PLUCKING FEATHERS

Something bad happened to a bird

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My friend, Eagle, recommended an article on Twitter the other day. The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser. It’s a beautifully written essay on relationships and settling or not settling. There is one sentence in that essay that has lodged itself deep into my body, like I’ve been impaled by it.

But when a woman needs she is needy. She is meant to contain within her own self everything necessary to be happy.

I can’t stop thinking about it. It is not so much the part about need, but the negative connotation behind needing. Because this applies to so many emotions in regards to women and the perception of how we’re supposed to behave by some standard set up many moons ago. By some standard set up by men. It goes beyond needing means you are needy. It is that any expression of want or need or frustration makes you less in some way.

Too emotional

Overly sensitive

Crazy

Chris and I had a really good relationship. We knew how to communicate with each other. We were respectful and considerate of each other’s needs and wants and space. We were emotional and intellectual equals. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t have differences of opinions. If I asked Chris do a chore or to even pick up after himself, he said I was nagging and that he didn’t respond well to being nagged. Well, the last thing I wanted was to be a nag. So I stopped asking him to do things. He did a better of job of picking up after himself in shared spaces, but I just did most of the household chores. I eventually got over it because I like cleaning and I like living in a clean space. I cleaned for me. But I still get a little mad about how asking someone to not leave their dirty socks under the couch makes me a nag. Michael, on the other hand, tells me that he wants me to ask him to do things. It’s just that by now, I’ve been conditioned to just do whatever needs to be to done. I also find it bothersome to have to tell or ask him to do something because if you see that something needs to be done, just do it. This “just take care of the thing that needs to be taken care of” mentality has flipped me from being a nag to being too independent. None of these labels would be put on a man. A guy, living alone, cleaning, doing laundry, taking care of shit? We give those guys medals of praise. We’re just surprised they aren’t living in their own filth, but we would never declare him to be independent. Functional adult is more like it. And I’m just using the cleaning stuff as an example because it is an easy one. Think about reactions regarding a woman changing a tire versus a man changing a tire. A woman of authority is bossy. A woman who speaks her mind is a bitch. A woman who knows what she’s talking about is a know-it-all bitch.

A woman who needs is needy.

CJ Hauser tells the story of a Japanese folk story also called The Crane Wife.

There is a crane who tricks a man into thinking she is a woman so she can marry him. She loves him, but knows that he will not love her if she is a crane so she spends every night plucking out all of her feathers with her beak. She hopes that he will not see what she really is: a bird who must be cared for, a bird capable of flight, a creature, with creature needs. Every morning, the crane-wife is exhausted, but she is a woman again. To keep becoming a woman is so much self-erasing work. She never sleeps. She plucks out all her feathers, one by one.

Now I know why I’m tired all the time. I spend more time than I realized on plucking my own feathers. I think about that scene in Moonlight Kingdom where the boy asks the girl “what kind of bird are you?” I’ve been plucking feathers out for so long that I don’t even remember what kind of bird I am anymore. All for what? Seriously? To what end? Sometimes I think that somebody needs to take charge and that somebody might as well be me (bossy). I sometimes lack filters so that the thing I am thinking falls out of my mouth (bitch). When I talk about something, I make damn sure I know what I’m talking about before I say it (know-it-all bitch). I will ask you nicely to pick your dirty socks up off the floor (nag). I will need you to see that I need help or a hug or some recognition that I am not as fat as I think I am (needy). And I don’t apologize for any of it. Instead I’m going to allow myself to want too much, expect too much. I define what is too much.

For me.

I’m going to stop plucking those feathers. I may not remember what kind of bird I used to be, but I am almost positive that it was a bird that can fly. It might take a bit of time to grow those feathers back, but once I finally do, just watch this nagging independent woman soar.