Keeping the Lid On: The Worst, Profoundly Beautiful Thing

I have done a lot of crying lately. Unfortunately, it has mostly not been the good type of crying and, for anyone who knows me, you probably know that I hate crying. So mostly, I've been crying a lot at home, and in the car, and once in the bathroom stall at work.

I tell you this because, as always seems to happen, when I feel I am just barely holding it together, people start commenting: "You look so great lately!" "You just look so happy." "Have you lost weight? You look fantastic." "I don't know what it is about you, but you just look amazing."

And not just people I know, either. I kid you not, I was at Barnes & Noble last week, and an older gentleman stopped me to tell me how lovely I looked and that he appreciated my smile. Not more than 15 minutes later, some lady stopped me to tell me that she had been admiring my haircut and how peaceful I looked as I browsed the poetry section.

I said thank you, of course, and I smiled and looked oh-so-serene, and then I went to my car and I cried, because fuck serenity, y'all. The whole reason I went to Barnes & Noble was because I couldn't find enough oxygen in my house, and there always seems to be more oxygen somehow when I'm around books and strangers who mostly don't want anything from me.

 *****
Yesterday, I was listening to "The Moth" podcast in the car. The final story in this particular episode was by Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber -- which was cool, because I am currently about three-quarters of the way through her book, Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People. I like her -- I really do -- and I like what she stands for...but for an agnostic reader, there's a whole lotta Jesus in this book. It's good for me, I think. It's always good to read things that make you uncomfortable. I like reading things I don't agree with to find the passages I find Profoundly Beautiful, and there is much in this book that is uncomfortable, and also Profoundly Beautiful.

What's ironic is that I started this book about 4 months ago, put it down, haven't touched it since October. Friday night, I picked it up and read the chapter "Panic Attack in Jericho."

Saturday afternoon, Rev. Nadia comes on the podcast...telling the story of her panic attack in Jericho.
I clearly needed to hear this story.

(You can, and should, listen to the story here: https://beta.prx.org/stories/167147 . It starts at about 37:00).

The story is basically this: Rev. Nadia goes on a trip to the Holy Land with "20 super nice Lutherans from Wisconsin." She prefaces the story by saying that the worst thing someone could ever call her is "needy." She is strong and independent, and never wants to rely on anyone. So on this trip, she doesn't want to socialize with the group, she doesn't talk to them, she doesn't want to look at pictures of their grandchildren, and she definitely does not want them to know about her fear of mountain roads. Then, the group makes a trip from Bethlehem to Jericho down a road on which Rev. Nadia is afraid of traveling. On the trip back to Bethlehem, the bus fails to make one of the hairpin turns, and everyone has to evacuate the bus...and Rev. Nadia has a panic attack, right there, in front of said super nice Lutherans. 

In the podcast, she says, "I have a full blown panic attack in front of 20 super-nice Lutherans from Wisconsin...which is basically the worst thing that could ever happen to me. And I don't even know when she came up to me, but all of a sudden I realized that Sharon's hands were on my shoulders, and she was saying, 'you're okay. I'm right here. You're okay.' And she was keeping the lid on for me so something didn't escape that I needed like my sanity or the ability for my body and mind to be in the same place at the same time. And she was so strong and calm and amazing and everything I want people to think I am and everything I wasn't in that moment. And she was exactly what I needed, and like an asshole an hour earlier, I had a hard time knowing her name."

And, even though I knew this was what happened because I had just read the chapter in the book not 24 hours before, something about this broke me inside, and I. just. cried.

See, I like to have it together, and even when I don't have it together, I like to fail at having it together perfectly. I like to be in control of not having it together so much that I can make it beautiful. I turn it around, I make it into gratitude, hiding the full and ugly truth of it. I do my hair, and I smile, and I look serene in the poetry section, and no one knows that I cry in my car. I try to find the pieces that I can name Profoundly Beautiful -- like the fog in the streetlights during the walk I took this morning when I woke up at 3:30am and couldn't breathe.

