When my mother and her mother are exuberant they laugh in gulps and snorts and wild hog sloppiness that tell me the forest bleeds into them with leaves and dirt and all that is unsanitary and necessary.
When my mother and her mother are enchanting the world goes right for a very long time.
When my mother and her mother make emblems-after all we are descended from the first pope-and are not overly proud about it, but merely properly pleased, we feel closer to God, as if we had privilege before others, though deep down are sad, because we know there is no truth to that.
I was at an event recently when I was dissed. It wasn’t a mean diss, or even a conscious one for that matter. And that kind of made it worse.
I was talking to a colleague who I respect. We were chatting away and suddenly his head turned and locked. Silence. He became mesmerized. No, his brain froze or fried on the spot when a tall woman wearing a tight bright top revealing the exact shape of her breasts began to dance. Her pants hung so low you could almost glimpse her betty.
My mother was an expert in hiding. She taught me how to hide my body. I learned never to show off my good traits but to mask my unattractive ones. I began to wonder what effect a life of hiding has on a person.
If you’re always looking for ways to not be seen, how do you speak out? How do you move through the world if you have an invisible cloak that has no magical powers other than to keep you in your own shadow? How can one be exuberant and thrilled about living if this exuberance is housed in a body that is a constant shame.
