gumdrops
by Patty Somlo
9/4/19
Those thin suede shoes my sister, Carol, and I desperately wanted were called Gumdrops. My mother didn’t want to buy the shoes for us because she claimed they wouldn’t last. Her objection might also have been influenced by the fact that the Gumdrops were worthless when it came to support. The soft footwear felt more like slippers than shoes, the rubber sole barely there.
We wanted the shoes that tied like our sneakers, simple and black with rounded toes, because other girls our age were wearing them. We wanted the shoes because having them on our feet was a way to fit in.
My sister once told me a story, the theme of which I realize was shame. She was walking to school one day in those skimpy shoes, and noticed that the material had split apart on the side, where it was impossible not to be noticed. I’m thinking she started to cry then and decided to find her way home, skipping school for the day. As might be apparent, I have forgotten the details. What I distinctly recall is the heartbreaking image of those special shoes giving way.
But now I remember a different aspect of the story. There was a name-brand version of the shoes that cost more, which my mother refused to buy. Instead, my sister and I got the cheap imitations, possibly the reason the shoes came apart.
We were a military family. As such, we moved across the country, or the world, every year or every other year. Most kids struggle to fit in, to be liked, and definitely not to call attention to themselves in some negative way. Being the new kid year after year, is an endless show, in which life becomes a catwalk. The kid keeps donning different outfits, hoping to please an everchanging crowd.
As I got older and my classmates fell into distinctive crowds, distinguished by economic class and grades, looks and athletic ability, and even time spent in juvenile hall, I floated amongst the groups, never fitting comfortably in any one. Because I was smart, loved to read and got good grades, I sometimes hung around with the sons and daughters of the town’s well-off. But since money was often tight and my Air Force dad lived away from us much of the time, I befriended kids whose parents worked with their hands and their offspring were not destined for college.
In order to hang with kids whose style, musical tastes and what they did for fun differed, I needed to be a chameleon, turning into a mirror that reflected back what I saw. I was like the bare mannequin in a display window, waiting to be adorned with the next season’s fashion. Underneath the person I pretended to be, I didn’t know who I was.
Except, I had an idea that the girl I happened to be, beneath the various characters I’d layered on top, was an embarrassment I needed to hide. If asked at the time, I probably wouldn’t have managed to explain what about that girl I found lacking. I might have been able to acknowledge what fueled my desperate need to hide her -- the belief that if I ever let her out, not one single kid in my school or neighborhood would like me.
I went on like this for a long time, in part because I placed myself in situations where that hidden girl didn’t fit. For college, I opted to attend a private university in Washington, D.C., that my parents couldn’t really afford. So, there I was in a dorm surrounded by young women, wealthier than anyone I’d ever known. Down the hall was Andrea, whose father was the head of Columbia Pictures. Next door was Alice, who would become my best friend and roommate the following year. Her father was President of the Bank of Israel, and he and his wife had a house on Long Island, large enough to hold within its walls the last four places my family had lived.
The girls on my dorm floor, including Alice, had so many clothes, they needed to take each season’s outfits home to leave enough room in the closet to hang the current season. Every blouse, skirt and pair of pants I owned barely filled the space I was allotted. So, I cheated. My mother gave me a credit card, which for a brief time let me feel like one of the crowd. Years later, I can still remember one outfit I bought from a small, expensive boutique in Philadelphia. The pants were white, with cuffs. I paired them with a red, slim-fitting belted top that ended just below my thighs. I was thin as a noodle, thanks to lots of skipped meals and sweat-soaked exercise, and believed the outfit made me look like a model.
It never occurred to me that I felt the need to hide myself in order to be liked. I also didn’t realize that aiming my gaze at other people, in order to see myself, wasn’t a good way to be. Since I never questioned the practice I started in childhood, I continued with it, even as an adult.
Then I crashed, and feared I might never climb out of the deep crevasse in which I’d fallen. I knew I needed help. Thankfully, several friends were there to suggest where I might find it.
Nearly a year and a half into once-a-week sessions with a therapist, sitting across from her in a comfortable, pale gray leather chair, something shifted. Or rather, during the previous eighteen months, I had been learning how to dwell within my body. This new and unusual practice began with a ritual at the start of each session. Placing my feet firmly on the floor, back straight, hands resting loosely on my thighs, palms facing up, I would close my eyes and focus attention on my breath. Then I would imagine the breath traveling through my body, first coming into the nostrils, dribbling down the throat into my lungs, falling into my belly, sliding down to my legs, and eventually caressing my feet. During a session, if my therapist asked how I was feeling, a question that for the longest time I struggled to answer, I would close my eyes and start that same practice of breathing mindfully all over again, until I located an emotion, usually stuck in my belly.
About this time, I had a stunning revelation. I was in a relationship with a man who had trouble making time for me in his life. For some reason, I didn’t call the whole thing off. Instead, I kept thinking I could change him.
Alex had no trouble making plans with his sister to ride bikes early on a Saturday morning up Mt. Tamalpais, just north of San Francisco, where we lived. He easily arranged dates with male acquaintances for squash games at his athletic club. He also set aside times, well in advance, to join his mother for dinner.
When it came to me, Alex couldn’t commit to a movie, a few days away. He preferred to call me at the last minute, just before six on a Friday, to see if I might be available that night.
One Saturday morning after I’d stayed overnight at his flat, he woke me up early. I remembered that he had plans for a post-dawn bike ride with his sister that day. Even though I wasn’t included, I needed to get up, so he could drive me home. I wanted to stay in bed, as I felt tired, but I knew time was short.
My throat felt scratchy and raw when I swallowed, and my body ached.
“I don’t feel very well,” I said, when I emerged from the bathroom.
He didn’t respond. Instead, he raised his right wrist and checked his watch.
“It’s late,” he said. “We’ve gotta get going.”
It didn’t happen then, though I suppose that would have been the right moment. About twenty minutes later, Alex double-parked in front of my apartment building, and I stepped out of the car. For some reason, I waited, before closing the car door, crossing the street, and walking over to my building. Only after I’d punched in the code to the black metal front gate, listened for the buzzer, then pulled the gate open, stepped inside and climbed the six short sets of stairs to the third floor, slid the key into the lock, turned it, walked down the long narrow hall to my bedroom and sat down on the bed, did I realize what I’d been waiting for. I’d been waiting for Alex to express his concern and that he hoped I would feel better. I’d been waiting to hear him say he’d call later, to find out how I was doing or if I needed anything. As it turned out, I waited more than long enough. He didn’t say anything remotely like what I’d been waiting for. All he ended up saying was, “Goodbye.”
In the process of waiting, something changed. I saw him. For the first time, I turned the camera in my mind’s eye towards him, screwed on a close-up lens and focused. That’s when I realized that for the entire six months or so of our relationship, I had let Alex hold the camera. All that time, I kept trying to see the pictures he was taking of me. Now, I’d snatched the camera away from him, and I became the photographer.
