A Failed Intervention

Posted on 04/27/2008 by Jane Devin

I see her through the clouded lens of decades past, the tiny girl with the weary smile, and the sure, square hands darkened with charcoal and chalk. At nine, she built her world of art on sidewalks and cement walls, springing dark-eyed figures out of marigold fields, and white rabbits out of wishing wells.

She had a quiet grace and sensitive hearing. I remember her brother standing next to her in the empty schoolyard one summer day and screaming loudly in her ear. She collapsed to the ground crying, covering her head as if the sirens had gone off and the world was coming to an end. Her brother scoffed and walked away satisfied. I stood with my back against a wall, watching her world crumble, my eyes darting left and right, for what seemed like hours.

“It’s okay,” I finally whispered, gathering up her chalk and charcoal and putting them in my bike basket. “It will be okay.” I repeated myself dozens of times, not knowing what else to say, and finally she lifted her braided head and nodded at me with a tear stained face.

She wanted to hold hands on the way home, so we did, my left hand in her right, my other hand pushing my bike. We walked in silence, with another secret between us, one of several, and our shared knowledge bonded us together more tightly than any game of double-Dutch rope or cats-in-the-cradle ever could.

Ms. Mary Mack Mack Mack and hands wrapped in brightly colored strings were only covers, dusty book jackets under which all the real stories stirred and collided. We were, underneath the false sing-song rhythm of childhood, The Girls Who Knew Things (no one else knew). We were The Girls Who Felt Things (that no one else could guess). We were The Girls With Secrets (that couldn’t be trusted to the world). We were best friends.

On the day she was to move thousands of miles away, I rode my bike all the way to Idlewild Park, a leg-numbing journey of ten to twelve miles. I rode the kiddie train around the park and glared at anyone who looked in my direction. I wanted a fight. A knock-down, drag-out, fists flying fight. I wanted to beat the whole world up. I wanted others to know my pain, and I wanted pain enough to cry.

I did cry, eventually. Under the cover of pine trees and dusk, when I knew for certain that the moving truck would be gone. When I no longer had to see the sad brown eyes staring back at me, or hear the promises of daily letters and one-day-we-will visits.

She was gone. And she took with her all the art and color and trust that had filled me. I felt drained of everything except defeat. I screamed into the Truckee river, the scream of a wild, abandoned child, and I bitterly harbored half a hope that she would hear me.

I hear you screaming now, my friend. And I know, I really do, how hard this is for you. It came as a shock, although in my mind this last scene has played over and over again until it finally wore down to the inevitable.

I can’t, I won’t, compete with your darkly romantic visions of a slow suicide by neglect and Jack Daniels. I won’t be the one to keep your secrets anymore, because they are killing you, cell by cell, moment by moment, day by dreary day.

You climbed the ladder with drunken energy, only to let go effortlessly once you were near the top. There, crumpled into yourself, nothing mattered. Not those who felt obliged to nurture you back to health, or those who acted as both catalyst and crutch. Not those who paid your bills when you forgot, or remembered your children’s birthdays.

I was there when you bought your house. It was a beautiful house, once, and just what you always dreamed of – water, mountains, privacy, room for dogs and cats and horses. Now I walk inside and everything has turned into garbage. There are puddles on the floor, mountains of filthy clothes, rotting food on the counters. There are no animals in sight except the dark-eyed one that sits among the melted candles and artistic ruins, drinking herself into oblivion.

It turns my stomach to think that you live like this. That you, who are capable of so much beauty, and who worked so hard to produce and attain it, could let everything turn to a pile of shit in a matter of a few years.

I’ve wanted to scream, but I held back, not wanting to hurt you. I’ve wanted to grab you by the shoulders and shake you back to life. I have felt anger so primal that it took all my willpower not to add the mark of my hand to where yours had been, and punch holes in the walls. I thought, wrongly, that gentleness would sway you. I thought, maybe, if I washed the clothes and mopped up the puddles, and held your hand, and whispered in your ear, and showed you how deeply you were loved, that something would click.

Instead, it was all a huge disconnect. You. Me. The World. But mostly you. Growing so numb that I have to wonder how much of you is really left. Your eyes are void. Your dry skin hangs from fragile looking bones. Even your tears are dry. Pathetic, heaving sobs begin and end in wanting, needing, insisting on more of something, but it’s always vague and never named. You wallow in the dirt of self-pity, and tell me you are stuck, but your nearly lifeless hands reach for nothing except another grimy glass.

