The Walk

I remember that I was alone. Usually, I walked home from school with my friend, but for some reason, she wasn’t with me that day. I was on Belgrave Avenue, and the weather was sunny and mild as I journeyed home from junior high in my safe, Southern California suburban neighborhood.

I remember looking ahead and seeing two older high school kids—one boy and one girl—walking towards me on the sidewalk. As they got closer, I recognized the girl as the older sister of a classmate of mine.

I remember moving to the right to let them pass by.

I remember that as I did, the boy reached out, grabbed my crotch, and jabbed his finger up. Hard.

I remember that it hurt.

I remember feeling my heels lift off the ground as I balanced on my toes to try to escape his touch.

I remember that the girl giggled as the boy jerked his hand away.

I remember hearing his voice behind me as he walked on, asking me if I was going to cry and tattle like a little bitch.

I remember feeling flushed with shame.

I remember thinking that maybe if I had been a different kind of a girl—a tougher girl, a popular girl, a prettier girl—it wouldn’t have happened. Or that at the very least, that other girl wouldn’t have laughed.

I remember that in the split second it took me to decide not to tell anyone, my brain flashed to earlier, more innocent playground memories that nonetheless taught me that a tattler was the worst thing a girl could be.

I remember taking a deep breath and thinking to myself, Well, I guess this just happens sometimes.

I remember that I shut my thoughts down and kept walking.

*****

Full disclosure: Donald Trump was never going to have my vote.

Everyone who knows me well knows that my political leanings mean that even in a normal election, there’s really not much of a chance that I would lean Republican.

I am as susceptible to confirmation bias as anyone else. And I understand that sexism and misogyny exist across the political spectrum, as evidenced by the dude who, in the comments section of an online news article, told me and some other women that we needed to take off our vagina goggles and get real just because we dared to say that although we campaigned for Bernie, we would vote for Hillary if she were the nominee. I resisted the temptation to shoot back something about his penis periscope, and logged off instead.

And believe me, I don’t pretend to think that by sharing my one creepy childhood memory, I will change anyone’s vote, and I am not looking for anyone to persuade me to change mine.

All I can say is that ever since I heard Donald Trump’s words on those Access Hollywood Tapes, that thing that just happened to me that one day when I walked home from school in seventh grade, that thing that I haven’t thought much about in decades, has surged to the surface of my consciousness and stayed close. And I find myself simmering with rage.

At Donald Trump’s sense of entitlement to women’s bodies.

At his declaration that he can kiss them without permission, even grab them by the pussy because he is famous.

At his admitting, no—his bragging—that he sexually assaults women. That he can do to women what that boy did to me.

At his dismissal of his own words as locker room talk, as if there is some kind of locker room immunity clause that men can use in a pinch as needed. (And anyway, he wasn’t in a locker room; he was at work—at a gig where he was invited to cameo in a soap opera because of the very celebrity status that makes him feel so entitled to women’s bodies.)

At his argument that we shouldn’t believe a woman who has accused him of assaulting her because she is unattractive and she wouldn’t be his first choice, thus spinning an accusation of sexual assault into a boast about his ability to get the really hot chicks, as thousands of people at his rally clapped and cheered their approval.

I disagreed with Mitt Romney and other past Republican nominees because of their policy positions, because I didn’t share their diagnosis for what ailed the country and how to fix it, but even my most negative reactions to them fell within the normal range of election year my-team-is-better-than-their-team/my-candidate-is-better-than-their-candidate hyperbole. I never felt physically sick inside when they walked onto a debate stage or spoke from behind a podium.

What I feel when I see and hear Donald Trump now is different.

I am amazed that he hasn’t had to resign his candidacy. I feel disgusted and anxious about what it means—what it says about us—that he could actually be President of the United States.

At best, he has only bragged about sexually assaulting women. At worst, he has actually sexually assaulted women.  In either case, he now chooses to attack his accusers by demeaning their physical attractiveness.

I am lucky. In the grand scheme of things, what I experienced that one day in seventh grade didn’t leave much of a scar. And I realize that some women have to defend against the same or worse on a regular basis, a reality of assault that is woven into the fabric of what it means to be a woman or a girl in this world.

I understand that when we vote, we all must weigh what we are willing to put up with politically, and what we are willing to trade away, in order to pursue our vision of the America we want in the winner-take-all electoral system we have.

Though I might struggle mightily to understand it, I respect the fact that some of my friends and family will vote their conscience and vote differently.

But this election, I am taking my seventh grade self with me when I go to the ballot box, and we are going to speak out loudly along the way.

And when I vote, it will not be for just the lesser of two evils. It will be for the greater good, for a country in which women and girls don’t have to talk themselves out of their own anger, suck in their breath, and keep walking because it just costs too much to speak up. 

