture right now. I am angry and scared. All I know is that this is igniting something in all of the groups Trump spewed hate speech at throughout his campaign. We can mourn for a bit, but we are powerful and we have four years to flip this shit on its head. I feel more connected than ever to so many people, to people who are brilliant, gifted, strong, and we can and will take it all.

Grab Em by the Dick

Sometimes I don’t know if I can sustain this, living in our social media world. I can’t help it, I have a hard time holding back regarding certain topics, and I regularly find myself in a few days long cloud of frustration and anger and Facebook arguments. Now it’s because of Donald Trump. ‘Grab em by the pussy’. And, what I find just as creepy if not a little more, Billy Bush asking the soap actress for a hug for him and Donald. Those sneaky ways men cross boundaries. He can pretend he’s ‘only asking for a hug’, while he’s actually putting her in a position of not really being able to deny him physical contact.

A major frustration for me is hearing and seeing posts from so many men that this is not a common way men talk, they’ve never spoken like this, they’ve never heard anyone speak like this, etc. It’s frustrating because they’re taking it a little too literal. Sure, maybe you or your friends haven’t said something as base as ‘grab em by the pussy’, but you can convey the same feeling, the same message, without using words like pussy, or bragging that you grab pussies. It’s such a complex issue because, as this perfect article (http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/10/yes-actually-it-is-all-men/?utm_content=bufferb4c73&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer) on Everyday Feminism writes: ‘The thing about privilege is that it’s often invisible from the inside. It’s hard to see the scale and scope of a system designed to benefit you when it’s as all-encompassing as patriarchy. And that might lead you to buy into the idea of “not all men.”’

Here’s some examples of things that have happened in my life or in the lives of the women I know that aren’t so blatant as ‘grab em by the pussy’ but still manage to be grossly violating and indulgent of male privilege:

Waiting tables at 22 years old, serving a father and son who look around 60ish and 25ish, respectively. Friendly banter, they ask several questions about the menu each time the waitress replies ‘yes!’. The father then laughs and says ‘she sure says yes a lot! I wonder what else she’d say yes to!’

Female purple belt in Jiu Jitsu, 5 or so years of training. Rolling with an 18 year old male blue belt, submits him with a triangle, a choke in which a persons head and arm are trapped between your legs, their face near your crotch. A guy from the other side of the gym (a 30 year old Surgeon, educated, respected at his job) shouts ‘that was the best moment of his life, he never wanted to tap!’ When the woman tells him not to say something like that, he says ‘you don’t ever need to talk to me again!’ Everyone else in the room is men, roughly 20 of them. Not one of them says a word.

A girls birthday party, her friend brings a friend, a guy. He’s introduced to the birthday girl and a few minutes later leans in to her and mumbles ‘so you need some birthday dick?’

Husbands share texts about all the 20 year olds they’d be fucking if they weren’t married.

Husbands receive photos via text from younger, single friends of half naked girls they’re sleeping with, moan about how sad they are they can’t fuck anyone but their wives.

Husbands comment euphemisms about their boners on Instagram photos on the accounts of playboy bunnies.

Husbands call their wives ‘crazy’ when they’re upset by these things.

Waitress politely fends off drunk dudes attempts at flirting while still giving great service; is later stiffed on any tip after first telling the manager she was rude and gave bad service.

Girl in high school who’s drunk older brother hugs her tightly, a little too closely to her breasts, and says in her ear ‘you have the best little body you know that?’

Lawyer gets told by opposing council, a 65 year old man, IN COURT that she looks like an exotic dancer and should be named like an exotic dancer. Refuses to call her by her actual name, only by the exotic dancer name he’s given her.

 

These are just some examples that, off the top of my head, I was able to rattle off in the last few minutes. These are all men so very alike all of the men out there saying ‘never me, never us!’ ‘Grab em by the pussy’ comes from the same head space as when a man has ever called any woman ‘crazy’ for having a reasonable and legitimate feeling; the same place as when a man insults or offends a woman, finds out she has a boyfriend or husband, then apologizes to the boyfriend or husband.

It comes from the same place as the idea that a woman should give any man a pass for what happens at a bachelor party. Because once, some many years ago, a man gaslit his wife in to believing she was overreacting about him having gone to a strip club, that it’s just ‘what guys do’; or called her crazy for getting upset when he felt entitled to go to a strip club, or to lie about the hookers or strippers or whatever else you saw at your or your buddies bachelor party (fun game for the ladies: ask your partners if they have ever participated in a bachelor party that sounds like this and watch the split second of panic in their eyes).

