Mind Body Mama: Hidden Hurt

On Wednesday, the New York Times parenting blog Motherlode ran a question from a parent concerned about how she should handle her five year old son’s desire to wear a tutu for Halloween. After describing her son’s preference for “pink, and sparkles and bows,” the concerned mama wrote:

But now he is in kindergarten and he wants to be a ballerina this year. I think it’s time to have him put away the tutu and be more like the other boys. My husband says that we can’t change him, and while I know my question probably sounds like I want to change him, or that I am embarrassed by him, I really mean it when I say that’s not my reason. Instead, I am worried about him getting hurt. Eventually other kids will notice and the teasing is inevitable. And one day someone will fight him over this. If I can protect him from that by explaining that this isn’t the way boys dress, then shouldn’t I? If should, then when do I start?

Although I’ve positioned this blog as a writing vehicle, I submit the photo above as evidence of our family’s position on children and gender socialization. Consider it an example of “a picture is worth a thousand words.” If you're unable to see the photo for any reason, it is a six year old Small in a suit and tie playing with a collection of Disney princess Barbies. (The process by which my feminist soul reached an uncertain detente with the Disney princesses is fodder for its own post.)

Early in my blogging career I made my peace with the fact that I would not ever be the blogger who could bang out a timely response to important issues. This is unfortunate, because I often rant about the news that enters my consciousness (usually via NPR), and poor, beleaguered Sweetiebabyhoneylicious would very much appreciate my entertaining a wider audience with my strenuous opinions. I am not the multi-tasking modern mama, however. We’re committed to the slow lane and I do one thing at one time: serve my clients, take my kid to school, chop vegetables. It usually doesn’t fit my lifestyle to stop everything and post my analysis of the day’s news.

Fortunately, Misty at Shakesville was on-the-spot and posted a brilliant feminist response to the original Motherlode post within a few hours.

I witnessed the discussions on both blogs throughout the day on Wednesday when I was home with a sick Small and was heartened to see lots of posts in support of this boy. I weighed in at Motherlode (and later made a similar comment at Shakesville), saying, in part:

I am a mama of a gifted child, a lesbian, and a self defense instructor. I think all of these identities contribute to my belief that our most important role as parents is to give our children the competencies they need to succeed as their true selves–not to mold them into people who are apt to have an easier time in life.

If your child is likely to get picked on for revealing his true self, he needs a range of strategies to deal with that harassment. Hiding his preferences is one tool to have in the tool kit–as a gay person, I’ve certainly used it myself. But it’s not the only tool. Having a strong voice to stand up to bullying, knowing who his allies are, knowing that there are others like him in the world and developing his inner resilience are all strategies he may need to call upon.

A theme emerged among some of the commenters that could be summarized as: “The parents should let the kid dress how he wants, but they should warn him that he might get picked on.” We discussed the article at supper Wednesday night and Small offered a nuanced version of this opinion, something along the lines of: “The parents should let him wear what he wants and they should help him.”

I’ve been pondering this concern—of the mama who posed the question, who I believe to be lovingly committed to her son’s well being, and of the supportive commenters—as I witnessed another conversation, this one on the professional list-serve of the National Women’s Martial Arts Federation Certified Women’s Self Defense Instructors. The topic there was “what works in women’s self defense, and how do we know?” (I’ve got a lot to say on that and hope to post about it soon.) But the discussion brought to mind some bad old “conventional” (aka “sexist”) wisdom regarding women who fight back.

The myth goes like this: A woman shouldn’t fight back because that will only make her attacker angrier and she’ll get hurt worse.

As one of my NWMAF colleagues pointed out, this old husband’s tale has been repeatedly discredited by research. She referenced Pauline Bart and Patricia O’Brien’s book Stopping Rape: Successful Survival Strategies and research by academicians Sarah Ullman and Jocelyn Hollander that demonstrate that self defense works.*

The connection between these two circumstances, in my mind, is this: there is a hidden hurt to both people—the little “pink” boy, and the woman who is being assaulted— that is not being acknowledged.

People who easily conform to cultural gender expectations can have trouble recognizing the psychological cost of being closeted. They are thinking, “If he just dresses as a fireman for Halloween no one will laugh at him or beat him up. He won’t get hurt. He’ll be safer.” These folks are well meaning—I really believe they are. But are they really that far from those who would say, “I don’t mind gays, but why do they have to be so obvious?”

We don't mind these people, but why do they have to be so bigotted?

