My Dulcinea

I bought a picture once off a man on top of a mountain in Mexico. It was on old yellowish paper and showed an old man on a horse, charging at a windmill with his spear. It's one of the items I always pack with me no matter where I go.

My love for Don Quixote started when a dear friend of mine gave me the Man of La Mancha soundtrack back in high school. I had been given a record player with no records, so this was the first one I received. It was old, it was scratched, and it was beautiful. I listened to the whole thing while knitting in my room and crying. Yeah, I knit and played records when I was sixteen. Be jealous.

I've always seen myself a little more manly on the inside than maybe most girls (see previous entries) but God Almighty, I wanted to be the next Quixote. If you want to know why, just watch this.

If a nine minute clip from the 70s was too much for you, I'll explain. Don Quixote was a man who read so many books about being a hero, he decided to become one. He loses his mind a bit and claims to be a knight. During his journeys of fighting windmills and stealing shaving basins, he encounters a prostitute named Aldonza. She is the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on, and he calls her my lady and swears to protect her. He refuses to call her Aldonza, as that name is beneath her, and dubs her Dulcinea. He sings,

Dulcinea...Dulcinea...

I see heaven when I see thee, Dulcinea,

And thy name is like a prayer

an angel whispers...

Dulcinea, Dulcinea!

I know musical theatre isn't for everyone, but stay with me. Throughout the story, we see this woman hates her life. She is abused and raped. She believes she is nothing and noone, and can't stand this crazy man coming in and telling her she's better than what she is because she knows it isn't true.

And yet, it changes her.

I heard this musical and decided I wanted to be a Don Quixote. I wanted to see the beauty and heroism in the world, even if it meant I was a little crazy. I wanted to show people what they were worth. I wanted to tell all the Aldonza's that they were really Dulcineas.

Then life came along and turned me into an Aldonza. I had never really identified with her before some experiences that happened. Experience that made me feel just as low and worthless and angry as she did. I wasn't an imaginary hero anymore. I was a very real damsel in distress.

But Don Quixote came along, in one form or another, and managed to convince me otherwise. I could go back to dreaming the impossible dream again, reaching the unreachable star. 

We need more Don Quixote's and Dulcinea's out there. Men and women who believe in themselves, believe in the impossible, believe in each other. Be a hero for someone today. Be a heroine for yourself. You're not Aldonza anymore, or even the crazy guy that stayed in his house reading books. Go out fighting windmills and really live for a while. Let me know how it goes. 

Some Girl Power for the Road

This is how I feel at the moment. 

With a little of this thrown in as well:

I've been out to change my world for as long as I can remember. And now I'm up to bat. I've got a trip to India coming up, then prospects in Shanghai, maybe even Cambodia. The globe just became very very small and very very open.

I recently got back from 16 months in Peru. That was a deeply personal time. Mostly I cried a lot, had no idea what I was doing, and felt a little crazy. If I helped anyone, it was most likely by accident or during my two minutes of feeling like I had it all together.

And that's the trick, really. I remember learning in high school psych that only depressed people have a realistic view of themselves. Most of us rate ourselves above average in one area or another, when it's technically impossible for the majority to be above average all at the same time. But the ones who have a high view of themselves, even if it's fake, are usually the ones with the lives we envy.

For my fellow nerds, there's a Doctor Who episode I absolutely love, when the Doctor is face to face against a monster that thinks it's satan. The satan character calls out everyone on the team by their fears, insecurities, and weaknesses. The Doctor responds, what makes his truth any better than mine? And proceeds to call out the same people by their courage, bravery, and strength.

The girly part of me is obsessed with Pink's song, Fuckin' Perfect. I listened to this an embarrassingly amount of times on repeat while in Peru. Don't hate. The best line is, "change the voices inside your head, make them like you instead." (once you feel better the next one to listen to is Raise Your Glass- just giving some options for your progressively power girl mix tape that you know you are going to make if you don't have one yet)

It's damn hard sometimes to believe the best about yourself. But if we did, really did- not just the "slightly above average" kind but the

  "I'm love incarnate, universally important, capable of the impossible, priceless, strong and beloved"

kind, I think, just maybe, life would be a little more awesome.

February Challenge

My family is big on Groundhog Day, mostly due to Bill Murray and his classic movie about February 2nd. We try to watch it every year. If you haven't seen it, please do. You'll finish with a strange urge to quote French poetry, play jazz piano, and ice sculpt. You'll also never look at your toaster the same way again.