Because for me, much like for Rev. Nadia, the worst thing would be vulnerability in front of others. To be vulnerable -- like truly vulnerable -- to need to trust or rely on someone else....it would be my Worst Thing. It would be my panic attack in Jericho.

In the past year, it's gotten so much easier -- to trust others and to open my heart. But when things get hard -- not just hard, but a specific kind of hard, like they are right now, when my body seems to be asking "...but are you SURE we'll survive this?" it feels like the Worst Thing is happening, or could happen, or might happen. So I want to not show up. I want to be the asshole who just disappears from friending for a while.

I think my breakdown in the car yesterday came because I realized that I really do have people who are helping me keep the lid on...or, who are willing to help me keep the lid on if I let them. And this -- this simultaneously feels like the Worst Thing and the Profoundly Beautiful Thing. I don't understand how it can be both, but it is. It just is.

I cannot do this on my own, and this has been the cause of many, many tears over the past week. When I can't figure something out, when I'm confused, when I need to ask questions, when I need someone older and wiser than myself to offer me advice...it has all felt like a potential Worst Thing. When I have asked, there have been people willing to listen, and proofread emails, and take walks and remind me that I can do hard things.   And each time I ask, it feels like vulnerability. It feels like it could be a step towards my panic attack in Jericho. It feels like, maybe, I don't actually have a hold on that lid after all. And each time, someone has been willing to put their finger on that lid and say, "Hey. You're okay. No, really. You're okay."

So here's what I'm doing: I am working so hard to keep doing this Worst, Profoundly Beautiful Thing of letting people sometimes help me to keep the lid on because I can't do it alone. I keep trying to do it on my own, and every time I do, I end up walking the neighborhood at 3:30am, or crying in my car.
This week -- I will survive this week, in spite of what that bitch Anxiety says.  I can do hard things.

Even if the lid comes off.

Even if I end up having a panic attack in Jericho.

Like An Almost Vow

Like An Almost Vow

I am 7 years old at Bubby's house in the den.

Granddad is teasing, joking -- he's full of tricks.

"Say what I say," he tells me. 

"Just say it fastfastfast."

I nod.  Bite my lip, ready for whatever question will come.

He asks: "I love me who do you love?"

"Me!" I answer, quickly, jumping to my tippy toes to answer fastfastfast.

His face falls.

"What about me?" he asks.  "Don't you love me?"

Shame floods my body as he tells

Bubby, my mother, my aunts and uncles and cousins

that I love myself more than I love him. 

"You've got a big head," he tells me, and that

becomes my nickname.

Big Head.

Today

as I sit next to Bubby's reclining chair in her house in the den,

I hold her hand and

remind her who I am.

She asks,

"Why do you have all those rings on your fingers?"

"I don't know, Bubby," I say. 

"I like them.

This one," I say, pointing to the silver rose I always wear,

"I like because you gave it to me."

She nods.

"I don't know why you wear those things.

You look like you're married to yourself."

I laugh.

"Do you love yourself?" she asks.

My breath almost catches on my answer

but I hear myself say

"I do,"

like a New Year promise

or an almost vow.

She nods

and silence falls between us in

that forgiving place somewhere between

unspoken

and forgotten.

Hello Cucumber? It's Pepper. Or, You who love the world so much

I feel the need to write some sort of holiday post here -- or at least something that gives lip service to the holidays, or the new year, or to the past year and new beginnings.  I feel like I'm supposed to feel alive with the leftover warmth of holiday glow or, at least, some sort of 2015-nostalgia or 2016-hope, or some sort of something that says "December has come and gone.  January 1 has skidded into lives with a screeching crescendo, and onward we go into the new year with resolutions to be better, healthier, more socially conscious, skinnier people who drink more water, yell less, spend less money, are better partners, make more Pinterest crafts, eat less fast food, and spend more time on the treadmill."