There’s a huge cost to not expressing who you really are—just ask any gay or transgendered person. The cost is enormous and, to many of us, unbearable. I don’t know if this kid is going to be some flavor of queer when he grows up, but I do know that asking him to hide a piece of his soul has a cost. Just because it would be easy for his mama not to wear a suit and tie and his papa not to wear “pink, and sparkles, and bows” doesn’t mean it’s easy for him. If it was easy and natural for him to walk away from that stuff, he would. He’s drawn to it for a reason that can’t yet be known. If this truth about his being is squashed or shamed away, it will hurt him.

Similarly, I think that men who advise women not to fight back (and the women who accept and repeat this pat advice) are not acknowledging the impact of rape—not to mention the myriad other ways women can be “hurt” in assault that might not result in obvious physical injury.

Here are some relevant assumptions I unpack from the recommendation that women remain passive in an assault situation:

• Sexual violence isn’t “real” violence. Only bruises, broken bones, etc. count as injury.

• The only lasting damage that can come from an assault is physical. Women are unharmed by verbal/emotional abuse.

• Women do not have agency in the world. They are subject to whatever happens to them. This powerlessness is synonymous with their gender and carries no negative effect.

I think about the world through a self-defense lens. Therefore I think of the tool kits we each need to have to deal with the crap that life will throw at us. Passivity, yielding, and hiding are not a loser’s game. They are crucial survival skills that have served and continue to serve many of us who would be victimized—women; gay, lesbian, transgendered, and other queer folk; people of color; religious minorities. I’ll keep “passing” and keeping my mouth shut in my bag of tricks; there might come a moment when those tactics save my skin. And while I hope I never have to make the choice to submit to a sexual assault in order to stay alive, I honor every person who has made this decision and lived to see another day. This kind of bravery and commitment to self is a triumph of the human spirit.

But vital as they may be, these are not the only tools available to us. Those who seek to be our allies do us a great disservice when they expect us to be satisfied with them.

My tool kit’s full of resources—like the family, teachers and friends who could help ballerina boy feel accepted and loved. I’ve got a strong voice like the one he’ll need to tell bullies to back off. He might need to yell sometimes; plenty of women have stopped assaults with a loud shout and I do believe that my brain-piercing kiai saved my life and a friend’s one night in Prospect Park. I know lots of ways to hurt another person’s body—it’s not all that hard—and if I need to, I’ll do it.

And I’ll keep working for justice and equality for all of us. As many commenters pointed out, the parents of this "pink" boy have a great opportunity to teach their son that “different” need not mean “less than:” an early lesson in acceptance and advocacy that will serve him—and the world.

In the absence of a world that is safe for all of us this are the tools we each can carry. And, sadly, must.

The Five Fingers of Self Defense

THINK: Use your mind and breathe.
YELL: Use your voice.
RUN: Create distance between yourself and danger.
FIGHT: Fight back if you have to and with appropriate force.
TELL: Tell someone you trust, and work for peace and justice.

*Edited 10/31 to provide thorough attribution: I posted this before receiving permission from my colleague Martha Thompson to quote her statement in its entirety:

...I think the important message from Pauline Bart and Patricia O'Brien Stopping Rape: Successful Survival Strategies has been confirmed by follow-up research by Sarah Ullman, Jocelyn Hollander, and others: if attacked, respond immediately, yell, and use multiple strategies. In other words, the specific techniques are most likely less important than dealing with the situation immediately, using one's voice, and using the tools one has until the attack stops.

Martha is the director of Impact Chicago and a NWMAF Certified Women's Self Defense Instructor.

Mind Body Mama: A very short story about a dead mouse

We saw mouse poop.

Sweetie bought De-Con.

The mouse ate some.

I found the dead mouse in the basement.

Sweetie put it in the trash.

Some people would call this success. But I think the last mouse story was a lot more interesting.

Mind Body Mama: More Teaching and Practice

This is an essay I wrote over the summer and never posted. I think it illustrates one of the ways that the teaching of self defense requires the practice of self defense. We start every class with a meditation, a chance to practice Self Defense Finger Number One: Use your mind and breathe. We talk about how breathing and thinking helps us exercise choices and de-escalate conflicts.

This is probably the hardest work of self defense; it’s so much harder than hurting another person in body or spirit. Over and over I tell my girls: “It’s not ANGER=DAMAGE, it’s DANGER=DAMAGE.” That means: the more danger you’re in—if you’re facing an imminent threat of being killed or sexually assaulted; if you have few options in terms of getting away or attracting assistance—the more damage you may need to inflict to get out of the situation.