It's also Black History month. Special shout out to my girls rockin the natural hair, btw. Black History is rich and powerful stuff. I grew up on homemade mac and cheese soul food, and got to celebrate Black History in 2nd grade by singing I Believe I Can Fly for our boy Michael. We also put on a history play for the parents. Being the only white girl in the class, I think I made my teacher a little uncomfortable when I auditioned to be Harriet Tubman. Ignorance is bliss when you're 8 years old.

Anyway, we're in a month that's meant to look at the past, and look at our present. Rich history mixed with seize the day mentalities. 

So let's mix it a little further. 

Poverty has been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe because I just got back from Peru, maybe because I'm headed to Calcutta soon. Maybe because our own country still hasn't gotten it together. (Side article on poverty and the Superbowl http://www.thenation.com/blog/172627/blackout-bowl-or-most-depressing-super-bowl-column-youll-read)

I understand the frustration. We've all seen the commercials and heart-breaking movies and depressing articles. Some of us turn it all off because we don't want to know. Others feel so overly informed we stop listening because feeling helpless in the face of so many problems sucks. 

I'm big on awareness raising, and it's something I struggle with. Is my goal to just depress people? As much as I loved The Vagina Monologues, A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and a Prayer, Any One of Us, etc. I couldn't help feeling that I trapped the audience, beat them over the head with a baseball bat and then sent them back into the world with nothing but a headache. So, here's my remedy. 

Starve for a while. 

I'm not kidding. This is a challenge. This is for all the people that are sick of the way things are but don't know how to change it. 

Starve for a day. 

It's not a new concept. Lent and Ramadan have been around for a good long while. Pretty much every religion advocates it. Fasting cleanses the body, cleanses the soul, and even if it doesn't change the world, it changes you. 

So here's my challenge. Have a bellyache for a day on purpose. Pick a day to watch those movies and read those articles you have been putting off, and do it while skipping breakfast. Immerse yourself in the facts for the day and take empathy to a whole new level. Learn, absorb, identify yourself with people all over the world and send out good vibes while you do it. I promise you won't regret it. 

If this is a new concept, check out http://www.30hourfamine.org/ It's a cool program built for high school students, but you can take some info and ideas from it. Another favorite of mine is http://freerice.com/#/english-vocabulary/1457.

Fasting is kind of like volunteering. You take the focus off you for a day and do something that isn't necessarily in your comfort zone. 

If going totally without food scares the bejeezus out of you, set your own rules. Do one meal at a time. Pick a day when you have time to yourself. When you get hungry, drink some hot tea or warm milk with some sugar thrown in. Choose a day and read books about or by your heroes. Read up on world events. Pray. Memorize your favorite quote, the one you want to have in your head in case you are ever trapped on a deserted island and need some inspiration to get you through. Being hungry and productive at the same time is doubly impressive. 

Speaking from experience, fasting with purpose can change your life. Fasting and NOT making an effort to focus on bettering yourself or helping others is a complete waste of time and not fun. Going hungry when your heart isn't in it makes you bitter and mean, trust me. 

I know it doesn't make sense. I'm sure the Catholics and the Muslims can explain it much better than I can, why fasting = changing the world. All I'm saying is that if you want to take a more active approach, if you want to understand what's going on in the world and become a part of it, this is definitely a good way to go. Challenge yourself, whether it's a meal, a day, two days, or however you want to do it. I'd love to hear how it goes. 

Testimony Time, Unfinished

When I was little, I preached to my stuffed animals.

True story.

It would usually be Sunday afternoons, when I was already dressed up in some kind of pastel flower print dress with the big lacy collar and white tights to match. I would line all my stuffed animals up on the bed and sing a few songs from church and then say something wise and solemn, of course.

The most special stuffed animal was my angel bear. It was a white bear I got from one of my many visits to the hospital. I actually had collected three or four of these bears from the Children's Ward, but someone had sewn a white shift dress with felt wings attached for my bear, so this was the important one. Angel bear would go to sleep with me every night. If I ever had nightmares, angel bear was there, and I would sing the hymn "As the deer panteth for the water so my soul longeth after thee..." I really liked the word panteth. Longeth was pretty great too. I would imagine a wise old deer by a river watching over me, and even though that's not what the song was about at all, it did the trick. I would go right to sleep, every time.

I was a white Pastor's Kid (our kind were referred to as "PK's" back then) living in the projects of Chicago. My dad was pretty great at his job. He got to stand in front of everyone every week and people would laugh at his jokes or wail and cry if they felt the spirit, and there was a lot of hand-raising and clapping and swaying going on. I wanted to be as great as my dad. That's why I preached to my stuffed animals.

