Love me, love my pet (5 reasons to love a pet owner)

Posted on September 28, 2016 by spiralwoman

(This blog appeared previously on the Be Free to Love website where I am an occasional guest blogger for the inimitable Betty Russell.)

Me with my familiar.

About 60 billion dollars is spent by pet owners on their pets each year. Researchers actually dedicate time and resources to do studies to confirm cat person and dog person stereotypes, figure out if dogs or cats have human-type emotions (duh, of course they do), and other super important catdog stuff. There are hashtags on Twitter and Instagram devoted to cats and dogs and there are hundreds of cat and dog fan pages on Facebook with tens of thousands of followers. And do you know anyone who, according to their profile pic, looks EXACTLY like their pet? Oh sorry – that IS their pet. They switched out their profile photo for one of Fuzzball or Siegfried.

As an animal lover myself who is relationship-minded, I think about what being a pet person says about me, you, or anyone. I know people who don’t live with animals. They have reasons. Lifestyle, allergies, expense. Personally, I have lived with an animal every day of my life since I was 6 and got my first cat. (I named her Venus.) Well, except my first year of college when I was in a dorm. That was the year that Venus died, within weeks of my leaving her. That says a lot about the pet-person bond.

My familiar as a bottle fed kitten. (With my daughter.) 15 years ago.

And I still remember the grief I felt at having left her, broken her heart, and not been with her when she died. Why? Because I am like most people who own a cat or dog. To us, that animal is A) a person and B) a family member. And yes, research has been done on this.

So as you chat up the guy in line at CVS or scroll through your matches on whatever dating website you prefer, take note of those who love a dog or cat. Or both. Or several.

Here are a few reasons being in relationship with a pet lover is a good idea. This is not so much about cat-people or dog-people qualities as it is about #catdogloversarecool.

Compassion. People who live with and love pets are (usually) genuinely compassionate. Remember how much money people spend on their pets? And not just that, people truly feel for their animals. When Rover is sick, his person is sad. When we leave Fluffy at home for the weekend we feel… a bit guilty, even though our neighbor is feeding her. Dating a pet owner is more than a little likely to hook you up with a person in touch with some sweet emotion.
Loyalty. It is a truism that dogs are loyal. Cats can be too, but that might depend on how long you let the food dish stand empty. But pet owners are definitely loyal. For sure. They look out for a totally 100% dependent person known as the cat or dog (or guinea pig or horse or goldfish). The pet owners who toss their pets away when they become inconvenient are the rare exception. Most people will jump through any number of hoops to ensure their furry person is happy, healthy, and available for a hug at any moment.
Enjoyment of life. Whether you are a cat or dog person, you know that pets teach us to cherish the moment. How can you walk in the woods with an energetic dog and see her bounce and run and chase and frolic without feeling happy? How can you resist the pure delicious pleasure at that moment when you’ve just sat down with a cup of hot tea and the cat tiptoes onto your lap and curls up into a fuzzy ball of purring? The moments of life are so often enhanced when shared with an animal, and if you find someone to love who loves animals—you’re golden.
My grand-dog enjoying life as she knows it, with ball.
Intuition. It’s no guarantee, but there is reason to think that a person who lives day in and day out with someone who can’t speak (aka dog, cat, or other fur/hair covered quadruped) will be more likely sensitive to non-verbal cues. Plus, dogs and cats are great at reading people, reading “the room,” and in general figuring out what’s up. When your super friendly cat hisses at the delivery guy (or your I-love-everyone dog growls at him), and then that guy asks you out, you have to wonder…. Anyway, it’s always best to SAY what you want in a relationship, but if there is any intuition to be found, I’d guess a pet owner will have it.
Cuddliness. Not to be underestimated, the cuddle-factor is huge in a relationship. An interesting study by the Kinsey Institute found that men actually are even more into cuddling than women, and I personally know that I love cuddling so I can only assume we all agree on its value. If you have a relationship with a cat or dog, you are required to cuddle often, so this is good practice for relationships with human people. (And according to my daughter a horse is the best animal to cuddle. She made me put that in.)
My daughter cuddling and kissing a horse last week.

Another factor to consider is that you can tell a lot about people by how they treat the animals under their care. Most pet owners are wonderful, kind, and loving, but there are some who… not so much. So, if you drive up to your new girlfriend or boyfriend’s house and see the dog chained to a tree 10 feet from his water dish, back out of the driveway and get away, fast.

It’s no accident that the vast majority of dating websites have a question about whether you are a pet owner and what kind of animals you like. I found some very interesting (strokes chin) stats from a survey done by PetSmart Charities and Match.com:

66% of people would not date someone who doesn’t like pets
27% of women find photos of pets in an online dating profile a turn-on
70% of singles think their dates’ reactions to their pets are important
35% of women are more attracted to someone because of his/her pet

I wouldn’t race out and buy a pet just to get a date, nor would I make pet-owning a deal breaker. But personally, I’d be hard pressed to love a guy who didn’t love my cat. Or at least appreciate her fine qualities. Just sayin’.

ubercuddle

A favorite dog of ours, out for a walk.

Boy + cat + sleep

The Bad Boys It’s Easy to Love Are Not That Bad

Posted on July 17, 2016 by spiralwoman

This blog appeared as a guest blog on Betty Russell’s amazing website.

As a strong feminist I have often wondered at the idea that women are (allegedly) irresistibly drawn to “bad boys” – aka full grown men who are not “nice guys.” The iconic James Dean, like in East of Eden or Rebel Without a Cause.

Or Damon in Vampire Diaries.

Or one of my personal faves, Heath Ledger playing Patrick Verona in Ten Things I Hate About You, a fab Taming of the Shrew-inspired movie. Okay that one doesn’t really count because he’s just faking. Then there’s George Clooney and Sean Penn just being.

If you make your own list you will see that the “bad boys” on it, like the ones above, are likely to have a soft caramel center (well maybe not George and Sean, but the fictional ones anyway) so their humanity/vulnerability/sweetness just needs to be “discovered.”

Ahhhhhhhhhh…. There’s a reason for women to be drawn to those bad boys. Oh, to be the one woman in all the world to uncover the secret soft caramel core—the ultimate score. But there’s so much more to it than that….

Research of all kinds has been done on the subject of bad boys and the women who love them. There are, from what I can see, loosely three types of bad boys and loads of articles and blogs that attempt to “definitively” analyze the heck out of them. First, and most easily dismissed for my purposes, are the hardened criminals who attract some women, and the ensuing jailhouse weddings, tabloid headlines, etc. Without intending to be uncaring or dismissive, I’m just going to chalk those up to the “pathological” column.