With the viewfinder at my eye, I didn’t like the picture I was seeing. Instead of wondering whether Alex liked me, I could see that it didn’t matter. Whatever he might have thought of me, I now realized the man I’d been spending time with was a cold and uncaring guy. Suddenly, I understood that I wanted and needed the opposite sort of man in my life.
The following week, I called Alex and told him I didn’t want to see him anymore. After hanging up the phone, I felt certain I would never be in another relationship with a man like that again.
I’m not sure how it happens that girls are taught to pay more attention to how others see them than the way they see themselves. Or rather, we females gaze at our reflections in the mirror, trying to figure out what others will think of us. There are several good jokes that start out with a wife asking her husband, “Does this make me look fat?” For most women and girls, looking fat, or appearing unattractive, is no laughing matter.
On some level, women, especially those in my generation who came of age in the sixties, were raised to base views of themselves on how other people saw them. We tried to figure out how we were seen and then assumed that’s who we were.
Live long enough and you reach a point when you realize that at least about one or two things, your mother was right. After years of wearing inexpensive but stylish shoes, as well as high heels that pinched my toes together into a point and forced my foot into an unnaturally tall arch, I ended up with terrible feet. All I need do is look at the sorts of shoes I used to love and my toes ache.
For quite a few years now, I have been forced to wear comfortable shoes, no matter how they look. Thankfully, I’m part of a large generation of women who abused their feet, so many soothing shoes are designed to not look as supportive as they feel.
I’ve become an older woman who looks good at a distance. When I go on walks in my neighborhood, I sometimes notice much younger men staring at me as they drive by in their cars. Even though I’m long past the days when what I wear ought to matter, I still love to shop for clothes, and sometimes spend a long time getting ready before going out. After over twenty-five years of being with my husband, Richard, he is accustomed to being consulted about which shoe looks best with my outfit, as I stand with one knee bent, hiding the second choice, while he considers the first.
The habit I adopted as a military child, to turn on my radar in a group and try to figure out what people like and then act as if I like that too, has never gone away. Part of me still feels the need to hide, waiting to see if and when it feels safe to come out. I never had children, so I’ve been able to stay in my cocoon a lot longer than most. I keep waiting to grow up and mature, to get past the need to look right or be right.
I now opt for footwear my mother might have chosen, except she would have balked at the price. The happier my feet feel in a pair of shoes, the more they cost me now.
Not long ago, I went to one of the two stores in my small city that carries comfortable shoes, to search for a pair of sandals. I wanted what seemed to be an oxymoron, summer shoes I could wear with dresses, that had enough support for long walks. Instead of considering shoes on the racks, I explained to the friendly clerk what I wanted. Moments later, she returned from the back, balancing boxes in a precarious stack that reached all the way up to her nose.
One after another, I tried on various choices, striding back and forth across the hard floor to assess comfort, and then checking out how the shoe looked, with yoga pants rolled to my knees. By the fourth pair, I’d fallen in love.
“I think it’s these,” I said to the clerk.
That’s when I realized I hadn’t asked the price of a single one.
Part of me didn’t want to ask, but instead to return to my college days, charging an outfit my mother wouldn’t have let me to buy, if she’d been there. The price wasn’t a concern. I was going to buy the sandals, no matter what they cost.
Still, I needed to take an extra deep breath, once the clerk revealed the damage. In the moment after, I wondered what I would tell my husband about why I’d spent enough to buy four pairs of sandals on only one.
“I’ll take them,” I said.
I smiled, thinking of the sizable rewards I would earn on my credit card from the purchase. And I kept grinning, as I fantasized using the rewards to travel to a city, where I could don a summer dress and those perfect sandals, comfortably walking around and sightseeing, not looking like a frumpy old lady in the process.
AUTHOR
Patty Somlo’s books, Hairway to Heaven Stories (Cherry Castle Publishing), The First to Disappear (Spuyten Duyvil) and Even When Trapped Behind Clouds: A Memoir of Quiet Grace (WiDo Publishing), have been Finalists in the International Book, Best Book, National Indie Excellence, American Fiction and Reader Views Literary Awards. Her next book, From Here to There, is forthcoming from Adelaide Books in 2019. www.pattysomlo.com.
Those thin suede shoes my sister, Carol, and I desperately wanted were called Gumdrops. My mother didn’t want to buy the shoes for us because she claimed they wouldn’t last. Her objection might also have been influenced by the fact that the Gumdrops were worthless when it came to support. The soft footwear felt more like slippers than shoes, the rubber sole barely there.
We wanted the shoes that tied like our sneakers, simple and black with rounded toes, because other girls our age were wearing them. We wanted the shoes because having them on our feet was a way to fit in.
My sister once told me a story, the theme of which I realize was shame. She was walking to school one day in those skimpy shoes, and noticed that the material had split apart on the side, where it was impossible not to be noticed. I’m thinking she started to cry then and decided to find her way home, skipping school for the day. As might be apparent, I have forgotten the details. What I distinctly recall is the heartbreaking image of those special shoes giving way.
But now I remember a different aspect of the story. There was a name-brand version of the shoes that cost more, which my mother refused to buy. Instead, my sister and I got the cheap imitations, possibly the reason the shoes came apart.
We were a military family. As such, we moved across the country, or the world, every year or every other year. Most kids struggle to fit in, to be liked, and definitely not to call attention to themselves in some negative way. Being the new kid year after year, is an endless show, in which life becomes a catwalk. The kid keeps donning different outfits, hoping to please an everchanging crowd.
As I got older and my classmates fell into distinctive crowds, distinguished by economic class and grades, looks and athletic ability, and even time spent in juvenile hall, I floated amongst the groups, never fitting comfortably in any one. Because I was smart, loved to read and got good grades, I sometimes hung around with the sons and daughters of the town’s well-off. But since money was often tight and my Air Force dad lived away from us much of the time, I befriended kids whose parents worked with their hands and their offspring were not destined for college.
In order to hang with kids whose style, musical tastes and what they did for fun differed, I needed to be a chameleon, turning into a mirror that reflected back what I saw. I was like the bare mannequin in a display window, waiting to be adorned with the next season’s fashion. Underneath the person I pretended to be, I didn’t know who I was.
Except, I had an idea that the girl I happened to be, beneath the various characters I’d layered on top, was an embarrassment I needed to hide. If asked at the time, I probably wouldn’t have managed to explain what about that girl I found lacking. I might have been able to acknowledge what fueled my desperate need to hide her -- the belief that if I ever let her out, not one single kid in my school or neighborhood would like me.