A few years later, I learned about sex and was hella confused. A wonderful teacher with the best intentions tried to explain that we were all special and unique and created by God, but we would all get our periods and develop boobs and eventually get married and be happy. I wasn't buying it. If I was really special and God really loved me, he wouldn't make me go through that, all that woman stuff. If God loved me, I wouldn't get my period.

Women role models in my life didn't help either. My mom (a wonderful woman, read more about her here) was an under-appreciated, overworked pastor's wife. I wanted to be on stage and have people laugh at my jokes, but I didn't see any women doing that at the time. It looked like I would have to be good at accounting and paying bills and being hospitable and have a lot of kids and work in a cramped office hidden under the staircase- all that, plus the boobs and blood to look forward to, wasn't really doing it for me.

So I hit the books. All of this had to be really shitty misinterpretation. I was sure God had gotten it right, I just had to find it. Something along the lines of "go forth, ye with vaginas, and change the world and be awesome and don't worry about that accounting stuff or having kids."

I was 10.

And the bible was pretty unforgiving to my optimism.

I was 10, and the world came crashing down, because God didn't love me after all. He wanted me to shut up in church and not wear earrings and cover my hair. He was down on the rapists, but if the girl was close enough to a city to scream and be heard and she didn't, then it was her fault. Concubines were cool, multiple wives were cool, and even male sacrificial animal offerings were worth more than the female ones.

Don't get me wrong. There was Sarah and Rebekah and Leah and Deborah and even Rahab the one cool prostitute. There was Jesus' mom and John the Baptist's mom and Mary who sat at the feet of Jesus and the one other cool prostitute that poured perfume on Jesus' feet. I did my homework, yo. But there was also proof of virginity and stonings and rape and incest and one girl getting cut up and sent to the twelve tribes of Israel.

13 years later, and I still don't have it all figured out. I'm pretty sure God loves me, and while Saint Paul and I might exchange some words about a couple of really stupid verses he wrote, I'm pretty sure God will be watching and laughing and secretly rooting for me anyway. And if baseball bats come out during the discussion, I think God might walk over and put his hand on Paul's shoulder and say "Paul, man, let it go. She's right. I just have a really good sense of humor and decided to show a little bit of the picture at a time." And then, of course, Paul will huff off and I'll go get my crown of jewels or something.

Anyway, while I seriously doubt anyone else had the same weird, awkward childhood I had, I'm sure I'm not alone on the feminist/religion reconciliation journey. All I can say is that there is peace to be had out there, though it might take some serious soul searching and some imaginary fights with saints. 



 

"I'm Not Cheap"

I know a woman in Peru that has been married for 30 years. She was in love, he was in love. Their first time, she didn't have a hymen. Her husband called her a whore and proceeded to mentally, physically and emotionally abuse her for the rest of their marriage. He thinks he's entitled. He didn't get what he paid for, after all. And she stays because there is nowhere else to go. 30 years, she's learned to live with it.

It's not like her experience is extraordinary. Entitlement is everywhere. In Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, Marco, a Peruvian man (weird coincidence) calls the character Esther a slut and tries to rape her because she took his diamond. Before the rape attempt, he jokes.  "Perhaps I shall perform some small service worthy of a diamond". Huh. What a service. She took something of his, he is entitled to take something back. She's left bloody and beaten and exposed.

And then of course are the women all over the world still killed for not producing proof of virginity. The men are entitled to have their honor kept intact and not destroyed by a wayward woman. A dead woman is better than a dishonored man, right?

My god, we think. How horrid. How dare a man feel entitled to do such things!


Well, maybe because everything we say and do promotes that kind of thinking. Let's take a look at this completely harmless cute little pink ecard here I saw online.

 "For all the women who brag about how many men want them, just remember... the cheapest prices attract the most customers."

Cheap. Price. Customers.

The problem with this kind of money language is that it's fully admitting we see a woman's sexuality as a commodity, one that men desperately want. It's a message to women that they need to set the price high and make men work for it. This card tells us that we have cheap women and expensive women. Cheap vaginas or expensive vaginas. Not to mention referring to men as customers who buy. This isn't looking good for anyone.

 Men buy, women sell. Men are the only ones that want sex, women only use it as a power trip. There might be something wrong here.Yeah, so maybe we don't see a lot of murder in America over virginity, but the concept behind it all is still the same.

Let's look at a scenario. A girl sits in a bar and shakes her head in a disgusted manner at the girl who let a guy buy her drink and is now putting on her jacket to go home with him. The girl thinks, my god she's cheap. One drink and she gives it up. I would never do that. I'm WORTH MORE!

So the girl waits for things to be done properly. Eventually a guy calls her up, asks her out. He pays for dinner and drinks, and even the taxi home. Wow, I found a really nice guy, thinks the girl. We won't go all the way, but all that is worth SOMETHING. He paid for everything, we gotta make out for at least five minutes on the porch before I send him home. That's the trick, leave him wanting more, let him know I'm not CHEAP.

Still a commodity, still a price.

Let's say she does everything right. More dates, more making out on the porch, eventually a proposal and ring. Perfect wedding, perfect cake and perfect first night. She has proven to the world that she is one expensive dame.

I'm not against abstinence. I'm against women who stay abstinent because they are too scared not to be, who do it because of the fear of being called a cheap whore instead of actually having convictions. My heart hurts for women who keep the mindset that their worth is dependent upon their virginity, that they won't be wanted or valued because of a decision they made. I hurt for the women who did have sex and now listen to the lies that they are dirty, easy and worthless. People kill and abuse over this stuff, or just use shame as a weapon. Value, worth. Same economic language as before.

Ladies, if we keep believing in the price tag between our legs, we are destroying ourselves and our men. The guy who raped his girlfriend because he bought her dinner and she still didn't want to put out-that guy believed in prices and entitlement. I paid for it, give it to me. The ecard about cheap women probably isn't helping that viewpoint.

Add in the "cheap" or "expensive" clothes. The girl was dressed like a slut, she deserved to be raped. The miniskirt means she was offering herself at a "cheap" price, so men can't be blamed for buying. And the ladies who called her a slut in the first place- of course that has nothing to do with it. There's no way women are helping perpetuate violence against women, right?

I don't know what happens to the girl in our scenario. Maybe she has a great marriage. Maybe it's rough. Maybe the guy stops being romantic because he got what he wanted and now doesn't have to try so hard. Maybe the girl struggles with her value and identity because her virginity was power and that's gone now.

But bottom line is, stop putting a price. Ladies, decide what you want to do and when and why, and don't base it on fear or lies.Gentlemen, treat a woman right because it's right, not because of what you might get out of it. And everyone, if you hear your friend refer to a woman as a cheap whore, do us all a favor and slap them over the head.

Family Matters

First of all, my mom is gorgeous. So is my aunt, so was my grandma. Thanks to our identical genes, I know I'll still be good looking at 50, 60, and 90. While our butts aren't exactly the "soulful ass" I dream of (I always wanted something that danced to its own beat), we are pillowy and adorable in all the right pear places.

My grandma.

I don't even need to say this, but my god, she's good lookin'. She was born in 1920, and went through everything. Prohibition, Depression, husband at war. But she never wanted to talk about it. She's a lady that counted her coupons and didn't believe in expiration dates (two qualities that were passed on to my aunt and mom- they also believe in the lasting omnipotent power of the freezer) but those were the only signs she gave of a life used to tight-belt times. Other than that, she was just always, always smiling.

My mom and dad got engaged when they looked at each other in the car one day. My dad said "guess we're getting married" and my mom pulled out her calendar (that sums up both of their personalities pretty well). They've been through 30 years together now and while they've had their rough spots, my dad looks at my mom from across the kitchen sometimes and says, "yup, she's my soul mate."

I underestimated my mom while I was growing up, and I know I still do. I just found out recently that she had all three of us kids with a midwife next to her in the hospital and no epidurals.She doesn't believe in makeup except for very special occasions and wanted to die in a skiing accident when she was 35 and single after traveling the world. My dad and us kids kind of messed that up for her, but I hope she doesn't mind too much.

Truth is, she's way more of a feminist than I ever took her to be. Growing up, I was angry. Our family leans on the private side, the kind that dresses in the bathroom because its too indecorous to walk around in a towel. I resented her for being the one to cook and clean and work in an office and being called "the pastor's wife", as if she was an extra limb attached to my dad. I thought if I became like her, it would be the end of the world.

I was so wrong.

My mom stood by my dad when he decided to be a preacher in the projects of Chicago. She dreamed of lemonade and front porches, and got gangs and poverty instead. She's the one that held it together when the electricity was cut off and bills were too much to pay. She worked the system, she used the coupons and expired cans of corn just like her mom did, and kept the family going. We lived in a big, beautiful house that used to be a convent. It was huge, with hidden staircases and triangular turns and RATS. We had rats the cats were scared of. They would come out in hordes when the sun went down and would actually knock down trash cans. One was finally caught in a trap and was so big its thrashing spattered blood all the way to the top of our man-sized fridge. My mom put up with a lot in that old house.

