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What Becomes a Good Man Most?

March 7, 2019 in Astro Matters, Feminist Matters

This is a real, not disingenuous question: What are the qualities traditionally associated with masculinity that are undeniably constructive? Toxic masculinity is finally being called out. (To the astrologists among us, this may be a result of hyper-masculine Aries being in Uranus, the shit-stirrer, for the last seven years.) But it makes me realize that we’ve been in a “boy, not man” moment for a while. Insensitivity, acquisitiveness, hyper-aggression, and stunted entitlement have continued to reign supreme–namely the negative, unevolved traits associated with masculinity. But rare are the the self-sufficiency, determination, solicitousness, and impeccability by one’s word that once were associated with “real men.” Or were they?

Given that every balanced person channels both feminine and masculine energy (gender restrictions being a plague across the board), what are the qualities associated with masculinity that we need to cultivate personally and collectively, regardless of our gender presentation? Goddess knows I had to find my inner butch once I was on my own and had to set up computers and wi-fi, fix radiators and toilets, even build shelves. Only then did I realize that I’d always expected people who identified as male and/or masculine to do such things. Now I am working mightily to channel more positive masculinity in myself and in my friends, lovers, community–more “make it happen, captain” Jupiter energy. Because I’ve gone as far as I can with radical receptivity and swallowed as much toxic masculinity as I ever want to swallow (pun intended, always). It’s time to integrate powerful, positive proactivity–bold and well-intentioned “asks”–into the protocol. But first I have to figure out what divine masculinity actually is. And must personality traits be gendered at all? It’s a clusterfuck of questions, but one I feel compelled to tackle. With healing Chiron in Aries and contemplative Mercury Retrograde in Pisces, it’s the time to do so and please chime in. It’s all about the yin and yang, baby.

The Russian Dolls We Carry

February 20, 2019 in Age Matters, Book Matters, City Matters, Essays, Feminist Matters, Queer Matters, Quoth the Raving, Ruby Intuition, Spirit Matters, TV Matters

I broke up with the Legend–or, really, my relationship with the Legend ended–because he ignored me in front of his ex-wife’s current wife and her infant son. If that sounds complicated, it’s actually a lot more complicated, but the bottom line is he clung to the sense of family that his ex and her clan provided him, and played uncle to her son as well as her sister’s kid. I’d always empathized with his desire to do so. But this meant that he was ignoring me in front of his people, and the sting was profound. It was hardly the first time he’d thrown me under a bus, but I suddenly saw how little he’d ever rally for me, how little I meant to him, and that only one path extended from that moment on my personal timeline.

And that path was Legend-free.

That’s exactly how I saw it. Even as I blew up at him later, even as I railed to friends, even as I masturbated with a violent grief, some part of me already was watching dispassionately from a future I now knew existed. A future in which this man I loved had no place.

That’s how I explained the breakup to people as soon as I was sure it would stick. With concern and maybe a little ennui knitting their features, they’d say, “How are you doing?” And I’d say, “I’m in the future now.”

I knew it was true even though I didn’t yet understand what I was saying. Continue Reading →

The Legacy of Diana Athill (1917-2019)

January 27, 2019 in Age Matters, Book Matters, Essays, Feminist Matters

Diana Athill, who died last week at 101, was one of my living literary idols–a model of complex, creative female independence that even now comes at great cost though it imparts greater rewards.

Never married, she was born in 1917 to English nobility that lost its cash. After serving for the BBC Overseas during World War II, she worked as a groundbreaking book editor for decades; her authors included Simone de Beauvoir, Norman Mailer, Jean Rhys, John Updike, Jack Kerouac, and Margaret Atwood. In her late 40s, she published her first book of fiction and went on to pen two more novels and ten memoirs. She also moved through a stable of glittering, great loves well into her dotage.

Coolly phrased, exuberantly hot-blooded, her subject-verb subject-verb rhythms taught me so much about the multitudes uncluttered sentences could hold. Never was there a Hemingway dissociation in her reserve–just precise passion and ever-piercing truth.

Once she hit her 90s, I held my breath every time her name appeared in Google alerts. Each one heralded more brilliant things she’d written, more generous comments she’d made. By this year I stopped thinking she’d ever die, and took enormous comfort in that fact–as if a life could persist so long as it was usefully and joyously lived. Then Thursday the news I’d been dreading arrived.

Already it had been a tumultuous few days–the stranger’s slap, my financial white flag, the return to my memoir for the first time since November, not to mention the triumph of Nancy Pelosi, the arrest of Roger Stone. But nothing proved more destabilizing than this headline: “Diana Athill, dead at 101.”

What life she lived. What life she shared. She and Mary Oliver both deserve their rest but I imagine instead they’re diving with great zeal into the Book of Akashic Records–both of them always so appreciative of other people’s words. Thank you thank you thank you thank you, child-free mothers. You showed younger Jo Marches how to love everything big and everything small about ourselves and the world.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy