I saw her standing in the checkout line the other day. She was wearing a black leather jacket, and the pair of Vuarnet’s I’d given her for her 35th birthday. Her dark hair was messy, and there was an air of do-not-care about her as she waited her turn with a container of yogurt, a couple of apples, and two packs of Winston cigarettes.

The do-not-care was, at one time, intriguing. The shock of worldly disengagement, the thrill of social laziness, the nothing matters except me, us, and this moment of it, left me feeling displaced but somehow lucky –- as if I’d accidentally stumbled upon the cure for a lifetime of raw nerves and anxiety. Do not care. Nothing matters. Have a cigarette.

The Winston Woman loved her cigarettes. I remember how she’d tap the box swiftly several times against the palm of her hand, deftly remove the cellophane, and then tenderly slide one of the tender white bodies out of its shiny red dress. With a one-handed flick of an antique silver lighter, she’d set her nicotine love on fire, caressing it between curled fingertips as she slowly inhaled a smoky kiss. Sometimes there would be rings in the exhale, perfect o’s that dispersed, one right after another, into stratus-like clouds.

The smoke seemed to bring about an air of confession, but being guiltless left the Winston Woman with little of importance to confess. Instead, she’d speak of inconsequential things with a sweeping, heady charm. The meeting she forgot, the ninety shades of white she found at the paint store, the employee who made a show out of cleaning her desk and phone every afternoon.  The most hollow trivialities were fattened with dramatic gestures and laughter.  There was something tough-but-vulnerable about the Winston Woman that left me wanting to take her side in any argument.  Of course she missed the meeting – it was scheduled too early. Ninety shades of white were 88 too many. Her employee was an obsessive, anal-retentive prig.

And nothing really mattered during these storied times except her, us, our sequestered moments, and our silent partner — the ever-present, collusive cigarette.

There came a night, though, when the last of the nicotine lovers lay used and finished, tamped out in the dirt in front of a remote Montana cabin, where we had gone to escape from asphalt and traffic. A check of coat pockets, luggage, and the car came up empty. Unfortunately, it was after 11 p.m. and the nearest store, 35 miles away, was three hours past closed.

“We have to go,” she said.
“There’s no place to go. Nothing will be open until the morning.”
“Something is open somewhere, we’ll just keep driving.”
“Just go to sleep. We’ll leave as soon as we wake up.”

Her voice started rising and within minutes the carefully constructed Winston Woman began falling apart at the seams. She began to panic, her  voice edged with fear and anger.  She’d never be able to fall asleep. Who chose this place? It was hell. How could there not be one 24-hour market anywhere around?  Her brown eyes narrowed at me as if I’d somehow conspired to make her miserable.

We drove a choppy 22 miles on dirt roads in the black of night until we reached the highway, and then 53 miles until we spied the yellow lights of a sleepy all-night truck stop with an ancient cigarette vending machine in its lobby. I scavenged my car for change, finding just enough for a pack. On the drive back, after smoking one cigarette, the Winston Woman slept with her face pressed peacefully against the glass. Her do-not-care look was back, her features smooth and relaxed, her mouth slightly open as if anticipating her next fiery kiss.

The Winston Woman paid the cashier and my eyes followed her outside, where she slid into the passenger side of a waiting car. I saw her shoulder move in a familiar way as she tapped her cigarettes against her hand, and I realized that I did not miss her or her daily rituals. I picked up a bag of tangerines, a loaf of bread, and a pack of Marlboro Lights, and then fed my change to some worthier cause on the way out.

The bubble and I have a love-hate relationship.  It keeps me feeling safe, insulated, and even hopeful.  Outside the bubble, there are too many people who make no sense to me, and too many bad things to count.  There are so many horrific events, really, that  I am often left somewhere between wanting  to rail against an ugly world,  or wanting to curl up inside the shelter of idealism.

I waver, I struggle, I rage, I hide, I justify — I have what musician Daniela Nardi calls “white hot moments” — where I collide against myself, and that tiny piece of the universe around me.  I want acceptance / I don’t care if I’m accepted.  I want understanding / It doesn’t matter if other people understand.  I want success / Success isn’t that meaningful.

