"And so this is Christmas"

"And so happy Christmas
For black and for white
For yellow and red ones
Let's stop all the fight

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear"

Oh my head is stuffed with so much these days, it's hard to stay focused. I am up and I am down and I pace and try to do something useful every day but simply doing what one must to stay alive most often overwhelms me. I want all to be beautiful but it is impossible... but then again, I believe that I was able to give something perhaps not beautiful but heart-warming to each of my children and Rob for Christmas. I asked each one what they wanted from me and Gill's request was the most daunting. She wanted an essay on what it was like to be her mother. I poured over old journals, blogs, her letters and such and wrote and rewrote, edited and then edited again, adding and subtracting, and it turned out to be as much of a gift to me as it was for her. I asked her permission to post it here and she agreed. 

So, although I have not posted anything the past month, you'll understand that I have been writing - not my novel which is giving me a lot of grief but writing - and all feeds into the story of my life and how I read it.

"Bringing up Baby"  

 “What has it been like being my mama and watching me go from a baby to a woman?" Gill asks.

That's a big question, little one. I've been your mama for over 34 years and you sugar and spice with your great big heart through thick and thin have always been my dream daughter.

***  

When you are five months old, I write in your baby journal: “You have a wonderfully happy, tranquil disposition and are easy to care for…." At six months, I note that “you are coming along beautifully… a perfect cherub… [with] wonderful smiles.”  A week after your first birthday, you take your first step and a month later, you conquer walking: “You are still very easy going… I love having you my little one, my daughter! When you raise your little arms to be picked up - which you do often - I can’t resist you.” 

You are now almost two. You are sitting in the bath, your hair tied back in a braid: "I still can’t believe I have a daughter and she is so sweet," I write. You are now talking, forming simple sentences and love saying "no, mom". You are quieter, less physical than your brothers and mimic me more than they did. You love washing walls and countertops. Jokingly your father says you'll probably be an airhead. I say you're going to be a doctor or lawyer, whatever - you will always be special.

When you are almost four years, we move to France for the year and, unlike your brothers, you do not speak French or complain about missing your friends and home comforts. The only time I am aware that you are aware of language difference is when you ask, “how do I say ‘give me back my toy’ in French?”  By the end of the year, you speak French as well as the village children. One of my sweetest memories from this year is watching you with Susan. (How happy I am that she can teach you about the natural world - a subject I know little about.) In my mind’s eye, I see you plodding after her in fields of wild flowers and when she points out a particularly unique orchid, you exclaim, “how clever you are Susan to find such a beautiful flower.” Once, when the two of you are sitting on a grassy hill in the hot sun drawing, Susan removes her blouse, and you tell her: “my mother has nicer breasts, Susan.”

You are my sunshine.

We return to Canada and you begin French Immersion kindergarten. We walk to school each day because I read that children who walk to school rather than be driven are better grounded. Often, we sing and step to the rhyme “left, left, I had a good job and I left. I left my wife and 48 children just because I thought I was right, right” our left and right feet touching ground on the appropriate word. I believe you love school, make good friends, have play dates, are happy. A few years later you join an early morning walking group and the leader tells me that you are noncompetitive, are never shoving to be first, you take your own sweet time, you chat to whoever, you are a delight.

You teach me how to be a better mother. I am angry at you because you won’t do your school work. I yell and you cry. I say “Gilly you have to allow me to yell sometimes.” You say “you have to allow me to cry.” We shower together and you look up at me and say, "aren't vaginas beautiful?" You are already leaps and bounds ahead of me. 

Before you are ten, we become travel companions. I see you still, trudging behind me pulling your small green suitcase. In those days, we go cheap and don’t make reservations. We stop at small inns and examine the room and decide if it is good enough, clean enough. Once we are invited to Italy to stay with a family who has a daughter your age. We go but that year it snows, the house is cold and the mother has a hissy fit and books her family into a Hyatt in Rome. We decide that we will go to smaller, more affordable cities. I am befuddled and you suggest Pisa and Verona. We visit the two, wander, share meals and beds. From that time to this, I love travelling with you.

(Years later, you want to see the Mediterranean. I drive for several hours and park by the sea. We walk and talk, sinking into sand and soaking in the water, and forget to search for a hotel until it is too late. No vacancies. We drive out of this town to the next. No inn. Finally, when I can drive no longer, we spend the night in the car, in a hotel parking lot off the autoroute. I am miserable but you, daughter of my heart, tell me "it's an adventure” and make me laugh. Forever after this, when we find ourselves in trouble, you remind me that life is an adventure.)

You are a pre-teen and your brothers are well into their difficult teens and test me often. I worry that you are too sweet, too kind, too ready to please, and worse, too like me. (Throughout my early life and well into my teens, my friends’ mothers called me “Little Mary Sunshine”: I was so smiley, so polite, so “tamed”.) Around this time, we have our first real confrontation. You buy a very skinny stretchy black skirt for a choir recital. You try it on to show me and for the first time, I see that your body is changing. You are still very young, you barely have breasts but you are sexy. This sexiness worries me. I seek a friend for advice and she tells me that I am right to be worried. There are men who prey on little girls. I tell you to buy a larger size and you cry and ask if I think you a slut. (As some one glibly told me “with boys you only have one penis to worry about”.) 

At fifteen, you tell me that you want to go to school in another country, to be the new girl in class, to wear a uniform, and to be intellectually challenged. You have searched the internet but it will cost too much. You sigh: “most of all I wanted to see if I could make a dream a reality.” I think of Langston Hughes:  “Hold fast to dreams/  For if dreams die/ Life is a broken-winged bird/  That cannot fly.” This is too important to ignore, I think. Several months later, you are the new girl, wearing a school uniform and being challenged intellectually in Lisburn Northern Ireland. We celebrate your 16th birthday at an Italian restaurant. You walk home from school with a tall good-looking boyfriend. He disappears. It is a long grey wet winter and you are unhappy. You lose weight. You write me a note: "Sometimes a cold lonely apartment on Bachelor’s Walk seems like a lot compared to this non-stop chaos and drama. But even when I am not stressed, it’s almost like I need to create it… I respect you more that I knew I could respect. I respect very little in this twisted world.”

I am dumbfounded: I say “let’s go home”. You say, “no, I said that I was going to do this and I am.” We still watch movies and read poetry snuggled into each other in bed but you are pensive. 

We return to Canada and you re-find friends and complete high school. You have grown intellectually and physically in Northern Ireland. You are writing poetry and prose. You challenge teachers at school. A steady stream of your friends come to our house and eat our leftovers. You appear happier. You are beautiful. You graduate. You will soon leave home for school in Toronto. I can no longer watch over you and keep you safe. One morning I find a package of black licorice, tied with a ribbon, and a note from you in my bathroom drawer, thanking me for rescuing you when your spirits were down. You include a poem that you wrote in Northern Ireland:

"I return home to my mother

who still hasn't eaten her scone

from the bakery that's shut down.

She's praising a poet

reminding me to dream big,

to earn my own living,

not to underestimate myself.

She sees some power in me

that I don't acknowledge

no matter how hard I squint to see.”