But being really, really pissed off? That doesn’t justify any damage, in and of itself. Anger is just a feeling—not right, not wrong, and not requiring any specific action.

As a mama, I get to practice calming down and getting centered any time my sweet girl throws a nutty and rides my last nerve. Fortunately those times are fairly few and far between. But as a self defense teacher for pregnant and parenting teens who would rather be anywhere than in my class?

I get to practice in every single session.

Here’s one such tale:

Kiki’s been riding my last nerve since the very first time she slunk into our self defense class, all 5’ 10” of her, bulky with 8 ½ months of pregnancy, cutting her eyes and not acknowledging me. I’d call “Circle Up!” at the start of class and she’d glance out from under her eyelids and announce flatly, “I’m not sittin’ on the floor.” She refused to say her name in opening circle. “It’s nice to see you,” I’d say, smiling past clenched teeth before shifting my attention to the girl beside her. “Next.”

Kiki made an issue of everything. When she did speak she was confrontational and negative. She wouldn’t listen to the instructions, then she’d demand to be advanced out of the beginner group. She’d do something once and whine, “We did that already” when I suggested more practice. She’d refuse to work with a specific group of students and then smile falsely and say, “I’m fine right here,” when I asked if she had a conflict with someone that I needed to know about. In one class something I said irritated her and she tried to stare me down.

The part of me that is a double black belt with twenty-one years of self defense experience thought, “Wow, this girl is so scared and overwhelmed.” It made me feel sad and tender for her.

The part of me that is still an angry, scared, overwhelmed seventeen year old myself sucked her teeth and thought, “Bitch, I could crush you with my little finger. Don’t even start with me.”

Needless to say, managing my own responses, Kiki’s behavior, and a class full of other students is exhausting. When she came into class this week with her attitude unchanged I felt my heart hardening to her—I actually felt something go hard in my chest. I felt my umbridge grow larger than my intention to be her teacher. I knew something had to change but I didn’t have the first clue of what it would be.

I’ve been thinking a lot about love as a choice. So during opening meditation I wondered, “How could this be different if I just love her?” The hard spot in my chest didn’t move. It was a big class, with two new beginners, three girls who have been around for a while and are excited about learning new material, and a whole bunch in the middle. There were two separate solely Spanish speaking groups, which probably meant there was bad blood between some girls that I couldn’t suss out since I don’t speak Spanish. Both of the brand new girls were white and solely English speaking, which is pretty unusual for this class and can lead to complex group dynamics.

In other words: the class was a five ring circus and it was my job to get all the plates into the air and keep them spinning, in multiple languages, cultures, learning styles, and experience levels while steering clear of inter-pupil conflicts.

Oh, yeah: and keeping myself from getting triggered by Kiki’s open hostility.

Things went well for a while. We’ve been working sinawalis, stick fighting combinations from the Filipino martial art Modern Arnis. The “advanced” group started piecing together the exercise they had learned the previous week while the others practiced a simpler combination. The two newcomers worked with my co-teacher on the most basic strikes.

Then I noticed Kiki working with Natasha, one of the most advanced students, on the hardest combination. Kiki had no business jumping in on the advanced work but I decided not to make an issue of it. But I did notice that Natasha was not able to hold onto the pattern with a less experienced partner. A quick fix for this is often to pull out the stronger student and work with her myself, to solidify her knowledge, and then put her back with her partner. This gives the stronger student an opportunity for leadership and allows me to spread myself out throughout the class. It might be more egalitarian to teach both in the pair but the chaos doesn’t allow me this luxury.

It is true that I affect a pretty brusque tone in this class. That’s partially my style as a teacher, something I’m known for in the karate school. Brusque is how I can be heard over a room full of clanging sticks and chattering teenagers. It’s also how I stay tough in a room full of tough girls. I flood them with warmth as they come in the door, whether or not they look at me. “Hola, Tina, your hair looks beautiful today.” “Hey, Wanda, where have you been? I missed you last week.” “Ashley, is your baby feeling better?” But when we get onto the floor I’m all business.

So brusque is how I ordered, “Natasha—with me,” when I approached them working together. And at that, something in Kiki exploded. If there was a video definition of “storming off in a huff,” it would show Kiki stomping away. I got Natasha up to speed, and then went to check on the damage.

I found Kiki working with Tiffani, one of the new girls. “It seems like I really hurt your feelings when I started working with Natasha,” I said. (I didn’t know I was going to say that. As I walked over, it seemed equally likely that I would say, “What the hell is wrong with you now?”)