Writers, particularly those who write fiction, hear no a lot more than they hear yes.  Rejection is far more common than acceptance, which imbues the rare acceptance letter with a joy that has no grounding whatsoever in common sense.  You mean you’ll print the story I spent weeks sweating over, and pay me absolutely nothing but a copy of the book?  Yay! It’s hard for non-writers to understand that kind of thrill, but it exists, and it has less to do with seeing one’s work in print than it does with knowing that someone thought you wrote a story worth telling.

Like me, most of the women writers I know have a deeply hermitic side — their own version of the bubble.  They thrive in solitude, and carve as many free hours out of a day as they can in order to be alone with their stories.  When the work is done though, the mood shifts and the desire changes.  A finished story isn’t meant to stay pristine and isolated — it’s meant to get dog-eared, creased, bookmarked, and highlighted.  It’s meant to get dirtied by critiques, loved by some readers, hated by others, passed around, or given away.  A story is meant to have a life of its own, quite apart from its creator.

When a story is stillborn — when it never knows life outside the bubble, or dies upon its first gasp of outside air — there’s sadness and a sense of loss.  Some writers are too cool to admit this, but I’m not.   I am not cool enough to be indifferent.   I’m not, as Jewel once sang, fashionably sensitive and too cool to care.   I get nervous when I submit my work to publishers, and even when I post a new story on my blog.  I get a huge rush of joy when I get an acceptance letter or feedback, and feel somewhat crushed when my work is rejected or met with silence.

So yes, I pulled a story from this site.  Eleven hours, 473 readers, and zero comments later, the silence was too sad for me.  Some wonderful women* wrote me letters afterward saying some really beautiful things, all of which were deeply appreciated but still….those eleven hours filled me with doubt.  I think I could have done better — I know I could have written something that was not as elusive or enigmatic.

I also wondered if it was too gay.   I know most of my readers are straight, but I really don’t think about my sexuality or other people’s when I write.  Being a lesbian is as natural for me as other people’s heterosexuality, so I tend not to explain it or qualify it in my stories.  I don’t think I’ve even used the words lesbian or gay in any story I’ve written.  Straight writers don’t mention they’re straight, they just write what comes naturally, and so do I.  Readers here know me though, and the ones who’ve stayed aren’t the homophobic kind.

I wanted to give the story another chance for life, so I submitted it to a gay literary site that on first glance seemed to be a good match for me.  Still Blue: More Writing By (For or About) Working Class Queers.  It was rejected less than 24 hours later.  The author’s bios are considerably more impressive than mine — MFA’s, lawyers, award and fellowship winners — a different kind of working class than where I come from, but the stories, as might be expected, are good.  There’s no expectation that working class equals poor language, or an inability to speak of anything outside of the slum.   I appreciate that.  Wendell Ricketts has an eye for stories.  I can’t hold it against him that mine wasn’t one of them.  Instead, it just confirmed for me that the story needed work.  It confirmed that there was silence for a reason.

A white hot moment can last for days, and they are almost always unexpected.  On some days, our bubbles just aren’t insulated enough — or we feel a need to challenge ourselves by bursting them open and seeing what happens.  Of course we never know what we’ll feel about the outcome until we’re facing the consequences — and the dichotomous, sometimes fractured, parts of ourselves that are more strongly felt in a crowd than in solitude.

—————-

*With special thanks to the wonderful women I feel so privileged to know.  Along with Daniela, you helped turn my white hot moment into a manageable glow.

Then, in my childhood in the dawn
Of a most stormy life was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still . . .
–Edgar Allan Poe, Alone

1. The Meaning of Things

I’ve never lost my childhood sense of mystification – my ability to be amazed by the intricate puzzles and foggy mazes surrounding the reality of a situation. And, over the years, my need to know the meaning of things, and to have those meanings make sense, has only grown stronger.

I suspect that if the world were as simple as wheat and chaff, the chaff would be far more plentiful. So many of us seem to be in a constant search for something outside our own realm. In reaching for that something, we superimpose the unnatural upon even the most common realities. A shadow becomes a ghost, a falling leaf becomes a message, and the human mind becomes a god, capable of performing miracles. . .if only one believes.

Platitudes and abstractionist philosophies abound, and many would argue that they are harmless. I strongly disagree. What becomes popular in our society becomes pervasive, affecting everything from our cultural mores to our social opinions.