***

By this time, I have been a mother for nearly 30 years. I began when I was 29 years old. I feel as if I turned around three times and voila, I’m in my late 50s. Raising children is the hardest work I’ve done. Have I been good enough I ask myself? I often feel like a child myself and see, in truth, we have been growing up together. I cannot imagine myself in the world without you or your brothers. This reminds me of Sharon Olds’ poem “The Planned Child” as all three of my babies were planned:

“… when a friend was pouring wine

and said that I seem to have been a child who had been wanted,

I took the wine against my lips

as if my mouth were moving along

that valved wall in my mother's body, she was

bearing down, and then breathing from the mask, and then

bearing down, pressing me out into

the world that was not enough for her without me in it,

not the moon, the sun, Orion

cartwheeling across the dark, not

the earth, the sea--none of it

was enough, for her, without me.” 

***

You attend university for one year and then spend one year in Paris as an au pair before returning to school. I visit you in Toronto (December 2006) and write in my blog: “Every time I see her walking toward me, beautifully groomed and dressed… I think Paris, my favourite city has changed her, left its mark. She is so much taller, thinner, more confidant than I was at her age… And though I worry about her restlessness, sleeplessness, I do not worry that she won't find her passion… We talk for hours. When we are sitting, she curls into me. When we are walking, she links arms with me.”

A year later, I write: “I want to plant a seed in her brain that may take years to sprout. Nothing she does or doesn't do will stop me from loving her… I don't expect perfection. I know she is human… She doesn't have to be better than she is. I don't want her to despair as I have. Yet, I know I am powerless in this realm. She will despair.”

Susan tells me not to worry about you, to let you be: "Gill's clever." (I thank the heavens for all my strong female friends.) I let you be. You write me: "I feel as if I am always searching for something I

can't find. Anything within reach will never do." One professor tells you that you must decide what you want as you excel at all aspects of the program. I cannot advise you. I do not want to risk suggesting something that will divert you from your true path (if there is such a thing). I worry. I commiserate. I support you as best as I can but know you must find your own way to be alive.

 

In your notes, letters, and tributes, you paint me, with words, to be some wonderful wise creature and I have tried to live up to the picture you have painted with your glowing reviews but in true, I struggle. I am indecisive. I don’t know what direction to take myself. Paula Meehan says  it so well in her poem “I am not your muse”. 

I’d like to leave you in love’s blindness,

cherish the comfort of your art, the way

it makes me whole and shining,

smooths the kinks of my habitual distress,

never mentions how I stumble into the day,

fucked up, penniless, on the verge of whining

at my lot…

***

After graduating, you work hard. You blog. You visit your grandparents. You fall in love with a man who owns a boa. You create an in-home dinner club. You sparkle and shine. You leave boa man and meet television producer. I feel powerless to stop what is supposed to be the most joyous ceremony in your life. (I see clearly that your husband-to-be is an unhappy man, a lost soul, a drunkard.) I question myself even now: Is there anything I could have done to stop it? 

You learn quickly that if you do not leave him, he will crush you. You return to me. You become a gypsy. You find work here, there and everywhere. You re-educate yourself. You experiment. You find love again. You move to a new country, learn to drive, follow dreams, create your own business, and over this past difficult pandemic year, you have developed a social conscience, re-educating yourself yet again.

Still you have dark moments when you doubt yourself and all is gloomy. I want to reassure you, to tell you not to go there, that you are too warm, kind, intelligent, beautiful to indulge in self pity. Or if you must, know that it will pass, that it’s good to be human. I love how you aren’t afraid to expose your human side in your writing, how you pour it all out as if saying, take me as I am. I do.

You remain my dream daughter. 

You are home for the holidays. You call out to me “there’s a monkey in your bed.” and you silly-Gilly are laughing under the duvet on my kingsize bed like the child you once were.

“More than gems in my comb box shaped by the God of the Sea,/ I prize you, my daughter”     -  Eighth-century Japanese poet Otomo no Sakanoue Iratsume 

 

 

Too Old for Sex?

I admit I'm pathetic. Now that I have all the time in the world, I'm finding it difficult to alight and write. I putter, doing odd chores, reading, ironing and, once in a while, jigsaw puzzles. In France, our movement is quite restricted. I am allowed out to assist vulnerable people so once or twice a week, when David goes down to the garden, I sit with Susan and we drink wine and talk about her books or my draft or sex. Just because I'm in my nineties, she tells me, doesn't mean I've stopped fantasizing and dreaming about sex. 

In the second volume of her memoirs, Susan explains, at length, about the destruction of the pleasure society that was based on imagination and play instead of rivalry and violence.  To return to it, she writes, that "[w]e will have to start small, with that first thing the myths say went wrong, women's talent for pleasure."

She suggests "A school for grandmothers! Learning to be like Baubo! We have what it takes. We are practical and worldly wise, we have sexual experience and boldness of spirit. We are more untrammelled by convention and less anxious about our sexuality than young women. We are angry like them; they are angry to be considered just women. We are angry not to be considered women any more, just a sort of disembodied bodies. Or we are bitter and punish ourselves for what others have done to us by saying we are old and asexual and tired of the whole thing. But this can be made to work for us. It is physiologically quite untrue because women's sexual sensibility and capacity grows with age, and if we can be taught to see it differently we will be eager to tell our grand-daughters how to avoid our embittering experiences."

This is such a weighty topic that I will leave it to Susan to elaborate but I should explain that Baubo - the Goddess of Mirth - is an old woman in Greek mythology. She was bawdy and sexually liberated, and when people laughed at her, she didn't mind. Laughter is good, she said. Susan tells of Baubo dragging her clitoris in the sand which reminded me of a magazine article I wrote in 2007.

 The Omnipotent Clitoris

Yvonne Young 

If the most liberal mothers buy their daughters condoms, do the most enlightened buy them vibrators? The thrill of seduction is nothing compared to the earth-moving quake of the female orgasm. Unfortunately, young women exploring their sexuality aren’t learning this fundamental truth: the clitoris or “magic cape” as Natalie Angier calls it in Woman: An Intimate Geography, alerts as well as ignites in the heat of the moment. While men have been discussing its properties for centuries, the owners of this palatable treasure are ignorant of its power. 

Sixty-seven years, after Christopher Columbus set sail to discover a new world, Renaldus Columbus (no relation) claimed he’d discovered the route to a woman’s sexual pleasure. His claim was rejected by Kaspar Barholin, a Danish anatomist, who insisted that what 

Renaldus chose to name “the love or sweetness of Venus” had been known since the second century. Whoever discovered the clitoris, Georg Ludwig Kobelt, a German physician, was the first to document its structure and function. In his text of 1844, he writes that the glans cliteroides is “the primary locus of sexual arousal... which will make women want to have intercourse despite the dangers of pregnancy and the trials of motherhood.” 

Although women now know more about their bodies than in Kobelt’s time,
they are still ignoring danger for the sake of romance. Furthermore, the thrill of danger – the high of risk itself – is being substituted for the pleasure of orgasm. When Dr. Carol Cassell, a leader in the field of sex education, asked a group of 125 women, all family-planning professionals, whether they’d ever had unprotected intercourse when they weren’t planning pregnancy, much to her surprise, every single one of them said “yes.” When she asked them why, they answered, “Romance... Spontaneity... There is nothing more awful than premeditated sex.” 

