A NOTE ON STUBBORNNESS

I don’t know what my issue is about having to have a tow service involved but I get mad when I have to do it. And if it involves the scooter? Forget it. There is no reason why I should ever have to have my scooter towed home. I never let my gas gauge fall into dangerous territory. Okay, sure, I can be lackadaisical about my tires but I do make sure they’re not flat before I zip of down the road. The engine is not complicated enough for me to not be able to figure it out. On Monday, Michael suggested we ride the scooters to lunch following up with a trip to an outside mall. I agreed and thought it would be a great ride, but it turned out to be hot with no shade anywhere. The roads and parking lots where just one giant stove top with burners set to high. When we got ready to head home, my scooter started but then immediately died. We stood in the heat staring at the scooter and Michael asked me what I wanted to do. Meaning which of the two of us is calling in road side service?

I was hot and tired and I didn’t want to make a decision. I’d spent the last two days having terrible dress shopping experiences and I was cranky. But I called road side service while Michael took the Cabbage to their mom’s with the promise to come back with his truck. My road side request was picked up by one place with an hour to two hour wait time. Then they cancelled and I had be re-assigned. Then new place had me at a two to three hour wait time. So I sat in the shade of the building and watched YouTube videos. By the time Michael showed up, I was attempting to take the front engine panel off my scooter. The screw was in too tight for me to turn it and I put Michael to work. I pointed and instructed and eventually we pulled out the spark plug, which is what I was looking for. I cleaned it the best I could with an old mask I found in my scooter seat. We put it all back together and Michael said “I doubt this is going to fix it.” But guess what? The scooter started. I canceled my road side service request and rode Valerie home.

I’ll tell you one really good way to throw a log on my anger furnace is to doubt my ability to fix a mechanical issue. Not too long ago, I replaced an objective turret on one of our microscopes instead of waiting on the microscope rep to find time to come and take care of it. I know many of you have no idea what any of that means other than I took apart something complicated and put it back together in working order. That’s the main take-away. When the microscope rep called me to see if he could talk me through the install, I told him I had already taken care of it. He responded with “Oh! Look at you, you go getter!” and if he’d been standing in front my face, I would have punched him in the throat (not really). This was also in the same week I had someone from tech support explain tape to me and where to buy it.

I am a spoiled princess because for the first thirty something odd years of my life, not a soul questioned my abilities as they have been questioned now. No one protested or argued with me when I said “Leave it. I can do this.” Chris, seeing a look on my face, would step back and out of the way unless further instructed. No one looked at me and saw a delicate helpless flower. Because of that, I was not trained to deal with misogynistic ideas of the capabilities of a woman. So hearing others describe me as “Independent” or “a loose cannon” or “a go getter” while using slightly negative tones sends me into a rage. I can’t shake the idea that I am now seen as incapable or in desperate need of help because Chris is no longer here. Is this what happens when a woman loses a husband? Is just the act of having a husband create a protective shroud a woman? Surely not. Stubborn, obstinate, independent. These are words said by someone insecure in their own abilities or fear invalidity. I’m not stubborn. I’m a fighter who doesn’t give up easily and yeah, I’m independent because I am capable.

I have ordered a new spark plug and when it arrives, I will install it. Not because I am stubborn or a real go getter, but because I am capable and I know how to do it.

PLUCKING FEATHERS

Something bad happened to a bird

6 Likes, 0 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Something bad happened to a bird"

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.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Mom #365

"Mom #365"

My brother told me that my mom took design classes when they were building the Collinsville house. At first I was totally surprised, but then I wasn't at all surprised. She was always taking down wallpaper and putting up new wallpaper. She constantly rearranged the furniture. She always had baskets of floral arrangements put here and there. Don't even get me started on her throw pillows. Mom has always been creative and our home always reflected this. It's not just the creativity thing though. Mom wanted to know more about house design so she took a class. This is typical mom. She wanted know how to do pottery. She took a class. Her job before I was born was to fix jewelry. I'm sure she took a class to learn how to do that. Mom wanted to do this or that, she took the time to learn about it and then did it. Whatever it was. She's still doing that. Right now she's in the middle of completely remodeling her kitchen. 

This independence, this do-it-yourself mentality is a trait that I inherited from Mom. Some people may call us stubborn. That's probably true. There for sure is some stubbornness to our tenacity to accomplish a task. Mom burned her wrist while setting fire to a bunch a garbage in the old swimming pool one time. She probably shouldn't have been out there trying to do that by herself, but she was like "fuck it! I'm getting rid of this garbage!" Except she would not have used those exact words. Ever. The other day I bruised my knee when I tried to rest the whole dang chicken coop on it so I could change out their water. I probably should have waited for help, but I was like "I CAN DO IT ALL!" Stubborn and independent. Those two words sum up my mother and I pretty well. Despite the trouble my stubborn independence has gotten me into at times, I am grateful that this is something I inherited from Mom. And I when I say "gotten me into trouble", I will say that it's never been any kind of trouble I haven't been able to get out of. Mostly.

I tell you this today because it is my fiercely independent Mother's birthday! Mom, thank you for teaching me the value of self reliance. Actually, I want to thank you for teaching me so much more than this and I'm thankful that you're around to keep on teaching me stuff and being there when I drop my stubbornness and need you. My birthday wish for you this year is that kitchen fairies come in and speed up the remodel in some magical wonderful way. I am also thankful for the time we'll have together this weekend. We're having a girlie girl weekend. What else? Michael has had some sort of head cold like thing all week. The guys at work have it too. I am thankful that I have been able to avoid it. I am thankful that I can bend over, put my shoes on and get back up. I am thankful for slightly warmer temperatures. 

I am always thankful for you. Here's to a weekend of cucumber slices on the eyes and a super Thankful Friday!