To Be A Woman
Written by Kelly on November 23rd, 2009Emerging feminists formed themselves in circles. They held mirrors between their legs to examine the flower of their vulva. The first time I saw Georgia O’Keefe’s painting Music Pink and Blue, I realized I was a stranger to myself. Knowing starts with touching, and so I did, in bathtubs and solitary bedrooms. Understanding the dark spaces of your body should never feel illicit. If it does, you are doing something wrong.
I started seeing a therapist after I miscarried a son. When the doctors took him from my body, they discovered a tumor. Inside I was malignant. Suddenly, oncologists replaced gynecologists. Talk centered around chemotherapy instead of baby names and shower dates. It was around this same time that I discovered a shadowy figure creeping in the wild of our backyard. I used to sit for hours on top of the washing machine in our laundry room and stare through binoculars at this imaginary outline in the trees. At night, this dark man stole into my bedroom and took things from me, my favorite pair of socks, the cheese grater, the last remaining tube of toothpaste. Ordinary things that anchored my life went missing from the cupboards and the nightstand. Without these objects, I had no way to moor myself.
Freud coined transference, the redirection of feelings and desires, the reproduction of emotions relating to repressed experiences. Freud also said that flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotion nor conflict. I wonder what O’Keefe would have said about Freud if she had written a blog.
Who would you be without your writing? Would you know yourself without your words?
We all need to go places that are silent. Once there, I take off all my clothes. I forget about the mirrors. I need to look without distortion. I use my own fingers to touch myself from big toe to hipbone to earlobe. I recognize myself. I know that I am quite stunning. Even though words and histories may write themselves as fiction, I can always trust my hands to tell the truth.
I had a son I loved but never got to touch. He died inside my body. One day he was kicking and the next his heart had stopped. Just like that. Sometimes we lose the things we most hoped for. Without the memory of Riley bound to the tips of my fingers, it is easy to forget that he was ever real. Even being able to remember the amount of pain that came as a result of the miscarriage can’t always convince me that this child was anything other than longing. I do not mourn or miss him. That does not mean I was not a good mother to him while he grew. It is just that miscarriage like death is different for every one of us. I loved the possibility of my son. When that possibility was gone, I fiercely mourned it. When J was born and the nurses placed him in my arms, I made a conscience choice to let the grief go. I make a choice everyday to love my body.
In my favorite photograph of Georgia O’Keefe, her hair hangs loose around a robe of white silk. The tip of her thumb is pressed like a secret against her nipple. Her face is bare. She is so striking. Open. I imagine some might confuse her pictures with sadness. But, any woman who knows the true art of touching herself can tell you that what you see when you look at a portrait of Georgia O’Keefe is anything but grief. There is nothing even akin to remorse. What Georgia teaches me to see is the tremble of longing. I am like O’Keefe. Knowing. I touch myself. I feel. To be a woman is the most exquisite of things.
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Being a guy, it might not be my place to comment on this. But I’m going to anyway . . .
Yeah . . . I don’t know what to say. Other than this is so lovely.
That is all . . .
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. . . and that a woman who knows who she is, every crease and subtle plateau, is a gift to all of us.
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If I don’t write, if I don’t speak, if I don’t tell my story, it builds up inside of me and hurts me. It leaks out the sides of my mouth where it sounds like swearing. It leaks out of my fingertips as they smash the glass against the countertop. It seeps into my muscles, making them contract and tighten, pulling until my very skin hurts.
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Being a teenager, I am kinda unsure what to say about this. I’m at this stage in my life where I don’t know myself all that well, and have to rely on other external information that is frequently faulty to figure out who the heck I happen to be.
I don’t know what else to say. This is wonderful (this post, I mean, not my knowing not what to say. Harrumph).
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I’ve never really looked closely at Georgia O’Keefe – the woman or her art. It’s extraordinary.
I’ve made conscious choices to let grief go. Again and again it comes back, in different forms. Sometimes sharp and sometimes dull, quiet. But it always comes back. The trick, for me, is not necessarily trying to ‘let it go’ but to be content with its occasional presence. Then I won’t be so flattened when it rises again. Then I can just look at it and nod, acknowledge it, let it carry out its business, and then (hopefully) carry on.
Choosing to love my body after loss – after it let my sons down so monumentally – was a different thing entirely. That was indeed a choice. That was a Georgia O’Keefe.
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Holy shit, I have got to remember to honor my own spirit, thank you for reminding me.
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A lovely, bittersweet post. And, “I wonder what O’Keefe would have said about Freud if she had written a blog.” is brilliant.
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Here.
Listening.
Absorbing.
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stunning.
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incredible, as always.
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Gobsmacked. Stunned into silence. Lovely, and sad, and touching, and wonderful.
Without writing, without words, without phrases and clauses and commas and jokes and innuendo, what are we? Silent.
I don’t know you, I can’t see you, and I don’t want to get too personal-but you’re gorgeous. All of you. In all of your flawed, pudgy, bony, insecure, crazy, funny, noble humanity.
And especially to Emma-please please please please, from the heart of someone who knows the special kind of teenage darkness and remembers it all too well, please do not submit to it. It will end-Kate and every (other) commenter here is proof of that.
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I wonder what she would have said about Alfred.
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What would we be without words. They are the expression of our thoughts and the best way to communicate…
Touching. Wonderful.
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Beautiful. I am only now beginning to discover things about myself I never noticed where there before. Its an adventure in and of itself.
I have been in that place of losing a child and I will say its hard. To never hold them, trace the curve of their sweet cheeks, is the hardest thing.
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Sorry. That should be never noticed were there before.
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Thank you. I am amazed at all that women are and do. Always amazed.
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Every once in a while I read something that leaves me just in awe. Maybe it’s the powerful way you portray thoughts and emotions from both the past and the present. You invoke a response from a deep place within me and I have to stop and think in a way I seldom do.
To believe that being a woman is the most exquisite of things … ah yes well that is just perfect.
xx Jos
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Your writing is beautiful. I’m not ready to let go of my anger and grief. I will though. I just still need it.
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Wow. I stumbled across this while doing some brief research on Georgia O’Keefe. This is the most beautiful blog post I’ve ever read. When it comes to sexuality, if you are comfortable touching yourself you will be more skilled in touching others. Perhaps the same goes for emotions; your post has touched me.