At a potluck bonfire women's gathering, a nearly final draft of this floated out of my pile of discardables, ready to flame. Here's the slightly more finished version of what is a short-short story with a lot of ranting included.
What I hate most about this body – besides the fact that it’s just generally female – is the way women age. After carrying the weight of four children, too many fast-food meals, too many family crises, too much caring for everyone else, your bladder and colon and associated other parts move around inside like a snake with a fish, and you discover that no, you cannot wait until you get through the checkout line, you must go NOW—apologizing to the other shoppers, throwing over your shoulder a request to keep your place in line, only to nearly wet yourself anyway, because as soon as you get into the cubicle your body is like Pavlov’s dog and starts leaking as you are trying to rip down your elastic-waisted 3X trousers, seat yourself, and avert disaster.
Not that most folks would notice anyway. As an old fat woman, you tend to fade into the background, unless you dye your hair blue, tattoo dolphins up and down your arms, and wear a thong to Walmart. Then you are despised, secretly or not so secretly, and your picture shows up in “Funny scenes at Walmart” and is emailed to half the world.
The truth is, I look in the mirror and I don’t know myself. I’m not sure this face has ever seemed to belong to me. I expect someone else to be looking back. I seem to remember having long, strong legs, and muscles controlling my inner organs, and a sexual body and energy. But I’m not really sure it was this body I remember. Of course, I do remember being younger in this body too, and being heard and seen and, even, admired. Some days I miss it.
Not that I was always thrilled about the attention I got as a woman, and I never looked like Barbie! – But that lout on the street who didn’t have a passing acquaintance with a toothbrush always seemed to think I made myself up just for him. As if! Somedays I’d like to have a thunderbolt or two to hurl at the worst sorts – the leerer, the groper, the pompous ass who calls me “little lady,” the boss who cannot understand that a child in the hospital trumps the report he doesn’t really need. But old women appreciate all that women do and mean and know and are.
I‘ve been thinking there has to be more, that this sometimes vague and sometimes piercing dissatisfaction means I am missing something crucial. I want to change my job or sell my house. I feel like I deserve a ticker tape parade—or at least a little more respect: Haven’t I done well? I vote in every election, I pay my taxes, I park within the lines, I recycle. I raised four good kids. They are not heroes or movie goddesses or sports stars, but they’re good people. Shouldn’t I get a celebration? I should have front row seats at the Olympic Games . . . and pass out the medals in my best old lady dress from J C Penney’s.
“You know," Lydia says to me – Lydia is my best friend – “Somedays I just want to run away."
“Where would you go?” I ask her, sitting at her breakfast table, having another cup of coffee.
“Pooh, anywhere . . . Paris, for the art and the quality of light.”
“Greece,” I tell her, “I want to see the glory that was Greece,” but I’d be happy just to get to Kansas City, or Little Rock.
Lydia jumps up. “No, Hercules!” She yells at her grandson’s puppy who is doing something secretive behind the couch. “Oh, Crap!”
I chase Hercules to keep him from hiding under the bed and take him outside, thinking about all the dog poop I’ve scooped, the cat boxes I’ve cleaned, the gerbils I’ve buried, and the goldfish I have flushed. I remember the baby squirrel we bottle fed, and I see the bags and boxes of birdseed and kibble and fish food I’ve measured, scooped, sprinkled, and poured.
It’s mostly women who get the food, the filth, the general job of keeping the world clean and fed. Maybe I should’ve won a car and a Senate seat for the 10,000th mess I cleaned up. Id’ve been sworn into some august body with a doggy bag in one hand and a bottle of Pinesol in the other. What I feel is about power too. And powerlessness.
A gesture crackles through me and goes nowhere. I plop down on the couch – not too close to the smell. “Do CEOs on Wall Street ever have to change diapers?” I ask Lydia, and she just laughs.
“Only the ones who go through labor!”
I remember labor. “You know,” I say, “I think it would’ve been easier to push the twins out the top of my head, instead of having them the regular way.” – And as soon as I say this, I know it is true and revelatory and I’m telling myself what I need to know. Oh My God!
That’s when I figure it out. I was Zeus, I was Zeus, I was Zeus. Once. A long time ago, but Once.
Being an old fat woman has been such a humbling experience. Being a woman at all is a revelation. And, truly I am grateful. But I miss so much. No one brings me fatted calves. No gymnasts and dancers compete for me. Nobody prays to me, because nobody worships Zeus anymore.
So I send out a petition to the farthest stars, to whatever or whoever must have been here before Cronos, before Inanna, before Ea, before the galaxy of this world and this sky, “I promise: no more swans, no more bulls, no more showers of gold, none of that demeaning crap. No more zapping everyone like a nervous security guard with a taser.” And deep in my heart, I say to myself, “Oh please, just please, just please. . . “
But Jesus has such a stranglehold – on this part of the country at least – I don’t think I’ll ever get my power back.
