I'd returned to school after fifteen years’ absence and opted for a topic
course in creative writing-- "The Female Experience". In my naiveté, I hadn't
realized that Women’s Studies attracted mostly disgruntled females, dilettantes
returning in earnest, and those researching a change in sexual preference (ripe
pickings?). At any rate, in this workshop, each of us felt quite extraordinary.
Lydia though younger than we, spoke patiently about the kinds of work she
expected of us. Her shapeless legs were always crossed at the ankles: stationary body
language accompanying the fervent/feminist lecture and conjecture-- not unlike famed Dr.
Brothers discussing sex with knees solidly, soldered together. Lydia had a captive
audience of battered wives, single mothers and doe-eyed dears with fresh abortions in
mind.
We circled the wagons, actually our desks-- metal folding chair, appended
unnaturally with wood, to support our right-handed endeavors: pioneering the spirit of
sisterhood. I noted Lydia's "Afro" (overpermed/thin) adorning her round,
East-Euro face, with thick-penciled eyelids. She was assigning predictable reading. In the
poetry anthology after many selections, I saw the contributors as a buncha' broads,
tired of bitching in prose. I couldn't wait to see this crap up for discussion. I was
clearly not with the group: Lydia'd invited a colleague to read to us her "Ode To My
Diaphragm" and I had to clamp my palette to stifle asking why she didn't do a sequel
ode to her douche bag. Oddly, the other ladies in the group were entranced with
it. Great, me and Helen Reddy against the world. I hate Helen Reddy. But I'm down with
Rodney D. and Aretha about getting no uh, R-e-s-p-e-c-t (more pissed-full than wistful, I
guess). How alone I felt in a crowded faculty livingroom, with Mary Daly; watching her
exploit her status as an educator-- with admiring babes at her feet, groveling for very
selective wisdom.
As it went, I waxed anarchy, blasphemy, heretically unpopular views such as: men
are human beings. Bite this bulletin: they're also the same species! When I'd admitted to
loving not a few (dad, bro, many buddies and sons-on-tap) I became regarded as eccentric.
The wine & cheese parties in the syllabus were required; chatter ended abruptly on my
arrivals. Work poured in and Lydia mimeographed her ass off. The purple-printed sheets
became the precious pinata for the ladies, much as sweet-toothed Latino brats,
greedy for poking and jabbing. Now Maya, a Spanish American self-confessed lesbo, who
drove a cab, was (to me) the most likeable of the group. Her works were sprinkled with
obscenities about the Blessed Mother. Catholic rearing, I'd supposed. Her thick accent and
gringo boots, Army camouflage ensemble, reading her work on the Madonna in the backseat of
a Rambler on Monticello Avenue. She had a polite tolerance of heteros with a sense of
humor: we agreed in class too often.
Then there was Jan, also openly gay with a sweet face that belonged on a pancake
box. Her most memorable work was a poem inspired when she'd eavesdropped in Burger King,
on a couple ROTC guys playing war games with their fries. She was incredulous and
affronted. I grew to like her anyway.
Marie was the earth-mother/wide-hippy: overhearing her, a guy in the next booth
had asked why it happens that all women's libbers are so ugly and she retorted with 'why
do guys that ask that, always have bad breath?' which gives you an idea how often it was
asked. She was a great organizer though, and made a helluva quiche, but I never understood
her cryptic work until she'd explain away the vaguery. I did wonder, when I'd seen she was
giving a reading a few years later-- hey, who died and made her a poet?
Susie, financially struggling alone with three kids but determined academically,
wrote cheering things about baking cookies and clobbering her daughter with the hot sheet
pan. Her unshaven legs and dry thonged feet attested to her busy schedule, unless that was
a personal style expression. When we were to give a public reading in the Arts &
Letters hall (to faculty, family or anyone else snag-able) she adamantly refused to
participate. When the big evening arrived, she was more poised than Jackie O. The weekly
parties/luncheons were to prepare us for that gig. Cliques constantly shifted-- the mode
for discovering the extent of one another's abortion notches.