I went on like this for a long time, in part because I placed myself in situations where that hidden girl didn’t fit. For college, I opted to attend a private university in Washington, D.C., that my parents couldn’t really afford. So, there I was in a dorm surrounded by young women, wealthier than anyone I’d ever known. Down the hall was Andrea, whose father was the head of Columbia Pictures. Next door was Alice, who would become my best friend and roommate the following year. Her father was President of the Bank of Israel, and he and his wife had a house on Long Island, large enough to hold within its walls the last four places my family had lived.
The girls on my dorm floor, including Alice, had so many clothes, they needed to take each season’s outfits home to leave enough room in the closet to hang the current season. Every blouse, skirt and pair of pants I owned barely filled the space I was allotted. So, I cheated. My mother gave me a credit card, which for a brief time let me feel like one of the crowd. Years later, I can still remember one outfit I bought from a small, expensive boutique in Philadelphia. The pants were white, with cuffs. I paired them with a red, slim-fitting belted top that ended just below my thighs. I was thin as a noodle, thanks to lots of skipped meals and sweat-soaked exercise, and believed the outfit made me look like a model.
It never occurred to me that I felt the need to hide myself in order to be liked. I also didn’t realize that aiming my gaze at other people, in order to see myself, wasn’t a good way to be. Since I never questioned the practice I started in childhood, I continued with it, even as an adult.
Then I crashed, and feared I might never climb out of the deep crevasse in which I’d fallen. I knew I needed help. Thankfully, several friends were there to suggest where I might find it.
Nearly a year and a half into once-a-week sessions with a therapist, sitting across from her in a comfortable, pale gray leather chair, something shifted. Or rather, during the previous eighteen months, I had been learning how to dwell within my body. This new and unusual practice began with a ritual at the start of each session. Placing my feet firmly on the floor, back straight, hands resting loosely on my thighs, palms facing up, I would close my eyes and focus attention on my breath. Then I would imagine the breath traveling through my body, first coming into the nostrils, dribbling down the throat into my lungs, falling into my belly, sliding down to my legs, and eventually caressing my feet. During a session, if my therapist asked how I was feeling, a question that for the longest time I struggled to answer, I would close my eyes and start that same practice of breathing mindfully all over again, until I located an emotion, usually stuck in my belly.
About this time, I had a stunning revelation. I was in a relationship with a man who had trouble making time for me in his life. For some reason, I didn’t call the whole thing off. Instead, I kept thinking I could change him.
Alex had no trouble making plans with his sister to ride bikes early on a Saturday morning up Mt. Tamalpais, just north of San Francisco, where we lived. He easily arranged dates with male acquaintances for squash games at his athletic club. He also set aside times, well in advance, to join his mother for dinner.
When it came to me, Alex couldn’t commit to a movie, a few days away. He preferred to call me at the last minute, just before six on a Friday, to see if I might be available that night.
One Saturday morning after I’d stayed overnight at his flat, he woke me up early. I remembered that he had plans for a post-dawn bike ride with his sister that day. Even though I wasn’t included, I needed to get up, so he could drive me home. I wanted to stay in bed, as I felt tired, but I knew time was short.
My throat felt scratchy and raw when I swallowed, and my body ached.
“I don’t feel very well,” I said, when I emerged from the bathroom.
He didn’t respond. Instead, he raised his right wrist and checked his watch.
“It’s late,” he said. “We’ve gotta get going.”
It didn’t happen then, though I suppose that would have been the right moment. About twenty minutes later, Alex double-parked in front of my apartment building, and I stepped out of the car. For some reason, I waited, before closing the car door, crossing the street, and walking over to my building. Only after I’d punched in the code to the black metal front gate, listened for the buzzer, then pulled the gate open, stepped inside and climbed the six short sets of stairs to the third floor, slid the key into the lock, turned it, walked down the long narrow hall to my bedroom and sat down on the bed, did I realize what I’d been waiting for. I’d been waiting for Alex to express his concern and that he hoped I would feel better. I’d been waiting to hear him say he’d call later, to find out how I was doing or if I needed anything. As it turned out, I waited more than long enough. He didn’t say anything remotely like what I’d been waiting for. All he ended up saying was, “Goodbye.”
In the process of waiting, something changed. I saw him. For the first time, I turned the camera in my mind’s eye towards him, screwed on a close-up lens and focused. That’s when I realized that for the entire six months or so of our relationship, I had let Alex hold the camera. All that time, I kept trying to see the pictures he was taking of me. Now, I’d snatched the camera away from him, and I became the photographer.
With the viewfinder at my eye, I didn’t like the picture I was seeing. Instead of wondering whether Alex liked me, I could see that it didn’t matter. Whatever he might have thought of me, I now realized the man I’d been spending time with was a cold and uncaring guy. Suddenly, I understood that I wanted and needed the opposite sort of man in my life.
The following week, I called Alex and told him I didn’t want to see him anymore. After hanging up the phone, I felt certain I would never be in another relationship with a man like that again.
I’m not sure how it happens that girls are taught to pay more attention to how others see them than the way they see themselves. Or rather, we females gaze at our reflections in the mirror, trying to figure out what others will think of us. There are several good jokes that start out with a wife asking her husband, “Does this make me look fat?” For most women and girls, looking fat, or appearing unattractive, is no laughing matter.
On some level, women, especially those in my generation who came of age in the sixties, were raised to base views of themselves on how other people saw them. We tried to figure out how we were seen and then assumed that’s who we were.
Live long enough and you reach a point when you realize that at least about one or two things, your mother was right. After years of wearing inexpensive but stylish shoes, as well as high heels that pinched my toes together into a point and forced my foot into an unnaturally tall arch, I ended up with terrible feet. All I need do is look at the sorts of shoes I used to love and my toes ache.
For quite a few years now, I have been forced to wear comfortable shoes, no matter how they look. Thankfully, I’m part of a large generation of women who abused their feet, so many soothing shoes are designed to not look as supportive as they feel.
I’ve become an older woman who looks good at a distance. When I go on walks in my neighborhood, I sometimes notice much younger men staring at me as they drive by in their cars. Even though I’m long past the days when what I wear ought to matter, I still love to shop for clothes, and sometimes spend a long time getting ready before going out. After over twenty-five years of being with my husband, Richard, he is accustomed to being consulted about which shoe looks best with my outfit, as I stand with one knee bent, hiding the second choice, while he considers the first.
The habit I adopted as a military child, to turn on my radar in a group and try to figure out what people like and then act as if I like that too, has never gone away. Part of me still feels the need to hide, waiting to see if and when it feels safe to come out. I never had children, so I’ve been able to stay in my cocoon a lot longer than most. I keep waiting to grow up and mature, to get past the need to look right or be right.
I now opt for footwear my mother might have chosen, except she would have balked at the price. The happier my feet feel in a pair of shoes, the more they cost me now.