And there’s him. The leech that has sucked you down into some lover’s abyss I’ll never understand. He loves you, you tell me, but from here it looks like greed and a matter of ease. You, not for the first time, are so willing to let everything go for that one man who will finally take you into the less-than-zero zone. If you both have your way, and I’m now convinced you will, you’ll be worth less than zero when he is through living off your lifeblood and scavenging through your possessions. Then again, you might be dead and it won’t matter anymore. He’ll stay and pick through the bones like the vulture he is, and the rest of us – those who have truly loved you and tried to protect you – will have to sieve through our anger to find our grief.

It’s one thing to fight you. We have fought before, and fairly. Two against one, though, is one too many.

I am saying goodbye, my once-precious friend, and there will be no promises of letters or one-day anything. I am done, because you are done. Because I still have a life left, and I can’t live it fully while I’m trying to manage the one you and your two deadly habits are intent on destroying. There’s no damage control I can do that will ever rise above your need to experience some kind of death daily.

Do not dare tell me that I have not loved you well enough, or strong enough, or deep enough. I have loved you far too long, and way too much. I’ve kept your secrets and indulged your disease, and drained myself of time, money, and energy in order to give you whatever temporary relief would get you through another day. My love for you long ago exceeded any expectation of mutuality, and I have loved alone. Alone. Like a wild child, desperate to hang onto my one true companion – The Girl Who Once Was.

I will miss her. I will miss you not nearly as much.

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Feminism, Fat, and Strange Politics

Posted on 04/20/2008 by Jane Devin

“Feminism: the radical notion that women are people.” – Anonymous

“Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” – Pat Robertson

Feminism. The word can rouse the twin specters of angst and animus out of even their most latent slumber. Feminist ideals are still attacked from every dominant cornerstone of America, from law and religion, to philosophy and social politics. When not under direct assault, feminism is often rolled through the mire of ridicule and humiliation – as if the concept of women as equals was a socially embarrassing fad that should be bumpersticker-ed into obscurity.

I’ve been somewhat surprised though to see a feminist v. feminist mentality at work when it comes to women’s health. Much has been made about ideas like “fat acceptance” and self-acceptance, although they are not necessarily rooted in the same ideas.

Women ages 30-60 in 2008 weigh an average of twenty pounds more than they did in 1976. Obesity related diseases, like late-onset diabetes, are on the rise. Child obesity has become an epidemic. The diet industry is multi-billion dollar failure that giddily churns out one broken promise after another in order to keep itself rolling in astronomical profits.

Those are just a few facts of fat in our society, and they can’t all be blamed on glandular disorders, slow metabolisms, or genetics. It IS the food we are consuming. It IS the way the food is made and processed, it IS our sedentary lifestyles, and this IS being sold to us daily by some of the greediest and least ethical industries in the world and their political lobbyists.

The snowballing social effects of our newly fat and largely sedentary society collide head-on with feminist principles. Not only does a new social prejudice arise from the glut that is sure to effect more women than men – “fat prejudice” – but women are left exhausted, less active, physically and psychologically damaged, unhealthy, and more prone to disease. Somehow, I don’t think this is what the early and most active of feminists had in mind when they began laying the foundation for social and legal equality.

As women, we should love ourselves – because the food industry certainly won’t. The government won’t. The diet companies only love us for our money and perpetual want for miracles. I’m no conspiracy theorist, but look at that unholy triad. Unhealthy foods created by politically savvy manufacturers get a seal of approval from the government. As Americans get fatter and fatter, the diet industry explodes in wealth, allowing for more product development, and more pharmaceuticals. The (predominately male) profiteers get richer, and the consumers (predominately female) and their families get poorer health.

Enter the new school of “fat acceptance.” Fat is beautiful, according to the new feminist creed. Fat is not a problem, but womanly, healthy, and somehow an all-natural phenomena of XX-chromosomes and estrogen.

Structurally, genetically, women are different. We are pears, apples, straight lines. Some of us have generous curves, others have hardly any curve to them at all. At our optimum best, some of us will be size sixteen, and others will be size two. However, there is a substantial difference between accepting our naturally occurring genetic attributes, and accepting the creation and sustaining of avoidable obesity.