According to a friend, in her early twenties, part of the pleasure of sex is the danger. Last year, she spent her days and evenings working and her late nights and early mornings frolicking in bed with a young man. (She didn’t know a person could get by on so little sleep.) At the beginning of the relationship, she insisted that her lover wear condoms but as time passed, she became more lenient. To avoid pregnancy, she didn’t allow him to ejaculate into her body “most of the time.” After several months of passionate coupling, she missed a period and almost drove herself crazy with worry until her next menstrual cycle began. When I asked whether she’d become more cautious since this pregnancy scare, she said no.

Another young friend reminded me that there is more at risk than unwanted pregnancy. Last fall, while I was living in France, she was hiking around Europe. She dropped in for a visit and stayed a week. From the moment she arrived, she couldn’t stop talking about the places she’d been and the people she’d met. Then, casually, she let it drop that she had spent one night in a Spanish hospital in agony. The doctor, without examining her, had prescribed medicine for a bladder infection. Although she’d taken it for three days, she was still having trouble urinating. Several days later when her condition still hadn’t improved, she finally went to the village doctor for a second opinion. She returned in tears. Although the doctor wanted laboratory proof, she was almost certain my friend had herpes simplex II or genital herpes.

Like my other young friend, this woman is well educated and cautious about sexual encounters. Before becoming intimately involved with a man, she insists he is tested for disease. When she travels, she carries a supply of condoms. But one starry night on a beach on the Costa Brava, she lost all reason and made love, without protection, to a fellow traveler. She cursed herself. She cursed him. How dare he not tell her that he was infected?

I have since learned that between two-thirds and three-quarters of people with genital herpes show no symptoms and are unaware that they are infected. The tiny blisters and open sores that mark the disease can appear at any moment, disappear, and reappear again and again. More disturbing still, the virus can cause central nervous system damage or death in infants born through the birth canal. Unlike other sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, or candidiasis, which can be arrested with antibiotics, there is still no cure for genital herpes. My friend, like those who carry the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) or the more lethal HIV, will always have to protect herself during sexual encounters or risk passing the disease on to others. 

Women often fail to protect themselves during sex, Dr. Cassell explains in Swept Away: Why Women Fear Their Own Sexuality, because they have been raised to play the passive role. She believes that unless women first admit that they are sexual beings, that they want and are going to have sex, they will continue to put themselves at risk. Her theory matches Nancy Friday’s.
In Women on Top: How Real Life has Changed Women’s Sexual Fantasies, Friday elaborates on the “swept away” syndrome and women’s unwillingness to protect themselves during sex. “Being contraceptively prepared goes against a lifelong addiction to love, a state of mind that includes sexual feeling but has never been differentiated from it.” Although it may be preferable to love the person with whom one makes love, Friday admits, it is more important
to recognize the difference between sex and love. One way to recognize the difference, Friday insists, is by masturbating. Although many women feel more comfortable about touching themselves than they did when Friday’s first book, My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies was published in 1974, she suggests that there is still a considerable number who shy away from pleasuring themselves. Friday encourages mothers to tell their daughters to masturbate because, she believes, when a girl or young woman touches her own genitals, she learns more about her anatomy and becomes a more intelligent owner, more in control of what is hers.

Naomi Wolf, in Promiscuities, suggests that young women would also benefit if older women gave them information about contraception and sexual pleasure so they could learn to value their sexuality: “We can teach our daughters that shame belongs to the act of abusing or devaluing female sexuality, not to that sexuality itself.”

Until the middle of the eighteenth century, men such as Columbus and Barholin had a vested interest in women’s sexuality for they believed that without female orgasm, there would be no conception. Not surprisingly, women didn’t challenge this belief. Although medical science has changed men and women’s attitudes towards sex, some things remain the same. Most men love driving a woman to orgasm. Most women love the sensation. In the throngs of passion, however, many women ignore or forget that it’s the female body that incubates the next generation and, as Dr. Genuis points out in Risky Sex, is more seriously injured by the majority of sexually transmitted diseases. 

Many women don’t realize, Natalie Angier writes, that they are endowed with a protective device, “a magic cape.” The clitoris, unlike the vagina, does not respond when it is frightened as in rape, or when it is hurried or harassed. Under ideal conditions, its 8000 nerve fibers (twice as many as the penis) swell with pleasure and then “it is a taut little baton, leading the way, cajoling here, quickening there, andante, allegro, crescendo, refrain.”

If young women are to benefit from the sexual revolution of the ‘60s—when their right to birth control was established and their right to decide their own future was won—they will become more aggressive and responsible in and out of bed. They will push themselves to move beyond the “swept away” syndrome. While there may be pleasure in danger, there is much more fun to be had with self-knowledge.

In her chapter on the clitoris, Angier notes that she uses the terms “clitoris”, “female orgasm”, and “female sexuality” almost interchangeably. She would most likely endorse the idea that mothers who value their own sexuality would want their daughters to be easily and super orgasmic. Such mothers would gift- wrap vibrators as well as condoms for their daughters.

 

Yvonne Young has published stories and book reviews in “The Diarist’s Journal”, “Fugue”, “The Vancouver Sun”, the “North Shore News”, and the “Kings County Record”. She was short-listed in The Canadian Literary Awards contest and won second prize in the “West End” literary contest.

 

References


Angier, Natalie. Woman: An Intimate Geography. New York: Houghton Mif in Company, 1999. 

Cassell, Carol. Swept Away: Why Women Fear Their Own Sexuality. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984.


Friday, Nancy. Women on Top: How Real Life has Changed Women’s Sexual Fantasies. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.


Genuis, Stephen. Risky Sex. Edmonton: KEG Publishing, 1991.


Laqueur, Thomas. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: Harvard University Press, 1990.


Morrison, Ken, editor. Safer Sex Guidelines: Healthy Sexuality and HIV. Ottawa: Canadian AIDS Society, 1994.


Rubin, Lillian B. Erotic Wars: What Happened to the Sexual Revolution? New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1990.


Tsena, C. Howard; Villanueva, T.Guilas; and Powel, Alvin. Sexually Transmitted Diseases: A Handbook of Protection, Prevention and Treatment. California: R & E Publishers, 1987. 

Wolf, Naomi; Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood. Toronto: Random House of Canada Limited, 1997. 

Outrageous for Lisa

To beautiful Lisa who reminds me of Japanese Haiku:

“Between our two lives/ there is also the life of/ the cherry blossom.”

"You are filled with doubt/ of the magic inside you,/ but it's all I see."

Something "outrageous" (or not) for your birthday

When my friend Susan Reid left academic work, she asked herself "What are you really interested in?" The first thought that popped into her head surprised her: "I am interested in women's cunts". This led to her work on women's sexual language and this, in turn, lead to her talisman "I have a big cunt".  When stressed or anxious, she whispered this phrase to herself and "poise calm and dignity descended".

Soon after I arrived in France in 1989, Susan asked if I would accompany her to her garden below the village to pick fresh figs. I was in a sad, tear-stained state and said little as we walked so Susan filled the silence with a monologue about her first and second marriages. Her first husband had been her university professor at Oxford and, at first, his age and authority delighted her but she soon discovered he was arrogant, condescending and a womanizer although he had one agreeable trait: "He loved cunts. He found each one unique and beautiful." I must have looked shocked, as Susan paused and explained that no one word describes the whole of women's genitalia. She would like to dispel its ugliness and bring "cunt" back into fashion. (Six years later, Eve Ensler, in her play the Vagina Monologues, also wanted women to reclaim the word.)