It’s regular dudes like all the ones we know, like you and all the ones you know, who participate in perpetuating the freedom men have, that allows them to do things like this, to say ‘grab em by the pussy’, and to actually grab women by the pussy. Because society and patriarchy have allowed you to decide how much and when girls and women deserve your respect and decent treatment, and they deserve it when you decide to give it to them. Because you are the one with the power, the one who’s word matters most. That’s the world we live in. You might want to say ‘not me, I don’t think like that.’ But to some level you all do. Another great passage in the Everyday Feminism article describes it well:

‘Living in the United States, every single one of us is socialized under patriarchy – a system in which men hold more power than other a/genders, in both everyday and institutionalized ways, therefore systematically disadvantaging anyone who isn’t a man on the axis of gender. As such, we all (all of us!) grow up to believe, and therefore enact, certain gendered messaging…And this doesn’t have to be explicit to be true. When we find it difficult to say no to our male bosses when we’re asked to take on another project that we don’t have the time for, or to our male partners when they’re asking for emotional labor from us that we’re energetically incapable of, it’s not because we actively think, “Well, Jim is a man, and as a not-man, I can’t say no to him.” It’s because we’ve been taught again and again and again since birth through observation (hey, social learning theory!) that we are not allowed – or will otherwise be punished for – the expression of no. In the meantime, what men are implicitly picking up on is that every time they ask for something, they’re going to get it (hey, script theory!). A sense of entitlement isn’t born out of actively believing oneself to be better than anyone else or more deserving of favors and respect. It comes from a discomfort with the social script being broken. And the social script of patriarchy is one that allows men to benefit at the disadvantage of everyone else. And all men are at least passively complicit in this patriarchal system that rewards male entitlement. We see it every single day.’

So often it’s this entitlement that plays in to all of our every day lives. Entitlement in all of those examples I gave, and the entitled expectation that women are supposed to acquiesce or accept your behavior and move on, regardless of how degrading or hurtful it is. That expectation is your own version of ‘locker room talk’. Locker room talk doesn’t necessarily literally mean locker room talk. It means ‘it’s ok for me to talk like this because everything in life is in place for it to be generally accepted.’

There is the distinction that Donald Trump is admitting to sexual assault. I am not saying that all men have committed sexual assault or assault, or that the anecdotes above are assault. But what they share is overall a general crossing of boundaries, with varying degrees of seriousness.

And many argue ‘women talk like this too, they’re just as bad!’ Ok. If a woman said she regularly goes up to men and grabs them by the dick, that would also be sexual assault. So enough of that. Do women talk crudely about men? Yes. Do women cross boundaries? Yes. But the difference is that men can expect with near certainty that they will get away with this kind of behavior if they’re caught, but a woman can behave this way at her own risk. Why? Because we get punished for straying from that ‘social script’. The punishment could be death, like in the case of Tiarah Poyau who was shot in the face after telling a man to stop grinding on her at a music festival. Or it could mean having your career ruined like Dr. Jamie Naughright, after being assaulted by Peyton Manning. Or it could be more subtle, again coming back to womens feelings getting brushed off or mocked because they’re ‘crazy’ or ‘overreacting’ or ‘too emotional’.

I know there are great men out there who have a thoughtful awareness of all of this, men who don’t and may not ever have said something so over the top as ‘grab em by the pussy’. But even the most earnest ones miss it. Like in the article by Chris Kluwe, former NFL player, who wrote, ‘Oh sure, we had some dumb guys, and some guys I wouldn’t want to hang out with on any sort of regular basis, but we never had anyone say anything as foul and demeaning as you did on that tape.’ http://www.vox.com/first-person/2016/10/10/13230346/donald-trump-locker-room-talk-chris-kluwe

What’s up with those ‘dumb guys’? To me that sounds like some guys who crossed some lines, were probably somewhat degrading, but because they didn’t brag about grabbing women by the pussy or use major vulgarity, they’re just ‘dumb guys’. But those guys do damage too. And brushing them off as just ‘dumb guys’ is damaging. Having Donald Trump and his words as a qualifier isn’t going to count out the behavior and words that aren’t quite ‘as bad’.