2. The Tyranny of Positive Thinking

I remember when the gun of positive thinking was turned against cancer patients in the 80′s. Scores of books and literature were written that either laid sideways blame on victims for having the disease of “repressed emotions” or “negativity”, or that effusively promoted positive thinking as the cure. Those who died were not positive enough – they didn’t believe enough in the power of their own mind. Twenty years later, it’s what Dr. Jimmie C. Holland, in her book The Human Side of Cancer, refers to as “the tyranny of positive thinking.”

Unfortunately, despite major long-term studies showing that while having a positive attitude may help patients handle their disease better, it does not directly affect survival rates, the tyranny persists. The latest psuedo-science headline screams “A Positive Outlook on Life May Protect Against Breast Cancer”. Sadly, some breast cancer victims will read or remember only the explosive headline, and wonder if they brought the disease on themselves by not being cheerful or optimistic enough.

Outside of the realm of cancer, the tyranny of positive thinking has led to the massively held belief that unhappiness of any sort is some sort of disease – one caused by a mind that refuses to see the glass as half-full – that does not find beauty in pain, or redemption in tragedy.

And once again, platitudes abound.

Gratitude. . . turns what we have into enough, and more . . . -Melody Beattie
You can have everything you want in the world if you love yourself first!! -
Louise Hay
I am the perpetrator of my suffering – but only all of it. – Byron Katie

I had a revealing conversation once with a therapist who mindlessly repeated the oft-stated belief that “no one can make you feel hurt without your permission.”   I asked her what would happen if at that moment a madman stormed into her office and shot her.  Would she be hurt?  Could she will the bullet to miss her? What if it wasn’t a bullet, but a fist or a flying stapler – would the weapon make a difference?  Would she, bruised and bloodied afterwards, refuse to carry the affect of such an assault, maintaining the same unlocked doors and sense of security?  What if it was not her, but her daughter?

Of course people can make you feel hurt without your permission.  They can do so with a weapon, with words, with broken promises, bullying, or diminishment.  Others can rob you of a livelihood, a sense of safety, or even a person you loved.  They can steal the money you needed to retire or pay the rent.  The bad actions of another can have a profound, and even lifelong affect.

Ah, but. . . “We can’t control the actions of other people, we can only control how we feel about it.” Enter the foggy maze, where a bullet becomes inspiration and an unwarranted fist becomes a lesson.  Where those who die young were wanted in Heaven by God himself, and where pain, and struggle, and even the worst circumstances can be willed away . . . if only you believe.

3. Women, Unhappiness & the Chemical Solution

If only you believe in gratitude, says Beattie, whatever you have will be more than enough. And if it isn’t? Maybe it’s because you didn’t love yourself enough or think the right thoughts, according to Hay. In the end, Katie tells us, all suffering is self-inflicted. The robbery, the assault, the disease, the death. . .we must have wanted it on some level – or maybe God and the fates decided we needed it – or maybe it’s some karmic lesson left over from life #46 that we need to learn for life #47.  After all, there are no accidents.

It doesn’t surprise me that women make up the majority of those who most strongly espouse this fantastical kind of thinking.  We make up 50-51% of the population, yet hold only a scant percentage of the political and social power.  Lacking equal affirmation, and standing outside the doors of power, we seek change where we can – within the boundless territory of self.

It’s also not surprising that much of this magical thinking is, at its core, overly forgiving and tolerant of outside sources, and heavy on self-blame. Women have been molded, domineered, and duped into ready forgiveness and self-blame for centuries.

We learned that we bring forth children in pain to pay for Eve’s want of knowledge. Our monthly cycle was not a sign of health, but a curse. We were taught that as long as the weapon used against us was no thicker than a man’s thumb, assaults against us were sanctioned by God.  When even the most senseless wars of men killed our children, we were told it would be ignoble not to feel proud of our sacrifice.  Our emotions have been, at various times, labeled as madness or hysteria.  We have been romanticized as pleasing helpmates, cheerful housewives, and doting mothers. Scorned as ball breakers, brash women, hags, and bitches when we didn’t tow the patriarchal line.  Even now we are often blamed for rape, the divorce rate, and the destruction of the nuclear family.