Not long ago, I went to one of the two stores in my small city that carries comfortable shoes, to search for a pair of sandals. I wanted what seemed to be an oxymoron, summer shoes I could wear with dresses, that had enough support for long walks. Instead of considering shoes on the racks, I explained to the friendly clerk what I wanted. Moments later, she returned from the back, balancing boxes in a precarious stack that reached all the way up to her nose.
One after another, I tried on various choices, striding back and forth across the hard floor to assess comfort, and then checking out how the shoe looked, with yoga pants rolled to my knees. By the fourth pair, I’d fallen in love.
“I think it’s these,” I said to the clerk.
That’s when I realized I hadn’t asked the price of a single one.
Part of me didn’t want to ask, but instead to return to my college days, charging an outfit my mother wouldn’t have let me to buy, if she’d been there. The price wasn’t a concern. I was going to buy the sandals, no matter what they cost.
Still, I needed to take an extra deep breath, once the clerk revealed the damage. In the moment after, I wondered what I would tell my husband about why I’d spent enough to buy four pairs of sandals on only one.
“I’ll take them,” I said.
I smiled, thinking of the sizable rewards I would earn on my credit card from the purchase. And I kept grinning, as I fantasized using the rewards to travel to a city, where I could don a summer dress and those perfect sandals, comfortably walking around and sightseeing, not looking like a frumpy old lady in the process.
AUTHOR
Patty Somlo’s books, Hairway to Heaven Stories (Cherry Castle Publishing), The First to Disappear (Spuyten Duyvil) and Even When Trapped Behind Clouds: A Memoir of Quiet Grace (WiDo Publishing), have been Finalists in the International Book, Best Book, National Indie Excellence, American Fiction and Reader Views Literary Awards. Her next book, From Here to There, is forthcoming from Adelaide Books in 2019. www.pattysomlo.com.
they call themselves indians
by Linda C. Wisniewski
8/23/19
Our busload of senior citizens came to a stop on a dirt road in New Mexico, unsure of what to expect. After the balloon fiesta in Albuquerque, and a couple of days in Santa Fe, we were bound for lunch in Tesuque pueblo, at the home of Louie Pena, a Native American conservationist and river guide.
One of New Mexico’s smallest pueblos, with a population of about 400, Tesuque has been in its present location in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains for over 800 years. Louie would meet us in the road, because the bus was too big to travel down his street. No photos were permitted, a tribal decision. We would see the place framed only by our preconceptions, and I knew I had a few of those.
My Polish grandparents came to North America in the 1890s, welcomed for their labor if not for their ethnicity. They were, in fact, recruited to work in rug, broom and glove factories. Louie’s people have been here much longer. We stood on what is left of their land, most of it taken from them by white settlers before my own people arrived. An oblivious little white girl, I watched Tonto and the Lone Ranger on a black and white TV. I didn’t learn about the genocide of Native peoples – not at school, at home, at church, or in the news. Not anywhere. But I know about it now. History is being rewritten to include the uncomfortable truth, and I knew it as I stood on that dirt road in Tesuque, squarely between an ancient unfamiliar culture and the dominant one I know so well.
Standing tall in the bright October sunshine, Louie described the traditional feast his wife had prepared, then led us down a path through a small field. We walked over a dry ditch on a makeshift bridge of boards, passing an old TV tube and other unrecognizable-to-me appliance parts in the weeds. The neighborhood lacked the type of landscaping my friends and I spend bundles of money on each spring and fall. We passed no ornamental plants in pots, no hanging baskets on porches. Dogs who might be German shepherds sniffed our legs and hands, tails wagging. No leashes, no barking. Though people give them names, Louie said, and feed and pet them, they stay outside. We filed past a trampoline and a toddler’s plastic riding toy in the yard, and Louie joked the toys were “not for me, for my grandkids.”
Native art adorned the walls inside his home – baskets, paintings, rattles and feathers - and Native objects – dolls, pots, and dishes - filled a glass curio cabinet in a corner near the TV. Louie said he liked to watch the Boston Red Sox, and we all relaxed a little.
An enormous bear head looked down from the living room wall. Louie told us how he killed that bear as it stalked the village when he was only 14, while we devoured forkfuls of shredded chicken, potato salad and a hot corn dish I wish I had the recipe for. As he talked, his wife Serena served the food with quiet grace. Two of her thirteen grandchildren, a boy and a girl, moved expertly and quietly around the large open kitchen, emptying pots and filling serving bowls.
We sat on picnic benches in rapt attention as Louie passed around jars of dried herbs, his medicine. He talked about his classes in sustainable living, encouraging us to love our “Earth Mom.” I’ve forgotten most of what he said, but I remember the sense of comfort he and his family created. I didn’t want to leave.
Before meeting Louie’s family, I believed indigenous Americans lived sad and poor lives, confined to reservations. I thought they were mostly alcoholic, starving, and ineffective protestors against oil and gas pipelines. But in the pueblo, I saw self-confident people promoting a healthy future while teaching their children to have pride in their culture. Louie and his family take tourists on Feast and Float rafting trips, teaching about ecology and serving natural Native foods. I thought of them later as I made my own soup and sorted laundry at home, doing the little things that make up my comfortable life.
I live as an elder Anglo woman in an increasingly diverse country, and I am determined to stay awake and aware. I want to know more. On the internet, I read about the tension between the Natives and Anglos over a plan to build a casino near the Santa Fe Opera, and about Indians charging access fees to Anglo people with homes on Native land. I read about the protests at the Santa Fe Plaza where I posed for a photo, and where the Spanish conquest of the Indians is celebrated every year.
Louie and all the tribal people we met in New Mexico called themselves Indians, but I wanted to distance myself from the Cowboys and Indians ethos of my youth, when we thought we knew who the bad guys were: not us. I continued to use the term I believed to be politically correct: Native Americans.
Back home, I discovered that the U.S. government coined the term in the late 20th century and that 50% of tribal people in the American West call themselves Indians. Many prefer the name of their particular tribe: Pueblo, Navaho, Ute, Zuni, Apache, Comanche. Louie Pena is Tewa.
Like many others, I often feel compelled to form a strong opinion about matters I don’t fully understand. I don’t know how Louie and his family feel about the protests or the casinos or the access fees. Or why they don’t care about landscaping their neighborhood. I don’t know how much I have assumed about them. I only know my visit to Tesuque changed my perception of tribal peoples and reminded me, at my advanced age, to listen and learn and prepare to be surprised. Now to sign up for that rafting trip…
AUTHOR
Linda C. Wisniewski lives and writes in Bucks County, PA, where she volunteers at the historic home of author Pearl S. Buck. Her work has been published in newspapers, literary magazines and anthologies, both print and online. Her memoir, Off Kilter, has been published by Pearlsong Press. Linda's first novel, Where the Stork Flies, is forthcoming from Sand Hill Review Press. Visit her blog at www.lindawis.com.