Then, after 13 years of that, it was time to move to the suburbs. She was so happy, house hunting and school hunting and looking at back yards. But it wasn't what she had dreamed. A string of dead end difficult jobs for my dad who wanted to be back preaching and not driving a truck left my mom as the main bread winner. Not really fun for anyone. My dad wasn't doing what he wanted, my mom wasn't doing what she wanted, and the 20-minute cookbook was the only one lying around.

Things stayed hard for a long time. But it eventually got better, and then they moved to Phoenix. Both my mom and dad shed 10 years of aging and looked like kids again. The stress was gone, the wrinkles were gone, and my mom became a blond and started wearing sequins.

I can't imagine the silent battles my mom has fought out in her heart over the years. For someone that had no inkling to get married or have kids or do anything besides ski and travel, her life changed drastically. She has been selfless time and again, and I don't know if I will ever be as courageous as her. While cooking, cleaning and office work still aren't my strong points, I honor her. She loves God, she loves her family, and one day, I'm going to take her skiing.

One of the Guys or Vagina Power?

I just finished reading How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran. Right there, I probably alienated most of my audience, so don't worry, I'll do a quick summary. All you need are chapter titles.

Chapter 1: I Start Bleeding!

Chapter 2: I Become Furry!

Chapter 3: I Don't Know What to Call My Breasts!

Chapter 4: I Am a Feminist!

Chapter 5: I Need a Bra!

Chapter 6: I Am Fat!

Chapter 7: I Encounter Some Sexism!

Chapter 8: I Am in Love!

Chapter 9: I Go Lap-Dancing!

Chapter 10: I Get Married!

Chapter 11: I Get into Fashion!

Chapter 12: Why You Should Have Children

Chapter 13: Why You Shouldn't Have Children

Chapter 14: Role Models and What We Do with Them

Chapter 15: Abortion

Chapter 16: Intervention 

Caitlin Moran is hilarious. Her honesty about including Aslan the lion in her sexual fantasies and dealing with handbag-buying pressures is refreshing, the kind of conversations you have with your girlfriends at Chili's after a couple of cheap and delicious margaritas. I love honesty, and I love good writing. Moran does both pretty well.

The cover boasts two claims. One, "The British version of Tiny Fey's Bossypants." I haven't gotten to that one yet, so no comment. The other quote is "Caitlin Moran is a feminist heroine for our times."

Feminist heroine. That's a pretty intense title.

And in her own way, she deserves it, along with every other woman who has stared patriarchy in the face and decided to love herself anyway. But Moran's battle cry is for normalcy, to be treated as "one of the guys." And while that is totally legit, especially for women in male-dominated careers, it's not exactly ground breaking. Caitlin Moran is a damn good feminist. I'm just not sure that makes her a heroine.

I wanted to be "one of the guys" too, for a long time. I was 10 or 11 and had just heard sex explained in the most frigid and creepy way, by scared conservatives who had never come to terms with their own sexuality and didn't really want us to, either. Sex was for reproduction, modesty was to keep men and their animal lust under control, and vaginas were holes to put things in or drag things out. If that wasn't bad enough, I was told I was going to bleed every month for the rest of my life and that this was a gift from God.

I refused to have a vagina.

I was a scrawny pre-teen that wore my brother's cargo shorts and my dad's cast off t-shirts to school every day, who tried to beat up boys during Capture the Flag and made fun of the one girl in school who wore nail polish. I was terrible at all things boy- couldn't play sports, hopeless at video games, and totally not into picking up cockroaches. But I still tried to be as boy-like as possible, because the alternative was unthinkable.

Fast forward through lots of experiences that I'm sure will come up at a later time, to auditioning for The Vagina Monologues at my college. I told my mom about getting a part, the angry vagina part. I could HEAR her blush over the phone. "Hey mom! I auditioned for The Vagina Monologues!" Audible blushing. "You can't SAY that word, Jenni! I'm at the office!" Because I'm sure they were all listening in on our vagina conversation.

Anyway, vaginas. I'm totally biased because it was my first full on feminist experience, but Eve Ensler is a god. She doesn't believe in being one of the guys. She believes in lovin your vagina self, drawing pictures of it, naming it, dressing it up and giving it things to say.

  Eve is the one who taught me how to be a woman, much more than Caitlin Moran did. She taught me that I'm beautiful and wonderful and glorious and mysterious because of my vagina, not in spite of it. She was the first one to let me know being a woman was pretty great, not just average or something to ignore as we all try to blend in and be the same. The "we're all just humans" line is great until it turns us into something like Greendale's mascot.

But while we can argue "one of the guys" feminism vs "vagina power" feminism all day long, lets skip that and cut to the chase. Love yourself. Love all of you. And love the people around you, too.