“Yeah, that was just rude!” she spat.

I don’t have words to express my amazement at this young woman’s chutzpah. And yet: I did not say “Payback is a bitch,” or “I give as good as I get, babycakes.” I did not even roll my eyes.

I said: “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. That’s just my style of teaching. I did not mean to offend you.”

Kiki still wouldn’t look at me, but she visibly relaxed. I saw her face soften and the tension slide out of her strong arms. I left them to work, and when I came back a few minutes later she said in a perfectly normal tone of voice, “She doesn’t want to work with me because of my belly.” So I gave Tiffani a little speech about how we let our partners determine when something feels uncomfortable or unsafe.

“I know Kiki is a strong woman who can stand up for herself,” I said, touching Kiki’s arm lightly. “You show respect for her by trusting her to take care of herself.”

There was no more drama before the end of class. Then, just as the girls were about to leave, Kiki made a joke about her belly and broke into a big grin. She got the whole room laughing.

Who knew this girl needed me to apologize for the very behavior she’s been displaying? Who knew that she needed me to show my respect for her not just in warmth and welcome, but in willingness to put myself in the one-down position? Who knows if her attitude will change? Does she think she got over on me somehow? Did the other girls witness me practicing self defense, staying calm and centered? Or do they think I got punked?

Kiki’s got a great aptitude for the work, as it happens, and I told her so on her way out. It would be wonderful if she’d keep playing with us. But I’m not counting on anything. I’m just going to keep meditating on love.

Mind Body Mama: Divine Discontent and Longing

A few days after I wrote "Brighting Out," I went to Macy’s and bought a black dress coat.

The irony did not escape me. I had just completed a meditation on the transformation of my wardrobe from all black to a riot of color, and there I was in the ladies’ coat department purchasing a new black coat.

I shopped for this coat for nearly a year. I knew as soon as I put my hand on it that it was the one I would bring home. It’s a handsome car coat that’s butch enough to wear with jeans and formal enough to wear over a fancy dress. The fabric is a cashmere/wool blend that feels light and springy and very soft. I look very grown up, very serious, in this coat.

I didn’t even consider buying the red one because it was nasty, ketchup colored red. Though the plum was tempting, I know that purple is this year’s “it” color and by next year, it will look tired to my eyes.

Furthermore, the way things are going there is a very good chance that I’ll need to wear this coat to a funeral. Because I buy a new dress coat every fifteen years or so. And as Dusty points out, either one dies young or one spends the balance of their days mourning the loss of others. That’s the condition of this mortal coil.

So I bought the black coat and I felt pretty good about it. But when I went to put it on last weekend, I felt that I’d like to have something to brighten it. I went searching for a scarf that I could wear near my face to break up all that black.

I pawed through the scarf collection I haven’t accessed since I left my office job eight years ago: silk and rayon squares in conservative colors and prints to accessorize the navy and grey and black suits I used to wear. My hand fell upon a piece of silk at the back of the closet. I could tell it was a quality piece of fabric so I tugged it out.

And then I held in my hand something that I’ve always wanted. It’s something that I’ve always had.

It’s a giant square of Indian silk paisley in flaming shades of dark red and orange. I have had this scarf for over twenty years. I think it belonged to my mother’s grandfather, but I’m not sure how or when it came to be mine.

I have always loved this stunning scarf and I have never worn it. From time to time I would look at it and think, “It’s gorgeous, but I don’t wear things like that.” Somehow I thought it didn’t suit me, or my idea of me. I would fold it up wistfully and put it carefully into the back of a drawer thinking, “What would I do with something like that?”

I kept it because I loved it but I didn’t know how to make it fit into my life.

Pulling it out now I thought, “This looks exactly like me!” The dark red matches the gorgeous winter scarf my mother knit me last year (for the second time—some lucky gym member absconded with the first one she knit and she generously replaced it.) The orange matches my groovy windbreaker and my new wool sweater. These are my colors; I wear these colors all the time.

This scarf that I have loved and neglected for two decades exactly matches who I am now.

I am in a phase of “divine discontent and longing,” as Kenneth Grahame’s Mole would put it. I am searching for something in my life and I don’t know what it is. I’m trusting that desire and instinct—blind, insistent, incomprehensible, drawing me forward like a divining rod—will lead me where I need to be. But the wait is anxious and confused and I wonder, “What should I do?” and “Who should I be?” constantly.

What if what I’m looking for is already in my possession, folded lovingly but tucked into a dark corner of the closet?