The unhappiness of women seems to be viewed through a different lens than the unhappiness of men. It’s likely that the same unbalanced social mores that rate assertiveness differently for the sexes does the same when it comes to emotion. In other words, when men express unhappiness, it may be considered reasonable given circumstances, whereas a woman’s unhappiness is suspect – caused solely by her own actions, raging hormones, or negative, complaining female mind. If we can’t find our happy place in imaginative mental revisionism, then there’s always a chemical solution. According to a 2003 study from the University of Michigan, the ratio of women to men on anti-depressants in 2:1-3:1. Even after accounting for gender-based differences, such as postpartum depression, the ratio is high.

While clinical depression is caused by a biological imbalance, I have to wonder if at least some of those prescriptions aren’t being written for women who feel guilty for not being the reality shifting revisionists and perfectly cheerful workers-daughters-wives and mothers society tells them they should be.

4. The Blinding Aftermath

Unhappiness is not a disease, and outside of true medical conditions, it is also not a symptom. It seems disingenuous to promote positive emotion as a natural, healthy response while blacklisting unhappiness as unnatural, unhealthy, and solely a matter of choice.

In a society where most circumstances, and the emotions surrounding those circumstances, are thought to be a matter of choice,

- social injustices are minimized or negated,
- complaints, no matter how valid, are derided,
- reality becomes “what you make it” rather than what it actually is,
- the pressure on changing external forces is lessened,
- and compassion and empathy are spared.

It is easier to wear blinders in a world where human unhappiness is considered a self-fulfilling prophecy or disease.   Rather than going through the hard work of correcting injustices, we can blame the victims. We can refuse to see victims, and see instead only people who failed to make good choices.  We can more easily turn a blind eye to the suffering of others, and turn a deaf ear towards their complaints, when we believe that whatever they are suffering is self-perpetrated.

We can harm each other in a myriad of ways, and then claim we are not responsible for the aftermath.  We can be less compassionate, less generous, and less empathetic when we believe that the problem with other people is their attitude rather than their circumstance.

Certainly, happiness is preferable to the lack of it –- that is not the question. The question is one of genuineness, and realism, and rationality. In promoting positive, magical thinking not just as a self-help tool, but as the ultimate cure for nearly every human condition from cancer to social marginalization, what have we accomplished?   What have we lost?  What does the future hold for a society that makes bestsellers of books like The Secret, in which the author claims, “Everything that’s coming into your life you are attracting into your life.”  Writer Tim Watkin, of the Washington Post, points out that “Hard work, talent, education, even luck go unmentioned. As The Secret puts it, all you have to do is ‘put in your order with the universe.’ Ask. Believe. Receive. That’s the mantra.”

It’s a mantra that has been played like a lulling serenade, particularly during the reign of Republican congressional then Presidential rule, in which big business and war took precedence over people, and invisible bootstraps were the only things offered to those reeling from high unemployment rates, skyrocketing inflation, and a record number of home foreclosures.   The years from 1999-2004 (the last year studied) saw a nearly 20% increase in the suicide rate among 45-54 year-olds. For women, the rate leapt 31 percent.  Coincidence?   Or a matter of circumstance?  Researchers believe that the prime suspect is a high rate of prescription drug use and abuse, particularly of anti-depressants.

5. The Monster in the Closet

On May 30, 2008 an elderly man in Hartford, Connecticut was run over by a car on a busy street.  The driver did not stop, and no one, not even a single person, stopped to help him, or tried to divert traffic away from his body. Torres, 78, was left paralyzed from the neck down.  “At the end of the day we’ve got to look at ourselves and understand that our moral values have now changed,” Police Chief Daryl Roberts was quoted as saying. “We have no regard for each other.”

What regard can we have for ourselves and others when magical, positive thinking is the order of the day? When we believe that someone, somewhere else, is in charge of helping those who need it – or worse, when we believe that almost every human need is a self-contained matter, and that experiences and tragedies, no matter how harsh or unjust, are somehow chosen?

To what end is the self-flagellation guised as positivity? If we cannot truly “think it and be it” – if the outside world does not turn on our most focused and heartfelt wishes – and the future we so studiously and lovingly envisioned does not pan out, is it because we did not Ask, Believe, and Receive correctly?  Were our thoughts not happy enough, positive enough?

Realism in the age of magical thinking has become the monster in the closet. The scary thing that we avoid for fear of being swallowed or overtaken, or swept up in a battle when all we really want to do is relax –-  let go and let God. Find inner peace.  Fill up on a feast of gratitude, platitudes, and self-love when sustenance is short, believing that eventually we’ll discover the secret to life-long happiness and contentment.

If realism is viewed as a monster, it is not an imaginary one, nor will it go away if ignored or abandoned in favor of magical thoughts.   It needs our action, awareness, involvement, and yes – our continued struggle for a world that is better in reality, and not just in hope.   Our shared reality, in particular, needs us, front and center and standing at attention, willing to bravely face the unpleasant truths and do battle with harmful forces, if it is ever to arrive at a place of true social justice, lasting peace, and fully realized potential.  We need bravery, not bromides, to create the changes we seek.

When I close my eyes, I see the dresses and the gowns. The paper dolls and the Barbie dolls; the pretty bows that tied me down. Then I see my face, staring down at my shiny shoes. . .they took me to a place where they gave me pink instead of blue.” – Tina Schlieske, “Paper Dolls,” Monster Album, 1994

My friend Pamela was about four years old, tumbling away happily in her living room, when she found herself shaken from her childhood reverie by her father’s voice. “Cover yourself!” her father shouted. “Young ladies don’t show their underwear to the world.” Her father’s words stung then, leaving Pamela confused and feeling shamed.

Welcome to girlhood, circa 1960′s, when wearing dresses was mandatory, and monkey bars and swings filled the playgrounds – a mean temptation that required creativity and presented us with our first catcalls. “I see London, I see France. . .”. Yes, our underpants were of paramount importance in the scheme of things, inhibiting our movements, stifling our physical expressions, and causing us to worry, at the tender age of five or six, how best to cover up to avoid the shameful display of our undergarments.

Today, only a handful of schools mandate skirts for girls, but the shame factor that’s been part and parcel of girlhood for centuries has lessened only by small degrees.

Biological imperatives aside, the traits attributed to girls are often a source of shame. Sensitivity is mocked as weak. Empathy is often viewed as “girlish” and unfitting for a competitive world. Gentleness is seen as less effective than brutal frankness. Those who have these traits, whether they are male or female, are often seen as less competent than those who have a harder-edged, less sensitive, personality.

In fact, the crux of sexism (and homophobia, racism, and almost every other hateful attitude towards difference) can be summed up in one word: shame. Whatever does not fit into the dominant paradigm must be cast out, ridiculed, and shamed into its submissive place.

We know it, we’ve seen it, but how do we process this information?

“It’s like the McDonald’s story about the woman and the coffee,” my friend Barbara says to me. “What you’re talking about, shame and sexism, becomes a water cooler joke. People hear the stories, but they don’t really understand what’s involved, or how long-term the damages are, and the whole matter ends up being diminished into some yarn about entitlement, with people blaming those who got hurt, and even feeling sorry for the ones who caused the hurt in the first place.”

Being familiar with the case of Stella Lieback, I understood what Barbara was saying. McDonald’s did, in fact, sell coffee at 190-degrees, thirty degrees higher than normal, and capable of burning skin down to the muscle layer in two to seven seconds. Lieback’s injuries required skin grafting and took almost two years to heal. Yet, Lieback’s case is often called up as an example of trivial lawsuits.

“When you talk about the lives of girls, and the shame they learn, and the sexism they face as they grow older, it’s often dismissed, or treated as something we should just get over,” Barbara continues. “It becomes a joke – women seeking some sort of due they don’t deserve, with men being “forced” to play along. And really, so much of what passes as social change or enlightenment is just smoke and mirrors, still. Look at what happened to Anita Hill in the 80′s. Look at how the media treated Hillary Clinton when she showed emotion this year. Women are still being trivialized and ridiculed at every turn.” Barbara, at 56, had excellent parents who encouraged her to excel, but she was not immune from feeling shame about her sex in girlhood.

“There was always the “cross your legs, be a lady” thing,” she says, “but it went so much deeper than that. We could be smart, but we weren’t supposed to act it, because that would be arrogant or unfeminine. On dates, we were advised not to show our appetites, not to laugh too hard, and to let men lead. We were, it seems, always having to act something, instead of merely being ourselves.” Barbara, who has been married for close to thirty years, recalls her first year of marriage with a bittersweet laugh.

