Mom

   There was this one afternoon. I wanted her attention and was finally old enough to simply ask for it. She’d been away in some sense (which could mean out of the house or on a phone call or doing dishes. Doesn’t matter when you’re less than 6 years old and Mom isn’t paying attention to you. Away is away.)

   But this time was different. I had been feeling jealous of all these other people and things that could hold her attention and I’d verbalized it. She replied with a “hang on” or “uno momento” or some sort (as was a family phrase I later learned was borrowed from an Italin grandfather I never knew.)

   She finished some dishes, came over to me and picked me up from the chair or the floor where I’d been watching Tv.  She sat down on our Lay Z Boy, put me on her knee and regarded me.  It was just me and her (very unusual).  It wasn’t time to change or go to school or to sleep. It was just an afternoon or morning (it was bright out) and she had granted me my wish.

I looked in her eyes, admiring her. She was such a beautiful person. Of course she had all those other obligations. I mean she was my mother (which I think I often felt entitled me to own her) but she was also amazing. I remember it seemed I knew that if they could the whole world would have wanted to be me at that moment. All the jealousy that felt a part of my waking misery, anything bad - dissipated being up top of her knee felt like being on top of the entire world.  

   “I wish I had another mother” I blurted.

   We both lingered there a moment trying to make sense of what had just come out of my mouth. All these feelings I was having - that wasn’t what I’d meant. The betrayal I could see I had just caused her was unreal. I wanted another mother for them! Here she had put it all down - finally gave me exactly what I’d asked for - her undivided attention - and I couldn’t handle it. I didn’t know what to do to justify this gift of enormous proportions. How could I justify even a moment basking in the light from her eyes?!

   I said I wanted another mother because I didn’t want to be another burden on her. She did so much for my dad’s family, for her mother, and sister and father, for my cousins whom she had started to babysit daily from downstairs…

   I think it was the asking. I called her to sit down with me. I’d imposed a need in communicating a desire, and once I had, I felt unable, and unworthy of it.

   But here we were STARING at each other. Me a mushy mess of emotion and flustered communicative skills, and her - goodness her! I could see the tears. I could see the betrayal - the fatigue - the fury… I couldn’t stop it. I started to try “I didn’t mean…

   But I was off her lap before I could finish a sentence - a thought even in preparation of a sentence. I had real work to do suddenly. I had to prepare this thought. I had to communicate it properly. Oh what had she heard? “Another mother???” Like I didn’t even want her!?!

Men

We will never evolve until men evolve.  

Men will never evolve beyond their social locations until they recognize and accept how much their maleness is a part of who they are.

Now, there are men who will read this and think ‘I don’t need to read this. I’m not like other men.’  To them I say, read on.

There are also men who will read this and think ‘She’s an angry dyke.’ And for whatever reason they think that’s applicable, I have to say yup. Read on.

Now there are men who might recognize some of what it takes for a woman to critique men without softening it in jest or diminishing it in common flirty heterosexist banter. Even those men should read on.

The worst are the men who will not read this. Men who have zero interest in evolution even as the world balances on the brink of human extinction mainly as a result of an archaic and intricate design to protect them from their common vagina envy.

If that last part made you cringe, join the club. I’m a proud, happy, successful lesbian who shrunk the moment I felt my age and social location at a Melissa Etheridge concert.

If you don’t know Melissa Etheridge, she’s a beautiful blond rock star from the 80s known for her husky voice and her sexuality (otherwise known to many as “just a screaming dyke.”)

The fact that she was a beautiful blond helped spring load her to stardom back then and gave her the power and the clout to also come out of the closet. She was a passionate brunette who kept evolving as a singer/musician, until, when the timing was right, she shot out a sexy blond bombshell of good gritty, soulful music. Once she was a rock star, the lesbian part was able to surface because it too was timed just right.

See I’m a lesbian first (mainly because that social location has been at the root of the most strife in my life.) I’m a woman second which is of course redundant but it works as a kind of 3rd dimensional perspective in this case if and only if women who at least pretend to be sexually attracted to men make up more than half of the world we all share. There’s a very basic reason why women are generally softer when engaged in some endeavor. We evolved this way. We are generally more polite when we are dealing with perceived power (any time we are attempting to do anything.) And when we are depleted in some way, when we are too hurt or too tired to properly utilize our tools of etiquette, or when we are not regarding the obstacle in front of us as powerful, we infuriate. We infuriate men. We infuriate women. We trigger the insecure.

But we are all insecure. We are born squishy little disproportionate meat bags that depend on love to even live.  Luckily, we all have mothers. Cooperation is the only advantage humans have.

Men can’t do that. If you are a woman born a man then you know. We all know. Woman have that power, and power is something we all seek. Women had to be. But they also had to be stifled.

So what evolved? Woman literally used, even bred over centuries to be smaller, shrink quicker. I recognize the misogyny in my own panic at a concert of my peers all aging past the point of fertility and consequent male usefulness. I love her music but bigger picture time I love this moment even more. It was a struggle to keep going. But that is where I can not only be who I am; it’s where I can feel who I am from both the inside and out.

Men have this in the whole world. Some men have some of my 3 dimensional vantage point, like if they’re gay, or black, or just really intelligent. But even those guys never know what it’s like to be shrunken down entirely by the oldest and most basic dichotomy ever empowered. A man may be raped, or enslaved, or teased for not being manly enough. He may even be ignored. A man may at times know what it’s like to lose his voice in a room. But it was too long ago that a man depended upon his mother, for him to understand the necessity of winning her over. Even if he did, the societal norms protect him from his own vulnerability.  

Men have nothing to explain from this perspective. You can’t graduate to lesbianism no matter how much you joke, or wish or think you could. We all emerge from our cocoon-like social locations and engage with the world when we’re ready. But a man’s cocoon is this world.

There is an anger, a blame, a fury at realizing your own inadequate power. Men these days are hiding inside it, ducking and thwarting away from it, blaming it on all kinds of others. I know because I went through this. We all did and we blamed men. And that wasn’t right. That wasn’t us coming from our best selves, it’s true.  

But it’s easy to tease you about your narrow perspective, obvious defense mechanisms, and inadequate penis sizes. It’s funny to watch you squirm through the structures you are the last to still benefit from. While the rest of us have and know places where stereotypes about us do or don’t reflect truths we have to handle or battle, you know no places except those controlled by others. And there you find the very same tools used originally to dismantle worlds. Dismantling however, is the wrong direction.

If we want a world at all, everyone in it deserves a voice. That takes softness. That takes etiquette. That takes stamina, appreciation. That takes patience.  

If someone calls you a man, might I suggest saying “yup” and then listen.  Try to learn why they said it. 

We will not evolve until you do.