So what do we do? We women keep screaming our emotional, overreacting heads off. We keep supporting each other. We keep calling out sexism and privilege on all levels, across the board, and maybe, just maybe, a drop of knowledge and insight will get through now and then. Like Beyoncé said ‘what’s worst, lookin jealous or crazy, jealous or crazy? Or walked all over lately, walked all over lately? I’d rather be crazy.’
Let’s go crazy. Buck wild, over the top, unbridled crazy. I got you.

Shameless

A handful of years ago I saw a therapist for a while, she was the third one I’d ever tried. The other two were like movie stereotypes of therapists, the first seemingly convinced Jung had it all figured out and everything just meant I subconsciously wanted to bone my dad, and the second would literally just sit there and say nothing, as if all I needed was to flap my gums for an hour. About 6 years ago I was living in Brooklyn, just beginning to date my future husband and was crippled by the terrifying love I was feeling. Love that triggered monster childhood wounds, like the certainty of his inevitable rejection that would end me; that felt like life or death, despite him being very sweet and loving, because the years of my life had so far conditioned me to never, ever feel deserving of something good.

I was working in a coffee shop in Union Square in New York City and one day could not avoid having a panic attack, something I’d been able to avoid ever having so far. I left the espresso machine and went downstairs to the office where my boss and a co-worker were working, two angelic bleeding hearts that in that moment I was too lucky to be working with, seeing as I still had a job after this day. They saw me hovering near the doorway, pulled me in and closed the door, which made me wholly, uncontrollably breakdown. They cared for me with such tenderness that allowed no shame, one going upstairs to fill in for my absence, the other sitting just to my side, occasionally setting a firm hand on my back or arm, letting me be. I didn’t finish my shift- which still had nearly 7 hours left in it- and they stayed with me the whole time. My boss waited for the right moment to give me her therapist friends info, my co-worker brought me chamomile with steamed milk and honey. So perfectly caring, loving in that mythical, magical way that women are sometimes.

I started seeing the therapist my boss recommended, not sure it would work out because I- like so many others- had kind of decided therapy doesn’t work, because for me it hadn’t yet. I ended up seeing her for almost 2 years, through pregnancy and the first few months of my daughters life, my daughter who came with me in those months, breastfeeding while I battled post partum, something my therapist convinced me was normal and would pass (she was right). I’ll always, in many ways, credit her with saving my life. She had (has) a real gift for healing, for listening and putting together the puzzle of a persons darkness. If we hadn’t moved I’d still be seeing her.

Fast forward to a few years later, to now, and I’m needing and craving that same care, that same magic that seemed to have come together so I could begin the lifelong process of chipping away at my wounds; care that I needed again from women, to balance the many hours I spent in Jiu Jitsu with men, always so many men, their energy that is somehow invigorating and exhausting, that energy that innocently can never fully provide.

An old buddy of my husbands started training with us a few weeks ago and I met his wife, a yoga teacher. After chatting for a few minutes we came to an agreement to trade yoga and Jiu Jitsu, starting with yoga. I arrived at her home about a week later and was greeted with a strong embrace and the nostalgic smell of burning sage, candles, and essential oils. The windows were open and a warm pre-hurricane wind was moving through her house. I sat on the floor across from her at a low wooden table and she told me her yoga practice was designed to heal the mind, spirit, and body. After a few intuitive questions I was cracked open and crying, snotting all over my face, encouraged by her to be with it. An embarrassing thing but I did it, as a result of her careful and deliberate care, as a result of her having the same gift to heal as my old therapist.

The reason I was compelled to put all this out there was really only that. To put it all out there. Two posts ago I wrote about my childhood and some wounds that happened then and remained/remain raw in to adulthood, that are embarrassing and uncomfortable, that are so alike so many other peoples own wounds. Wounds that many children end up carrying for a long time, or forever, because their parents or whoever can’t face the hurt they caused. And the last five years or so, beginning with that humiliating breakdown (that was the effect of SOMEONE LOVING ME), have been a journey to exorcise that embarrassment, to hack myself open and bleed it out, to claw out of that deep dark hole.

Part of that became a need to be wide open in front of the world, despite it feeling really horribly uncomfortable. Not because I thought, ‘this could be helpful to other people’, but because I just needed to get it the fuck of my chest. And since doing that I’ve learned that people appreciate it and some don’t like it at all, and that some (women) will be so willing to lend themselves to me that it’s beyond a willingness. It’s just them, they just exist that way.