As someone who tips the scales at far more than she should – who grew up thin and has steadily ballooned into more than a Rubenesque figure – I understand that fat acceptance seeks to soothe the souls and psyches of women like me who have, often unwittingly, been the victims of a diseased food and lifestyle culture. I also understand the feelings of defeat and shoulder-shrugging apathy, because let’s face it – change isn’t easy, and it’s certainly not comfortable for most of us. I have, like most women, felt betrayed by a body that doesn’t respond quickly to healthy lifestyle changes. The question is, do I give up? Do I let the food factories and diet industries hold sway over my life? Do I invent a new mental schema that rewires my thoughts to accept – and even nurture – my obesity?

Hell, no.

Does that make me less than a feminist? I don’t think so, and it’s sad to me that for some feminism has devolved into a practice of setting women against each other in the name of some perverse politic that demands women give up on their bodies, fall in love with their fat, and shut off their intuitive and learned knowledge in the name of “acceptance”. For whom are we really doing that? Certainly not for ourselves. We are not the ones benefiting from our lack of health and physical activity – we’re just the ones supplying the bodies and dollars for those who do benefit.

I may have once bought the “convenience” of processed, eviscerated, chemically-processed foods as sold by the food manufacturers, and then sought relief from the consequences of that “convenience” from the diet industry, but my ultimate reaction to the face and body staring back at me from the mirror is, No – this is not what I planned to look like at 46 years old, this is not how I wanted to feel, these are not diseases and problems I thought I’d have, and damnit, I’m going to heal.

I accept who I am and where I’m at, and I feel absolutely nothing akin to self-loathing. I don’t feel ashamed, or angry, or disgusted with myself. Instead, I feel protective of this body, admiring of its tolerance, and fully invested in getting it back to a state of health. “Nothing will work unless you do,” Maya Angelou once said. So I’ll work at it – like a fiend – and after a year I’ll either have a great testimonial to organic, whole foods and exercise. . .or not. I’ll either get down to a reasonable size or I won’t. I don’t expect miracles, but I do expect that I’ll sweat. A lot. If I’m still fat at the end of a year, at least my heart, my conscience, and my endurance will be better off.

In any case, I’ll still be a feminist. And I’ll still support other women who are brave enough to stand up and face adversity not only from the well-greased political machines, but from those whose misguided notions of feminism would ignore the health, well-being, and potential of women in favor of “fat advocacy.”

The anathema of feminism is not inherent in those who advocate for women’s health, but in those who would accept the crippling obesity of a populace, and then justify it with a program wherein the disease becomes a thing of beauty, and its symptoms become poetic symbols of self-love, womanhood, and solidarity.

There’s nothing beautiful or poetic about dying young when you’re the one dying.

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Jane’s Guide to Proper Cussing

Posted on 04/11/2008 by Jane Devin

Dear Elisabeth,

Somehow, in all those sterling lessons I imparted as a parent, I left out this highly crucial one regarding cussing etiquette. As I watched you, my beautiful Venus daughter, trying to cuss the other day — and doing it all wrong — I realized I had failed to teach you even the rudimentary basics of proper cussing. Shame on me. What the hell was I thinking? Every well-versed and emotionally generous woman should be able to employ these colorful words properly.

Let’s start with hell which, as you may have noted above, should always be spoken as if it’s italicized. Otherwise, what’s the point? The fiery meaning of hell is subdued when it is said without the proper attending passion. What’s a hell without fire? North Dakota. So if you’re not going to give this devilish word its due, you might as well say just say Fargo for all the feeling your improper usage will evoke.

Fargo.
Hell.
Fargo.
HELL.
Feel the difference?

The word “fuck”, unfortunately, has entered the mainstream. It’s unfortunate not because it’s not a useful (and even occasionally beautiful word) but because its use among people who are not really cool enough to say it has diminished its rebellious nature. Face it — we don’t want to hear pubescent teens or Bill Gates say fuck. Never mind that they’ve done “it” — the word is rarely about “it” anymore — and it’s certainly not about wearing hideous jeans halfway down your ass, or even dominating a world market.

The word “fuck” is about being ethically outraged, or full of righteous passion, anger, or emotion. Losing a video game, or being found guilty of monopolizing, hardly qualifies as ethically outrageous or righteously passionate, angry or emotional. Uncool people, of course, don’t know these things, so they totally fuck up a perfectly good word, and sound like complete idiots when they do.

Now that I’ve shared rule #1 of the word “fuck” — that you should be cool enough and passionate enough to use it properly — let’s move on to rule #2. It’s fucking. Not fuckin’. The full ing is crucial to proper usage, which is? Let’s review — to express a state of being ethically outraged, or full of righteous passion, anger, or emotion. Without the “ing” this otherwise strong word loses much of its muscle and becomes weaker, watered-down slang.