Then there are the narcissists—the ones who start out great (aka brilliant chameleons) only to reveal later that they only have eyes for themselves and are trying desperately to fill a hole inside them as big as the Valles Marineris, a canyon on Mars that makes the Grand Canyon look like an infant bathtub. Women, research suggests, who go for these guys have deep seated beliefs about their own unworthiness stemming (perhaps) from a poor father-daughter relationship. The unmet needs of that relationship with an aloof, distant, narcissistic dad result in women trying to “get it right” this time. Okay so that’s not the kind I’m going to be talking about either.

The above two types of “bad boy” aside, there is still that allure of the James Dean/George Clooney guy. A study of 1000 men and women done in Barcelona, Spain suggests that women are actually biologically programmed to go for James Bond, not Columbo. Rhett Butler, not Ashley Wilkes. And let’s face it, Mr. Darcy is sexier than Charles Bingley. As happy as we are for Jane, we all want to be Elizabeth.

It is not cruelty or self-destructive behavior that your normal, well-adjusted woman is drawn to, however. It’s basically confidence. The “bad boy” we all drool over, who seems so sexy and alluring, has certain traits. But guess what? So does any woman you’ve ever admired.

Confidence. Not the faux confidence of a narcissist or braggart, but actual confidence. The real thing. The behavior and body language of a confident person is appealing because it implies comfort with self. In a Venn diagram you’d notice that many bad boys are confident but not all confident people are bad. In fact, most aren’t. They are just out there being themselves and getting shit done.
Authenticity. If you don’t need to prove yourself to yourself or anyone else, you will be real all the time. It’s kind of hard to tell when a bend-over-backwards-to-be-nice person is being real, and when he (or she) is just holding all the uncomfortable stuff inside. Can a nice, kind person be authentic? Sure! And I attest that when we are drawn to an authentic person who is himself without apology, we think it equals “bad boy” because #movies.

authentic Obama/sexy

Purpose. “I can” is sexier than “I can’t.” Just like “go for it” is more rewarding than “but what if?” Again, not rocket science that this trait (and all the traits in this list) applies to men and women alike. When you have purpose, and confidence, and tackle your goals without second-guessing everything in the world, it’s hot.

Petitte/purpose/sizzlin’

Proactiveness. If you go ahead and live life and do what you want, whether you’re introverted or extroverted, a thinker or a doer, cautious or spontaneous… if you are unapologetic about your life choices, and feel worthy of your own best interests, you are not being an asshole, you are living your life and being awesome.
Self-esteem. People who basically are good with how they are, not dying to “fit in,” and able to live without anyone’s approval are sometimes the rebels, with or without causes, but truly broken people, the bullies and the braggarts, the narcissists who do faux confidence so well in short bursts… they don’t have that much self-esteem after all. Trying way too hard.

self-esteem/Depp/”I’m me”

Assertive. A man who can make up his mind is, in my opinion, sexy. And that includes when he makes up his mind he likes/wants me. I also deeply admire assertive women who know how to negotiate, stand their ground, speak out against injustice. There is a clear, not-at-all fine line between assertive behavior and bullying. We all have a responsibility to know that line and honor it. But sometimes we just want to be grabbed and kissed, ya know?

Honesty. If there is nothing to hide—#honesty. Men (and women) who are genuine and self-assured have no reason to lie. I’m not talking about what my mother used to call “aggressive truth telling”—when you go out of your way to clarify how ugly you think someone’s haircut is. I’m talking about being in relationship with someone you can trust to be straight with you. Yeah, it’s sexy. And it’s good—not bad.

Relaxed. As in: comfortable in his own skin. What this looks like: cool. This person will smile when he thinks something is funny, leave the party when he wants to leave, and wear his old Run-D.M.C. tee shirt whenever he feels like it.

Clooney/chill=cool

Modesty. By that I mean standing on his own merits. When your worth is not in question, you don’t need to sell it.
Passion. Why do the apocryphal “bad boys” have this reputation of being the hottest things in bed since electric blankets?
Pitt/Banderas/passion/vampires

I’m no expert, but it seems to me that passion is part of that whole unselfconscious, confident, authentic, relaxed, assertive vibe that we’re talking about here. Passion won’t grow from a place of fear, insecurity, uncertainty, or dishonesty.

No need to be an asshole bad guy or gal to be irresistible. And I choose to believe that the above traits are not in the slightest bit in conflict with the ability to bring a hot cup of tea to someone or give a foot rub. A loving person makes himself happy by loving others. I tend to do what I want most of the time, and part of that is nurturing and loving my friends and family. No conflict.

If you really have the qualities above there is nothing bad about it. You will ultimately be unafraid to show your vulnerability within a relationship because you don’t give a damn what people think and doing so is honest—because even the most badass among us has vulnerabilities. So what’s my takeaway from today’s train of thought? When your confidence is intact you don’t have to be bad to be oh-so-good. Or even great.

The Case Against Kvetching OR Don’t Be a Miserable Cow

Posted on May 15, 2016 by spiralwoman

Saw the above meme today. A friend posted it on her Facebook page. It’s a reminder—perfectly humorous and perfectly true.

I’m trying to break the kvetching habit. The bitching, moaning, oh-my-god-can-you-believe-what-happened thing. It’s so easy to do and when it’s happening, for a minute or two, it seems like it feels really good. Especially if the person you are kvetching to is as outraged as you are. Or is sympathetic to the Utter Horror of the situation you are describing.

Did you ever notice that most complaining is about other people? I guess that makes sense since very few “situations” are immaculately conceived. I mean, people conceive and birth most all situations in life.

Maybe because of the fact that it’s about other people, at some point in the middle of a big kvetch-fest, it starts to feel not-so-fun. Plus you end up feeling like a total victim and that sucks.

At first, we are fascinated by the very fact that someone could be stupid or clueless or selfish or mean or insecure or bitchy enough to do whatever the Unacceptable Thing was. Or not do whatever thing we thought should have been done. We become personally insulted by this person’s actions. We are offended, shocked, hurt. We must tell someone. Now that person has to share in our fascination/hurt. If things go as planned, now both people, kvetcher and kvetchee, are caught up in the negative energy of the kvetch-fest. It builds on itself.

Even after it stops feeling good and actively feels pretty crappy, the bemoaning continues. (Have you ever eaten the last quarter of a bag of chips, even though you feel overwhelmed with salt and grease and your stomach is objecting? And you say, “They’re almost gone. It won’t be long now.” Like it’s a chore you must get through. It’s like that with complaining. “I’ll just get this off my chest and I’ll feel better,” while really you are wasting valuable time you could use to write a poem or take a walk or build with Legos.)