But holy mother of god, I don't want to write about that.  I don't want to write about the holidays, I don't want to write about the upcoming year, I don't want to write about resolutions, or non-resolutions, or why I do-or-do-not make resolutions, and my plans to drink more or less water. 

I'll do that, of course.  I always do.  But maybe I'll do it in a week, or two, or in the middle of February.  Sometimes February is the best time to set New Year's resolutions.  The good thing about resolutions, I've discovered, is that your New Year can start any damn time you want it to, social convention and pressures be damned. 

****

So here's what I'm going to write about instead:

I have had several conversations lately about spirituality.  Most of these conversations were thought provoking, interesting, light, fun...but one -- the one that was most important -- this one was hard, and it was hurtful.  I am not placing blame or pointing fingers, but the past few weeks have been hard.  Particularly this past week, I have struggled to breathe above this incessant, nagging weight in my heart, and throat, and stomach.  And this conversation -- this conversation that felt it could have touched on who I am -- it was made out to be wrong.  And I'll tell you here that it's okay, except for the fact that it's not in ways that are too big to put into words.

So then, today, I saw this picture by Brian Andreas, and I thought: This.   

If you're reading this, I probably don't need to convince you that I love the world.  Or that I love people.  Or that I am, actually, a loving and compassionate and whole-hearted being-of-love, as much as a I can be.

But I need to believe it.  I need to believe that I love the world.  I need to believe that I love this life, and that I love people, and that I love in a way that matters.  Because it does matter, doesn't it?  I am loving, and it matters.  It does.

*****

I was listening to On Being the other day -- it was an old podcast I had not had time to listen to from several months ago.  This interview, titled, "The Calling of Delight: Gangs, Service, and Kinship" was by Father Greg Boyle-- a Jesuit working with gang-affiliated youth in Los Angeles -- interviewed by Krista Tippett. 

Father Boyle states that we are all called to be people through which "kindness and tenderness and focused attempt of love return people to themselves and, in the process, you're returned to yourself."  He provides the example of the following conversation he had with a young man - one of his "homies" that works for him that he describes as "exasperating" and "difficult": "I said, "You know, Louie, uh, I'm proud to know you and my life is richer because you came into it. When you were born, you know, the world became a better place and I'm proud to call you my son, even though," — and I don't know why I decided to add this part — "at times you can really be a huge pain in the ass [laughter]." And he looks up at me and he smiles and he says, "The feeling's mutual [laughter]." And, you know, suddenly kinship so quickly. You know, you're not sort of this delivery system, but maybe I return him to himself. But there is no doubt that he's returned me to myself." (http://www.onbeing.org/program/father-greg-boyle-on-the-calling-of-delight/transcript/5059)

*****

I had a young man come into my office last month who was having a particularly difficult day.  He did not want to see me...or anybody.  He did not want to talk.  Or play games.  Or be alone.  He wasn't quite sure what he wanted, actually, so he yelled at me, and at his mother, and he threw things, and flipped over the table, and crawled under the chair and let me sit in the room with him for the remainder of the hour.  I responded to emails, worked out some kinks in my calendar, and periodically said, "I like the way you're taking deep breaths" or "thanks for keeping your body safe" or "let me know if you feel like getting a juice box for calming down," to which he replied something like "shutthefuckup" or "why are you still talking to me?"

At the end of the hour, I let him know it was time to go, and that I was going to schedule his next appointment with his mother.   As his mother and I began hashing out two possible dates, there was a hissing noise from under the chair. 

"Yeah, buddy?" his mom said.

"Mom," he whispered.  "Make sure to pick the soonest one.  I want to come back and see her at the soonest time possible."

"Hey buddy?" I said.

"Yeah?" he asked, poking his head out from under the chair.

"Thanks for that.  I want you to come back at the soonest time, too."  He looked surprised.  So did his mother.  And my heart -- it felt this rightness that my heart feels when it can speak genuinely and truthfully, even and especially in those moments when you would not expect those words to be said.  They come from some place deep in my heart, and the air in the room changes when they are uttered.  My client extended his metaphorical hand, and I took it.  Not because it was my job.  Not because it was the right thing to do.  But because he dared to put his hand and his heart out there again, and in doing so, he returned me to myself.

"You who love the world so much?  That's what you are here to do."

*****

Several weeks ago, I was at the grocery store.  There was a young woman -- perhaps 14 or 15 years old -- with a developmental disability with her mother in the produce section.  This young woman was clearly antsy and done with shopping, and her mother was clearly not yet finished. 

"Don't touch," her mother said, over and over again, as the young woman ran her hands over each pile of vegetables.  The young woman whined, and pulled on her mother, and rammed the cart into the case.  She picked up the cucumber and put it up to her ear, pretending to talk on the phone, jabbering into the end of the vegetable, suddenly engaged. 

Her mother, seizing the opportunity, reviewed her list and was frantically picking up as much as she could while her daughter entertained herself. 

I was a few steps down at the peppers, surveying the scene.  As the cucumber conversation began to end and the young woman reached over to pull on her mother once more while continuing to loudly state "'LO??  'LO??  'LO??" into the cucumber, I went for it.

Picking up a pepper, I caught her eye and put it up to my ear, "hello?" I asked.  She laughed, surprised.  Her mother looked over at me, and then pretended she didn't notice.

"'LO???" she said again.

"Who's there?" I said.  "Is this Cucumber talking?"

She laughed, like it was the funniest thing she had ever heard.  People around us were staring at me -- the crazy lady, talking into the pepper.

"'LO??" she said.

"Oh hello, Cucumber, it's Pepper!  It's so good to hear from you!  How is your shopping going today?"  She laughed and laughed and jumped up and down, flapping her hands excitedly.

The man behind me picking out his potatoes snort-laughed.

Her mother, finished with her shopping, called her daughter to her.  She put the cucumber in the bin.  "See ya," I said to her, placing my pepper in my cart.

And that's it -- she walked away in one direction, and I in the other.  But in that moment in the produce section, the whole world felt right again.  She had, through her laughter, her engagement, through our simple conversation -- she had returned me to myself.

"You who love the world so much?  That's what you are here to do."

I am loving.  And it matters. 

Hallelujah for the Discomfort

Prayer is not a language I speak.

My words get tight, jumbled, stilted,

I'm never

too sure who I'm talking to

or if

they're listening.

I get stuck

not knowing how to address

the person to whom I am speaking

-- if it's he, or she, or they --

I know God

is probably that 10-year-old genderqueer kid

who already corrected me once last week

when I used the wrong pronouns, and didn't think to ask first.

I mess up

every prayer I utter

in spite of my best intentions

But I want my heart to be good at blessings.

I want my blood to be made of hallelujahs,

want my cells to form themselves in the shape of active love

till it's the only thing I'm made of.

So even though my bones

tremble when I speak,

may it be only because I took what was broken

and used it to fuel a fire of intensity

and the pieces --

they sometimes rattle when I get going;

there is no place

for shame, disappointment, being small,

this active love is bigger

than my tendency to be

complicit

silent

passive

in the face of injustice, so

here

is the hallelujah.

Here

is the ferocity,

the intensity,

the whole-hearted

being without apology

this active love alliance is

the hallelujah.

So hallelujah.

My love pulls my spine like a rip cord

that parachutes the broken open umbrella of my heart.

My heart prays

on street corners with signs and loud voices

in quiet circles
in conversation

in how do I help
in listening
in standing up

speaking up

showing up

showing up

showing up...

I was not taught pray.

Was not taught to engage this type of love -

I was taught to be quiet.

