Age & Other Beasts
So much in my head and on my mind. It gets so impossible to contain or describe it all because there is so much and it moves fast, flits and disappears; my mind is the ultimate in ephemeral. I’ve been thinking about age. About "coolness" and relevancy. About how to change what needs changing in me and how to retain what works. How to hold onto what is me, at my core, the things that aren’t temporal, but how to let other parts of me evolve into what is "age appropriate," to use that painfully dry term. I’m at mid-life (OK, if I don’t live past 76 that is) and wondering about a lot of these things.
I am on myspace, which makes age a very strange slippery slope. I look very young for my age and although I feel like my body is a train wreck (though I’m well-aware that many men and women who like my type would disagree) I still attract attention. I have a face and a presence that intrigues and clearly attracts men and women, but of course I only get that sort of mail from men, you know the kind of mail I mean. The messages range from polite to lewd. I get quite a few from young guys who are between 18-25 and who are well aware of my age. I mean, hey I’m flattered, but it’s just strange for me. Especially when they relate to me as a "older woman," and they plaintively inquire if I like younger men, and if so would I please consider...etc. followed by their contact info. I never write back.
Stranger still is seeing boys and girls of those ages re-interpreting the new wave styles I grew up wearing. The fact is, they make me wistful. They seem so free. They have so many peers who understand where they are coming from. I didn’t. I mean, I did have friends in those years, but until I hit the clubs and then college, it wasn’t like I was surrounded with people who understood my taste in music, or my wardrobe. I was one of my high school’s few freaks.
On myspace, besides all the nouveau new wave indie kids, there are so many cute girls who look like boys, some who identify as bois, and few cute bio-boys who look like dykes. Scrolling through friends of friends, doing the myspace hop, I found myself smitten with a 19 year old myspacer who I thought was a really cute andro boi or a FTM tranny, but it turned out he was really a cute andro boy. He had a link to his facebook. It was filled with his delicious narcissistic self-portraits. There were also many pictures of his new college friends. They were all young, cool, and fluid. Pictures of parties with girls making out with girls, and then with boys, and then two boys making out with a girl and each other in three way kisses. No set couples, just a lot of friends having a drunken make out party. I couldn’t figure out if it was pathetic or hot. Maybe both. I also couldn’t figure out if they were freer than I used to be at that age, or if they were lost in a sea of free-floating ambiguous desire that left them confused and spun the next day.
I was consciously bisexual by the time I was 17, but no one else around me was. Well, at least not girls. I was the primary fag hag to a the only out gay boy in my high school, before I even knew what a hag was. However, the only girl I knew who was even close to queer was post-bisexual. She was Italian, from Milan, and bucking all my current tastes, she was a blonde, and I was still drawn to her. Draped with European sophistication which showed up as a worldly knowing boredom, she explained to me that she had been with girls already, and was over it. It was a phase for her. She actually had a crush on my boy nemesis, this bully who used to antagonize me. She, however, was still very content to toy with me for her own amusement (and well, she wasn't totally heartless, she did tell me she loved me). She used to pick me up from my French class and kiss me in the hallway, right on the mouth. I never stopped her. We didn’t make out, but they were real kisses not pecks. The first time she did it, I thought, everyone who sees us is going to think I am lesbian, that thought was quickly followed by, who the hell cares, she’s kissing me! She would take my hand after that, and would walk me to lunch. After eating, we’d go outside to the courtyard, and she’d play her acoustic guitar, and sing. She liked folk music. Joan Biaz. Yea, and she claimed not to be a dyke, that takes cajones, er, not an apt descriptive there, but anyway, I’ll let it be. I liked Joni Mitchell, but I’m not sure I admitted it to her. I wasn’t about to lose my punk rock cred. She hated my music. It didn’t matter much. I just liked to sit there and look at her. At the moment I have no idea what it was about her that captivated me, as she really wasn’t my type in any way. It was just one of those inexplicable things. My last memory of her was the day she left. I was at her host family’s house, I stood in the street waving goodbye, and she waved back and looked at me through the back windshield as they drove away. That was the last time I ever saw her, and unlike me and my Japanese exchange student star-crossed lovebird slip of a girl (that’s a whole ‘nother story) Sabrina and I never kept in touch via airmail. She did tell me to read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, which I did that summer on the beach in Saint Martin listening to The Smiths and Japan on my walkman (remember walkmans? remember cassette tapes? yea, I am old). There’s much more to the story, but later. I am trying to think of what my point is. Oh yea, age. Being young, then and now, and the differences (and perhaps similarities which I’ve not yet discovered).