And p.s. you don’t feel better. Not even a little bit. Don’t kid yourself. You have just RELIVED The Horror. Whatever it was. The Unforgiveable Thing that happened/was done to you. You’ve relived it in words, which are like tiny nails that hammer that Unforgiveable Thing even more firmly into your brain and body. You now feel the hurt/insult/offense all over again.

It’s a weird thing that happens inside the human body when we wallow. And believe me, everyone has wallowed at least once. It’s like marinating a piece of meat in a balsamic and red wine mixture with lots of garlic, black pepper, and cumin. Pretty soon the meat is so infused with all those flavors that it can’t be un-infused. We are now “one” with the bad shit that happened. Why do we do this to ourselves?

I once thought we humans were naturally inclined toward kvetching, but I’m not so sure. I know people who never do it. I know people who taught themselves not to do it. I’m wanting to unlearn the habit and I feel like I’m actually making progress. So I don’t think it’s innate. I think it’s learned. We grow up surrounded by people on the subway, in line at the deli, in our own living rooms, and we hear, “You’ll never guess what insanely offensive thing HE DID NEXT!” or “Wait till I tell you this truly horrible thing that HAPPENED TO ME.” As if we can’t wait to smear our misery all over our nearest and dearest.

So here is the super-simplified list of what complaining does to us. I got this info from this very comprehensive article full of links for further study, and I recommend you read it because it’s awesome.

Repeatedly thinking negative thoughts makes it easier to think negative thoughts in the future which is all brain science and has to do with synapses and stuff. It means bumming out makes it super likely that being bummed will be your default. You can rewire your brain to be dark… or light.
Being with negative people can rewire you too. Our brains seem to be so empathetic that other people’s emotions go into us like they are our own. Who you surround yourself with really can change your life. The good news is that happy people can rewire your brain in the direction of love, love, and some of that love.
Angry and negative thoughts weaken the immune system, raise blood pressure, and increase your risk for diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. Because stress. Which is a killa.

How do we navigate life while communicating and being open but avoiding the truly damaging effect of complaining? I do not have an answer to that. It has been proven that the “ya just gotta vent” theory is dead wrong, but on the other hand, you might want to casually mention to your mom/friend/husband/cat that your boss is Darth Vader in disguise…. So I’m thinking that if we

Don’t take shit personally (remember Don Miguel Ruiz and the Four Agreements?) which means we…
Understand that when people do crappy things it’s all about them, not us, which means…
It can’t “marinate” us and we can…
Do what my friend Teri suggests and say, “Isn’t that interesting?” and then let it go….

A nice buffer against the negative stuff, the kvetch-fest, the marinating in damaging emotions= gratitude. When you see how amazing and helpful and hardworking and kind most people are today, it helps you notice it tomorrow again too. Another probiotic for life is love. (The Beatles got that.) Look at a picture of your kid… or look at your kid. Or put your face against the purring furry side of your dozing cat. Or watch a blue jay flit from branch to branch outside your window (as I am doing now). Or make a call to someone who loves you as much as you love her or him. Or remember peanut butter. (Better yet, go eat a giant spoon of it.)

I’m really working on this. I’m lucky that my default mode is one of optimism. I get excited about things and I have hope for the future. I can take no credit for the way I was born. The fact that my mother was a mentally ill narcissist could well have fucked me up but good. It didn’t. Not in any ways that really matter. Plus, she was pretty badass too, and that’s the stuff I like to remember. And my brain chooses to remember the good stuff almost all the time. But we can all do better. I’m trying to figure out how to extricate myself from other people’s need to come into my space and vent. A kind and polite extrication. (Any advice? I’d be grateful.)

Baby steps. For now, I’m grateful to have a Sunday morning to write this blog and make friends with the blue jay outside.

Love Trumps Trump

Posted on March 12, 2016 by spiralwoman

Some things I know and feel no need to explain how I know them:

Complaining is not healthy, even though we really want it to be. It can be addictive. It can even feel good… at first. But it’s bad voodoo. (Although I know I don’t need to provide a citation, this is a good article on the subject.)
Love is the shit. Like, The Thing. Like… the ONLY thing. It heals. It feels good. It fixes the world.
All humans on the planet deserve all their human rights, regardless of skin color, genitalia, who they want to love, be, or become, where they live, what god, goddess, Bodhisattva, tree, or higher or lower being they worship, whether they worship anything at all, or don’t.
Generalizing may be convenient when running statistics but it sucks when you are talking about actual humans. It’s called bias. It’s called “don’t be stupid, just because a black gay Buddhist was mean to you in 6^th grade does not mean all black gay Buddhists are mean.”
The U. S. of A. has some very powerful and wonderful things about it but it’s in big trouble. Still and all, I love it. (see # 2)
The Maharishi Effect is legit. (Again, here’s a cool article about small meditation groups affecting an entire city’s crime rate!) When you get enough people focused on one idea or feeling, things change. Shifts happen. People feel different. And it affects the world beyond and outside. When people feel different, they behave in different ways.
Our thoughts do change us. Our thoughts—and the thoughts we surround ourselves with—permeate us until they change the grooves in our brain (to use an image from vinyl records) so that the needle now goes in those grooves and can’t, as easily, find the groovy grooves. The groovy grooves are where you find love and self-love, acceptance of others and acceptance of self, optimism and fortitude, joy and courage and laughter. Change your thinking, change your feelings, actions, and outcomes.

Many Americans are disappointed in the folks who hold political office right now, and also in most all of the candidates vying for their respective nominations. The majority seem to be ruled by money, and/or racist/misogynistic/reactionary agendas, and/or a lust for power. Is a single one of them ruled by love (see #2)? Maybe Bernie. But he’s pretty pissed off, too, so I’m not sure.

I started to write a blog that was veering towards complaint, anger, non-love. I was going down the path of “we’re kinda fucked” that would create a groove in my brain if I’m not careful. I could become that person. The person who lives her life from the “we’re fucked” point of view. Who wants to be that person?

Don’t want to hide my head from the facts either, though.

What I was going to write, was about how shocked I am that our country is a place where a hater like Trump has a groundswell of supporters. I guess I’ve been fooled by the veneer of civility that has (barely) covered the actions and agendas of politicians who have been spewing hate for years…just maybe not as openly as Trump does. Maybe there are a lot of folks grateful to have someone just come out and say it. Say the stuff that they want to say, hate the people they love to hate. I’m thinking they don’t like the groups of non-them people who get in the way of their special privilege—or maybe that’s what they’re scared of.

But I want to STOP complaining about the candidates—it’s not good for me. I want to acknowledge that everyone has the right to speak, even if the ideas being spoken are about taking away everyone else’s rights. I want to be part of a GREAT BIG HAPPY GROUP THINK that is about love and acceptance. Then imagine a world where the tsunami effect of love will be so huge that it will push away all the hate.

So here’s my question. If I don’t want to become the hopeless, angry person coming from a place of reaction to evil, and instead want to be the person who operates from a place of love, how do I love Trump? How do I love Cruz? How do I love all those who love them? People who, consciously or not, disrespect me for being a woman. Long to take away my rights, so painfully fought for over my lifetime by people who would not accept the oh-so absurd status quo. People who want to build walls to keep out immigrants (not unlike their own immigrant parents or grandparents who made this country what it is today). People who mostly just hate. Hate people not like them. Hate progress towards equality. Hate having to give up their privilege so the underprivileged can get a break. Hate thinking about what they don’t want to think about, like climate change, gay marriage, domestic terrorism, to name a few.

So I’m looking for a way in. A way in to love.

When my children were little and behaving badly I’d say, “I love you with all my heart and always will, but I do not like what you are doing right now.” It was easy to make that distinction. The person has my love, his or her actions do not.

I am resolved. I will send love. I’ll put it out there into the universe, directed at Trump and all the rest of the haters. I will say to myself, “I love this human being. I love this person who was born to a mother like me. Someone loves this person, so I can too.” If we can love a sister or uncle or friend who makes mistake after mistake simply because we choose to go on loving them, then I can choose to love Donald Trump. Love will be my trump card and I’ll play it every day.

(lovelovelovelovelovelove….)

Gun-shy: Firearms and the Mentally Ill

Posted on January 28, 2016 by spiralwoman

I opened the door when she knocked. Given our last exchange–during which I had to haul her by the hand out of my place of work while she shouted about how my new boyfriend was part of The Conspiracy (corporate, federal, state, personal) against her–I was wary. But she was my mother after all. At 24, I’d been on my own for 7 years and a few months before she had moved 1800 miles to be near me. Not my idea. But she showed up just in time for me to realize something that I suspected was wrong really was seriously wrong.

The details are hazy. She pushed her way into the apartment, talking inhumanly fast—I don’t remember what she said, or what I said. I just know that within two minutes of her being there, she was so enraged at me that she had me flat on the floor and was pummeling me with her fists. My mother was about five inches shorter than I, but she was strong, and the element of surprise is a powerful strategy. But in her case this was no strategy. It was craziness, erupting, as it does. Willy-nilly.

Her inability to control what I was saying, convince me of what she was saying, or create a truth that I would be convinced by—well, the frustration was too much. She attacked the one person in the world she might actually love—in whatever way that happened for her—and the one person she could not afford to lose.

There was also the time she tried to grab the gun off the police officer’s holster. That one got her thrown in jail, and then transferred to the nearest mental hospital for an evaluation.

I’ve written about her on this blog before, but here my point is: mentally ill people cannot be held accountable for what they do. They are sick. Let’s take care of them. Let’s not throw them out on the street with no resources and no insurance.

And let’s not make it easy for them to buy guns. Can’t we all agree not to arm them with the firepower to kill themselves or someone else in an outburst of—often fleeting—rage or despair?

Fast forward thirty years to a few weeks ago. The suggestion on the table is this: “Shall we put something on our website that urges families to remove guns from the house if a mother is suffering from depression?”

I sit on the board of a remarkable organization that supports women and families dealing with maternal mental health issues, as well as educating medical practitioners and legal professionals about PMDs. When the suggestion is made, heads immediately start to nod. It makes sense. We should come out with a statement about that.

Then someone says, “We need to be careful. There are people out there who might be very offended by that. Red cape to the bull.”

Wait—REALLY?

I live in a remarkably insular world because I don’t know anyone who would think it a bad idea for a concerned family member to remove a gun from a sick woman who regularly thinks about suicide and whose death would leave a child motherless.

I believe that people don’t have the whole picture. I mean, who has the whole picture? I definitely do not have the whole picture. I could not possess it even if I read every book, blog, and bullshit tabloid 24 / 7 for the rest of my life. So let’s all agree: no one has the whole picture. I know some stuff and you know some stuff. I’ll ask you what you know about and you can ask me, if you want.

What I do know a teensy bit more than some people about is mental illness. I was highly motivated to read everything I could get my hands on about the topic and then there was my front row seat.

My schizophrenic mother never attacked me again physically after that day. (Research has shown that most psychotic people show less tendencies towards violence than the average population.) The things she did on a regular basis that made my life a hell of tormented guilt, love, and anger just took other forms from then on. But what if she’d had an elegant little pistol in her pocket that day?

Would her rage and despair at the horribleness of it all at that moment have led her to start blazing away?

She didn’t have so much as a set of brass knuckles, fortunately, and my friend Michael woke from his nap to drag my mom off me and escort her firmly, but gently, from the apartment.

I’ve read recent studies about suicide. There is strong evidence that the majority of suicide attempts are one offs. I’m not sure how they do that study since many of the study cases are dead. But it involved many many interviews with people who have survived a suicide attempt. Some have tried multiple times. Some think about suicide often. But apparently most people who have attempted suicide, according to this study, did so only once. They lived to tell the story, and never tried again. Those people did not have guns.

Okay so a background check would not pick up on the random dude whose girlfriend is going to trash his heart and he’s going to try to end it all. But the patient with a history of hospitalization for depression, or schizophrenia, or whatever it is, will be a red flag and maybe the decision to provide this person with a firearm will be tabled for the indefinite future. I would really like that.

The 2^nd Amendment was written when muskets were the extent of a citizen’s firepower. Now semi-automatic weapons and guns with exploding bullets (I’ll defer to you people out there who know about guns—I don’t) have been cleverly invented, manufactured, and put in the hands of regular people. The meek, the bold. The sane, the not-sane. The angry, the mollified. The upstanding, the ignominious. We don’t care. It’s our right to own a gun. It’s our right to protect ourselves. But it’s our right—and duty—to protect innocent people too.

Is anyone suggesting we take all guns away? I mean anyone credible? Most of the suggested legislation is about slowing things down. Background checks.

My friend Frank might have killed himself anyway. They found his body in his car with a hole in his head blown out by the shotgun he had purchased at K-Mart earlier that day. The receipt was in the bag, which was in the back seat. After that, we realized he’d been planning his exit for a while. He’d managed to say goodbye to most of us the night before, without telling us what he was doing.