To look away,

to not speak,

to look for love in all the wrong places -

can't find my own body holy enough

to hold her whole and sacred,

there are so many layers

to stepping in

but  Brave is just what we call

Scared when she's

holding hands.

So let's hold hands.

Hallelujah for the discomfort.

Hallelujah for every time we pull back the covers on our still-sleeping hearts

to feel what we couldn't feel before,

hallelujah for the pain of light entering 

our too-long closed eyes

let's throw open the shades

and bless the uncomfortable

we'll praise the surprise

hear the sadness

the rage

hold the tears

cherish the anger

let's bless this holy voice

turn our anger into movement that breaks

ground on this moment of truth-building.

Let us build ourselves

into promise-beings of active love;

let us break the truth

so when we speak again

our voices shake

and we let them tremble.

Untitled, because this poem makes me anxious

I tried really hard to come up with a title for this poem, and I couldn't, because the poem makes me anxious...and the more I look at it, the more I hate it, and the more I look at it, the more I want to burn it, and I also think this is a really important poem, so I'm not going to burn it...........but I'm not going to title it either.

So there.

This poem needs a title, because it needs context so you can know what the heck I'm talking about.  It doesn't really come from the poem.  It's gotta come from the title.  Soooo....I can't totally back out of the title.  It's also 1AM.  I should really go to bed.  This stupid poem is being a jerkface.

.....

I should REALLY go to bed.  

The possible titles I came up with were:

"Home" or  Family Patterns

The still impossible longing hits and penetrates with bulls-eye accuracy:

this wanting settles damp and chill like winter in these bones.

She enters without question the way winter descends--

expected, yet unbidden, known, surprising and unwanted,

the chill is still dangerous without protection and, 

even now,

I want to believe this body can withstand the cold;

want to believe myself impervious to the

way it enters without asking:

I know I am standing, but cold has a way

of making me

so small.

This is the way it happens:

slowly.

Like freezing,

but not like the Antarctic,

just like somewhere cold

without a coat, or hat, or mittens

because you thought you had something to prove

or maybe

you just wanted to be able

to feel the warmth

in case it happened.

You know?

Next time, I tell myself, just wear the fucking coat--

but don't we know I like to make her comfortable?

Next time, I will find myself praising the way she is warmer than last year.

Next time, I will emphasize the way she is shining the sun in just the right places, and

next time, I will tell her how those icicles are glistening so nicely and how

the hypothermia is tricking my hands into feeling

so warm.

There are choices we must make

to keep ourselves comfortable and

there are choices we must make

to survive.

My body can count its blizzards

like rings inside a tree--

it recognizes each

as one more choice where there was none

like each year that tree had the choice to grow

or say that's enough now

and stop, but it never did if only because

that's not how trees work --

we know that still in winter, they're growing

even if it's

invisible and

deep and

underground.

Thanksgiving Recovery: After the Wine

This post is a letter.

It's a letter for those of you who came home from  the family visit and drank ALL of the wine alone with the dog (or other animal of your choice) while watching "Friends" (or other show you've seen half a dozen times already). 

It's a letter for those of you who felt so topsy-turvy, so not-right, so out-of-your-body, so completely out of touch when you woke up this Saturday morning that you decided the thing to do was to rearrange the furniture in your house because none of it was right.  Nothing was right.  Nothing in your house, in your skin, in your body felt right, and so you rearranged the furniture to attempt to let it settle down new.

I know.  My living room looks great, thanks for asking.

This post is a letter for those of you who woke up with that killer headache -- the one you couldn't tell if it was from the wine, or the stress, or the things you didn't say.  It's a letter for those of you who are bravely marching forward, holding all these things in your heart, written on your skin, feeling like they are emblazoned like red letters on your chest. 

There are lots of posts out there by people more inspirational than me, who got their shit together BEFORE Thanksgiving, and actually preventatively thought through the fact that, sometimes, for some of us, holidays suck.  A lot.  You can go out and read those posts, and all their lovely thoughts about them...or wait, because blink twice and Christmas will be here, and we're all gonna be doing this all over again. 