8/23/19
Our busload of senior citizens came to a stop on a dirt road in New Mexico, unsure of what to expect. After the balloon fiesta in Albuquerque, and a couple of days in Santa Fe, we were bound for lunch in Tesuque pueblo, at the home of Louie Pena, a Native American conservationist and river guide.
One of New Mexico’s smallest pueblos, with a population of about 400, Tesuque has been in its present location in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains for over 800 years. Louie would meet us in the road, because the bus was too big to travel down his street. No photos were permitted, a tribal decision. We would see the place framed only by our preconceptions, and I knew I had a few of those.
My Polish grandparents came to North America in the 1890s, welcomed for their labor if not for their ethnicity. They were, in fact, recruited to work in rug, broom and glove factories. Louie’s people have been here much longer. We stood on what is left of their land, most of it taken from them by white settlers before my own people arrived. An oblivious little white girl, I watched Tonto and the Lone Ranger on a black and white TV. I didn’t learn about the genocide of Native peoples – not at school, at home, at church, or in the news. Not anywhere. But I know about it now. History is being rewritten to include the uncomfortable truth, and I knew it as I stood on that dirt road in Tesuque, squarely between an ancient unfamiliar culture and the dominant one I know so well.
Standing tall in the bright October sunshine, Louie described the traditional feast his wife had prepared, then led us down a path through a small field. We walked over a dry ditch on a makeshift bridge of boards, passing an old TV tube and other unrecognizable-to-me appliance parts in the weeds. The neighborhood lacked the type of landscaping my friends and I spend bundles of money on each spring and fall. We passed no ornamental plants in pots, no hanging baskets on porches. Dogs who might be German shepherds sniffed our legs and hands, tails wagging. No leashes, no barking. Though people give them names, Louie said, and feed and pet them, they stay outside. We filed past a trampoline and a toddler’s plastic riding toy in the yard, and Louie joked the toys were “not for me, for my grandkids.”
Native art adorned the walls inside his home – baskets, paintings, rattles and feathers - and Native objects – dolls, pots, and dishes - filled a glass curio cabinet in a corner near the TV. Louie said he liked to watch the Boston Red Sox, and we all relaxed a little.
An enormous bear head looked down from the living room wall. Louie told us how he killed that bear as it stalked the village when he was only 14, while we devoured forkfuls of shredded chicken, potato salad and a hot corn dish I wish I had the recipe for. As he talked, his wife Serena served the food with quiet grace. Two of her thirteen grandchildren, a boy and a girl, moved expertly and quietly around the large open kitchen, emptying pots and filling serving bowls.
We sat on picnic benches in rapt attention as Louie passed around jars of dried herbs, his medicine. He talked about his classes in sustainable living, encouraging us to love our “Earth Mom.” I’ve forgotten most of what he said, but I remember the sense of comfort he and his family created. I didn’t want to leave.
Before meeting Louie’s family, I believed indigenous Americans lived sad and poor lives, confined to reservations. I thought they were mostly alcoholic, starving, and ineffective protestors against oil and gas pipelines. But in the pueblo, I saw self-confident people promoting a healthy future while teaching their children to have pride in their culture. Louie and his family take tourists on Feast and Float rafting trips, teaching about ecology and serving natural Native foods. I thought of them later as I made my own soup and sorted laundry at home, doing the little things that make up my comfortable life.
I live as an elder Anglo woman in an increasingly diverse country, and I am determined to stay awake and aware. I want to know more. On the internet, I read about the tension between the Natives and Anglos over a plan to build a casino near the Santa Fe Opera, and about Indians charging access fees to Anglo people with homes on Native land. I read about the protests at the Santa Fe Plaza where I posed for a photo, and where the Spanish conquest of the Indians is celebrated every year.
Louie and all the tribal people we met in New Mexico called themselves Indians, but I wanted to distance myself from the Cowboys and Indians ethos of my youth, when we thought we knew who the bad guys were: not us. I continued to use the term I believed to be politically correct: Native Americans.
Back home, I discovered that the U.S. government coined the term in the late 20th century and that 50% of tribal people in the American West call themselves Indians. Many prefer the name of their particular tribe: Pueblo, Navaho, Ute, Zuni, Apache, Comanche. Louie Pena is Tewa.
Like many others, I often feel compelled to form a strong opinion about matters I don’t fully understand. I don’t know how Louie and his family feel about the protests or the casinos or the access fees. Or why they don’t care about landscaping their neighborhood. I don’t know how much I have assumed about them. I only know my visit to Tesuque changed my perception of tribal peoples and reminded me, at my advanced age, to listen and learn and prepare to be surprised. Now to sign up for that rafting trip…
AUTHOR
Linda C. Wisniewski lives and writes in Bucks County, PA, where she volunteers at the historic home of author Pearl S. Buck. Her work has been published in newspapers, literary magazines and anthologies, both print and online. Her memoir, Off Kilter, has been published by Pearlsong Press. Linda's first novel, Where the Stork Flies, is forthcoming from Sand Hill Review Press. Visit her blog at www.lindawis.com.
He's So Shy
by Bradley Bazzle
Recently I was in Oxford for four months, living in an apartment without internet access. Living in Oxford was interesting, but living without home internet was perhaps even more interesting. Many of the effects were positive. Not being bombarded by the news, for instance, helped me concentrate on my writing. And the absence of social media helped me pretend I wasn’t missing out on anything. Other effects were less predictable, however.
After about two months, I realized I hadn’t listened to music—I mean deliberately listened to it, as opposed to heardit in a grocery store or wherever—since leaving home. And on the few occasions I did listen to music, I was powerfully affected by it. One afternoon, while trying to work at an empty bar called the Jericho Tavern, I found myself unduly distracted by the music they were playing, and then, after listening closely, a little moved by it. And this wasn’t music I would have listened to on purpose, like the Pointer Sisters. The singer sounded more like the UK version of Jason Mraz, only with electronic beeps and whirrs that I supposed had become de rigueurin the two months since I listened to music.
Another side-effect of living without music was that songs never got stuck in my head. Before, I would get songs stuck in my head for days, even weeks. Onetime I had “Neutron Dance” by the Pointer Sisters stuck in my head for over a month. The song colors my memory of that entire period of my life, which included a breakup and its grizzly aftermath. It started (the “Neutron Dance” period, I mean) because I was listening to the song on Youtube deliberately, though it’s hard to imagine that now. I believed it was an among the greatest songs ever recorded, even better than “He’s So Shy.” How wrong I was. By the end, I would have paid hundreds of dollars to replace it in my head with “He’s So Shy” or even “Betcha Got a Chick on the Side.”
Another interesting thing about Oxford is that people there aren’t into the Pointer Sisters. One evening, while I was trying to make friends at the same bar, a well-dressed man sat down on the barstool next to mine. He was older than I, which was unusual in that neighborhood. After a polite interval, he asked what I was thinking about.
