My relationship with women has always been complicated. I was mostly raised by my very complicated mom, with her addiction and mental health issues, and my older sister, the same, and my beloved grandmother on my mom's side, a professional seamstress, who, though born and raised in West Virginia, was a thoroughly modern woman of fashion. I grew up with my face in dress patterns and fashion magazines after all. Various thread spools were my play things as a child. My grandmother was a hoarder as was my mom, and I have to resist that strong temptation every single day myself. The Great Depression has lasting effects on generations after all.
But this is but a few puzzle pieces of the puzzle that is my life. Especially as it relates to my relationships with women. I love women. I adore them. My first crush was my cousin Betsy, a beautiful redhead a few years older than me. She looked like Jean Harlow. Every guy was crazy about her. She hilariously blew popcorn all over the kitchen in NJ as a young teen when she took off the tin foil on a Jiffy Pop popcorn container before cooking it. Later, when I lived with her family in NC, she showed me her pot plant in her bedroom and occasionally walked around late at night topless as I slept in the living room. She also taught me to overcome my fear of taking showers since I almost drowned as a small child. In many ways, she was my first love.
I can't not mention Karen, my best friend as a child. Her mom and mine were best friends, often commiserating over their respective terrible husbands over the phone and in person. Karen and I were pretty much siblings in everything but blood. We bathed together as small children, played house together and even discovered my older brother's dirty magazines from underneath his mattress, and were curious about what we saw. If my mom and I hadn't moved to North Carolina when I was turning 12, she would've been my first sexual experience. But it was not to be. I've since recently learned that she's a professional photographer and does amazing work in NYC and elsewhere. She's an amazing woman. Who knows. Maybe I'll reconnect with her some day soon.
But this post/essay isn't about these early life histories, it's about my adult relationships, friendships, romances, more often than not with women (and a few men) who I became attracted to over the years.
I was born wounded.
That's both true physically and emotionally. I was born with a cleft lip and pallet and a functional heart murmur. And my parents separated only months after I was born. It's only in recent years that I've come to terms with the likely fact that my birth probably precipitated their separation and eventual divorce. My "defects" as it were, obvious to the eye, were fuel to the fire of my parent's already deteriorating relationship. Amazingly enough, I've never blamed myself for this turn of events. Neither of my parents laid that trip on me, nor did my siblings, all of whom were incredibly protective and loving towards me in the way they could.
All told, I was incredibly fortunate as a child. I had love all around me.
Lynn, my older sister, exposed me to the arts and sciences from a very early age. She was, in many ways, my dream weaver. She always bought me art supplies as a kid and teen and encouraged me in my own artistic pursuits. She lived in the West Village and worked at Party Cake, an amazing pastry shop next door to Crazy Eddie's. I got my first posable art mannequins thanks to her. I posed them in gay stances, much to her chagrin and her coworker's hilarity. She wasn't anti gay by any means, she just thought that my pose would be offensive to them. They were fine. They knew I was an innocent child expressing my creativity.
I've loved the Village ever since. I would live there in a heart beat.
But women, those breasted of every size, vaginal creatures I was born from, nurtured from youth, near and yet so distant from me, lo those many years ago to today. Yes, I crush so easily. I love you, but you smile at me from a distance.
I love you. My motherly wings hang down over you, protecting you from danger, from men like me. Because, after all, anything posable can be re-posed. Do not be afraid of your femininity. Do not be afraid of your masculinity.
I do crush easily. I just hope I don't crush anything, anything tender, including you and me.
