 |
May 12, 2006
Strong women and their anger
How I'd love to feel light in my body. All
bright and lit up inside, moving like a firefly or a bright,
small fish. Strong and balanced and breathing from my belly.
Delicate and strong.
I used to confuse strength with ANGER!!! Oh
god, this is huge. I just remembered that I used to confuse strength - strong
women and men - with anger. I've always been terrified of my
anger! I don't want to become my grandmother. My mean grandmother.
Fucking bitch treated me like shit. Embarrassed me in public,
and only said nice things when there were people there to hear
and she could brag me into having something to do with her.
I knew exactly who she was, because I carried
part of her in me. Smart, hard as nails, tough, abrasive, angry,
abusive. She was also weak. I could FEEL her softness, shyness,
and fear, and I loved that about her. That part of her was me,
and I kept my finger on her pulse. Maybe she didn't like that.
She refused to speak with my mother - really, really want to
dissociate.
Placate her, calm her down. Someone shut her
up. She's going to ruin everything. That house was splitting
apart from the inside. She pulled a pistol on my fucking grandfather
because he wanted to maintain contact with his own daughter,
after she brought shame onto our fragile family. Want to cry.
But my mother smelled money in that wounded, influential man.
One-armed lawyer. Scion of the community, he was, and she must
have seemed like a breath of fucking sunshine to an that man.
My mother was beautiful, light and crazy, but he never bargained
for the shit she brought down on him. Want to dissociate.
Okay, should I tell the damn living-with-the-lawyer
story, or stay with being afraid of my strength? I'm a strong
woman. I could have stayed wimpy and shy, after going through
my shit, but I'm leaving this crumbling shroud. No more living
in the tomb. Breathing heavy - hard to even think about the bad
time.
I had to leave the only home I'd ever known,
the only friends I'd ever known, and move to another town, and
nobody in my family gave a shit that I was fucking terrified.
I felt like I couldn't breathe, couldn't eat, for months without
feeling like I had to throw up. That's when I realized how insignificant
I was to everyone in my life.
Moved to another house, another school. Blue
bedroom. My consolation for moving was picking the colors of
my walls. Blue. I hate blue now. Blue pool in the backyard. Definite
upward move for the family. And then my mother met Gordon.
Oh, that reminds me of the time my mother told
me about sleeping with Uncle George, who was married to Aunt
Marie. He wasn't really our uncle, just my grandparents' oldest
friends, but she said she slept with George. I'll bet I was 15
when she told me that.
She met Gordon, and this guy was old. He sat
on the draft board, and not one of his four sons went to Vietnam.
He was huge and he had one arm and he was 22 years older than
my mother (want to diss). Bad, bad years. My grandmother never
liked any of my mother's men, including my father. She abandoned
my mother after she married my father, and they weren't speaking
when my father was killed and I was born. Bet my grandmother
finally forgave her after that.
This is my body. This is where I live. This
is where I Alex, live. I am a turtle, and I am protected here
in my body. Imprisoned here. If there was a way, I'd totally
leave it here. Leave it where? In the care of strangers. Lonely
body, nobody loves you. Lonely body, lonely baby body. Lonely
baby body.
Where does my mother reside in me? I am curled
around and over her, protecting her inside my body. Inside my
chest and belly, I'm wrapping myself around her. She's the grit
inside the oyster. I'm birthing her as a pearl and no body's
birthing me. I'm underground and she is all the world. I'm so
tired of protecting her. My father's vapor and fog, drifting
around me, sometimes he's in my mouth, but he isn't wrapped around
me, and my back is too exposed. I cannot sense the back of my
body. I'm numb beneath my turtle shell. My body, buried in the
shell. Glossy, hard and black, the river turtle, with blood red
somewhere on my body. I'll take the black turtle as my totem
instead of the crow.
|
