Archive | Past Matters

Red Is the Magic Number

I’m doing Suleika Jaouad’s 30-Day Journaling Challenge and so liked the results of today’s assignment that I’m copying it here. The instructions: randomly open up a book, write down the quote your finger lands upon, and write 20 minutes using that prompt. (If you know any of the people in this piece, I duly apologize.)

“The red she pointed to was this sort of proper maroon. I didn’t want proper maroon. I wanted bloodcurdling scarlet.”—Eve Babitz, I Used to Be Charming

I used to be a conscientious red objector. In the 90s I was certain it was a color I couldn’t pull off but I think that’s because I only knew ugly reds. Ones with too much blue and brown in them—dead colors, dried blood colors. New England colors. Then a friend who was destined to only be a friend while I was at my vainest and most superficial (age 29, peak Saturn return) asked me to be her token bridesmaid. She didn’t say “token” but the implication was clear. I was to be the one wacky bridesmaid whose presence proved she’d been doing something interesting in her NYC years. (She hailed from Virginia, was practicing law in NYC, but was destined to raise four blond children back in Virginia, where’d she pretend her law degree and non-Ann Taylor wardrobe had been a folly of her misspent youth.)

So by token I mean the only Northerner. The only Jew. The only girl who hadn’t been a high school bestie or a sorority sister or something equally perfunctory and tribal. I was the only oddball yoga teacher travel writer flaneuzy. Like I said: token. Continue Reading →

Just a Very Virgo Season Blurt

You know what’s not discussed enough? Women who don’t demand fair wages because they live off their partners or inherited wealth. It is a very problematic issue through a feminist lens, yet often not broached because there are so many taboos around talking about money and class, and because self-esteem is so tied to salary.

Women who work for less than they should set a precedent–perpetuate one, really–that makes it a lot harder for the rest of us who demand equal pay. They reinforce the assumption that women’s work need not be taken seriously. And they disrespect all the women who fought long and hard for the Equal Pay Act.

This is not just a political issue. I see this as a spiritual issue, because energy that is not adequately replenished disrupts the order of everything. Work must be honored–and in a capitalist society, adequate financial compensation is an essential expression of that honor.

It’s amazing this issue still surfaces so frequently. It is an example of something else that doesn’t get discussed enough: toxic femininity.*

*Dudes, I am no more interested in you taking up this phrase than I am accepting of how you misapply “Karen” as an all-purpose term to write off women. Redirect that impulse into developing your divine masculinity.

There’s No Pleasing Daddy

This was a fairly bogus day–a lot of mansplaining/scolding in my personal life. But I was very happy to learn that Jamie Spears is finally stepping down as conservator of his daughter, though his announced “choice” reads as very Cuomo–AKA an attempt to control the when-and-how now that the writing is already on the wall.

It may seem silly to focus on anything tabloid-related, but the story of Britney Spears’ conservatorship is a devastating model of how patriarchy infects every aspect of US life, from government to nuclear family. Essentially it underscores that, as a woman, you can be a multimillion-dollar enterprise, and still wield no control over your life.

For anyone with shitty parents, Britney Spears’ story is a worst-case scenario–one in which your abusers benefit from your ability to transcend their abuse while they abuse you some more. No parent should be granted complete control of their adult child’s life, especially if they financially benefit from that control. Family dysfunction is usually a contributor in emotional decompensation, so reenacting childhood trauma by reestablishing parental control is counter-intuitive–“criminal,” to quote Britney herself. Continue Reading →

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