But if the impulse of that moment—if his horrible confusion and sorrow about his uncertain identity, his troubling (to him) desire to wear my clothes on Halloween, and any woman’s panty-hose under his work pants on any other day of the year, his uninterested family, the homelessness he did not confide in us till someone found his sleeping bag in the storeroom at the restaurant where we both worked—if that impulse had passed in the time it took for him to be able to buy that gun, he may have lived until now. He may have been at the forefront of the LGBTQ movement, wearing green tights and flowing skirts with pride at all the parades and making drawling, sarcastic speeches that made everyone laugh. He may have come back the next night, the night after his goodbyes, flicked his hair, grinned his sad, sly grin, and picked up where he’d left off.

Frank as me for Halloween, 1981.

Do Unto Others

Posted on December 20, 2015 by spiralwoman

I am not Christian, Jewish, or Muslim. Nor am I Buddhist or Hindu. Labels seem too small and regularly shaped to accommodate my spirituality, which I came across in my own way, having been raised by atheist ideologues.

This essay is not really about spirituality, mine or anyone’s, but rather about morality. Probably because I was raised by ethical people who believed in no higher power, it never dawned on me that morality required religion to exist.

The concept still strikes me as absurd, though I know that many cannot conceive of a morality outside the very clear constraints of their religious beliefs. There are people who believe that morality is externally imposed by a doctrine or credo, and that it does not come from inside. Thus, they imagine that all the people who don’t go to their church or pray to their god cannot be moral. Many religions lay claim to specific beliefs that predate their faith by millennia.

When I taught Eastern religions for a few years I learned a lot. I learned that the phenomenon of “there is only one true religion” is somewhat unique to the Judeo-Christian world. I am no expert and there is much I don’t know, but I know that the Bhagavad Gita teaches that people can find their enlightenment in their own way, and need not adhere to Hindu ideas or believe in the Hindu “source” to end up there. I know that Muhammad respected Jesus as well as the prophets of the Old Testament and considered himself a latecomer to the Axial Age.

But the interesting thing to me is that the religions that arose around the time of Christianity (the aforementioned Axial Age) were responding quite specifically to social injustice.

‘Tis the season of political campaigns being led by men (mainly) who loudly proclaim their devotion to Christianity, and so I am inspired to peek at a few of the more basic tenets of that religion.

Love thy neighbor. Most everyone living and learning within the Western tradition has heard this moral teaching and most people know that the whole sentence reads: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” (King James Bible) And the greater context is (to paraphrase): Love God with your entire heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as you love yourself and P.S. there are no teachings ANYWHERE more important than these. Which means that loving God and loving your neighbor trump anything from Leviticus that requires stoning your wife, burning a bull in your yard, or calling homosexuality an abomination. This teaching seems pretty simple. Don’t act out of hatred, but out of love.

Love your enemy. Related to the above, but interestingly different. I guess someone who is loving his or her neighbor won’t have any enemies. So maybe Jesus thought, “Well, if they slip, and end up with enemies, I’ll teach them to love their enemies and then we’ll be back to ‘it’s all about love.’” Seems a logical line of reasoning for him, since he wanted to teach love. So he said, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” There are many who claim Jesus had the copyright on this teaching, but two thousand years before him, a Babylonian council was on record with this: “Do not return evil to your adversary. Requite with kindness the one who does evil to you. Maintain justice to your enemy and be friendly to him,” proving religion has no corner on morality and that government councils can teach loving kindness. There is a Buddhist teaching that is similar, that I won’t fully quote here but I love this part: “Let us live happily, not hating those who hate us.”

Turn the other cheek. The quote goes like this (again King James, my favorite translation): “But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” This always bothered me because I thought it was about passive acquiescence to evil. But then I learned something important from a scholar and social historian who explained to me that Jesus in that teaching is advocating political resistance –the non-violent kind. According to the customs of the time, the left hand can only be used for personal and unseemly uses, so any blows to the right cheek must be made backhanded—it’s just an anatomical thing. If you use your right hand on the right cheek—it’s gotta be that way. And a backhanded blow is the way superiors struck peasants. Thus Jesus is addressing a theoretical peasant who is being beaten and he is saying, “Give that asshole your left cheek and make him hit you with the flat of his palm as if you were an equal.” So… either the beating stops (unlikely), or he treats you as a peer, which is almost better. The result is a delicious awkwardness and a way to deal with social injustice without violence. (For a very cool explanation of this, including the part of the passage about walking the extra mile and giving the cloak AND the coat, check out this link: turn the other cheek.)

The Golden Rule. Hugely popular with parents and teachers everywhere. My atheist parents used this dictum as the cornerstone of their ethical teachings. I knew the quote—“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”— long before I read the Bible (in middle school English classes). It made perfect sense to me. Where does this genius bit of ethical absolutism originate? Matthew 7:12, you say? Sure. But it was around waaaaaaaaaaaaaay before Jesus explained it to his flock. Also known as the ethic of reciprocity, it can appear in either the positive or prohibitive form. Jesus used the positive: do. The prohibitive, used for example by the ancient Chinese, is more like this: Don’t. Aka, don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you. Like when your mom said, “Do you want Johnny to push you down? No? Then don’t push him!”

Around 2000 BCE, the Egyptians had a thing that went like this: “Now this is the command: Do to the doer to make him do.” It goes along with the concept of sacrifice—give a gift to the gods so they will bestow gifts upon you. Later, around 675 BCE the Egyptians had a negative or prohibitive form of the Golden Rule: “That which you hate to be done to you, do not do to another.”

Then there is Confucius and Lao Tse in ancient China, each of whom has a version. The Hindu precept, “Make dharma (right conduct) your main focus, treat others as you treat yourself,” is another very ancient example. Then there’s ancient Greece, and ancient Persia… and finally—FINALLY—we get to the Judeo-Christian tradition which chimes in on the Golden Rule.

Where am I going with this? Jesus was a good teacher and his precepts hit at a good time, but he did not make most of this stuff up from scratch. There were people teaching moral behavior before he cast his light upon the Middle East and, eventually (thanks to some great marketing strategies and a few wars credited to his followers), the rest of the planet. But the ancient Egyptians or Chinese from several millennia BCE were not sending messages via bottle or smoke signal halfway across the planet and into the future. The ideas of love, reciprocity, and peaceful co-existence arose independently across the globe over time. Morality is not linked to any particular political or religious system, location, skin color, gender, class, sexual orientation, or social strata. It is simply human.

The social injustice of Jesus’s world created a system ripe for change. His followers, Jews and pagans, managed to incorporate his wisdom into their own religious traditions. It did not seem particularly odd to do so as many of his messages were considered more political than religious.

How many religions have fought holy wars in order to wipe out the non-believers? No history is bloodier than that of a church founded on the teachings of a simple carpenter who taught universal love and peaceful resistance.

