What would you say to the wives?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about what it means to be a woman, what it looks like, why I think the way I do, and whether or not it’s a good thing I think that way.

A couple of nights ago I was watching some A Perfect Circle videos. Many of them feature a group called the Bikini Bandits. Basically it’s a group of incredibly hot woman wearing leather boots and bikinis and slinging guns driving around in a black ’68 Dodge Charger, wreaking havoc. The video for ‘The Outsider’ stood out the most to me. It shows this incredibly beautiful woman getting out of jail. Before she leaves she unzips her standard orange duds to reveal what might as well be a black leather bathing suit with boots to match. She gets in the charger and drives off. The next scene shows the girls with baseball bats, doing obscene things with lawn ornaments. Very strange, erotic video set to really intense lyrics.

I think I’m really drawn to that image, that: I’m all things sexy and desirable, but I’m tough and can completely emotionally disengage kind of image. In fact, I’ve spent my whole life trying to purvey that image. I can distinctly remember, especially for the period of time that I was in Cosmetology school, conditioning myself to not get emotionally involved with men. At whatever point I felt like feelings were getting involved, I totally cut it off. And I really felt like I was the better person for it. What I’m wondering is: how did I ever start to believe that this is empowering, and how did I break free? Did I ever really break free?

Her form divine,
kiss as wine
Despise her and she'll never leave
Love her true, and right pursue
Surely you she will bereave
So don't hold tight, don't delight
For morning sun will leave you algid
You'll be hated, left unsated
Prostrate, cold, dreams disbanded

I was watching an episode of Sex in the City last night entitled “Where there’s smoke…”. In this particular episode the four main characters were having a discussion over breakfast on why they were all so attracted to fire-fighters. Carrie, Samantha, and Miranda all threw out answers ranging from “well there’s a weight limit” to “it’s the bravery thing” and suddenly Charlotte chimes in with a sentence that silenced them all:

It’s that deep down women really just want to be rescued

The sentence that every independent woman hates to hear because we want to believe that we're our own white knight, that we don't really need anybody but ourselves. I know now that below my fierce independence, and even at my most phlegmatic, that the desire to be rescued has always been there. Its as if it were written into my DNA. And yet I have spent most of my life lying to myself and creating this delusion that I can be the image, be the beauty that does not need a hero, be the untouchable woman. And then I realized, "I want to be touched..."

I was listening to some Patty Griffin today and the song Be Careful came on. I almost pulled the car over.

Be careful how you bend me
Be careful where you send me
Careful how you end me
Be careful with me

I think I’m learning the farther into this marriage I get, that if I’m to ever really love Clint, that I will have to lose this idea that emotionally disengaged women are attractive and that the only way to survive pain is to completely shut down. I have to trust him, and believe that he really does love me. I know this sounds absurd, we’ve almost been married a whole year, and yet there are parts of me he’s only begun to touch. I am a hard shell to crack. I’ve been praying lately. I would say that I never pray- save a handful of times over the past couple weeks. I mostly pray that I won’t be so afraid. I want to not be afraid to admit to myself and Clint that I need for him to be careful with me, that I need his kindness so much, that sometimes I need to be rescued if only from myself. I want to not be afraid to love well-to give myself. I cannot live in between anymore- the calloused and the intimate. It only tears us apart. I have to learn to think differently about relationships, that its not about games or winning or protecting myself, it’s about giving in, about humility, about being vulnerable and having at least a little faith that things will get better. I want to believe, for both of us.

Vulnerable, but it’s all right. Opening to heal...A Perfect Circle-Brena