Super Bowl

I want to write about my feelings during the Super Bowl today as an example of what goes through my mind on many occasions thinking about being a woman, and also as an outlet to allow myself to feel validated in my reactions and thoughts. In other words, to speak my truth and use my voice. Let me start with a little anecdote to give my train of thought and attempt to show why this is important to me.

This evening I was watching the Super Bowl with a small group of beautiful people with whom I feel quite comfortable and myself. I was happy and relaxed, if not totally interested in the game. Then when that commercial about #LikeAGirl, which I had seen before, came on, something changed. I felt like I had been reminded of something unpleasant all of the sudden--gender inequality, sure--but more than that, as I watched, and directly after the commercial ended, I felt a wave of shame. I didn’t say anything.

A flood of thoughts and emotions followed, including but not limited to:

• the hypocrisy of the entire NFL--How did we not boycott this! How am I watching this! How can I be upset about people enjoying football if it’s not them or all the participants individually, but who is to blame?
• of sports, for God’s sake--and I’m a huge hockey fan so I am trying to use that as a vehicle to relate to other sports fans, but let’s face it, women’s professional sports are not comparable to men’s in terms of media, money, hype, concern… why are they segregated at all? Don’t give me biology for that; it is bigger than that. How do I rationalize being a woman who is “into” male-dominated pro sports, with all their baggage, without going crazy?

And suddenly, now that I had “reawakened” temporarily to this blight of society, or had it pushed to front rather than back burner, (what does it mean, that women can turn off their concern--do we have to put it aside to get through the day?) the next few hours were done, I was a head case. As I’m roiling with thoughts through the second half, that commercial with the tortoise getting a car to beat the hare comes on, and in the last second it shows that the hare’s “lady” hare is in the passenger seat with the tortoise. There we go again. (Seriously? Do you know who 50% of your audience is? Who are you and do you not care? OH GOD, do women not care?)

This all hit home so hard inside yet I felt that to express that somehow would not be appropriate, that I would be the killjoy at the Super Bowl gathering, that I would be labelled or judged an over-reactor crazy feminist, or worst, that my lovely friends would nod or agree sincerely for a few moments, until a few minutes later when we’d all feel safely past that enough to not dwell, to at best maybe have an offhand reference later over an overtly sexualized commercial, perhaps. And so it would keep going. But none of that happened, because, worst of all, I was simply paralyzed in my own self.

I am an outgoing, passionate person, but here, again, like I have been in conversations where I am outnumbered by smart confident boys, or doubting my unspoken rank at a dinner table, or getting into angry arguments with imaginary foes who I crush--let me tell you I crush with facts and reason in the shower or while I’m falling asleep in bed or alone on the El--me of all people--my mother used to tell me I ate nails for breakfast, and I took woodworking, and got into engineering school, and have always played with the boys--and I can’t say anything, I don’t know what to say. I am weak and ashamed. And I hate that about myself.

So that is what this is about. Not solutions or alternatives or me telling you or anyone anything about how the world ought to be or how you ought to think, but me putting it out there that this is my world, whatever you think about me. I draw strength knowing I am not alone. Many of you are my role models. I hope that by writing, my personal best form of communication, I can add my voice, which I too often find unavailable or faltering in person, to the collective roar. It doesn’t go away when it’s not listened to, but I will not be the one who brings the volume down.

Scenario

An ant trapped inside the
Hermetic plastic wrapping of
A new cell phone in a box
Suffocating to death,
Preferably as raindrops
Spatter on the labels.

No, I can't imagine it
Couldn't suffer the
Shame
Of being a person packed
Unwittingly
Into the rigid plastic
Container of a
Mass-produced alien retail item.
I refuse.

The Voyeur

Leo kept his binoculars in a box under his bed behind another box of old knick-knacks, even though as an object they were innocent. So was Leo, on the outside, so what if he liked to contemplate, while looking off unfocused, the things he would do that might garner judgments, things alternating between heroic and criminal. In the end, thought Leo, those things were the same; the only difference was the outcome, whether anyone was saved or only lost.

Yes, he convinced himself of this while he stood at his window on the 18th floor with his binoculars aimed down at the room across the block, 15th floor, beneath the porch with the flower boxes and next to the whitish stain on the bricks. The room that did not have shades.

Something nothing

Something hits the back of Joe's neck, both sharp and stinging, like a barb. He is reaching to slap it when it tugs--something like a string is attached, pulling him backwards. As he realizes this, adrenaline pumps and he changes the course of his hand, reaches back and cartwheels, just grazing the face of the holder of the string, which is more like a taut, thin metal twine. She is a chiseled old woman with wild gray hair. Nothing above her mouth has ever smiled.

Nothing above her mouth has ever smiled, but of the panoply of possible expressions she has passed through quite a few. There was the time she walked into the kitchen and the back door was wide open, the curtain trailing in a body-blindfold on the dog running through the yard, heading for the fence dead-on, and she couldn't see where the rod had fallen and rolled under the table or stop the leaves that were blowing in fast. And there was the time the bank came for the house and she took the dog back to the pound. She hasn't ever, with her eyes, been able to do more than reflect the world back out. But now, this starry night, this gently vibrating field of fireflies, hanging onto nothing.

Hanging onto nothing could be a way to fall, stand still, present arms for holding something, a way to describe non-stuff, empty space and the absence of math--no numbers, no relations. No matter at all.

Resolution

The urge to reform,

                forget the date,

of course the most smartest thing to say

is just be.

I am, we are all beautiful people. (except those ones)

But really, why not,

                we’re reminded once a year as it is,

think about the things to resolve to do and be make

goals and lists

and change your life for some reason.

Cut back work out

Stop being a dick.

Stop agonizing about the goals and lists

And listen to your own breath and

Thank existence

For the beautiful person breathing next to you

And all the collective inhales exhales

Pulling us through to the next set of goals and lists

Satisfaction in

The perpetuity of motion

Heads

All these heads in a room, hanging below the knees in
downward dog
yoga is supposed to be about not thinking
but i was just drifting and
i imagine we all share some similarities

all those wide and varied thoughts

which ones were really empty

which ones are looking around at
all the other heads

don't catch them with your own eye,
embarrassed,
this was supposed to be a private meditation

outside things

dogs bark, birds cheep, doors slam
apartment buildings hold and stand
electrical wires slice, divide
back porches wait
the things outside.

staircases go up or down, sometimes spiral
sometimes lean, but never lay
boa constrictor vines try to choke and
strangle the bricks, but the undead ones
always win and eventually vines wither in
cold or drought.

spiders spin and cockroaches persist as long
as the Earth
standing water breeds flies
shadows reflect an object and morph it
merge it
slowly cover it for the night.

dogs bark because it's morning because
there was a truck or
they heard a noise.

birds cheep in their sleep reminding us of
day or whatever it is people imagine
laying awake between dreams.