“Pardon?” I said.
“You look pensive,” he said.
“Well, honestly, I’m listening closely to the music.” I explained my situation: how I was living without the internet and found myself affected more powerfully by music for that reason, even music I didn’t particularly like.
“What music do you like?” he asked.
“The Pointer Sisters,” I said.
He smiled, which in retrospect I interpret as surprise—he probably hadn’t thought about the Pointer Sisters since their peak in 1984 with “Automatic” and “Jump (for My Love)”—but at the time I took the smile to mean that he too liked the Pointer Sisters. So I asked him who was his favorite Pointer Sister, and what did he think of The Pointer Sisters Live in Billings? Live in Billingswas the first album to feature Issa, who was, as Ruth’s daughter, the first second-generation Pointer Sister and not actually a sister. Later, Sadako, a third-generation Pointer Sister, would be added to the lineup. I was explaining all this when I saw that the man’s eyes had wandered. In desperation, I began to offer the names of other bands, hoping to re-spark his interest.
“Do you like Sister Sledge?” I asked. “What about Chic? DeBarge? The Staple Singers?”
But the man was gone.
For a time—before getting perspective, months later, by writing this—I thought the man had detected the inauthenticity with which I offered those other names and been repulsed by it, or at least had thought me a low character who would say anything to prop up conversation. Sister Sledge was great, don’t get me wrong, but they didn’t write their own music and were hemmed in by their tiresome “nice girl” act. The Pointer Sisters weren’tnice girls. Really, they weren’t even girls. Ruth was thirty-two when their breakout single, a cover of the Bruce Springsteen song “Fire,” hit the charts in 1978. Ten years later, in their classic rendition of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” for the Very Special Christmas charity album, all three sisters sound a few egg nogs deep into their evening. One always gets the sense from the Sisters, even during their most insouciant songs like “Slow Hand,” that their soulful voices and not-so-young bodies have history. The Pointer Sisters are women. Confident women. And if the English don’t understand that, what can I say?
That my own favorite sister is June, may she rest in peace, should come as no surprise. One of the joys of the Pointer Sisters is that there’s a Sister for everyone. Yes, it was Ruth who sang their best songs, in that deep sultry voice of hers, and who of course donned their most iconic outfit, the fabulous oversized white skirt-suit from the “Automatic” video. And it was Anita, the prettiest, who sang their early hits and penned their first, the country song (!) “Fairytale.” But it was skinny, seemingly carefree June who won my heart: “That sweet little boy who caught my eye—he’s so shy!”
For some, knowing that June’s bubbly exterior disguised addiction, even anguish, adds a tinge of sadness to her exuberant singing. Not for me. When I hear June today I sense more than ever that she sings to me directly, and from an abyss even lonelier than any I can imagine.
AUTHOR:
Bradley Bazzle’s first novel, Trash Mountain, won the Red Hen Press Fiction Award, judged by Steve Almond. His short stories can be found in The Missouri Review, The Iowa Review, New England Review, Epoch, Third Coast, Web Conjunctions, Bad Penny Review (as Dirk Morgus), and online at bradleybazzle.com. He lives in Athens, Georgia, with his wife and daughter.
After about two months, I realized I hadn’t listened to music—I mean deliberately listened to it, as opposed to heardit in a grocery store or wherever—since leaving home. And on the few occasions I did listen to music, I was powerfully affected by it. One afternoon, while trying to work at an empty bar called the Jericho Tavern, I found myself unduly distracted by the music they were playing, and then, after listening closely, a little moved by it. And this wasn’t music I would have listened to on purpose, like the Pointer Sisters. The singer sounded more like the UK version of Jason Mraz, only with electronic beeps and whirrs that I supposed had become de rigueurin the two months since I listened to music.
Another side-effect of living without music was that songs never got stuck in my head. Before, I would get songs stuck in my head for days, even weeks. Onetime I had “Neutron Dance” by the Pointer Sisters stuck in my head for over a month. The song colors my memory of that entire period of my life, which included a breakup and its grizzly aftermath. It started (the “Neutron Dance” period, I mean) because I was listening to the song on Youtube deliberately, though it’s hard to imagine that now. I believed it was an among the greatest songs ever recorded, even better than “He’s So Shy.” How wrong I was. By the end, I would have paid hundreds of dollars to replace it in my head with “He’s So Shy” or even “Betcha Got a Chick on the Side.”
Another interesting thing about Oxford is that people there aren’t into the Pointer Sisters. One evening, while I was trying to make friends at the same bar, a well-dressed man sat down on the barstool next to mine. He was older than I, which was unusual in that neighborhood. After a polite interval, he asked what I was thinking about.
“Pardon?” I said.
“You look pensive,” he said.
“Well, honestly, I’m listening closely to the music.” I explained my situation: how I was living without the internet and found myself affected more powerfully by music for that reason, even music I didn’t particularly like.
“What music do you like?” he asked.
“The Pointer Sisters,” I said.
He smiled, which in retrospect I interpret as surprise—he probably hadn’t thought about the Pointer Sisters since their peak in 1984 with “Automatic” and “Jump (for My Love)”—but at the time I took the smile to mean that he too liked the Pointer Sisters. So I asked him who was his favorite Pointer Sister, and what did he think of The Pointer Sisters Live in Billings? Live in Billingswas the first album to feature Issa, who was, as Ruth’s daughter, the first second-generation Pointer Sister and not actually a sister. Later, Sadako, a third-generation Pointer Sister, would be added to the lineup. I was explaining all this when I saw that the man’s eyes had wandered. In desperation, I began to offer the names of other bands, hoping to re-spark his interest.
“Do you like Sister Sledge?” I asked. “What about Chic? DeBarge? The Staple Singers?”
But the man was gone.
For a time—before getting perspective, months later, by writing this—I thought the man had detected the inauthenticity with which I offered those other names and been repulsed by it, or at least had thought me a low character who would say anything to prop up conversation. Sister Sledge was great, don’t get me wrong, but they didn’t write their own music and were hemmed in by their tiresome “nice girl” act. The Pointer Sisters weren’tnice girls. Really, they weren’t even girls. Ruth was thirty-two when their breakout single, a cover of the Bruce Springsteen song “Fire,” hit the charts in 1978. Ten years later, in their classic rendition of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” for the Very Special Christmas charity album, all three sisters sound a few egg nogs deep into their evening. One always gets the sense from the Sisters, even during their most insouciant songs like “Slow Hand,” that their soulful voices and not-so-young bodies have history. The Pointer Sisters are women. Confident women. And if the English don’t understand that, what can I say?
That my own favorite sister is June, may she rest in peace, should come as no surprise. One of the joys of the Pointer Sisters is that there’s a Sister for everyone. Yes, it was Ruth who sang their best songs, in that deep sultry voice of hers, and who of course donned their most iconic outfit, the fabulous oversized white skirt-suit from the “Automatic” video. And it was Anita, the prettiest, who sang their early hits and penned their first, the country song (!) “Fairytale.” But it was skinny, seemingly carefree June who won my heart: “That sweet little boy who caught my eye—he’s so shy!”