One word that should never precede the word “fucker” is mother. It is just not cool. (However, if the pre-fix comes from outside the family, such as “ex-lover fucker”, or “sperm donor fucker” than this usage is entirely appropriate).

Oh no, here it comes. . .the oft-despised, much maligned “C” word. Like the infamous “N” word its usage should belong exclusively to those who were once the targets of the name-callers, in this case women. Women should own the “C” word with all due authority and do with it what they will. Most will choose to use it sparingly, some will choose to integrate it into safe and sane playing, and others will shriek loudly and cover their ears at the mere mention of the word. It’s best to use this vibrant, powerful word only in select, known company.

Shit. Please don’t make a habit out of saying it — any more than once or twice a day usage goes beyond earthy good humor to redneck overkill. The only cool redneck woman is in a song, and she — according to Gretchen Wilson — ain’t no high class broad. No one wants to be the pride of Dublin, TX anyway, unless they’re from Dublin and have no plans to go anywhere else in life.

Bitch. Now here’s a word that women have tried to own with pride. Meredith Brooks wrote a lovely, popular song about it, and there’s even a feminist magazine that has the word on its masthead, but the co-opting of this verbal complement to “bastard”, and especially its duality of use as a squawking, backbiting verb — “he had the nerve to bitch about it” — has left women as the renters, rather than the true owners of their favorite cuss word.

I say if you can’t really own it, give it away to those in need. Namely, men. Not just our lovely, needy gay male friends, but men in general need this word. “Bastard”, as it were, is underused and understated, and doesn’t really cover the full spectrum of male diva behavior — such as starting a war with a third world country in order to make astronomical profits for your friends, or lying to millions of unsuspecting consumers about the safety of certain products, or looting hundreds of millions of dollars from investors in order to live a lavish, if unlawful, lifestyle. Yes, Bush and Cheney are bitches. Slick lobbyists and their predominately male political allies are bitches. Dennis Kozlowski is a bitch.

See? We can give the word “bitch” away, and let them keep “bastard” while we’re at it, and suffer no ill effect. Let’s choose, instead, to own a word like Goddess, which has no negative connotations, and which truly reflects the spiritual and aesthetic beauty of women. Like you.

Love Always,

Mom

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The Power of Venus, Revisited

Posted on 04/03/2008 by Jane Devin

A decade or so ago, she flipped her blonde hair back with a wave, adjusted her sunglasses, and leaned forward for the customary hug goodbye. I thought, as I often did, how very stunning my sister was, how elegant, and how unlike me, from her long, thin legs to her alabaster skin. Dianne was beautiful from birth on, as if she had won some feminine lottery that gave her Venus-like features, and assured she would never have to stoop to changing her own tires or emptying her trash.

She evoked her charms early, and employed them well, even with me. Why did I so often do her chores? I don’t know, it’s a mystery. I also borrowed her perfectly clean and pressed clothes on occasion – never without being unmercifully caught – and put up with a hundred humiliations that only an older and far more savvy sister could dole out. And I loved her, deeply, with a wide-eyed awe, a steadfast loyalty, and just a twinge of pain.

I was the Mars to her Venus. A skinny Amazon tomgirl with chapped lips, skinned knees, and untied shoes. An outdoor warrior who conquered rivers on oversized truck inner-tubes, and who hammered and nailed neighborhood trash into girls-only forts, which I defended with a mean right arm and a pile of rocks. When I was stuck indoors, I read books – tons and tons of books – none of which ever sated my need for definitive answers but which, instead, were always something of a tease.

While I was flexing my wiry little muscles outdoors or losing myself in some fictional adventure, Dianne was honing the feminine arts. She could dance, she could sew, she could knit. She knew how to apply makeup and what colors and fabrics matched. She grew mysteries, flowers, and curvy hips. She knew which fork to use, and how to properly address a letter to the President. Her room was a fortress of all things femme and wonderful, and on those rare occasions I was invited in, I reveled in her warmth and artistry.

I protected Dianne many times, with all the fierceness of a sister and all the strength of an Amazon-minor. In return, she taught me gentleness and social graces, and how to properly apply mascara to my barely-there lashes – a lesson I quickly forgot.

Anyway, on a warm summer day during the late nineties, she leaned her perfumed neck down and I felt her breath in my ear. I was sure that what was coming next was the typical “I will miss you,” “take care of yourself.” Instead, my sister – someone I have unfortunately known only from a distance since we were teens – whispered in her elegant voice,

“Remember to control your passion”.