But I have yet to find anything written by anyone inspirational that tells me how to recover from Thanksgiving.  I mean, maybe if I had gotten my shit together beforehand, if I had written that inspirational post ahead of time about how I was not going to lose my mind this year, and if I had implemented all the positive coping skills one should implement when faced with holiday stress....maybe I wouldn't still be in holiday hangover mode. 

But here I am.  It's Sunday afternoon, and I don't know what to say to me anymore.  I get so frustrated when people say things like "well what would you say to one of your patients?"  I mean, seriously.  First, if it was that simple, I probably would have said it to me already.  Second, most of my patients are small humans with developmental disabilities, so mostly I say things like "pee goes in the potty" and "hands are not for hitting" and "is talking about door hinges during math class an expected behavior or an unexpected behavior?"

Anyway.

This post is a letter.

Are you ready?

*********

Dear Precious One,

As the heaviness of these days weighs on you, you can know these things:

1).  Whatever your Thanksgiving was and was not, it is over now.  Whatever your choices were on Thanksgiving day, and the day after...they, too, are over now.  You did the very best you could, friend.  Believe that.

2).  Giving thanks is not a one shot deal.  Just because your gratitude is elusive on this day -- the day when the entire nation chooses to give thanks -- it does not negate the other days you choose to give thanks.  It does not erase the ways you marveled at the sun on those early mornings in August, or the times you were moved to tears by beauty and amazement in April, or the ways you let your heart constantly fill and overflow throughout the year.  You are not wrong, love.  There is no way you could be. 

3).  It is okay to feel confused and disoriented, and to feel you are struggling to know which way is up.  Know that you only need to keep swimming, and you will orient to the light -- because this is who you are.  This is what you do.  Like a compass pointing to true north, you will flounder and spin and bounce, and you will end up where you need to be. 

4). You are not alone.  This is, perhaps, most important.  You are not ever alone. 

And here is where the grace comes in: in spite of the ways it seems your heart cannot even fathom it, you are loved, and you are loved, and you are loved, in spite of and because of everything. 

Here is where the grace comes in: you are the one in your body, and you are the one who chooses what comes next.  Even if you have fucked it up a million times before.  Even if you think you don't deserve that grace -- there is no other way forward but for you to make the next move, and you always move forward.

And here is where the grace comes in: you are worthy, and whole, and loved, and there are people who love you and are willing and able to show you this love whether or not you can see it or accept it.

Dear precious one, you are not alone.  You are loved.  You are not wrong, and you always move forward.  There is grace, and it is here for you.

You are worthy and loved.

Love,

Me. 

Vagina Monologues: Loosen my tongue

(Note: All of the pictures in this post come from my trip to Haiti earlier this year.  It may not seem entirely relevant as you're reading at first -- but it felt right).

I recently came across an Audre Lorde quote I had not seen before. The quote reads: "Mother, loosen my tongue or adorn me with a lighter burden."  (Audre Lorde,  "Call," 1986).

It's funny how the universe sometimes gives you what you need to hear.

*****

Girls in Haiti, photograph by autodidactpoet
January 2015

 What feels like a very long time ago, I somehow agreed to participate in a performance of Eve Ensler's "Vagina Monologues" with my church.  I had seen a production of the monologues several years ago, had read the book, was well-versed in Eve Ensler's work like all good feminists should be, and had even written my own monologue for a speak-out against sexual violence event.  This was not a new thing for me to be involved in.

But here's the thing: not new does not equal "easy."  Not new does not mean "not hard."  Not new does not mean that all those old thoughts and feelings and hard things stay in the past.  It just doesn't.  I hoped it did.  I lied to myself, and told myself it would.  But it didn't.  Of course it didn't.  That's not how that works.

It was hard. 

Guys, it was really hard.  It was so much harder than I like to admit.  After the first rehearsal, and then the second, more than one person gently asked me if I should continue to participate.  I considered excusing myself...a choice I told no one in the cast I was pondering...because I was embarrassed.  Because I get tired of things being hard.  Because I am stubborn, stubborn, stubborn.  Because I wanted to be brave.  Because I want to show myself that I make decisions that are not based in fear. 

There were a long few days when I almost backed out.  It was just hard, you know?  Sometimes, I rationalized to myself, we don't have to be quite so brave.  Sometimes, we don't need to DO the thing -- it can be enough just to know that the thing is being done.  That's what matters, really.  

But the thing was that, while choosing to participate felt hard, choosing not to participate also felt hard and - perhaps - felt harder. 

And then came that quote -- "Mother, loosen my tongue or adorn me with a lighter burden."  I don't know for sure, but it doesn't seem that a lighter burden is coming my way anytime soon, right?  However, participation in "Vagina Monologues,"...that seems like a pretty good opportunity to loosen ones tongue, does it not?  I mean, to get up in front of 100-and-some-odd friends and strangers and talk about vaginas...to watch ones friends moan, reclaim "cunt," rant about all the "dry wads of fucking cotton," and pontificate about loving their vaginas, or shutting down their vaginas, and losing and finding their clitoris...that seems like a pretty decent tongue loosening opportunity.

MPP school, photograph by autodidactpoet
January 2015

So I stuck it out, even as it felt big and hard.  Even as it took my breath away.  Even as I loved it, and hated it, and even as it sometimes made my body shake.  Even then.

When I distill it down to the bare bones, now, the day after, here is what happened:

I stood up with my friends and said things that were hard.  And I survived.

My friend and I performed the monologue "My Vagina Was My Village," which is drawn from interviews conducted with survivors from rape camps in Bosnia.  We told their story out loud.  We made an audience sit and listen as we told them, in first person, details of what no woman should ever have to endure.  The story is horrific.  It is not mine, and I do not understand the intensity and horror of that violence.  I spoke the words, but I cannot embody the sort of pain one must hold to have lived it.  What a privilege it is not to even be able to imagine it.

But to hear these stories, read these stories, see these stories in live theater, they become more real than they can when read only on a page.  When heard in first-person narrative, read in shaky-voice innocence of someone who cannot even fathom, there is still flesh and blood and breath given to the story that makes it real.  Reading it is painful, and hard, and a privilege.  It is right to give it voice.  It is holy to give it voice.  It is hard as hell, and it is holy.  This  particular story, and this particular violence is not mine, but I do understand this violation.  I understand the invasion of your skin.  I know what it is to feel your body is no longer a place you want to inhabit.  To feel you must move elsewhere.  To feel you do not have a voice. I know the kind of grace I wished for.  I know the ways I have wished to speak truth to my story.  I know the ways that I have.  I know the ways I have not.

In her introduction to the monologue (which we did not read), Ensler writes how horrified she was to learn that between 20 and 70 thousand women were raped as a war tactic in the former Yugoslavia in 1993, and how devastated she was by the fact that the US was not doing anything about it.  She says, "...a friend finally asked me, 'why are you surprised?'  In this country [the US], in one year [in 1993]...it's a documented fact ...over 700,000 women are raped.  And in theory, we're not at war."

"Mother, loosen my tongue or adorn me with a lighter burden."

Damn, Audre Lorde.

This is what these monologues are for. 

*****

In discussing the Vagina Monologues with people over the past several months, two questions have come up - both more than once - that have given me pause:

1. Is there a male version of the Vagina Monologues?  Why not?
2. Are the Vagina Monologues still as needed/still as culturally relevant today as they were when Ensler wrote them back in 1996?

Not that you asked, but here are my answers anyway, to both questions:

Penis Monologues?  Really?  Does anyone really think that is something we need? 