Dale was sweet and skirted issues on sexuality while Joie stayed away from it
altogether with themes on wind, ballet dancers and yes Joyce Kilmer-- trees. Sidney
tragically hip, thin in designer jeans and high-heeled boots attempted to write
cryptically but unconsciously borrowed heavily from Billy Joel (about a girl in stillettos
declaring it's her own life, dropping the 'leave me alone' so we wouldn't make the
association). When I'd said I could name that tune in three notes, I softened it by saying
at one time I was influenced heavily by Bob Dylan without realizing. Our eyes didn't meet
for the remainder of the semester. It's not like I was calling her a frickin' plagiarist--
what's a workshop for? But I was equally sensitive: when Lydia asked me to scrap one of my
stories, I coulda' slashed her handily. Thing was, she'd assumed it was a fantasy
with herself in the lead, and a bit miffed when I explained I was boinking my (male)
philosophy professor. Ah, well. It's not difficult to irk a feminist.
Charlene wrote a lengthy piece on Ursa Minor, which was bafflingly beautiful and
she might have earned the class award, had there been one. Then there was Victoria, whose
demeanor/countenance were equal to her name. Her poems about a lover were as gory as the
Norman invasion: "Ruminations in Blood" conjured images of her man, Beowulf with
red fangs. I wanted to tell her J.C.Penney's was having a White Sale, since they hadda' go
through some linen.
There's a sense here I'm introducing reindeer, Snow’s dwarves or the
Mouseketeers, but you had ta' be there. Karen was 'Ted Baxter' in drag, of Mr. Grant's
newsroom. The first day she'd breathily declared, 'I do so want to write fiction.
Good fiction'. Are we heaving yet? Her novel (yeah-- she wouldn't get off it, in
installments yet) of romance on the tennis courts involved a heroine (guess who?) who had
a thing for her Rabbi, and did so want to beat him in a set. She'd asked me for
suggestions and I diverted the conversation to a preferrable topic: religion. She was
stumped for a word for people who take catechism. "Fools?" I suggested, further
alienating myself from yet another sister. But today she writes for a big Hampton Roads
paper, so there you are on what they look for.
I most identified with Angela, we both so neurotic and beat. Beat? She'd have
been at-home on Bleecker Street in the 50's; it was in her Ghent flat that I saw all the
old women's hats she collected. After her party I went home, slept off the wine and
dreamt, then wrote about it:
3:20 a.m.
There I was in some strange little shop,
I don't know how close I was to my companions.
First I tried on a purple hat with netting and plume.
It's show-biz elegance made me look smashing,
but we knew it was 'all wrong'.
The next hat was dowdy--
can't recall what color.
Its small, funny shape made me hurriedly put it aside,
I didn't want to get depressed.
There were several more to try,
when I spotted one so unique that it thrilled me.
A dream-storm, lost in confusion, the wake.
Babushka? Train? Dotted swiss?
I awkwardly tied it.
The disinterested girls chorused
"It's not you"
and I didn't buy anything.
(nod to Picasso for 'borrowing' Jacqueline's hat)
Lydia had red markered: "Great! Read this one on Tues. night."
The group discussed it and got more from it than intended. There's
a voice, and it's definitely esoteric. Not everyone is gonna' get it. I'd offered
it was possibly a derivation of the old ghost-town sheriff routine, changing hats every
time the stranger asks to talk to someone else-- in the derby he's the barkeep and in
white stetson, the mayor. That is, attempting to be all things to everybody. Nobody
buys it, nobody gains. Identity. That's what the ladies decided it was about. I
had a difficult time reading it aloud, even in the classroom. I love to talk. I'm nuts to
write. Why can't I read what I write? My face twists and contorts involuntarily. Moment of
truth, I s'pose. Typewritten paper looks so great but you feel like a complete moron
reading, like you're ripping somebody off-- their time, at least. You know those dreams
where you wanna' hollar and ya' can't make a sound?
With the poems selected and protests over protocol out of the way, we rehearsed.
Lydia put me up there first. I still wonder what that meant. Perhaps she felt I might
bolt; or worse yet, head out on a beer run. I did one on Boxes and another on being a
Daughter; a sis and niece accompanied me in support. I'd drank a six-pack on the way to
the hall and both uh, 'supported' me by harping. Okay, so give me a saucer of milk and let
me sharpen my nails on the upholstery. I don't get women. They don't get me. When I
recently congratulated a co-worker on luckily having a son, noting her puzzled look, I
tossed in: 'hell, tough as it's been for us-- you want any fruit of your loom to have it
as crappy?'
© 2003 R K Puma
rk@rkpuma.com
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