How many nations have been founded on religious teachings and turned around and banished, exterminated, or forcibly converted anyone who believed differently? Jesus was a Jew, but I’m pretty sure he did not ask for an identity card when people followed after him to hear what he had to say.

Every president of the United States – a nation that in its founding separated church from state—has to swear an oath on the Judeo-Christian Bible. So how did it come to be that “devout” candidates are allowed to wage holy wars on women’s rights, religious freedoms, and the poor? Their guru, Jesus himself, honored the poor above all (remember the thing about a rich man getting into heaven being harder than a camel’s transit through the eye of a needle?), preached unconditional love (that means no conditions, yo), and accepted independent women among his closest followers. Some believe Mary Magdalene was his first and most important disciple and it is a matter of historical fact that she was not a prostitute at all, but an independent and sexual woman, which the Christian fathers had to translate into “prostitute” to justify their patriarchal religion and its systematic debasement of women. (For more on that check out my blog titled “Scarlet Words—How Women’s History and Power was (partly) Stolen by Changing the Language.”)

Not only does the current crop of talking heads in the Republican debates not advocate loving their neighbor, let alone their enemies, they in fact demand anger, hatred, and retribution. They incite us all to carry our guns and shun non-white, non-Christian people fleeing from tyranny. There are even hate groups out there (I can’t help wondering what Jesus, Buddha, or Muhammad would have to say about the very CONCEPT of a hate group) who believe that we should torture and destroy the children of our enemies. They also insist that citizens who love “the wrong people” or identify as “the wrong gender” or, an old favorite, have “the wrong color skin” or religion—that those people should be tormented, banished, killed. The large majority of these hate groups identify strongly as Christians. I want to ask them: “Have you met Jesus?”

What happened? A planetary evolution of millennia upon millennia, a species with no end of wise teachers to guide us and we are still in this place?

Many people may not love themselves enough to love their neighbors and enemies. Yet there are plenty of people out there living good lives, motivated by love and acceptance, guided by the Golden Rule. Spreading love starts at home. A challenge for me and mine this New Year.

No disrespect intended to anyone. This cartoon just fits too darned well with my blog.

Scarlet Words—How Women’s History and Power Was (partly) Stolen by Changing the Language

Posted on February 23, 2015 by spiralwoman

Ishtar–Queen of Heaven/Whore of Babylon

The other day I woke from an undifferentiated dream with the words, “verbs, nouns, and scarlet adjectives” in my head. When I considered this word cluster, after a cup of coffee, I determined that its key word was “scarlet.” I pondered the word “scarlet” over the next few days. My train of thought, Google, and most importantly The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara Walker all reminded me of an enormous cover-up perpetrated by the Judeo-Christian patriarchy.

Not to put too fine a point on it.

Scarlet. I asked myself, and several other people, what that word conjures. Literally everyone said either The Scarlet Letter or “a scarlet woman” or both. Scarlet + woman = fall from grace, shame, sin. In other words, whore, harlot, hussy, slut. The original scarlet woman, it turns out, was the woman who has come down to us as the Whore of Babylon. In Revelations, chapter 17, we are told just how horrific this woman (spoken with dripping scorn and indignant rage) was. A few choice quotations:

“Come hither. I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication….”
And shortly thereafter: “I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy…. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup … full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication.”
And last but not least: “And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

But let’s back up a bit. Like 3 or 4 thousand years. Harlot, the word so contemptuously used by the writers of the Book of Revelation in the Old Testament, was originally the name for the sacred priestesses who served the Great Goddess Har, also known as Ishtar. From the word “har” came other words, such as “hara,” a Hebrew word for great mountain or pregnant belly, and Harmonia, a daughter of Aphrodite and bringer of peace. The Greek “horae,” the Persian “houris,” or the Hebrew “hor” (“synonym for the sacred prostitute and the Goddess she served”*) are all etymologically linked to the word “whore.” But the fact is, sacred “harlots,” and priestesses of the goddess Har, or Ishtar, were powerful and honored, in fact revered, members of pagan societies.

Pagan priestess in full possession of her power and her sexuality.

Words that mean one thing for thousands of years: co-opted and degraded in a matter of a few hundred years by one male-dominated institution.

Let me continue. The scarlet woman—often seen wearing the red (and/or purple) of divinity—was first of all the great Ishtar, aka Queen of Heaven aka the Great Whore of Babylon. She called herself “a prostitute compassionate” and she and her priestess harlots were “honored like queens at centers of learning in Greece and Asia minor.” Despite her reverenced position throughout the ancient world, she comes to us via the Bible as “the mother of abominations,” among other things.

Some of these priestess-whores actually did become queens. Justinian’s bride, Theodora, was a temple harlot before she said, “I do.” The Emperor Constantine’s very own mother, now canonized (St. Helena), was a harlot before she became an empress/saint. Gosh why don’t Western histories tell us this stuff?

Priestess-whore/divine feminine

So, countless ancient yet sophisticated cultures including the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Hindus, Japanese—all revered women whose lives were spent in temples, as hierodules (representing the goddess on earth) having sex with men (often priests), who were honored as healers (their vaginal secretions and spit were said to have healing powers), and who were valued as brides when their service in the temple was over. Very, very cool.

That was back when sex was not a sin, women were not only allowed to be sexual beings but adored for their sexual powers, and when “virgin” meant unmarried woman. You’ve probably heard of the “Vestal virgins?” Well what you were not told is that most if not all the priestesses who looked after temples were virgins. Meaning they chose to remain unmarried. And have as much sex as they wanted in their roles as priestess-virgins.

Now, of course a “whore” is a term of degradation and contempt. Young women are hog-tied by the idea that “virgin” means “girl who does not have sex” instead of independent woman who is allowed to make her own sexual choices. Rethinking the mother of Jesus—we were told she was a virgin when her womb quickened with humankind’s savior. Well, according to the meaning of “virgin” at the time (aka the original meaning of that word), that meant she was not married. It did not mean she had not had sex.

How did this complete co-opting of language (nouns, verbs and scarlet adjectives) happen? Easy. The rise of the Christian church put the kibosh on anything that smacked of feminine power. Whores held significant status in pagan culture, so they had to be brought low. Powerful and influential men literally stole the truth, rewrote history, and at a time when literacy was low and there was soon a church in every village, the redirection of language was achieved efficiently and brutally.

Typical example. The horae of Aphrodite—her “celestial nymphs, who performed the Dances of the Hours, acted as midwives to the gods, and inspired earthly horae (harlot-priestesses) to train men in the sexual mysteries”*—were magically transformed by the church into virgins (the kind who don’t have sex), martyred, and turned into three maiden saints—Agape, Chionia, and Irene. Done.