Although I trust Susan implicitly, cunt is a powerful appellation and I had to push myself to use it especially in my blog as my mother and father read me daily. (Later, my father commented on my "filthy" language. ) Sadly, I still find it difficult to write about cunt. In languages other than English, it does not have the same potency but as Germaine Greer argued in 2007 cunt "is one of the few remaining words in the English language with a genuine power to shock".

"I tried to take the malice out of it. I wanted women to be able to say it. The same way I would say: “You think cunt is nasty? I’m here to tell you cunt is nice. Like "Black is Beautiful”. Cunt is delicious. Cunt is powerful. Cunt is strong.

"Ah - it didn’t work. And now, in a way, I’m sort of, perversely pleased, 'cause it meant that it kept that power."

In her poem "Hypocrite Women",  Denise Levertov notes women coddle men as if they cannot handle the truth but women too don't have the guts to admit our own harsh truths: 

Hypocrite women, how seldom we speak

of our own doubts, while dubiously

we mother man in his doubt!

And if at Mill Valley perched in the trees

the sweet rain drifting through western air

a white sweating bull of a poet told us

our cunts are ugly - why didn't we

admit we have thought so too? (And

what shame? They are not for the eye!)

no, they are dark and wrinkled and hairy,

caves of the Moon...             and when a 

dark humming fills us, a

coldness towards life,

we are too much women to

own to such unwomanliness.

Whorishly with the psychopomp

we play and plead--and say

nothing of this later.          And our dreams,

with what frivolity we have pared them

like toenails, clipped them like ends of

split hair. 

Her description of the cunt and women's attitudes toward this precious part of our anatomy makes me despair. In adolescence, I too thought it as ugly as sin, when the hair started sprouting. I thought worse -that it was smelly, and once a month bloody-awful. 

This was so unkind and such a lie.

I don't know how young women think about their cunts these days. 

I remember when my daughter was a little girl, she looked up at me in the shower and exclaimed "aren't vaginas beautiful, mummy?" YES. 

If this is of interest at all, I recommend reading Susan Reid's autobiography in three volumes. The first is titled "About Being German; Speak to me: recollections of growing up in Germany, 1927-1948: Volume 1" 

Inspiration

 Just when I sink feeling blue and hopeless, inspiration arrives. Thank you wholeheartedly Lisa and Brendan.

and

Dearest Marlene

 I received your email this morning and I know too well that I haven't posted here in a long time. Every day I tell myself to write a blog and every day I find reasons not to. I am writing. I am pretty good about writing myself a letter in the morning as a way to get through my day. When I don't, I am a scrambled mess. I have continued to write my novel though I have no idea how to write one. Oh I do have a number of books outlining a step by step approach but I don't want to take the time and besides, I want to create something original. Susan and David smile and frown at me when I discuss my progress or lack of it. It's so easy for others to say "do it". At times, I am astonished at my bravery and at other times, I despair because I have so easily deluded myself and am an idiot. I am reading Smart's "At Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept" and Anais Nin's "Henry and June" for permission to say whatever I want. 

Yesterday I wrote down this Smart quote: "To deny love, and deceive it meanly by pretending that what is unconsummated remains eternal, or that love sublimated reaches highest to heavenly love, is repulsive, as the hypocrite's face is repulsive when placed too close to the truth."

Oh, I have been so repulsive. And yet, there are startling moments when I return to see what I've written the day before and I grin and think myself pretty fucking amazing. Unfortunately these moments are rare but aren't the greatest moments in one's life rare and startling and beautiful when they appear in the most ordinary of circumstances?

I worry also that I have left it too late, that my weather-worn brain will fail me or is failing me or is not up to the challenge. I was afraid of reading Anne Truitt's third journal "Prospect" because the second spoke of aging and its limitations but I am now into it and instead of being disheartened, I am encouraged. She quotes Cicero born in 106 BC - I am always amazed that old wisdom is still wise:

"Age does not steal upon adults any faster than adulthood steals upon children... I regard nature as the best guide... Since she has planned all the earlier divisions of our life expertly, she is not likely to make a bad playwright's mistake of skimping the last act.

"Great deeds are not done by strength or speed or physique: they are the product of thought, and character, and judgement. And far from diminishing such qualities actually increase with age.

"Age has to be fought against; its faults need vigilant resistance. We must combat them as we should fight a disease - following a fixed regime, taking exercise in moderation, and enough food and drink to strengthen yet not enough to overburden. However the mind and spirit need even more attention than the body, for old age easily extinguishes them, like lamps when they are not given oil..."

I struggle every day trying to create a regime that works for me, and trying to go easy on myself when I fail. For example, this morning I wrote: "Rob has gone to pick up our car with its new perfect body (hopefully) and I am wondering whether to attack my novel, write a blog, do my morning pages, vacuum the upstairs while Rob is out and so on it goes - the everyday demands and then the extravagant personal self-indulgent writing, and the craziness of reading three books at the same time. I drive myself crazy trying to be productive, establish a routine, and never feeling fast enough, quick witted enough and at the same time, telling myself to slow down that, in the end, it doesn't really matter."

I fear my dear Marlene, that I haven't quite conquered my "addiction to perfection". I should possibly read Marion's book again too but how much can a greedy person like myself absorb? 

Kahlo says it for me

I’m not going to ask you to kiss me

Neither ask for forgiveness when I believe that you have done wrong

or that you have made a mistake.
Nor am I going to ask you to hug me when I need it the most
or to invite me to dinner on our anniversary.
I’m not going to ask you to go around the world
to live new experiences much less
ask you to give me your hand when we are in that city.
I’m not going to ask you to tell me how pretty I’ am
even if it’s a lie or that you write me anything nice.
Nor will I ask you to call me to tell me
how your day was or tell me you miss me.
I’m not going to ask you to thank me for everything I do for you,
for you to worry about me when my moods are down
and of course I will not ask you to support me in my decisions.
I’m not going to ask you to listen to me when I have a thousand
stories to tell you.
I’m not going to ask you to do anything,
not even to stay by my side forever.
Because if I have to ask you
I do not want it anymore.

xoxo

The Year was 2003

This was the year of the first writing workshop in our home in France. I had invited Marlene who I recognized the moment I laid eyes on her in an autobiography class at UBC. She was the facilitator - a fellow reader, lover of words, listener extraordinaire, who wanted to help women find their voices. This workshop was pure magic, a gathering of 17 women from Canada, the United States, England and France who met in our 13th century - yet-to-be-renovated - house. It just so happens that that was one of the hottest summers on record. We met every morning and as the days progressed, the air became stiller and stiller and the heat was so overpowering that every woman present dressed in lighter and lighter garments and many of us forewent undergarments. What did this do our writing? Most of us wrote hot steamy tales. This is the one that I composed on such a day - very much like the weather we're experiencing now in France.

WLADYSLAVA INSPIRES ROCOCO DAYDREAMS

by Yvonne Young

Sharon painted a life-size image of Wladyslava, cigarette in mouth, seated with legs spread, elbows on thighs, eyes confronting the viewer. “Don’t mess with me,” she appears to be saying. 