For some, knowing that June’s bubbly exterior disguised addiction, even anguish, adds a tinge of sadness to her exuberant singing. Not for me. When I hear June today I sense more than ever that she sings to me directly, and from an abyss even lonelier than any I can imagine.
AUTHOR:
Bradley Bazzle’s first novel, Trash Mountain, won the Red Hen Press Fiction Award, judged by Steve Almond. His short stories can be found in The Missouri Review, The Iowa Review, New England Review, Epoch, Third Coast, Web Conjunctions, Bad Penny Review (as Dirk Morgus), and online at bradleybazzle.com. He lives in Athens, Georgia, with his wife and daughter.
What #notallmen gets right
by Ariadne Wolf
I’m standing on the platform at a BART station. The older woman I started talking to a few minutes ago has turned away to take a call. I am left standing awkwardly alongside her husband, who has already expressed his regard for me by patting me, a complete stranger and a young woman besides, several times on the shoulder.
I’m feeling uncomfortable. I’m feeling frustrated and alone. I make up an excuse, and I start to walk away.
The man extends a hand for me to shake. I eye it nervously, then step forward and gingerly take the proferred hand. He slaps his other hand on top of mine and, when I attempt to pull away, he refuses to let me go.
Seconds pass, then minutes. Finally I am able to jerk my hand away. I stumble to a nearby concrete bench, feeling flustered and aggravated. I feel as though somebody just grabbed my ass on the subway. I feel the way I do all too often as a young woman traveling much of this country alone.
There are so many ways to tell this story. There are so many ways this story could end.
I could tell you about the man who moved his things over to the next seat so I could sit down on the BART train. I could tell you about the kind man at the airport Information counter who pointed me on my way. I could tell you about the man who checked me in at Global Entry, who made a point to smile at me, only at me, and to give me a calming look of kindness. I could tell you about the stiff man behind the desk at Global Entry, the man who warmed up to me quickly while I charmed him with my nerves and my vulnerability. The look that man gave me as I strode away was sweet and almost paternal, and I liked that. I liked how taken care of it made me feel, that one instance of feeling like a young girl protected by an authoritative male.
I will tell you, because I feel I ought to, that the man on the platform was white, whereas none of the other men were. I do not believe that this one identity always makes a difference but I believe in many cases, in many encounters I’ve personally had with misogyny, this one identity very often makes a difference.
I could tell you that the first man, like my father, was Joe Biden’s age. I could point out to you that he likely grew up in an era that told white men they could do anything they wished with women’s bodies, anything they could get away with. I could tell you how horrified I am that, yet again, I let a man fitting this demographic get away with treating my body this way.
Instead what I will tell you is this. It is natural, a biological imperative, to notice the people who threaten our survival. It is biological to recognize that our ability to defend the space of our own personal territory, whether that is our body or our room or our house, is vital to our survival. To obsess over any invasion into these things, any threats to our survival, is undoubtedly hardwired into our DNA.
Still.
Of the many, many men I encountered during that one day, that one trip to the airport and back, the only man to directly invade my space was also the man I gave the most of my time and energy to, all voluntarily. Most of the men I encountered ignored me, and I repaid the favor. The rest, a handful to be sure, were all sources of deep pleasure and kindness that I will take with me.
I am telling you this because I think it is so important to remember the kindness. I am telling you this because sometimes I live with the overpowering belief that every man I encounter will be a possible source of pain in my life. Not only does this cause me to do harm to the men in my life, it prevents me from keeping myself safe. This belief does not even allow me to do the one thing this belief is supposed to do above all: protect me
.
If I accept the notion that no man can be trusted, then I take the awful personal assistant jobs that are really only about playing mama to a grown man-child. I put up with the harassing comments from bosses, and even the impromptu and unwanted embraces from them. I allow men like that man on the platform, men like my father, to take up my time and energy, because I have myself convinced that I will never experience better treatment from a man than that.
In the end, the person who loses out as a result of this belief is me.
I know, I know. We’re feminists, we’re supposed to ignore the phrase “not all men” as the rallying cry of the closet misogynist. And yet…I find myself agreeing with this perspective. More and more, as I travel the world, as I encounter men from every corner of the planet and from all walks of life, the main thing I see is not what I expected to. The main thing I see is not misogyny, not patriarchy, not cruelty or the urge to abuse. Actually, what I see is a great deal of kindness, frustrated like mine is behind confused notions of politeness and contradictory ideas of how to be a good human being. What I see in the men around me is, fundamentally, something rather like what I see in myself.
I understand the need to skewer men verbally at certain times in our lives. I understand how doing this unites us women, creates a sisterhood that extends across cultures and even across time. I can think, god, men are awful, and I know somewhere in Medieval England Katherine of Aragon is pumping her fist in the air and cheering me on. I know somewhere my mother’s mother is screaming you go girl. I know that as long as I stay in this emotional place, I can walk into any women’s bathroom in the country and immediately strike up a kinship with the person next to me at the sink.
This all remains true. I’m just no longer sure it’s such a good thing.
What I am sure of is that believing all men are to blame for crimes like rape and sex trafficking is like blaming my teachers for not saving me from my father’s abuse when I was a child. Is this an understandable reaction? Heck yeah. Is it a correct one? A fair one? An adult reaction, even?
No, no, and no again.
I remember how I felt when I realized the only person to blame for my father’s abuse was my father. I felt bereft. I felt the world come crashing down. I felt as though my entire identity was in question, because suddenly my father was not The Father. Not God the Father, not the father of every grown daughter on this planet. Just mine. I was the only one who suffered through his actions. I’m the only one who has to live with what that feels like. Just me.
Similarly, when I accept that the number of men who would hold my hand hostage in public is actually relatively few, what I feel most strongly is my own aloneness. Suddenly I am not the victim of some universal Western experience of feminine suffering. Instead, I’m just me, caught up in a situation I could not control or escape from, suffering all by myself.
This is not an easy thing to feel. It is a terrible place for anyone to ever have to be. Yet this is the reality of pain, of being victimized. The crime is always unique. The act is always its own. And we, in the course of suffering from and coming to terms with it, we are on our own.
I am on my own with my personal pain, just as I am alone with my art. Whether both or either one ever means something profound or useful to another living being, is entirely up to me. This can be devastating, or it can be empowering. The choice is up to only me.
I cannot pretend to be any kind of expert on the men’s rights movement, or on the beginning of the slogan Not All Men. What I do know, however, what I know as deeply as I have ever known anything in my life, is that goodness exists in men as well as it does in women. I know that enforcing the already arbitrary gender divide in language and in communion was the single worst thing feminism has ever done for me. I know that I am no longer on board with it.
I know that feminism, amidst all the tremendous good it has done, has also bizarrely striven to convince very good men that the only thing separating them from being that old man grabbing my body on that platform and not letting go, is constant vigilance and a liberal dose of self-hate.
I know that this is not even close to being true. Not even close.
AUTHOR
Ariadne Wolf works cross-genre in Creative Nonfiction, Fantasy, and Experimental Fiction, Screenwriting, and just about everything else you can think of. Wolf has completed her MFA in Creative Writing and she is currently exploring non-coastal America.
I’m feeling uncomfortable. I’m feeling frustrated and alone. I make up an excuse, and I start to walk away.
The man extends a hand for me to shake. I eye it nervously, then step forward and gingerly take the proferred hand. He slaps his other hand on top of mine and, when I attempt to pull away, he refuses to let me go.
Seconds pass, then minutes. Finally I am able to jerk my hand away. I stumble to a nearby concrete bench, feeling flustered and aggravated. I feel as though somebody just grabbed my ass on the subway. I feel the way I do all too often as a young woman traveling much of this country alone.
There are so many ways to tell this story. There are so many ways this story could end.
I could tell you about the man who moved his things over to the next seat so I could sit down on the BART train. I could tell you about the kind man at the airport Information counter who pointed me on my way. I could tell you about the man who checked me in at Global Entry, who made a point to smile at me, only at me, and to give me a calming look of kindness. I could tell you about the stiff man behind the desk at Global Entry, the man who warmed up to me quickly while I charmed him with my nerves and my vulnerability. The look that man gave me as I strode away was sweet and almost paternal, and I liked that. I liked how taken care of it made me feel, that one instance of feeling like a young girl protected by an authoritative male.
I will tell you, because I feel I ought to, that the man on the platform was white, whereas none of the other men were. I do not believe that this one identity always makes a difference but I believe in many cases, in many encounters I’ve personally had with misogyny, this one identity very often makes a difference.
I could tell you that the first man, like my father, was Joe Biden’s age. I could point out to you that he likely grew up in an era that told white men they could do anything they wished with women’s bodies, anything they could get away with. I could tell you how horrified I am that, yet again, I let a man fitting this demographic get away with treating my body this way.
Instead what I will tell you is this. It is natural, a biological imperative, to notice the people who threaten our survival. It is biological to recognize that our ability to defend the space of our own personal territory, whether that is our body or our room or our house, is vital to our survival. To obsess over any invasion into these things, any threats to our survival, is undoubtedly hardwired into our DNA.
Still.
Of the many, many men I encountered during that one day, that one trip to the airport and back, the only man to directly invade my space was also the man I gave the most of my time and energy to, all voluntarily. Most of the men I encountered ignored me, and I repaid the favor. The rest, a handful to be sure, were all sources of deep pleasure and kindness that I will take with me.
I am telling you this because I think it is so important to remember the kindness. I am telling you this because sometimes I live with the overpowering belief that every man I encounter will be a possible source of pain in my life. Not only does this cause me to do harm to the men in my life, it prevents me from keeping myself safe. This belief does not even allow me to do the one thing this belief is supposed to do above all: protect me
.
If I accept the notion that no man can be trusted, then I take the awful personal assistant jobs that are really only about playing mama to a grown man-child. I put up with the harassing comments from bosses, and even the impromptu and unwanted embraces from them. I allow men like that man on the platform, men like my father, to take up my time and energy, because I have myself convinced that I will never experience better treatment from a man than that.
In the end, the person who loses out as a result of this belief is me.
I know, I know. We’re feminists, we’re supposed to ignore the phrase “not all men” as the rallying cry of the closet misogynist. And yet…I find myself agreeing with this perspective. More and more, as I travel the world, as I encounter men from every corner of the planet and from all walks of life, the main thing I see is not what I expected to. The main thing I see is not misogyny, not patriarchy, not cruelty or the urge to abuse. Actually, what I see is a great deal of kindness, frustrated like mine is behind confused notions of politeness and contradictory ideas of how to be a good human being. What I see in the men around me is, fundamentally, something rather like what I see in myself.
I understand the need to skewer men verbally at certain times in our lives. I understand how doing this unites us women, creates a sisterhood that extends across cultures and even across time. I can think, god, men are awful, and I know somewhere in Medieval England Katherine of Aragon is pumping her fist in the air and cheering me on. I know somewhere my mother’s mother is screaming you go girl. I know that as long as I stay in this emotional place, I can walk into any women’s bathroom in the country and immediately strike up a kinship with the person next to me at the sink.
This all remains true. I’m just no longer sure it’s such a good thing.
What I am sure of is that believing all men are to blame for crimes like rape and sex trafficking is like blaming my teachers for not saving me from my father’s abuse when I was a child. Is this an understandable reaction? Heck yeah. Is it a correct one? A fair one? An adult reaction, even?
No, no, and no again.
I remember how I felt when I realized the only person to blame for my father’s abuse was my father. I felt bereft. I felt the world come crashing down. I felt as though my entire identity was in question, because suddenly my father was not The Father. Not God the Father, not the father of every grown daughter on this planet. Just mine. I was the only one who suffered through his actions. I’m the only one who has to live with what that feels like. Just me.
Similarly, when I accept that the number of men who would hold my hand hostage in public is actually relatively few, what I feel most strongly is my own aloneness. Suddenly I am not the victim of some universal Western experience of feminine suffering. Instead, I’m just me, caught up in a situation I could not control or escape from, suffering all by myself.
This is not an easy thing to feel. It is a terrible place for anyone to ever have to be. Yet this is the reality of pain, of being victimized. The crime is always unique. The act is always its own. And we, in the course of suffering from and coming to terms with it, we are on our own.
I am on my own with my personal pain, just as I am alone with my art. Whether both or either one ever means something profound or useful to another living being, is entirely up to me. This can be devastating, or it can be empowering. The choice is up to only me.
I cannot pretend to be any kind of expert on the men’s rights movement, or on the beginning of the slogan Not All Men. What I do know, however, what I know as deeply as I have ever known anything in my life, is that goodness exists in men as well as it does in women. I know that enforcing the already arbitrary gender divide in language and in communion was the single worst thing feminism has ever done for me. I know that I am no longer on board with it.
I know that feminism, amidst all the tremendous good it has done, has also bizarrely striven to convince very good men that the only thing separating them from being that old man grabbing my body on that platform and not letting go, is constant vigilance and a liberal dose of self-hate.
I know that this is not even close to being true. Not even close.
AUTHOR
Ariadne Wolf works cross-genre in Creative Nonfiction, Fantasy, and Experimental Fiction, Screenwriting, and just about everything else you can think of. Wolf has completed her MFA in Creative Writing and she is currently exploring non-coastal America.