If we wanted to talk about a few monologues on the ways patriarchy can hurt men...the ways stereotypes of masculinity can harm men...the ways gender roles can be harmful for men...then I guess we can talk about a set of monologues for men.  But that's not really a male equivalent of the Vagina Monologues, is it?  These aren't the Women Monologues or the Female Monologues -- these are, very specifically, the Vagina Monologues, and they are created and designed to be a direct actionable force against the worldwide silencing, shaming of, and violence towards women and girls bodies and sexuality.  The monologues are, of course, about saying the forbidden words aloud: period, tampon, vagina, orgasm, clitoris, cunt -- and to make female sexual pleasure a thing that is acknowledged and celebrated.  The monologues are absolutely about celebrating vaginas, and women, and female sexuality. 

MPP School -- photograph by autodidactpoet
January 2015

And, unfortunately, we cannot yet celebrate vaginas, and women, and female sexuality without recognizing the very real impact of violence and oppression on female bodies worldwide.  That, perhaps, is the point.  We need the space "Vagina Monologues" creates because there are so few other spaces created where female bodies can even just take up space.  Where they can be freely and apologetically sexual.  We need space to name the things that are done to us and to our bodies.

"But it is not so taboo to say these things anymore," people said.  "It is not so shocking.  People aren't taken aback by the word vagina at this point."

Perhaps not.

But:

•  There are girls getting "dress coded" on a regular basis in our middle and high schools.
•   There are girls being "slut shamed" by their peers.  By their teachers.  By their school administrators.
• I was asked what I was wearing.  I was asked if I had been drinking.  When I was deemed to have been both sober and "decent," I was blamed for having been out at all.  Victim-blaming still happens.  All the time.
• In the US, 65% of women report experiencing street harassment.  Of those women, 23% reported they had been sexually touched, 20% had been followed, and 9% had been forced to do something sexual.  (From: Unsafe and Harassed in Public Spaces: A National Street Harassment Report).  In New Delhi, these numbers go up to 88% of women who report experiencing verbal harassment, and 92% of women who report experiencing sexual violence in public spaces (From: UNwomen.org).
• Every year, approximately 293,000 people are sexually assaulted in the US. Approximately 68% of these are not reported to the police.  98% of rapists will never spend any time in jail.  (RAINN.org)
• The US Military has a serious sexual assault problem. 
•  One in three women worldwide will experience physical or sexual violence in her lifetime, most likely at the hands of her partner (UNWomen.org).
• Of all the women who were victims of homicide worldwide, it is estimated that almost 50% of them were killed by intimate partners (compared to less than 6% of men).  (UNWomen.org)
• More than 700 million women today were married as children (under age 18).  (UNWomen.org)
•  Approximately 133 million girls and women have experienced some form of female genital mutilation. (UNWomen.org)
• Women and girls account for 80% of trafficking victims globally (www.endvawnow.org).
• Maternal mortality continues to be unacceptably high: every day, approximately 830 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth worldwide. (WHO.int)
• Two-thirds of the illiterate people in the world are female. (en.unesco.org)
• There are still 31 million primary school age girls not in school.  There are 4 million fewer boys out of school than girls. (en.unesco.org)

So we ask -- is Ensler's work necessary?  Is performing "Vagina Monologues" necessary?  Is my participation in "Vagina Monologues" necessary?

The answer is yes. 

It is hard.  It can be fucking brutal, y'all.  It leaves you shaking, and breathless...but it is necessary.  Even though this little performance goes no further than my corner of Columbia - for me, and for you, and for all of the millions of women across the globe with whom we stand, it is a way of loosening our tongues, and that is holy.

It is holy.

May we -- all of us -- work hard, and harder, and harder still to loosen our tongues, for it shall be so very long until all of us can be adorned with an equally lightened burden.

Women of Haiti, photograph by autodidactpoet Jan. 2015

                                   

                   "Mother, loosen my tongue or adorn me with a lighter burden." - Audre Lorde