Those who viewed Sharon’s painting thought Wladyslava an imaginary character. I knew otherwise.  The real woman or “seductress,” as she called herself, was—still is for all I know—a professor of economics at a northern university in France - but she dressed like a tart, neckline low, lace bra showing, tits thrust up and out. She craved attention and, if her dress didn’t attract looks, she would rub the palm of her hand back and forth over one breast, then the other until her nipples hardened, and then run her tongue over her lips as if eager to taste, to ravish every male within her eyes’ radius. 

When Wladyslava moved, she never walked or sauntered. She strode, head up, nose too, arrogant to a fault, magnificent, like Delacroix’ figure of Liberty.  

I meant to discuss Sharon’s image, not the subject, but Sharon has captured Wladyslava so well that every time I mention the painting, I think of its subject and here, in the south of France, where I first met Wladyslava, it seems natural that she come to mind especially since, on this hot hot day, I am wearing my wench top, breasts spilling over, one shoulder strap fallen, long skirt, with no underwear. I feel a little like a seductress myself. 

I included Wladyslava in another story, written in first person, one that inspired Sharon to paint the shameless hussy. The tale takes place in Venice where I had escaped with John, my lover, my hater, my partner. I refuse to use the words “my husband”—although I am married to John—because the possessive article and noun suggest ownership and I refuse to own or be owned. To paraphrase William Blake, “I must create my own… [language] or be enslaved by another man’s.” 

I want to make it clear that the eight days I spent in Venice with John were no wife-husband ode to tourism. They were the sexiest days that I have ever spent with a man. We couldn’t stop fucking. (Is this important to the story? I have too many stories. I simply want to explain how the words seductress and Wladyslava became synonymous.) One day, waiting by the Rialto Bridge for John, I noticed a number of male heads turning to stare at me. Me? Wladyslava instantly came to mind.  I decided to be her. I threw back my head, thrust my breasts forward, crossed my legs high at the thigh, leaned back on my hands, and eyed every man as I would ambrosia on a dessert tray. More than one turned his head so I fell more and more into the role of seductress. 

My eyes kept exploring the male scenery until, in the distance; I spied a gorgeous specimen of masculinity. His jet-black hair and rugged full beard reminded me of Giancarlo Giannini in Lina Wertmueller’s “Swept Away.” I felt an inexplicable desire for this stranger. How did he know? He hesitated, changed direction, and strode towards me, halting two inches from my feet. As he stood staring down into my eyes, my heart started racing. I couldn’t avert my eyes. My tongue, much to my amazement, escaped and wet my lips. All my force had to be summoned not to be outdone by him. I won. He blinked first and then walked away. 

I do not tell this to brag but to illustrate Wladyslava power. 

No one would buy Sharon’s painting. Although women liked it well enough, men either loved or hated the strong woman confronting them.  After a time, Sharon realized that the men, who hated it, were bores, not worth her time. The men who loved the aggressive female figure were dynamite, in and out of bed. Finally to save time, Sharon would show a prospective lover the painting. 

As a birthday gift, Sharon gave me a replica of Wladyslava’s mouth with cigarette dangling that looked as if she had cut out a segment of the larger painting. I hung it in my writing room and every time I enter, those lush lips, that defiant cigarette, confront me.

(written in Castelnau de Montmiral, summer 2003) 

COVID19

The other night, I had a dream that upset me so much that it stayed with me throughout the day, made me so miserable I didn't go to the village market because I didn't want to put on a fake smile or open my mouth. When I told Rob about it, he said that it did not sound that scary and, in telling it, it didn't but still, I felt horrible.

I appear to be at a beach that has a long boardwalk running through its middle. A long line of people are walking casually along, laughing and talking. I stand off the walk, in my mask, waiting for the people to pass so I can cross safely when I focus on this young woman, taller and stronger than me, approaching. When she reaches me, she stops, looks me in the eye sneeringly and grabs my hands. I am horrified and try to pull my hands out of hers but she holds tight and won't let go. I struggle for what appears to be a long time and finally, realizing that she is too strong, I begin to cry. She laughs and leaves me.

I think about my powerlessness throughout the day, trying to think of what I could have done or said to change the situation. One response could have been: I have COVID19. Another is: You'll be sorry if I die because of you, but I know both responses are weak: I doubt either would have moved her.

Some days, I feel as if I'm in jail and will never escape. Other days, I think this lonely life is good for me: it forces me to stay put and design a way of being that gives me pleasure. I have begun yet again to write my novel. Susan and David are urging me on although yesterday Susan said that she would not live long enough to read it. I said you never know. You may live to be a hundred. When the writing is difficult, I worry that I am spending my last days doing something that is beyond me, that will never be finished.

I have a pile of books on my desk - fiction, non-fiction, and poetry - and I jump from one to another, depending on my mood. I smile at myself. I am doing what I've been doing all my life - trying to find a way to live.

Bad Habits

I just found this piece that I wrote many years ago and I have no idea if I wrote it for anything specific or not - could have simply been an exercise for my writing group. I'd say I've been a closet writer for years.