Sacred horae

Another example. In Iceland, a very matriarchal society at that time, every woman worshipped the goddess in her own home, on her own hearth. This woman was known as a “hussy,” and typically shared her “hus” (which meant both home and place of worship) with more than one “hus-band.” But when Iceland agreed in about 1000 AD to become Christian, guess what? The word hussy became a derogatory term. Done.

The Christian patriarchy seemed to be all about taking the power to choose away from women, a woman’s power over her own body being a prime example. At first glance one might think, how can anyone take one’s power to choose, or to control what she does with her body, away from a woman? We all know how it’s done today. Through public opinion, rape and the perpetuation of rape culture, legislation, and any number of societally accepted norms (from pay scales to product marketing) that marginalize and diminish women, or try to. And often succeed.

As the Catholic orthodoxy rose to prominence in Western and Eastern Europe, a woman with a lover became indistinguishable in the eyes of the church from a professional prostitute. Both were considered “whores.” In fact, women who gave their love and body freely to a lover were tortured in hell as viciously as the reviled prostitutes. St. Augustine and others depicted the torments reserved for sexually active women (whether lovers or whores) as being among the very worst—greater than those for murderers, for example.

We have inherited this twisted view of women and language—whereby both the women themselves and the words that described them have been repainted by a society hell-bent on destroying the truth and keeping women “in their place.” Though no longer considered the property of men, women are still either actively treated as objects or allowed by much of the bystanding populace to be objectified day after day on billboards, on Twitter, by Hollywood, you name it.

It would be lovely to reclaim our “nouns, verbs, and scarlet adjectives” in the pursuit of a genuine equality. It bothers me, I must admit, that history seems to begin, in the minds of 99% of the world, after women’s power was systematically stolen from them. Part of empowering women and men is to resurrect the truth and at least have a working knowledge of what the words that are used to shame, control, and demean women actually mean.

Scarlet. The color of a woman’s power, a woman’s sexuality, a woman’s direct connection to the divine. It has become my favorite word.

from The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets*, by Barbara G. Walker, entries on Horae, Ishtar, and Prostitution. Much of my information came from this source and I highly recommend this book to you if you do not have it.

The Privilege of Self-Improvement

Posted on December 29, 2014 by spiralwoman

Not that I’m the poster child for personal evolution and self-discovery, but I sure do feel privileged. Why? Because at every point in my life when I had the urge to take a step into my unknown mysterious calling – whatever it was at the time – I could take it.

This rather obvious fact hit me over the head the other day. With privilege comes both time and money – both of which are quite helpful when we want to self-improve. Whether it is the Reiki training I suddenly felt called to, or the shamanic training I’ve received over the last ten years, or the hours spent across a table from a dear soul sister sorting through the latest spiritual bushwhacking we’ve participated in – I’ve been blessed.

Sure I work hard and sure I strive and toil – a fact which unites us all on some level. But a still, sun drenched winter morning spent with one of two Tarot decks at my disposal is within my realm of possibility. If I hear about a book that I know will kick my butt, or amuse me, or guide me to a door that needs opening, I buy it. If I have to head up to the mountain top that is my journeying spot, I head there (either in reality or otherwise).

Sure I’d like to travel to Greece and do a goddess tour, or to Italy to seek details of a past life – not every privilege is “easy” for everyone who is privileged, but I’m pretty confident I’ll be able to make these trips happen, as well as a week or two among the Celtic mysteries in Scotland and Ireland. Something to aspire to. And I can.

Because I don’t have to aspire to get my GED because I didn’t have to drop out of high school. I got a kick-ass education because I grew up assuming that was important and that I could. Even though I put myself through college and grad school, I consider that a privilege too. I knew how to support myself and had done so for 10 years by the time I was done with my education. And that is a kind of empowerment many uber-privileged children are denied. Things can come too easily, it turns out.
Because I was empowered enough to know I had choices. I did not have to bear a child when I could not do justice to one. I was able to choose when to bring my babies into the world – and they waited for me to be ready.
Because I was born white and middle class, to an ambitious, upwardly mobile (if mentally unstable – can’t have everything) mother. Not only was I clad and shod, fed and taught, there were books on the shelves and records on the stereo and paintings on the wall. And trips to the Met and MoMA, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall.
Because I don’t have to work a minimum wage job, or depend on food stamps to survive, and if I work a second job it is not so I can pay the heating bill, it’s so I can send my own kids to college, or maybe save up for that trip to Greece. Feel me?
Because I have health insurance.
Because I have the luxury of thoughtful opinions, know that my vote matters, and have time to speak up, opine, march, fight for my rights and those of others (with words, anyway). Single moms living in tenements have no such luxury, though voting is power and everyone has that privilege…. At least for now.

When privileged politicians use their positions to look with contempt on those less fortunate, I realize they are not using their privilege to self-improve, but to self-aggrandize, and worse. Their karma is entirely besmirched, of course, but I won’t gloat about that. Everyone else pays the price of their comfortable hetero-patriarchal ability to look down on people who are not like them.

I’ll try hard to use my privilege not only to improve upon my small soul, but to grow my large soul. Oh, and love everyone. Even that, it seems, is a privilege.

Asymmetry

Posted on November 14, 2014 by spiralwoman

Jacqueline Rocque by Picasso, 1954

I am asymmetrical. Though no one is perfectly symmetrical, they say, I am close to the “odd” end of the bell curve

At certain times of my life, the fact that my two halves are not mirror images of one another has caused me some consternation. Especially in my young years, growing into maturity in a world that values perfect symmetry as the epitome of beauty. Wikipedia puts it clearly: “More symmetrical faces are perceived as more attractive in both males and females, although facial symmetry plays a larger role in judgments of attractiveness concerning female faces.”

I’m not sure why human beings want both sides of an object to match each other in every particular. That desire may be encoded in our DNA. After all, nature designed the animal and plant kingdoms to have bilateral structures. At least on the outside. Nobody actually looks like Jacqueline Roque (whose picture is posted with this blog) in real life.

All the same, I’ve come to love the way my two halves don’t match. My left eye is smaller than my right, and my right eye has a smaller lid than my left. My left lid droops a bit over my eye, too, especially when I’m very tired. My left breast is almost half the size of my right. My nursing babies were not as happy with it – perhaps it gave less milk. My left foot, now that I am no longer so young, is aging more quickly than my right. Its toes curl a bit, and it’s falling apart (literally), whereas my right foot looks as youthful as ever.

The age old prejudice against the left side makes me feel protective of my less idealized left side. The words “gauche” and “sinister” – coming directly from the French and Latin words for “left” – diminish the quirky loveliness of the “other” side.