“I went to sleep with my makeup on. There was no way I was going to let him see me without ‘my face’ on. . .and no, I didn’t think I was ugly. I just. . .I guess I thought I always had to be as pretty as I could. Weird, huh? The funny thing is, since then he’s always thought I look better without makeup.” Despite her awareness, and the support of her husband, Barbara still struggles with issues of beauty and femininity. She doesn’t feel “right” going to the store without makeup, and feels “naked” without her jewelery.

“The cover-ups,” says Kathy, “that’s what I remember most.” Kathy developed early, sprouting breasts in fourth grade. “Trying to find clothes that covered my bra straps, and getting my bra strap pulled from the back anyway. And oh my God. . .the shaving! The short gym shorts we had to wear, or the bathing suits. I was mortified by the thought that my pubic hair would show, and as mortified by the stubble and the razor burn.” Kathy’s experience points to the fact that the development of girls is more public than that of a boy’s, a situation we both agree is made worse by advertising.

“If you were to listen to all those feminine product commercials as a child, without a good grasp on the facts of biology, you’d think women were these continuously leaking, bleeding, smelly creatures that constantly needed to be on guard against drips and odor. I know that’s how I viewed them and even now, in my forties, all those messages have had an effect.” Combined with schoolyard jokes about girls smelling like fish, Kathy, like many girls experienced an anxiety about her developing body that boys, in general, didn’t and still don’t.

Outside of growing taller and getting deeper voices – both of which are praised in our society – the turn from boyhood to manhood is a relatively quiet and private affair, edged with pride and a sense of accomplishment. Girls, on the other hand, grow their breasts under the watchful eyes of classmates, and grow hair where it is deemed unacceptable.

The faces and bodies of pubescent girls and women, with their “unwanted body hair” and menstrual cycles, are a marketing goldmine. Dozens of magazines exist for the sole purpose of selling them on fashion, cosmetics, perfumes, and beauty products. Between the slick ads, diet tips, and sex advice, there may be an article or two on self-esteem or empowerment, but look where it’s coming from — between pages of size 2 models selling the concept that everything about a woman, from head to toe to attitude, needs to be changed, buffed, dressed up, fixed, or enhanced in order to achieve true beauty, find love, or win acceptance in society.

Pretty is as pretty is marketed. The airbrushed model of womanhood exudes confidence, but this lies in her ability to betray and hide the truth of her humanity. Only in the perfection of this betrayal does she emanate happiness. At size 0-2, she has kept the girl and abandoned the woman. Her straight teeth have been capped or bleached to ultra-whiteness. No stray hairs grow from her waxed figure. Her skin does not wrinkle or dimple – she is a well-manicured, unblemished, soft-skinned, long-lashed, long-legged, full-lipped beauty.

To undo her takes work. To undo the damage, and ease the anxiety the marketing doll has caused, can be a years-long, even a life long, endeavor.

My friend David, after telling me all the reasons he was crazy about his girlfriend, once complained, “but she won’t make love unless the lights are off.” She was witty, brilliant, kind, just an exceptional person, he explained, but she had this hang-up, and he couldn’t understand why, or why his assurances weren’t enough. After all, he told her how beautiful she was all the time.

It was hard to explain to David how all of his words, no matter how personal or strongly felt, were already undone a thousand times over by Cosmo, Ralph Lauren, Abercrombie, Massengill, and others – and how the indoctrination into shame that began when we had to learn to navigate the monkey bars without showing our underpants metamorphosed into a shame of our imperfect bodies and our womanly selves.

“Why do women put themselves through all that?” David asked.

We don’t. We don’t “put ourselves through all that” any more than we put ourselves through growth spurts or physical development. Much of the shame we know is not consciously learned, but inherent in the messages given to girls and women from the cradle to the grave.

When the mannequin becomes the model, and the model becomes the treasured icon, what is feminine becomes not only what we fear in its natural state, but what we fear we will never measure up to in its enhanced form. We will never be polished enough, thin enough, fit enough, or perfect enough to earn the fearless confidence of the mannequin-model.

It takes strength and awareness – and a strong desire to grow past shame – to unlearn the lessons and mitigate the damages. To make love in the light of day, knowing we were never meant to be mannequins, but real women – organic, warm, sensual, curvaceous – and of far greater beauty and worth than the social paradigms and mass marketers would have us believe.