What if I look upon it with confusion now and then thinking, “I love it, but what am I going to do with something like that?”

How will I ever find it, with my eyes thus clouded?

Mind Body Mama: A Tiny Feminist Rant about Birth Control and Menstruation

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I have a thing about underpants.

So it won’t surprise you that my eye was caught by a television ad that began with a clothesline full of panties. To me, that’s a pretty good hook.

But you might be surprised to hear the venom that poured forth from my mouth when I figured out what the ad was about.

The product was birth control pills. And the pitch was this: These birth control pills eliminate mid-cycle spotting. So you won’t get any stains on you underpants!

(Oh, and please over-look this last paragraph the lawyers are making us read about the possible side-effects of this medication including stroke or death. Didn’t you hear: No stains on your panties!)

Now, you might point out that I’m a lesbian and as such have no need of birth control. Which is why I’m not weighing in on how women choose to balance the side effects of various birth control methods with their active heterosexuality.

That, in fact, is none of my business.

What I am addressing is the pea-brain advertising executives who think that, “No stains on your panties!” is a better pitch than, “No unwanted pregnancies!”

It’s such a blatant example of the distain our culture has for women’s bodies and minds. It makes me mad and sad to think of the ways this body-hatred is internalized by so many women.

Really? I’m supposed to get wound up about stains on my panties? I’m female. I’ve had blood coming out of my vagina once a month for over 25 years now. Sometimes it gets on my clothes. My blood, my clothes, my business.

And frankly, I don’t think it’s that big a deal.

If I was getting someone else’s blood on my stuff all the time, that might freak me out. But on the other hand, that’s the life of the surgeon, the paramedic, the ER doctor, the midwife. They find a way to cope.

And I spent two years with someone else’s poop, pee and vomit on me. I didn’t appreciate the sogginess, but on the whole it did not diminish my quality of life. I’m glad that part is over but it was not terribly terrible.

We live in bodies, people. Right after I had Small—when that night of blood and sweat and amniotic fluids and tears and snot and poop was still still roaring in my head—I walked around the streets of our little town thinking, everyone came into the world like that. Of if not, through surgery—an even more brutal rending of one body into two.

We are born messy and naked and animal through a bodily transformation more powerful than any other act of nature. Think earthquake, tsunami, landslide. That is the power of the birthing woman. And that laboring woman bellowing from the center of her being, squatting to spread her pelvis, rides in every woman, whether or not she is a mama.

Why on earth are we walking around with manicures and stacked heels and lip gloss? Who are we kidding?

And perhaps more important, who does it serve to act like we are without bleeding genitals, stinky armpits and fearsome physical strength? Who would be scared to face what we really are?

Mind Body Mama: Pay Attention

I had an opportunity to see Mary Oliver read a few weeks ago. The venerable poet visited our women’s college for the first time in a decade. Her last visit was scheduled for the small and comfortable subterranean auditorium next to the library. But an hour before she was scheduled to speak there were 600 people in their seats and public safety sent us on a pilgrimage across campus to the larger hall to appease the fire marshall.

It was an early introduction for me to this odd pocket of America where I live. It is a place where, when I go to the grocery store on the eve of a blizzard, they will have sold out of kale. It is a place where an eagle release at the wildlife sanctuary attracts more viewers than the parking lot can accommodate. It is a place where there are a seemingly equal number of churches and lesbians.

It is a place where a Mary Oliver reading now goes nearly unpublicized, so that only 2,000 people will show up. There is no bigger hall on campus to which we might move.

Among the two thousand were many from Our House of Worship and many others from The School of Love. But I sat alone, as I like to do at readings, and felt the healing balm of words and introspection, inspiration and presence roll over me.

Oliver told us in person—as she tells us in her poetry over and over again—that her job is to pay attention. “My work,” she says in the poem Messenger, the first she read that night, “which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.”

And she told us to pay attention. This may have been a quote from an essay, or it may have been her answer to a question, or both. I lapped up the light she brought but lost track of some of the details of attribution.

I know that she said, “Pay attention.” And also, “Tell someone.”

I thought of the many lives that might have been lived by a Mary Oliver. She could have been a mother, paying attention to the natural world she loves and telling her children what she noticed. She could have been a minister sharing insight with a small flock. Instead, here she was speaking this one night to two thousand, who in the morning would mention to thousands of others where they had spent the evening, and their friends would groan to have missed it. Instead of a small life of reflection she has had a huge life of words and books upon books, prize upon prize, honor upon honor.