Not many people comment on my asymmetry. Though noticeable, it does not scream “FREAK!” I have had many men find me beautiful and desirable, something I have always enjoyed. As hard as I can be on myself and as difficult as the aging process is for me, I have always found myself striking to look at and, since my youthful and highly insecure years, have embraced my lack of mirror imagery.

Funny story. Once, a doctor said to me upon doing a visual exam of my breasts prior to the more painful, but much less awkward, touch exam – “Did you know your breasts are not the same size?” His voice was a bit shrill and he sounded quite taken aback. A medical professional no less. Seriously?

I looked him in the eye (not easy to do when your boobs are out) and said, “Why yes, I did.” He quickly covered his tracks, saying that it is not at all uncommon for breasts to be different sizes or even shapes. “Really, now, doctor. Are you saying that this lack of symmetry [I gestured to exhibits A and B] is common?”

“No, not really.”

I am unique! Maybe one side is my “best side” and one isn’t. Maybe I’ll dedicate the two sides of myself to science. I’m not quite ready for the freak show, mind you. Just a quirky Picasso-esque woman with two of everything.

“Your Loss, Sailorman” OR You Don’t Need a Man to Tell You How Kickass You Are, Girl – a Hindsight Analysis of the Song Brandy

Posted on October 6, 2014 by spiralwoman

Brandy, one year later.

I came of age while the song “Brandy” by Looking Glass was a major hit on the radio. It came out in 1972 when I was 12. I was biologically mature, and, like all 12 year olds, still a little girl. Despite the fact that the still newborn thing called feminism was doing its level best to empower me and my fellow females, I was still very much at the mercy of the overarching societal dumbass assumptions about heterosexual relationships, and so Brandy just became a part of my indoctrination. Unbeknownst to me.

If you have not heard the song (probably because you are extremely young), you can listen here: “Brandy” by Looking Glass. The lyrics are posted at the bottom of this blog.

The song gets into your head immediately. It is catchy. Very. Though according to my cursory research Looking Glass had four hits, Brandy is the only one I actually remember, and I listened to the radio constantly. Back then, it was either that, or vinyl.

I always felt sorry for Brandy. I mean, she loved a man, and he loved her. But poor Brandy lost him to the sea… which he apparently loved a lot more than he loved her. He didn’t die, or anything. No. He just left her and said, “Sorry. You’re great. You’d be a super fine wife. But I’m married to the ocean, which holds my heart and you basically have no hope of competing, ever.”

The other day this song popped up on one of my more self-indulgent Pandora stations. As per usual, I was singing along as I went about my business. Then something happened. I actually heard the words coming out of my mouth – words I had known by heart for 40 years.

And I got really pissed off. “Wait a god damned minute,” I said to my reflection in the mirror as I held the blow dryer away from my head.

The chorus, sung three whole times, tells Brandy she’d make a “fine wife.” By what criteria and who says? And why does that even MATTER? As if being a “fine wife” is the be all and end all of Brandy’s hopes, dreams, and ambitions.

The song beats us about the head with the blunt, but implicit, message that A. her qualifications as a wife are determined by a bunch of dudes who hang out in a bar and a guy who doesn’t have the balls to commit to her and actually find out and B. that she is a tragic figure because she will not ever be granted the privilege of becoming his wife. That wifehood is the only life path for her… aside from being a barmaid, which is a highly honorable profession that allows her to be self-sufficient, and yet is belittled in the song lyrics as nothing more than “laying whiskey down.” Anyone out there who has bartended or waited tables (like me and Brandy) knows it takes a lot of chutzpah and brains, not to mention organizational and time-management skills. Not to mention people skills.

Brandy as painter

But that’s not even all. We don’t know what Brandy does in her off hours! What if she paints, or makes dream catchers and sells them on the 1972 equivalent of Etsy, or has a huge garden full of organic veggies and flowers? We don’t know because she is marginalized in the song by the sexist idea that, though she would have done the job of wife just “fine,” she won’t have a chance because she had the misfortune to fall for an asshole. End of story. The narrative is exclusively that of the unnamed sailor whose rejection becomes the END of Brandy’s story.

Maybe I’m being harsh – he might not be an asshole. He might just be a guy trapped in the classic male-defined paradigm. Unfortunately, so is Brandy.

I can only assume that there is a whole back story to Brandy that we don’t know about… and that the sailorman never had a chance to find out before he sped back to his irresistible life at sea.

If Brandy were to write the song, I imagine it would go a little differently. Especially after she got in touch with her empowered kickass self and realized she was a fully actualized person not dependent on the approval of a man, let alone matrimony.

She would write a song about a passionate fling she had one summer with an intense sailor who passed through town, gave her a silver locket, some mindblowing sex, and a few days of laughs and long afternoon naps, bodies entwined. She liked him… a lot. They could have had something, but the guy A. had no interest in living on land, B. used the sea as a cover for his commitment-phobic issues, or C. was overwhelmed by how strong the feelings were with Brandy in just a few days, so he bolted.

In her version of the song, Brandy thinks, “Your loss, sailor man.” And in that version, she is sad for awhile. Then she paints a few erotically charged paintings of her seafaring ex-lover, pulls weeds in her garden and plants a rose bush in his honor, and releases him in a fire ceremony with some of her closest women friends who also, funnily enough, say, “Your loss, sailor man.”

Brandy’s fire ceremony

Lyrics to Brandy:

There’s a port on a Western bay
And it serves a hundred ships a day
Lonely sailors pass the time away
And talk about their homes

There’s a girl in this harbor town
And she works laying whiskey down
They say Brandy, fetch another round
She serves them whisky and wine
The sailors say…

Chorus: Brandy, you’re a fine girl
< you’re a fine girl >
What a good wife you would be
Your eyes could steal a sailor from the sea

Brandy wears a braided chain
Made of finest silver from the north of Spain
A locket that bears the name of the man that Brandy loves
He came on a summer’s day – bearing gifts – from far away
But he made it clear he couldn’t stay
The harbor was his home

– Chorus –

Bridge: Brandy used to watch his eyes
As he told his sailor stories
She could feel the ocean fall and rise
She saw its raging glory
But he had always told the truth
Lord he was an honest man
And Brandy does her best to understand

At night when the bars close down
Brandy walks through a silent town
And loves a man who’s not around
She still can hear him say
She hears him say… (Chorus)

*from The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, by Barbara G. Walker, entries on Horae, Ishtar, and Prostitution. Much of my information came from this source and I highly recommend this book to you if you do not have it.

from The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets*, by Barbara G. Walker, entries on Horae, Ishtar, and Prostitution. Much of my information came from this source and I highly recommend this book to you if you do not have it.