Chick Support on the Side

Curiouser and curiouser...
A few posts back, I was smack-talking about women recently. 'Why don't they have your back like men have for one another?' 'Is it really a chest-smacking caveman support, or are women really more of the quiet steady types?' Then it happened.

I was sitting in a meeting, baring my soul. It was one of those gut-wrenching, 'here is my heart and all of the blackness it contains' soul-ripping/gut wrenching/purging-type of shares that was laden with fear, tinged with self-pity and aching with vulnerability. Who IS this, and where did you put my social mask? The verbal diaherrea poured out with little control:

"I had a show last night and it was great. I feel so empty though. I made mistakes. I promoted another show at this one, and the club owner warned that I would be cut from that club. He looked at me like I was a calculating parasite. Oh my God! I wasn't even trying to do that. I didn't KNOW!!! And then, the famous comic from the long running and popular t.v. show(anonymity intended) came up to me and was hugging and kissing me. It made other comics come up to me and treat me as if I were somehow able to give them something. The booker asked me how I knew him, and I think thought we were sleeping together. And thennnn...I inadvertantly insulted an executive at HBO, thinking he was a comic and making fun of his moustache (my way of flirting), only later to find out that not only was he married, but he was an executive at a television station I've been courting all summer!" On and on this rambling fear spewed. Down, down, down the rabbitt hole of despair.

It was during this display of demons that my power possee of pretties took me out for some tea and sympathy. We gathered around the table and after our orders were secured, bared our souls to one another, collecting the consciousness of love, as only spiritual beings are capable. It was during that time that something magic appeared. The inner glow that had drawn me to these beings began to beam like a bright star on a dark winter's night. All of our lights shone as one.

I mentioned it again. "Sweat lodge is coming up this Fall." There was another woman at the table who shared her excitement and encouraged her participation this season. As I looked around, self-consciously hoping I didn't sound like a Geico commercial-with some gimmicky attempt at slickness for sales for personal gain, I couldn't help but to remember that this is what life was like before t.v. Human connection. Looking at my life from this perspective, their souls shone like a campfire, and mixed opinions were shared and polished like precious gems. "This is what it must have been like before Starbucks!" I thought. Sitting around, enjoying one another's company, sharing new passions and building additional ones, the activity of new plans bubbled up. “Count me in!” “Yea, give me more info!” “I’d love to do sweat lodge.” “Wait. Didn’t you lose your mind last year doing that, and haven’t shut up about it? I think I’ll go.”

When the night drew to a close, I took a deep satisfying breath and gathered my things. As I walked past the Carlye, I remembered the numerous evenings of pretense. A child in an adult world, really, observing cultural norms of a world that I once would have raped and pillaged to be a part of. As I contemplated my satisfaction at exposing the Queen card and all of the Queen's men, as it were, I thought about the relief that comes from playing it straight. No games, no control, no struggle to maintain order in any court or any form of beheading...just satisfaction at knowing that women really do have your back on the sideline. Acceptance, progress not perfection and girlfriends!

Labels: Rumi, sobriety, Sweatlodge, women