I was stunned. I couldn’t even come up with an appropriate response. The comebacks came later, hours later, as I rolled along the desolate Nevada highway in my Ford F-150, blasting Joni Mitchell, lighting cigarette after cigarette (after weeks of smokelessness), and yes – feeling kind of passionate.

Eventually, I let those words go, although for months afterwards I found myself checking my level of excitability, wondering if perhaps my enthusiasm for certain subjects would be viewed as something wild and unrestrained.

Like other minor crises of confidence, this one passed over time. I went on with my rustic existence some 2000 miles away, and shook off the decades-long, on-and-off feeling of being somewhat undone by my Venus sister who, in the glowing light of her perfect femininity, could still make me feel as rough and unpolished as the rocks I used to sling through the fields – or who could just as effortlessly stoke the fire of sisterly love and make me feel eminently cherished.

Enter Dorothea. No, that’s not her real name, but that’s not the point. The point is Venus Redux. Not a love interest, just someone I love. A sister of some differential soul I hold in esteem. Another feminine beauty, with dramatic eyes and sculpted bones whom, if I was a painter, I would never stop painting. I would stand there, in the shadows of my sun-drenched studio, and capture every fleck of light and wisp of mood, with a glass of deep red Cabernet in one hand and the finest sable brush in the other.

If I was a carpenter, I would build her the most beautiful house in the world. I would haul up the most perfect river stone, and make her an exquisite room with high ceilings and large cathedral windows topped in stained glass. Red, blue, and yellow prisms of light would play along ancient stones and dance on dark wood floors. There would be a fireplace fit for a castle, and live, luscious plants growing everywhere. A plush rug, handwoven by the wisest and most artistic of crones, who would tell a woman’s story in shades of red – royal red, blood red, carmine and rose red, the flame red of Mars, and the brilliant red of passion.

And if I were a writer. Well.

I would tell the story of Venus’s great natural power. The way the women of Venus shine and stun, and burn and inspire, and lift-up and set-down whole other spirits, without ever really knowing, let alone analyzing, the effect they have on others. I would speak of their innate love of luxury and beauty, and their propensity to have and know only the finest things in life, from clothes to art to friends. I would speak of their womanly gifts, their flair and artistry, and their ability to set others at ease or on edge with their sharp wit and eloquent tongues.

I would speak of the comfort they provide, and the tantalizing meals they create from Nature’s great bounty — beautiful plates laden with nourishing food, deep bowls of hot, hearty soup – the warm and gracious invitations they extend to others to be nurtured at their table.

And, of course, I would speak of their power to heal.

Dorothea, my friend and sister of the differential soul, invited me over to her new 100 year old abode to paint a few weeks ago. When I arrived, I learned it was not just a room that needed work, but an entire house, with old window frames that had to be sanded, and ceilings that needed to be scraped, and walls that needed to be patched. Somehow, the thought of all that work made me ecstatic. I would get to help build a castle after all, even if it was in the blemished heart of the Uptown district. More importantly, I would get to spend all that time basking in the radiance of all things Venus. There would be a lot of laughter, an abundance of good food, and of course, a few minor but humorous arguments, because the Venus soul is very particular about what goes where and how it goes, and passionate Amazons aren’t exactly short of their own ideas.

It was a blast. On the last night, while the last of the paint dried, we sat out on the balcony, which I was pleased to note would need to be re-stained in the summer. It was a somewhat chilly night, and a blanket she made covered my shoulders. We were sipping warm wine from crystal glasses just sprung from their packing crate, and talking about nothing in particular, when she turned to me with her big green eyes and tilted her beautiful head.

“What?”
“I was just thinking.”
“Seriously, you can’t change your mind on the bathroom again.” I had painted that bathroom four times, once in primer, then in some shade of orange, and then twice in light blue. Bathrooms and kitchens are a bear to paint.

She didn’t laugh, and I was already figuring out how much primer I’d need in my head.

“Someone is needed to slay the dragons,” she finally said, “and you’re my favorite dragon slayer. I just love the passion you bring to everything you do.”

It was, far and away, the best compliment I have ever received. I remembered then what my sister said to me so many years ago, and when I told Dorothea the story she laughed. “Control your passion. As if. I can’t even fathom that possibility in you.”

Did I say Venus Redux? I meant Redone. Rebirthed. Healed. I took home a quart of Lentil soup, a hand-knit blanket, and an abundance of refreshed Amazon pride — even if my shoes were untied and my clothes were covered in paint.

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