What Would Ronny Camareri Say? (And Other Lessons From Moonstruck)

Dear Amelia,

I've been promising you a post for awhile, but I needed to sift through some winter snow first.  It's in the "teens," in western Michigan and, according to Tim's favorite weather website, so far in February we've had six days without snow.  My baby is asleep on my lap and I'm listening to Marah, a Philly-based band that I listened to a lot when they first came out and I lived in New York.  Their first album was called Let's Cut the Crap and Hook Up Later On Tonight, which I think is just brilliant.  This is a song off that album, which I love and which I'm now listening to on repeat.

What can I tell you?  Lately, I've been living inside a Grizzly & Golden post.  That is, I've been swimming around the bewildering waters of motherhood, trying to balance the needs of my increasingly busy baby with my quiet intellectual needs, weighing my own inner bla's against my little daughter's reliance on a strong, sheltering presence in her life.  For some reason, it hasn't been easy, or perhaps there are a million reasons for this. 

On a related note, I came across an outdated book with the amazing title, How To Be An Assertive (Not Aggressive) Woman.  Among other topics, the book gives advice for deciding whether or not to date a married man.  I mean, how desperate were women in the seventies that this was part of their life-management puzzle?  What is the quality of a dream when this is a common dilemna? 

Anyway, in the introduction, the author writes: "Many mothers and fathers make it impossible for their daughters to grow up into assertive human beings;....their daughters are rewarded for being passive and dependent."  I can say with certainty this was not the problem in my house growing up.  I was the youngest child with two older brothers.  If anything, I grew up feeling like a boy - not just a tomboy, but an actual boy. 

After a professor in graduate school pointed out that all the narrators in my stories were male, I spent a few years wondering if I was a freak.  A recent Brainpickings post, Why "Psychological Androgyny" Is Essential For Creativity, explores the non-gendered nature of creativity and made me feel better, explaining somewhat this complicated identity. 

It also got at what I've experienced in terms of politicized feminism versus the actual, physical, alchemical experience of being a woman, something perhaps best approached with a story. 

Last week, I found myself suddenly, inexplicably depressed.  It was like one day I was walking down the same road I always walk down, only I slipped and fell down a dark hole.  I didn't exactly panic, because at this point, I've fallen down plenty of black holes and lived to tell the tale.  So I tried to dialogue with the darkness.  What did it feel like?  What was its texture?  I sat in this metaphorical darkness and, well, mostly sat.  Occasionally I writhed around and got angry but that didn't help me taste the environment and figure out how to get from Point A: The Darkness to Point B: Somewhere Else.  The best parts of my days were when I stopped writhing and let my experience try to teach me something.

Two days ago it was ten degrees outside.  In other words, it was not a recommended temperature for baby wearing and walking in the woods, but that is what I did.  I put Samantha on my back, wrapped her in blankets, and hit the woods nearby.  The open paths and naked trees were my only company, save one dog who ran in front of its owner, a woman clad in a hot pink snowsuit.  (That's right, an adult-sized snowsuit on a casual Monday afternoon.  I walked around a frozen pond, listening to the Dear Sugar podcast and the snow crunching beneath my boots.  The wind bit and burned my cheeks.  Samantha's body went limp on my back as she slept, heavy and supported, while I played. 

It probably goes without saying that I felt like an animal in those woods.  Ever since becoming a mother, I have resisted squashing this wildness in myself.  But after a close call with frost nip on Samantha's face in January, I was playing it safe.  Have you seen the movie Moonstruck, by chance?  Nicolas Cage playing Ronny Cammareri to Cher's Loretta Castorini has the line: "Playing it safe is just about the most dangerous thing a woman like you could do."  That line played in my head as I circled the pond.  I had been playing it safe, far too safe for the creature I know myself to be.  To borrow another line from the movie, I think depression was my body's signal to, "Snap out of it!" In other words, to stop pretending I am a by-the-book, rule-following slave to domestic goddesshood.  I am a free-ranging animal, and I know it.  Ignoring this fact, I had gotten myself into a bit of trouble. 

It took a few more tricks along the lines of considering who I really am and how I am or am not honoring that person, but I did snap out of it, and the lesson I learned (indeed I have to learn again and again) was to stop putting everyone else's needs ahead of my own.

To return to thoughts on creativity and gender for a moment, I loved this Fortune commentary, Women Shouldn't Have To Lead Like Men To Be Successful, by Roxane Gay.  (I swear I read other people besides Roxane Gay, but she is on fire saying what I'm often thinking, so I do love to credit her.)  Just as I know plenty of males who would benefit from a book called How to Be More Assertive And Ask More From the World (You Schmuck), I am ready for skills such as patience, receptivity, and thoughtfulness to be given more than lip service in the work place.  I think we could do more to promote those skills as a culture.  What do you think?

With love,
A Wild(ish) Woman in Michigan

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2/26/15

Dear Kara,

First of all, I’d like to note that I originally wrote this response to you in my notebook as opposed to the computer because I recently listened to this great interview with Mary Oliver who completely rejects the idea of sitting at a computer to write. This idea really resonated with me as I’ve recently found writing anything other than email responses on my computer to be semi-impossible.

Mary Oliver and her(?) dog

I’d also like to note that I read the first half of your post on my phone while at the Korean spa—my first visit since becoming pregnant, which means it was at least two years since my last scrub. (Side note: time is gnarly.) But it felt like the wrong atmosphere to be on my phone, so I finished reading it the following morning.

Anyway, I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it: I so love your writing. It always feels reassuring and calming—even if what you’re writing about is being depressed. It’s strange. As sorry as I was to read that you found yourself in this difficult place for a week, I wasn’t as worried or concerned as I probably would have been if in the hands of another writer. You are so capable. You know yourself. Even when you forget yourself.

I particularly loved the image of you as free-ranging animal with your baby strapped to your back—both of you were getting what you wanted; both at peace.

I think that’s the constant struggle for me when I spend a lot of time with Teddy: finding something to do that pleases the two of us or, rather, satisfies each of us on some level. For Teddy and me, this activity is usually grocery shopping. Ha! Although I do worry he’s beginning to tire of it. Otherwise, we basically do what he wants, which is only fun for me when he’s doing something insanely cute or if he’s doing something that still allows me access to kissing him on the face or neck.

The other thing I wanted to say is that your snowy, cold walk inspired me to go on a sunny, warm one. And to download the Dear Sugar podcast, which I really enjoyed. (I had no idea Steve Almond was such a sensitive, caring creature!) I listened to episode 2: The Two Stories We Tell. And was cheering along with Mr. Almond when he was goading on Cheryl to reject all the Hollywood gowns-and-make-up bull shit! But I guess she’s right: it probably is way easier said than done. And at the end of the day, I relate to her desire to want to be pretty and perceived as pretty. (I have notes for an essay on this topic, in fact.) Which I think brings us back to your fascinating notion of politicized feminism versus what it’s like actually being a woman, which I would love to read/hear/write more about.

Though for now, I must deal with some real world bull shit. A representative from Time Warner Cable is on his way over. (Is there a worse sentence in existence?)

With tons of love,
A less-than-wildish woman in California