BAD HABITS

I am old as old as my friend Maggie was that year before she died.  After disease stole her vocal cords, I visited her almost daily and talked non-stop about my writing, the children, Adam’s work, what I was making for dinner, anything and everything to keep her from crying, although I was the one that minded the tears.  Maggie called them the wine of the gods.
Now I am the old one and Marietta visits me as I once visited Maggie but, unlike Maggie, I am blessed.  All my faculties more or less function, though my eyes strain more often and my ears miss light sounds like the footsteps of Marietta entering my den. Sometimes, when I am reading with a magnifying glass, I look up and there she is, sitting at the table leafing through one of my novels with such reverence that I smile.  I took a lot of abuse over my books, especially Three Hundred Days of Indulgence.  Some called it pornography.  Others worse.  I nearly lost my husband over that one.  Adam didn’t like what he said I’d written about him.  I laughed in his face; called him presumptuous, and insisted the book was fiction.
I lied, of course.  Every writer borrows from life.
He accepted my explanation.  Had little choice.  After thirty years, I was his bad habit.  He couldn’t live without me.
Marietta says my books give her permission to think her wayward thoughts.  She is speaking about sex, of course.  You’d think in this decade that fucking would be as easy as sending an email.  It isn’t.  It still confuses people.  They can’t get naked and have a rip-roaring good time without using that dreadful word relationship, or worse still love.
“All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.”
I can’t believe it.  I sit here thinking my foolish thoughts and when the word  “love” pops into my mind, the Beatles’ song plays in my head.
No.
The music is coming from outside.
I look out the window and there’s Adam singing his fool head off in his beloved vegetable garden.  It’s eerie how often we’re in sync these days.
I wave and grin; and he, poor dear, blows a kiss my way.
I am a hard cruel woman.  I should have set him free years ago.  He is too good for me.
I turn back to my desk and there is Marietta sitting patiently waiting.  She demands nothing but a word now and again, although occasionally she taxes me for advice on some article she’s writing. 
Something has upset her today.  She keeps clenching that pretty mouth of hers.
“What is it, Marietta?”
She takes a deep breath, twists one bare leg around the other as if it were rubber.
“You know Sophia…
She takes another deep breath.
“I thought myself liberated.  I come here and tell you about my sexual exploits, brag almost, feel free and intelligent—gutsy, to use your word; but after what I did yesterday…
She hangs her head like a sorry child.
“Oh come on, Marietta.  I’m too old to plead.  What stupid fool thing did you do? Or think you did?”
She gets up and paces, her long legs more exposed, as she strides, in that treacherous mini-skirt. 
Just when I’m about to yell at her for wearing out the carpet and my patience, she halts and begins in a somber voice.
“A couple of nights ago, I went to The King’s Arms with several colleagues from the office.  It was Malcolm’s birthday.  He’s the skinny one with dark glasses who fawns over me.  After a couple of glasses of wine, I excused myself to go to the washroom.  The new illustrator—beautiful young woman, smart too, but with the craziest eyes I’ve ever seen—said she had to go too.  I went into the first stall, was about to lock the door, when she pushed in, bolted it, and spun round to face me.”
Marietta swallows hard and resumes pacing.
“As I looked into those crazy eyes, questioning, she raised her hand and stroked my cheek.  And then she raised the other hand to my face and pressed her lips against mine.  Those soft wet lips and tongue forcing its way into my mouth took me by surprise. I liked the sweetness.  I closed my eyes and tasted fruit.”
She pauses.
“It’s been too damn long, Sophia, that’s the problem.  I like penises.  I like them inside me.  I’m not attracted to women.  Oh yes, I have fantasies, but that’s all they are.  I love women but I don’t want to make love to them... fuck them, as you would say.”
“So what’s the big deal?  You kissed a woman on the lips.”
“That’s not all.  She put her hands on my breasts and I found myself arching towards her.  Heaven knows what else I’d have let her touch but we were interrupted by a yell outside the door.  I cringe when I think of it.”
Marietta stands there rocking but, by now, I’m as curious as hell and can’t wait for her histrionics to end.
“Yell?  Why was someone yelling in the washroom?  Was someone hurt?”
“No, no.  She was demanding to know what we two lezzies were doing in there.
“Lezzies?  I felt as if I’d been slapped.  I stepped back and shook my head at crazy eyes.  She moved to the wall and I opened the door and left.
“Yesterday she approached me at work and asked if she could come over to my place with a bottle of her favourite merlot.
“No,” I told her.  “I’m sorry but no.
“I could hardly look her in the eye.  I espouse all this—this dogma on androgyny and find I’m too uptight to test the theory.  You told me once that your only regret is that you’ve never made love to a woman.  I thought yes, that it would be nice to feel soft flesh next to mine.  We would know how to please the other.  But, when given the opportunity, I’m too afraid to wander from the straight and narrow.”
She slumps into the chair.
“Balls, Marietta.  Think woman think.  Imagine that illustrator was a man who could fill you to the hilt.  Would you invite him over to your place after one quick grope in a toilet stall?”
 Marietta looks up.  Slowly her mouth breaks into a smile.
This is why I love this young woman.  She can laugh at herself.
“You’re right.  I am overreacting.  I wouldn’t make love—fuck rather—a man on the basis of one wine-infused kiss, no matter where it happened.
“Sophia, thanks.  I feel so much better.  Must run.”
Marietta leaves, slamming the damn door.  How many times have I told her that it isn’t music to my ears?
She’ll learn some day that the intellect is light years ahead of the emotions.  If the timing is right, she might even enjoy a woman in the sack. 
Oh Maggie, how I miss you.  In the end, you were angry with me.  I wanted to leave Adam during my three hundred days of indulgence.  He was so dreary.  And you cautioned me, crying all the while, not to make important decisions when swinging off emotional highs.
Damn, I was wilder than Marietta.  When did I tell her that I’d never made love to a woman?  I did whatever I pleased with whomever I pleased—monogamy equaled monotony—and then vindicated myself by telling Adam everything.  Before long, he was crying too.  I thought I was going to drown in tears.
Who told you that they’re the wine of the gods?  I searched long and hard and found no such reference although Psyche crying buckets of tears over Eros pissed me off.
Why is Psyche or Soul a weak little female and Eros, god of love, a golden-haired boy with a bow and arrow?
A man must have transcribed the myth.
If anyone’s been wounded by love, it is Adam.  He was Psyche crying for me, goddess of love—or so I thought—looking down from my lofty height, feeling sorry for the mere mortal.
I was so full of myself.
When Adam’s tears dried, he made love to me until I had to beg him to stop—another reversal of roles.  Did I say, “made love?” Marietta’s influence… whatever… he knew how to please me.  Still does, if the truth is to be told.  I love it when that old man climbs on top of me. 
I am blessed. 

Mother - written May 13, 2012

It's Mother's Day in France and this morning, going through old journals, I found this entry from eight years ago - another Mother's Day.

"What does it mean 'mother'"?

I spent one university year writing a paper on my mother. I cried uncontrollably during the process as if every thought and happening I discussed on paper was a betrayal. When I began researching mothers and daughters, I didn't like my mother. By the end, I loved her.

I began my essay: "I continued to reflect that she was dangerous...she prevented me from liking myself. I, who was so naturally meant for happiness and gaiety, had been forced into a world of self-criticism and guilty conscience..."    -  Françoise Sagan

"In 1993, Rob was nominated for an Oscar for Unforgiven. After it was announced, the two of us escaped to Mexico, leaving a male friend to look after our children. (As it turned out, he became a secretary as well - recording all incoming messages regarding Rob's nomination.) In Mexico - I cannot remember where - we told nobody about Rob's great honour - although we were bursting with it - and did a number of touristy things. One day, at the last moment, we decided to splurge on a day's boat excursion with what we thought was a reputable company - Jacques Cousteau's. Unbeknownst to us, there was a storm warning and the company bearing Cousteau's name was not at the dock and another had taken its place. We were surprised at the rather shabby sail boat with a rough-looking crew though climbed on board with two American couples. As the day wore on, the sea grew wilder and wilder, the waves larger and larger until the six of us were drenched and fearful that we would be tossed overboard so we devised a human chain: the largest person wrapped his arms around the base of the sail and around the person in front - the rest of us sat between the legs of the person behind and held onto the person in front. I was soaked and shivering and thought we were all going to die: I started yelling for my mother. I had never yelled for my mother: she was the last person I thought of when I was in danger and yet, when I thought my end was inevitable, I was yelling for her.

I think of myself as a mother - the most difficult work that I have ever taken on. There were times when the responsibility terrified me. One day I have a great big belly with the shape of a foot roaming its surface and the next, I am holding a tiny human being whose life depends on me. I am still me but I have a new label - mother: this baby clings to me, claws at me, wants all of me, every hour of the day and night. I am consumed. I worry about things that I never worried about before children. I do things that I've never done before - like waiting at street lights: it is imperative that I stay alive for my child. The baby grows and I want to keep him or her safe and at the same time, allow freedom. I do not want to break a child's spirit but I want to tame it a little so he or she will be welcome anywhere. At the same time, I want a life of my own while raising these wild little beings but this proves difficult when someone is always yelling "mummy".

I so wanted to be a good mother and tried to listen and be open when questioned. For instance, "Why can't I go swimming after eating?" And I would research the half-hour or hour wait period rule - that my mother enforced - to find out if it was an urban legion or not. When my/our children were old enough to drink, we got an account with a local taxi company that they or their friends could use, without question, if inebriated. I know I wasn't perfect. I can remember a few times when I failed one of the other or other miserably.