Her reach is extraordinary; it was noted in the introduction how many times any of us will hear a Mary Oliver poem as part of a sermon or memorial or other ceremony. But she made me believe that any of us can do this; and isn’t this what we mean by ministry anyway? The ways that we pay attention and witness that which is holy to us; the ways that we share that spark with others.

I read Catherine Newman’s latest article in Brain, Child the same week.

(It is starting to feel creepy to venerate Catherine here, as she actually resides in our odd little outpost. She lives across the big water as Dusty likes to say, but we do have kids the same age and know people in common. For example, Dusty knows her. I have even had occasion to say “hello” to her, although it was hard to do so without melting into a steaming puddle of hero worship. Eventually I know I’ll have to get over it, both for social expediency and because hero-worship, even when so well deserved, is an insidous way of counting oneself out. “She is great!” says the happy angel of hero worship. “Therefore you suck!” says her evil twin.)

Catherine’s essay about “conjoined twins and other lessons in sharing”—just read it, it is brilliant—made me think about the fact that the writer’s task, in addition to paying attention, is making connections between the the things that she observes and the things that she thinks. And this drive to connection—to meaning-making, as we call it at Our House of Worship—is to me an essentially spiritual activity.

My writing teacher Kate Hopper encouraged us to relax into association to create humor. I love to write that way, to unwind my mind and let my thoughts wander to the absurd. I love to teach movement that way, and sometimes I am blessed to find an image that helps my students understand the principles behind what we are doing. Sometimes that is the only way to enter a new experience: we must make sense of what something is by describing what it is like.

It is how we learn, connecting the dots between what we already know and the unfolding mystery of what comes next. It is also the bedrock of faith: how we come to trust that our small experience reflects the greater mystery that holds it. “Fluency in the use of metaphor,” the Rev. Kendyl Gibbons calls it, this mark of spiritual intelligence.

Not all of us can be a Mary Oliver, but isn’t she right when she tells us all to pay attention? Each of us can love the natural world, if that is where we find the divine—but we can also pay attention to a kiss, to gratitude, to love, to a dog, to a child. We can find the wonder, the meaning, the bigger picture. Isn't the work of all our lives?

Mind Body Mama: Another PITA Road Trip

We were headed down our mountain at the end of another thrilling trip to Connecticut when the car in front of us wandered across the white line and into the soft shoulder. Since we were on the mountain side of the road—as opposed to the cliff side—the errant driver righted himself without any harm. But not before Sweetie broke into this little ditty:

Off the road again
I just can’t wait to drive off the road again
Goin’ places that I’ve never been
I can’t wait to get off the road again.

I laughed. “That’s an old one,” she said in a sentimental tone. “We used to sing that all the time.” I figure this chestnut was developed in collaboration with her old pal The Flaming Chicken, with whom she’s committed many such lyrical crimes. But I’d never heard it before. Of course I was charmed: it’s so wonderfully refreshing to learn something new about your partner after so many years together. Even if it’s just another example of youthful stupidity.

It had been a weekend full of musical discovery. On Friday, BirthPie and Dr. Frisbee* were working the school-yard crowd trying to unload some Ben Folds tickets.

“I’m pretty sure Sweetie hates Ben Folds,” I said.

There were murmurs of mild disbelief. “Snarky.” “Talented.” “Fun.” they argued. I shrugged.

“She’s a terrible music snob,” I said with the eye-roll of martyrdom that accompanies admitting so great and intractable a fault in one’s dearly beloved.

“She’s qualified for it,” said BirthPie. She was referring to Sweetie’s advanced academic accomplishments in the field of music technology, a training which Sweetie now employs primarily in support of her snobbery habit.

Our sweet friend shook her head with genuine surprise. “I can’t imagine Sweetie being snobbish about anything,” she said.

It’s true that Sweetie is a born proletariat, so our friend wasn’t wrong to find elitism at odds with her essential nature. But I had to wonder how the life-partner I know as Super Cranky masquerades around our little community as a mild mannered sweetheart.

When I got home from karate Friday night I asked Sweetie, “Hey—what do you think of Ben Folds?”

She looked at me like she had a turd under her nose.

“That’s what I thought.”

Something churlish made me press further as we cuddled into bed a few hours later. “Why is it the Flute Diva—my friend the brilliantly talented jazz flutist—can happily listen to Beyonce?” I asked. “But you can’t take pleasure in anything less than musical genius? And why do you justify your preferences by maligning someone’s talent? Why can’t you just say you don’t like something?”