I also learned that some people will get angry, because it triggers something for them somehow, and they’ll feel compelled to deny your experience. It happens all the time in all cases of abuse. It’s easier to believe someone is embellishing or lying than it is to accept someone behaved horribly. After my post about motherhood and my childhood, a few people were angered by it. So much so that they were compelled to tell me they disapproved of it, this sharing of my life, my experience.

Being honest and open is a powerful thing, so powerful that it can cause such a wide range of reactions from people who weren’t there, people who didn’t live it. I’ve found that the more I allow myself to be open, the easier it is to say ‘I did it for me and no other reason’, or simply ‘I don’t care if you like it or not.’

So for now I guess just look away if you need to, or beware. Beware of the mystical, mythical, magical power that I can feel growing, that is driving me to continue to share myself and my experience. That is shameless, despite it all, that is giving and accepting of love, despite it all, that is honest, despite it all.

A Thing That Happens When You’re a Woman Who Does Jiu Jitsu (#812)

You go to a party. At the party someone you know introduces you and mentions you do Jiu Jitsu/ teach Jiu Jitsu/ own a Bjj studio/ are a black (or white, blue, purple, brown) belt and you see a guy, the guy you knew would be the guy as soon as you saw him, who’s face lights up, who leans in and says ‘oh that’s so cool you’re a black belt’, and moves closer.

***

Guy: ‘I know that in theory you could kick my ass, but I’m SO much bigger than you, and have like 100 pounds on you (he doesn’t), my brain can’t accept it. I feel like I have to see it. What makes you able to beat me up when I’m so much bigger than you? Like I feel like if I got on top of you there’s no way you could get me off.’

This is the 187th-ish time this has happened since you started doing Jiu Jitsu. You used to get really annoyed because you didn’t totally understand what they were doing and why (because they’re flirting, poorly, or because they’re threatened by the fact that you are good at something physically that they are not, or maybe because they’re totally psychotic and want to actually fight you), and you kind of felt like you had to prove that you’re good at it. But now you understand and you don’t give a shit how you look, and you indulge in the sweet, unique pleasure that comes next.

You: ‘Oh well Jiu Jitsu is cool because you get really good at getting out from under people.’

Guy: ‘Now that is cool, and very useful. But like I said I just can’t make sense of it, that you can actually do that and how.’

You: ‘I can do it because I know many, many things that you don’t.’

Guy: ‘I just feel like I have to see it. Show me something.’

You: ‘You really want me to show you something? Ok lemme put my hair up. Ok, do something to me, anything at all.’

Guy: ‘Ok, uh really? Ok, like what? Uh, ok what if I do this?’

He reaches across your body with his right hand, to your purse hanging on your right arm, and you grab his wrist and above his elbow and pull him in to an arm drag.

You: ‘If you do that, I might do this, then I could do this.’

And you turn him just so with that arm drag and go in to a rear naked choke and squeeze, just for a second (or two😇), then take a few steps back so he stumbles and turns in to a starfish, legs and arms reflexively going out.

You: ‘I could do this next.’

And you lightly trip him so he knows you can drop him if you wanted to, but he panics and tries to turn toward the ground, putting a hand down to brace himself, and you still have your arm around his neck so you say:

‘Oh if you do that I’d probably take your back.’

Legs around him, hooks in, he tries to stand up but can’t (even though he’s SO BIG) because he’s not used to having someone on his back.

‘And then I’d choke you till you pass out, or I could break your arm or shoulder, something like that.’

Then you get up, and he gets up and he says:

‘Oh uh that’s cool, yeah you could uh definitely kick my ass, maybe I’ll try Jiu Jitsu, it seems cool.’

You: ‘You should, it is really cool…So do you think you would’ve asked me that, to show you something, if I was a dude?’

Guy: ‘Oh definitely! Yeah I absolutely would have, yes yes yes.’ (he wouldn’t have)

You: ‘Ok cool, well nice meeting you, see ya!’

And you leave the party, relishing in crushing egos, in how at ease you are with what just went down, and in knowing how uncomfortable that just made SO MANY PEOPLE. 😂

Moon faces

After I had my daughter so many people asked me ‘doesn’t it make you feel closer to/understand better/relate more to your parents?’ And I never knew what to say because the answer was no, not at all, it actually did the opposite, I understood them even less. But I never said that because that would make almost everyone really uncomfortable. But that’s the way it’s been since becoming a parent. Since giving birth my brain has unleashed memories previously tucked so far away for so many years because they were…sad. And bad. And discomforting, to say the least.