Now all is quiet. My three are  grown-ups, gone, leading their own lives. Two of them are older than I was when I had my first child. My baby is a quarter of a century. All three are creative, loving people. I can relax: they don't need me to keep them safe and yet if they need me, I am here.

How strange life is. One day the child is so dependent; the next, he or she is anxious to leave, to do whatever without censure including guilty pleasures. I know what is right for me, what feels good and, at one time, I knew what was right for my children. Sometimes, I disappointed them, stopped them from doing things they wanted - not because they were necessarily unsafe - but I worried they might be- and I if something horrible did happen, it would be my fault.

Now, I don't know what is right for them. They are on their own and only they know their own hearts. I might not like what they are doing - though this is rare - and sometimes, I would love to offer advice after all, I have lived so much longer than they have - but I don't because for better or worse, I have found my way but is it the best way? I don't know. I have hopes that my children will find a better way - or a way more gratifying to their individual sensibilities."

You won't hear much from me in the days to come because I am trying to finish my novel. I write from two to five hours a day, six days a week. I think the greatest betrayal is self-betrayal - denying myself something that I need, want, desire if it is within my means and if it doesn't cause another harm. (This raises so many questions but I wish to keep somethings to myself.)

As this is my final act, I want to feel my life is valuable to me - beyond my relationship to others, even beyond the roles that I chose to play though I do not regret being a mother and wife, daughter, sister, friend. (This last sentence makes me smile. Too weak. I loved being a wife and mother et al - not all the time but for great chunks of my life.)  Recently, I have joyfully accepted the role of Lola and grandmother - the easiest and most fun one that I have ever played.

Anything Goes

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
Now heaven knows, anything goes

And good authors too who once knew better words
Now only use four letter words writing prose
'Cause anything goes

I have been busy. I've been editing Gill's new book "Babe Gains" for women of all shapes and sizes. I imagine it is difficult for some women to believe that she believes every body is beautiful because she is gorgeous (though as insecure as the rest of us). 

I have also spent a good few hours writing an advertisement for the store - sort of tricky because who wants to buy luxury when under house arrest (not quite true but nearly). Although I included it before, I am removing it from this post as I had to rewrite it (as several people at the store did not think it optimistic enough.) 

Please forgive me if I repeat myself but I don't want to take the time to check back on past posts. I used to spend hours writing a blog but no longer. There is not enough hours in the day to do what I want to do so I'm treating this venue as a letter to friends who will understand and love me anyway. Seriously, I just want to have fun. And please stop reading if a post bores you. It's just me putting out all and sundry for selfish reasons - to write and find my voice again. (And yes, my courage.)

I received the most wonderful gift - a year's subscription  to MasterClass where I can learn a number of skills from the masters of those particular fields. (This eats into my day too but a class is around 10 to 20 minutes and they are fun.) For a number of days, I've been joining Margaret Atwood in her Creative Writing Class. She appears a little nervous facing the camera. At first, I found her dry but the more classes I take, the more I find her endearing. I have gone back and listened to her class on POV several times. 

POV is a big trouble maker for me. When I came out of hiding and took the first 17 pages of my novel to Dublin to my first ever writing workshop, I was terrified. The professor running the program announced at the first get-together that my work would be critiqued first. I was beyond scared. What if my fellow writers tore it to shreds? I might never write again. This reminds me of an audition for a high school musical. I tried out for the lead female singer and, of course, didn't get it as I cannot carry a tune. What if similarly I am told I cannot write? 

I dragged myself to the first day of workshopping, thinking my heart might fly out of my chest and burst, it was racing so quickly. I found a chair at the round table and sat, head down as I didn't dare look anyone in the eye. Although my story was written in 3rd person, I was certain that everyone in that room knew it was about me  
The professor (JMcC) welcomed us and asked what is the first thing that one asks when critiquing someone else's work. Silence. You ask if it is literate. Is Yvonne's story literate? Silence.

I thought I was going to die.

After what seemed to be forever, he answered his own question: Yes. (This gave me some relief.) For the next two hours, each writer in the class, told what they thought of my work - the strong points and the weak ones. The strong out-weighted the weak. I was truly surprised at what some thought of the main character - a repressed Roman Catholic - and how several found all kinds of biblical references. My work had more depth than I had thought. (I didn't tell them that none of the references were intentional, that the main character was me and I was not RC.) After the class, McC asked to have a word with me. He said that he didn't often suggest this but he thought my story would be stronger if written in first person. He also said - something he noted that he seldom did - that he would like me to stay in touch as he wanted to see where I went with the story. I skipped away in a cloud of happiness.

I went home and changed all the "she"s to "I"s but my psyche didn't like it nor did the two male characters of the story. I tried and tried and tried to finish it. Finally I locked it in my filing cabinet, returning once in a while to continue but without success.

Recently when I was sorting through my filing drawers, deciding what to keep and what to shred, I read my original Dublin manuscript. I read over all the summaries that the prof and other writers wrote at the end (except for the prof's, I kept only the final page from the others). I questioned myself, wasn't it worth one more try? 

Every morning I have been reading Elizabeth Gilbert's "Big Magic" and I'm loving it. Gilbert doesn't much hold with the long suffering artist. She writes that creative work should be fun, a delight - the subject matter can be serious - but still the hours working should not be full of angst. Life is too short. 

So I have given myself two weeks to see if I can have fun with it or I will force myself to shred every failed attempt, journal, and letter that has anything to do with it. I vowed that I would spend two hours a day doing this. (I've been spending around four.) The first few days were hard going. I paced a lot, thinking that I might as well start shredding.

And then I listened and re-listened to Atwood's POV lecture. She spoke of several of her novels that were written in one person and when she couldn't make it work, she'd switch to another. This idea lingered with me for a day and then it took hold. There is no harm in trying. And really truly what does it matter what person it's in as long as I'm enjoying myself. 

The next day, I started switching back from first to third and I smiled. Much easier. But then I hit a snag - a few pages did not want to be converted. I left them and continued. By the next morning, I had a crazy thought: why not just leave them? I can insert them somehow - perhaps in italics - perhaps at the beginning of a chapter. And then I had another irreverent thought - what does it matter? Who am I writing for? I don't even know how to write a novel. I am an avid reader - often of crap - so I must know something. 

I have a week left to decide to continue or to shred. I just want to have fun. 

Yutori

Yutori has various meanings. It refers to allowance in terms of time and space, to allow the mind to float freely, or drift with the currents of thought. 

This morning I awoke with so many ideas to write about that I didn't know where to begin. It's as if I have been stagnant for so long, I will have to run a marathon to catch up with myself.

Why am I being bombarded with ideas at this point in time? Has the pandemic slowed me down, given me time to listen? I am reading Elizabeth Gilbert's "Big Magic" and did watch her TED talk on "Your Elusive Creative Genius" and, if I am to believe her, ideas are creative spirits (independent of a particular person) that float around the universe searching for a home.  They land on this poet, writer, artist, or musician seeing if he or she is receptive. If they are not welcomed, they find another.

As proof, Gilbert tells about meeting Ann Pachett at a library meeting and after Pachett spoke, Gilbert was so excited by her words that she went to her and told Pachett she loved her (Gilbert is very effervescent). Pachett looked Gilbert in the eye, paused, and then with both hands holding Gilbert's face said that she loved her too. Their friendship grew through letter writing, sent through the post office not the computer. After several years, they met in person again and spoke of their writing. Gilbert explained that she had started a novel, was interrupted, and when she returned to work on it, found herself no longer inspired so she had to let it go. Ann said she was very excited about her new novel but insisted that Gilbert speak first about the novel she had to let go.