I am seething with anger because we have to clear the low bar of Donald Trump losing this election as a first step. But that’s OK. After thirty-four years, I am finally getting comfortable with this rage.

Time's Up

Run. It’s all about

to come out:

That D in 11^th grade chemistry

Those periods of econ you ditched

The chapters in Moby Dick you skipped

They know

that you scorned

the SAT prep course and

settled for your first score

They’ve interviewed two

of your professors, the one

who pronounced the endings

of your essays perfunctory and

and the one who found

your poems voiceless

Even further back

they did the math

and determined that your

high school gpa

is only honors-worthy

if you round up 

from the hundredths spot

There are eyewitnesses

who claim that the good citizen

award you got in fifth grade

should have gone

to the girl two desks over

and who point

to the fact that you cried

at the long first grade bus lines 
as proof that you never

had the grit that it takes

never wanted any of this

bad enough

so they are coming

for your diploma

your degrees

your tenured position

your academic reputation

your nice girl persona

Run. Before they

catch you

search your pockets

tear up your transcripts

and make you

hand it all

over

Nest

photo from wikicommons

When I get home from school

Grandpa’s van is parked in the driveway

So it is an extra good day

He is waiting inside with money

For my good report card

And mom says she is making spaghetti

For dinner my favorite she says

There is time to roller skate before

I have to set the table

So I lace up my new skates the ones

With the wheels made of polyurethane

Not metal like I used to have when

I was little I am wearing my

Favorite blue dress that

Floats around my legs

And it is before I have learned to

Worry about how I look when I move

So I am just fast and free and when

A gap in the sidewalk

Sends me crashing and tears the skin

Off my knee my daddy comes running

Down the driveway and scoops me up

I sob into his shoulder because it hurts

But also I am happy because I thought

That maybe I was too big for him

To do this but I am not and

To make me feel better Timmy

Offers to let me play with his

Sizzler race track and be whatever

Color car I want

During dinner my salad with

Thousand island dressing

Feels crunchy and sweet in my mouth

As Grandpa tells the story

About when he played football

For St. Cecelia’s and a boy on the

Other team had a full red beard

And after dinner my mom lets me

Put baby Kevin in his pajamas and he kicks

His chubby legs and looks so happy

That I think when I am grown up

I want to be a mommy

And feed my kids spaghetti

And make every night

Just like

This

Commerce

I read a headline today announcing the decline

of the American mall. An institution long past its prime,

it meets its natural death in an era of online instant gratification,

growing consumer sophistication, and cost-effective big box options.

No one seems to grieve the mall’s demise. In fact

most of the online comments I read hailed it as a fitting

end to a corrosive consumer culture of stale middle-class homogeny.

They pointed to the American mall as the epitome of the evils of suburban

sprawl: the decimation of biodiversity, the king-

sized parking lots that encourage fossil fuel dependency,

the glorification of chain store faux-authenticity. Other commenters

decried the mall as a crumbling edifice of oppressive beauty standards designed

to trick women into believing that they are never

enough so that they will spend money that they do not have.

And I can’t say that they’re wrong. But at the risk of my reputation,

this is one grave I won’t be dancing on. While some might find it perverse,

I must profess my love for the American mall.

I will be sorry to see it go, not because I was ever able

to buy happiness there, but because at one time it allowed my friends

and I to use our babysitting money to purchase freedom in small, manageable units:

a bus ride, a slice of food court pizza, and a movie

that our parents might not approve of. It was the perfect

marketplace for pre-Internet adolescent investors who craved

both risk and safety in equal measures. We tested products of adult identity at the bookstore,

the record store, the makeup aisle at CVS, and

the sale racks at May Company. Our decisions yielded

small but shiny dividends: sparkly eye shadow, frosted lipstick, shoulder-

padded day-glo t-shirts. And when we examined our purchases on the bus ride home at the end

of the day, we felt decidedly different. Now, I know

that those online commenters might scoff at this as proof

that we were conditioned to consume at a far too early age, and I

can’t say that they’re wrong. But I can’t help but love the American mall

for giving us a sense of our own own purchasing power, 

for helping us navigate the treacherous waters of our adolescent 

economies,  and showing us that no matter what the boys at school or our

parents might say, our currency was just as good as anyone else’s, and spent just the same.

Party Girl

image courtesy of www.guggenheim.org

Picasso Head of a Woman, Right Profile

I guess it’s too late
To be the last one to leave 
To never know what it’s like
To have the need
To sneak out early
Rise up in my throat
Like a gag reflex
That I struggle
To suppress

I guess it’s too late

To look out into a sea

Of unfamiliar faces

And not fear drowning

To be buoyed

By the waves

And ride the tide of chatter

Without feeling washed up

And smaller

I guess it’s too late

To fix my face

So it doesn’t flush

So goddamn easily

When they tell me

To loosen up a little

Have a good time

And just try

To smile