Even in the dark, I could hear her eyes roll at Beyonce’s name. She threw out her very best and oft-used defense against the accusation that mere preference influences her critical determinations: the magnanimous admission that Prince has talent even though she doesn’t enjoy his work.

In honesty, I was just poking. I know I’m not getting anywhere. I’ve made my peace: I know that I’ll be scorned and ridiculed for my music taste, but living with Sweetie is enough of a prize that I accept the price. I just don’t think musical genius is all it’s cracked up to be. Most of the time I’d rather listen to a folk song than a Philip Glass composition. And some brilliant musicians just piss me off: I can’t listen to The Who without wanting to punch Pete Townsend in the head.

The difference between genius and enjoyment is the difference between reading Chaucer and reading a mystery novel. I do expect the mystery novel to use correct grammar—and I become deeply cranky if it doesn’t—but I don’t expect it to be Chaucer. Or even Jeannette Winterson or Mary Oliver, who are geniuses I do enjoy. It’s just a freakin’ mystery novel. I lie on the sofa and relax and have fun with it; that’s what it’s for.

“I have my guilty pleasures,” Sweetie claimed drowsily.

“Like what?” I demanded with suspicion.

“Oh, there’s that stupid song that’s out now, something about ‘ring on it,’ I don’t know, it’s awful but it’s catchy….” And with that we both fell asleep.

On Saturday, we hadn’t even gotten to Springfield when Small started her version of “Are we there yet?”

“Is this Connecticut? Should I be looking for an exit number? Are we closer to Bobbi and Grampy’s house or closer to our house?”

“We just left fifteen minutes ago!” I exclaimed. To forestall an hour and a half of this line of inquiry, I plugged her into my iPod.

“THE EAR THINGS FIT IN MY EARS NOW!” Small yelled. “WELL, THEY DON’T REALLY FIT ME BUT I THINK THEY WON’T FALL OUT!”

“Stop shouting and listen to the music,” I told Small. Turning back to Sweetie I continued where we’d left off twelve hours earlier. “It’s just that you have so much more guilt than pleasure. Do you ever just enjoy a stupid song without noticing that it’s stupid?”

Small started tunelessly humming.

“Oh, about that ‘ring on it’ song,” Sweetie had an unfamiliar sheepish look on her face.

Small’s humming turned to quiet singing. “And just then, it hit me,”

“I found out,” Sweetie continued.

“Somebody turned around and shouted,” Small sang a little louder.

“It’s Beyonce.” Sweetie hung her head in shame.

And from the back seat, Small pumped up the volume and sang it as she heard it: “Play that funky music white boy! Play that funky music WHITE!!!!!!”

And doesn’t that bring us to the last word on the subject?

Lay down the boogie and play that funky music ‘til you die.

*BirthPie has not remarried. The character previously known as Dr. Isaac will now be known as Dr. Frisbee. Carry on.

Mind Body Mama: Contest!

I hear that contests are all the rage in the blogosphere. So I'm going to run one here, just like the cool kids.

Here's the sitch: to go forth on the internet and promote this little blog, I need to define it in three words. For example, if I was describing my colleague Joanne Factor's blog I might say:

Safety in Seattle News (women's self defense; media analysis; feminism)

How would you describe what I'm doing here, gentle readers? If you wanted to recommend it to a friend, how would you tell her what it's about?

I feel pretty deep in it and I've got a case of "I know it when I see it." But marketing depends on being able to define your product. Can you help?

To enter the contest--just post a comment with your three suggested descriptors.

Since I don't have the headache of dealing with hundreds of publicists contacting me to hawk their wares (and won't that be an interesting day), I don't actually have a prize for anybody. But if I end up using your list, I might buy you a cup of Pierce Bros coffee* at the co-hop.

If you're too far away from me--go to your own co-hop and buy yourself a coffee. But be sure to feel my love and gratitude.

*Pierce Bros coffee doesn't give me anything to mention them repeatedly in this blog. I do it because they roast the only coffee worth drinking: fair-trade, organic, local to me, air-roasted. They did donate a pound of coffee to my last professional event, but I think that's because I frightened them when I called the marketing department like a crazed stalker fan.

Mind Body Mama: Mama Rage

When my sister and I were growing up we spent our summer vacations at the town beach on Long Island Sound. Every day, my mother and her friends established an encampment that stretched from the bath houses to the shore. My grandparents were part of this clan, and my god-mother and her sons, who were so close in age to us as to nearly be our twins. Several teachers joined us, and a guitar teacher whose grandson visited for weeks each year. On a good day, there could be as many as fifteen or twenty sun-worshippers lined up for their devotionals.

The season-long party was structured by byzantine, organically erupting, staunchly enforced tradition. Each family had their established spot in the lineup; most sat facing the sun but my grandfather and his brother faced the crowd on tall chairs beneath a giant umbrella. There were locker alliances in which two or more families rented musty plywood closets for their chairs and blankets and toys. We had some celebrated infrequent guests, like my dad and Auntie Ollie, who were mocked for their unwillingness to commit every day to the discipline of sitting in the sand. There were constellation families who sat close to our orbit but never succumbed to the dark pull of its gravity. We played with those kids sometimes, but they were not part of our tribe.

The children obeyed communal rules about swimming or venturing out of sight. The snack bar was off limits but the coolers were stocked with sandwiches and dripping nectarines and sour green grapes. We never joined the “bad kids” who dammed the showers to create extensive canal systems, and we rarely rode the tire swings in the playground, but we could usually find a grown up to take us out on the jetties where we cut our feet on the coral and searched the crevices for crabs. The teachers in the crowd played a word game called “Jotto!” with golf pencils and red-printed forms on half-sheet pads. One of them left promptly at four to be home in time for cocktails. We were a superstitious crowd: talk of rain or the coming cold of autumn was strictly forbidden.

Among the crowd was another girl my age and her parents: her American business man dad and her exotic French stay at home mother. Her mother was playful and funny and not like the other moms. She wore swimsuits like ours, without skirts. She ran on the beach with legs toned by daily tennis and taught us to sing Frere Jacques. Once when I cried she gathered me onto her lap and crooned in French until my tears dried in amazement and wonder. She broke out then in crazy laughter, remembering that I was not her own bilingual girl. I was comforted and delighted.

What I remember of the dad is that he did push ups in the sand after he swam, his thick stubby body moving like a piston on powerful arms. And also, how we dreaded the days that he joined us at the beach because we knew that he would tease and torment my sister without mercy.

What did he do? He called her a nickname that made her squirm with discomfort. She hated it with every ounce of her little being. In my mind, I can see her face and body crumpling, her fists closing with useless rage. He spoke to her and she shrank; right in front of us she was diminished by his disregard.

When I think of this man now, thirty years later, I want to hit him. I want to get very close to his face and use my self defense voice to tell him what I think of a grown man who makes fun of a little girl. I want to tell him that the thought of his laughter at her impotent tears makes me physically sick and I wish I could puke on him to give myself some relief. I want to tell him that I will never sit with him on the beach again, that I will move my family away from him and will not allow him to speak to us if he cannot demonstrate respect and restraint.

But he is dead. And my sister is not a little girl, she is a grown up woman with a very strong voice and a baby of her own. And I am not her mother. I am mother to a different little girl.

But I wonder about all those women who witnessed this man’s behavior and did not stop it. The P.E. teacher who taught me to swim, who had a gravelly voice and an imperious manner, who raised her son as a widow and was thought not to suffer fools. Did she tell him to shut up when she saw my sister turned inside-out with discomfort? My own mother and god mother and grandmother: did they not see a man riding rough-shod over a girl’s “No”? Were they not horrified by the implicit lesson: You might say “No,” but if he is bigger, or stronger, or older, or more persistent, he doesn’t have to listen. He can do whatever he wants and you can’t stop him.

Was it fear of loss or conflict—or the loss implicit in conflict—that kept them from putting an end to it? In the white knight fantasy I see my mother packing her bags and storming off. But then what? What of the clan and the annual lobster bake? What of my sister and me crying that we haven’t had our last swim of the day, that we are mid-game with our friends and have yet to empty our grandfather’s cooler of cold, sweet melon and salami sandwiches? How do the summer days stretch out once she has she ruptured the calm veneer of tradition and decorum with her mama rage?

We imagine ourselves fearless in defense of our children. But the sprint down the beach to pluck the errant toddler—tipped forward now, his face submerged, his unbalanced body strangely unmoving—is not the only moment of heroism. Neither the yank on the arm that pulls her out of traffic or even the car seat ever perfectly buckled.

It is the trust in your gut feeling and your willingness to set and maintain boundaries. It is the sentence that Birth Pie taught me, the one she swears I taught her: “That doesn’t work for our family.” It is the loud, clear “No.” It is teaching by example that the bully is wrong. It is the expectation that grown ups will be safe and appropriate with our children or they will be cut off—no matter who they might be. It is the tolerance for loss and conflict that must accompany the ability to stand up for oneself.

It is much, much harder work than it seems.