Now here is the curious part. Gilbert told the location of her novel, the plot and described the main characters. Pachett just stared at her until Gilbert asked her to describe her new book. In practically the same words as Gilbert used, Pachett described the same location, plot and characters. It's as if the idea, when it thought Gilbert was taking too long, flew away and gave it to Pachett.

I love this idea of inspiration coming from an outside source. It reminds me of 1990 when I was living in France and I had begun letter writing - potent strong letters - and one day, while I was vacuuming mindlessly,  an idea hit me and I stopped the vacuum and grabbed pen and paper and wrote and wrote and wrote a perfect story. I did not pause to think, my hand kept moving wanting to catch every word and every sentence. I felt as if the story was being dictated. A similar thing happened early in my life when I was rehearsing for a dance competition. I remember beginning the dance and then it was over. My teacher and fellow students just stared at me and then applauded madly. I have no idea who was dancing but it wasn't me.

So I believe Gilbert - inspiration comes from something beyond ourselves and we simply have to work and if we are lucky, we'll receive help. Although I'm sad about the years that I haven't written, I cannot say that they've been wasted. I've done a lot of other things and though those things don't include making money, I have lived a rich life. This reminds me of Stella Bowen, an Australian writer or was she a painter? In "Stravinsky's Lunch" Drusilla Modjeska outlines the lives of three Australian artists and in her section about Bowen, she describes how Bowen gave up a lot for love. She was married to Ford Madox Ford whose career took precedence over hers.

I really must read this book again as I have forgotten so much but what I do remember is that Bowen felt that conversation was as important to her life as art. (Oh dear, I must refer to the book as I want to make sure that I am remembering this point correctly. Yes!) In the last two sentences of the section about Bowen, Modjeska writes: If her life teaches us anything, it is that more than one thing matters, and maybe in the end it is the conversations we have - both in love and in art - that will come trailing behind us through those pearly gates. I like to think so.

I have gone off on a tangent: I think I am reassuring myself that's it's alright that I took years off from my writing. I have not missed out on a wealth of conversations. You are fine, I tell myself. It's never too late. I pause here. I learned early that thinking well of oneself is a bad thing. I must be humble. I must not be self-centred. A friend/teacher/mentor questioned this belief: who else can we be centred around if not ourselves? This does not mean we are selfish. It means that we are grounded and in control of our life. If I am a useless piece of nothing, I have no story, nothing of value to impart. I do not believe this.

I am full of roving thoughts. I admire Truitt in her journals - her compilation of roving thoughts become an ode to living and loving and aging. Like her, I would like to make my children lives easier and I try in simple ways but I know in my heart that they will have to face whatever by themselves. They are not me. I am not them. I do not presume that I know better than they simply because I have lived longer. I think of Jung saying something to the effect that a child springs from the parent and lives their unlived life. If this is so, I hope that I have not made life too burdensome for them.

Do not read me!

I assure you that you do not have to read me. I won't know. At this point, I'm sharing myself for myself - for the purpose of clearing my full files. Too much stuff has not seen the light of day. This "stuff" is most likely boring. It may be out of date. Surely the world must have moved on since I wrote these "ditties" (for lack of a better word)?  I fear that I have not and to do so, I have to throw it all out here for better or worse. I will not pussyfoot around anymore. I will not worry about cliches or phrases or words that don't please me. "Out you go, out of my closet, out of my life."

That felt good.

You see I am preparing for death. Hopefully later than sooner but Fanny's dying taught me that it can happen when you least expect it. I want to clear my office so whoever has to get rid of my souvenirs will have an easy job. I also want time to create some new stuff and furthermore, I want to have fun doing it.

This morning, I found "Risking Everything: 110 Poems of Love and Revelation" on our cookbook shelf. I read the first poem and smiled. Someone in the heavens must have known that I need it at this very moment:

"When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."

--Mary Oliver

Past Desire

As I continue to sort through my filing cabinet, I am finding some pretty good stuff that I wrote years ago that has never seen the light of day. I have told few people that I've returned to blogging and I only know two who are keeping up with me. This is a warning: I hope to become more and more outrageous. Once upon a time I said that I wanted to become a writer who wrote what others were afraid to say. I wasn't brave enough or perhaps it was too lofty an ideal. Now that my time is running out, my reticence is pissing me off.

Way back in 1994 I wrote a paper about Mary Meigs and Maxine Hong Kingston and how they were silenced by their mothers. (It was a damn good paper and my professor gave it a high A and said that I should have it published. Did I? No!)  I included a quote from Adrienne Rich noting that it has never been easy for women to assert her rights: "If we have come to a point when women can stop being haunted, not only by convention and propriety, but by internalized fears of being and saying themselves, then it is an extraordinary moment for the woman writer - and reader."

I am making excuses for myself. No more!

While going through my files I found "Desire". I wrote this short piece when I was going through my Anais Nin phase and after a friend told me that she was leaving her husband. He no longer desired her. The only sexual pleasure she received was when she pleasured herself. I was embarrassed by her candour. I wrote this for her:

Desire

She desires her husband often. He desires her seldom. Sometimes she thinks his lack of want is because she is no longer firm and ripe like the cantaloupe he eats for breakfast. He tells her this is not so. Men of a certain age have difficulty becoming aroused. It's not lack of erection that bothers her most: it's his lack of wanting her.

She slips off one spaghetti strap of her thin nightgown and exposes a breast. She admires its softness and strokes the nipple until it hardens. She imagines lending him her eyes so he can admire it too. She slips the other strap down, pulls both arms out and lets the gown drop to her feet. She knows if she asked him, if she phrased it affirmatively - "Do you find my breasts beautiful?" - he would say "yes" but she doesn't want to ask. She wants him to tell her, without prompting, that her body pleases him. 

She wishes to write a love story, a lust story, describing her body being aroused per her instructions. She would tell him to move slowly, pause often so she could record his moves, her arousal. When he strokes her thighs, nibbles at her rose petals, she would write to the tune of his tongue. Would he allow this or refuse to share her with the page? 

Her eyes move down to her soft belly, sunken navel. She caresses the marshmallow surface that expanded beyond belief with each of her children, remembering the dark line running down her middle, dividing it into perfect halves as if to remind her that she shares herself with another. 

She looks beyond her belly to the dark forest hiding her petals and private opening, where more often than not, she is the one doing the exploring. She would like to tell him of the treasures to be found there. 

At night in the dark, she watches him step out of his clothes, abandoning them at the foot of the bed, climbing into the queen-size bed and tucking the covers around his body, not seeing the woman who is watching, waiting for his embrace. Eventually, she too drifts off to sleep to dream...

I see that this is incomplete. I imagine that I didn't know where to take it but now a little devil in me wants to end it with Erica Jong's "to dream of a zipless fuck".

In retrospect, I think my friend too passive. Too many women wait for men to take the lead. I would like to be (or am I already?) a virgin in the ancient sense of the word, a woman who is one in herself like the woman in Gauguin's Noa Noa who belongs to no man, who seeks pleasure for herself, and does not care what others think of her.