I walk in to a room that my girl has totally trashed, paper everywhere, toys everywhere, the tiniest toys all over the place that seem impossible to gather up and she looks at me, an innocent moon face, bright, bright eyes containing so many mysteries that are thrillingly revealed to me over time, mysteries I have no control over, that get opened like a present for me when she says things like ‘this is a trapezoid!’ or ‘look at this heart I drew!’, the utter heart crushing joy at getting to know her. And I don’t give a fuck about the mess. (Later a memory trudges up through my muddy guts of my two sisters and I making paper snowflakes, sitting together watching tv while my parents are out to dinner or a party, then they come home to bits of paper everywhere, snowflakes everywhere, 3 innocent sisters; ‘oh what is the mess!!! Oh god why did y’all do this!’ Arms grabbed and punched, seething anger; small bodies shoved for trying to escape, because if it’s not a face it isn’t bad right? It’s just an adult fist punching a skinny adolescent arm or leg or hip for making a mess, for doing anything at all, and even then many of our faces were not spared over the years.)

Sometimes I’m tired and impatient and things take so long and my husband and I fought last night and sometimes parenting is boring and sometimes a tiny person needs more than you think you’re capable of in that moment and then they look at you with that innocent, shining moon face, those bright, magical eyes and they do a funny dance or say ‘lookit my trick mom!’ and hop on one leg for the first time in their incredible tiny lives and you hold those reigns on your impatience and tired body and you laugh at their cool ass trick because they love you and you love them more than you will ever or have ever loved anything in the fucking entirety of space and history. (And another memory bounces through your skull to the forefront from that deeply hidden place and you remember getting picked up three hours late from school by your mom who didn’t work, who just didn’t want to come get you yet, and you were scared that something happened, or that you’d never get picked up and everyone would leave the school and you’d be there all night by yourself, or you just felt again like you don’t matter, you don’t fucking matter and you finally get picked up and you don’t say anything, only pout because you’re a little kid and you are feeling things kids aren’t supposed to feel and you don’t know how to deal. And your mom turns around with narrowed eyes and calls you names like hateful and ungrateful and brat and tells you she deserves her time and you just think over and over, I don’t matter I don’t matter at all. The burden of controlling themselves nonexistent. And then another one lands in your gut and you remember playing in the basement with your sisters for hours, feeling glad that you can not bother them, that they will surely be happy for that, then one of them storms in and yells and yells about anything, about God knows what, picking you up by a small shoulder only to push you away, or even just comes in to stand in front of you and your sisters faces to scream. Just scream, then walk out, 3 sisters laughing at first until realizing that not even getting along and staying out of the way is ok, nothing is ok, you don’t matter, you don’t matter at all.)

I read an article recently, an interview with a psychiatrist who said ‘everyone-men and women- has mommy issues and daddy issues’ and I thought ‘truth, lady. Truth.’ Inevitably our children will be, at the very least, gently bruised peaches because we are inescapably flawed. But when people would ask me those questions after my entry in to parenthood, I wanted to scream (and still want to scream) ‘Fuck no! I will NEVER UNDERSTAND an adult who allows themselves such subjectivity while forcing their children to bear the brunt of their decision to indulge their every feeling of impatience and irritation and anger, to bear their parents unhappiness so intensely.’ But I don’t because it’s embarrassing to be an adult and a mother and still feel so ill equipped to deal with even the memories, embarrassing to realize that you’re so ingrained with garbage pathologies that every interaction in your day, that every relationship in your life can be controlled by these ghosts that aren’t even you but that live in your brain, your body.

I usually just say ‘yeah’, or ‘uhhh hahaha I don’t know!’ And then my mind spirals and spirals and I start to hear that voice again whispering you don’t matter you don’t matter at all, but I’m better now at turning that off. The best I can do is know that I will ultimately wind up not doing the best I can do by her, and that when she’s a teenager, or adult, or mother herself, and she comes to me with her own wounds I will owe her my humility, I will owe it to her sweet shining face to say ‘I’m so sorry and I love you, I’m so sorry and I love you’ and that’s all, that’s all.