Thursday, January 10, 2013

Femme Knowing, Knowing Knowing

Some are born femme.  Some achieve femmeness.  Some have femmeness thrust upon them. 

Of course, it's rarely that simple.

I like to think there is some is some femme essence that has been with me always, long before I even knew what femme meant.  I like to that the inexplicable fascination I had with the sporty volleyball player who I tutored in algebra was my first authentic girl crush.  I like to think my secret obsession with the k.d. lang/Cindy Crawford cover of Vanity Fair came from a place of deep knowing.  I like to think that both my body and my subconscious knew before I did, and waited patiently for the rest of me to catch up.


File:Vanity Fair Cover Lang Crawford.jpg
Yeah, you know the one.

I am a notorious over-thinker.  Uncertainty gives me a certain amount of anxiety, so I turn things over in my mind.  I turn them over and over and over, convinced that there is an answer that someone with my intellect should be able to deduce.  Perhaps, despite undergraduate and graduate degrees in English, there is some engineering DNA hardwired in me.

My therapist has a different take.  My intellect, you see, has always been valued.  It has been praised and nurtured and it has served my well.  My instinct (or gut or soul or heart), on the other hand, has not proven itself in the same ways.  Moreover, the combination of analytical minds and Catholic indoctrination do not place a premium on feelings.

My therapist, lovely and wise woman that she is, has a saying.  Perhaps it is not so much a saying as it is something she has to say to me nearly every time that we meet.  "The brain," she says, "is an excellent servant.  It is not a very good master."

Each and every time that I begin to fret about my job or my weight or my relationship or my ex or my family or my future, she whips out this truth.  We talk about meditation.  I sigh because I am not very good at meditation.  We talk about sitting quietly, breathing deeply.  We talk about the fact that the answers--all of them that I need--are there.  My body knows, my very cells know what I need, what I want.  I know.  I've only to stop trying to figure it out and simply listen.


Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Who's Your Mama, Are You Catholic, and Can You Make a Roux?

I suppose I should get to the part where I start a blog and call it Southern Fried Femme.  I'll start with the Southern. 

I was born and raised in Louisiana.  By general account, I was a good girl.  At times, too smart for my own good.  At others, a real smart aleck (alleck? alec? is that an actual word?)  I went to Mass, I (mostly) minded my mama, and I learned to make a roux at a very young age. 

I was different, though.  In my high school government class, our teacher gave us a quiz to help us figure out if we were democrat or republican.  Turns out, I was the second most liberal girl in the eleventh grade at the Academy of the Sacred Heart that year.  My friends were a mix of scandalized and amused.

I left the South for college.  I'm sure I'll get into the reasons at some point.  There, being Southern was a novelty.  I cooked for my new Yankee friends and got lots of attention. 

When I turned out to be sort of gay (I'll get to that later as well), my queerness and my politics became more of a priority than my heritage.  Since they seemed mutually exclusive, I gave up on being Southern.  I stopped watching football.  I distanced myself from the uncles barking about the cult of environmentalism.  I went home only in small doses.

One thing I never lost was the food.  Gumbo always made me happy.  Beignets always meant a party.  Fried chicken didn't have politics.  Food, especially of the Southern ilk, remained a comfort and connection.  Like an old friend.

Monday, January 7, 2013

The Power of the Reader

What is it about being read that is such a powerful force?

When I was younger, I was an occasional diary keeper.  From the time I was in middle school, I wrote my diary as though someone might read it.  It was an odd self-censorship that, even now, I don't entirely understand.  I'm not sure who I expected to see it or what I wanted to come of it, but the idea was ever present. 

In retrospect, I think I wanted someone to care enough to read it. It is also likely that I harbored a secret desire to have my grievances aired to... to...

As I developed as a writer, I often struggled with the idea of writing for writing's sake, or writing as a matter of exercise.  If I didn't see something fitting into something I would put out to the world, I found it hard to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard.  It was quite stifling at times.

And now I find myself starting a new blog as part of a new commitment to writing.  Again, the idea of having someone read is the elephant in the room of my psyche.  Is it validation I seek?  Is it a vague sense of self-importance?  Maybe it's a desire for connection.  I feel so very much at home in the written word, it's as though it is there that I seek out company.

I don't think this feeling is going anywhere.  I'm going to attempt to be empowered by it, motivated by it.  I'm promising myself fifteen minutes a day, after all. 

Words from the Wise

I recently got a small nugget of advice from a Southern femme writer whose work I greatly admire.  "Give yourself fifteen minutes a day," she said, "to write whatever you want to write."

It was simple advice, brilliant almost in it's simplicity.  I agreed that it was exactly the sort of thing I needed to make myself do.  She stopped me.  "It's not a chore.  It's a gift you give yourself.  It's a promise that no matter what else has to get done in the day, you give yourself that little piece of time to do the work that matters to you."  Okay, that second part is probably not an exact quote, but the sentiment was loud and clear.

I sat in her office, mulling this over along with what I would undertake as my final project in "Feminist Narratives," my first foray into graduate work in nearly ten years.  (Ack, that makes me feel old.)  Books were everywhere, lined up and stacked on every available surface.  I fidgeted.  I tried not to fawn.

She also told me I had great talent as a writer.  Let me tell you, if you are a Southern girl and a femme who dreams of being a writer, it doesn't get much better than Minnie Bruce Pratt telling you that you have great talent as a writer.  Of course, she also said that I needed to figure out if I had something to say.

Aye, there's the rub.

Undeterred, I've decided to embark on an exploration of self and sex and love and gender and all of those things that make life worthwhile.  I'll probably talk about food, too, as it figures very prominently in my life.  Unlike my more restrained alter ego, the Literate Baker, I set no rules and make no promises.  I may, in fact, find myself talking only to myself.  And while I hope that won't be the case, I won't mind if it is.

I am a femme on a journey.  Or a mission.  Or something.  Something interesting, and with lots of words.  A most exciting prospect.