Perhaps most of my epiphanies are so indescribable that I can only feel them in completeness within myself. I feel their shapes and they are whole. I can hold them for moments alone. Their forms are not attached to words, or if there are any words they slip away before they can be captured. I feel so frustrated with my mind sometimes. This is one of those times. Sometimes it seems I’m so close to the meaning I can fairly brush it with my fingertips, and then the set dresser of my play moves the tree away, by increments so small, so slowly, so I keep coming at it, keep thinking I stand a chance at capturing it. I plead and make balesome entreaties. I promise I won’t put it in a cage. I just want to hold onto it for a moment before it flies away. I long and hunger and ache. It keeps me awake at night. The wanting to understand. The desire to make sense of the mess of my past. I don’t know how I am supposed to contain all this and go forward. I hear all the pep talks, all the positive pieces of advice that make perfect sense, but still, I can’t quite follow where they lead. I'm still damaged. I’m still bewildered and broken. I want to move on, but perhaps I’m afraid of leaving myself behind. Or maybe I’m afraid I won’t be honoring her, to stop being a monument to her pain. If I walk on, will I be leaving her behind in her closet? My closet. The place I went, not to feel safe, but to try to find the child’s version of invisible. There was nowhere else to go. Let me blend into the walls, and disappear. You don’t see me. You forgot I was there. Your screaming penetrated my closet, but your eyes were amnesiac. The walls in the kitchen dripping blood, the world caving in. Nothing making sense. And forever. Moments stretching into eternity, wondering when it will end. Hugging my pillow, my stuffed animals, my knees. My blanket stretched underneath me. Dark, cool and hidden, how I still like to be. My world is a long sleepless night, a big closet I live inside. Do you see me now Mama, from your home in the skies? Do you forgive me for existing yet?
I am on myspace, which makes age a very strange slippery slope. I look very young for my age and although I feel like my body is a train wreck (though I’m well-aware that many men and women who like my type would disagree) I still attract attention. I have a face and a presence that intrigues and clearly attracts men and women, but of course I only get that sort of mail from men, you know the kind of mail I mean. The messages range from polite to lewd. I get quite a few from young guys who are between 18-25 and who are well aware of my age. I mean, hey I’m flattered, but it’s just strange for me. Especially when they relate to me as a "older woman," and they plaintively inquire if I like younger men, and if so would I please consider...etc. followed by their contact info. I never write back.
Stranger still is seeing boys and girls of those ages re-interpreting the new wave styles I grew up wearing. The fact is, they make me wistful. They seem so free. They have so many peers who understand where they are coming from. I didn’t. I mean, I did have friends in those years, but until I hit the clubs and then college, it wasn’t like I was surrounded with people who understood my taste in music, or my wardrobe. I was one of my high school’s few freaks.
On myspace, besides all the nouveau new wave indie kids, there are so many cute girls who look like boys, some who identify as bois, and few cute bio-boys who look like dykes. Scrolling through friends of friends, doing the myspace hop, I found myself smitten with a 19 year old myspacer who I thought was a really cute andro boi or a FTM tranny, but it turned out he was really a cute andro boy. He had a link to his facebook. It was filled with his delicious narcissistic self-portraits. There were also many pictures of his new college friends. They were all young, cool, and fluid. Pictures of parties with girls making out with girls, and then with boys, and then two boys making out with a girl and each other in three way kisses. No set couples, just a lot of friends having a drunken make out party. I couldn’t figure out if it was pathetic or hot. Maybe both. I also couldn’t figure out if they were freer than I used to be at that age, or if they were lost in a sea of free-floating ambiguous desire that left them confused and spun the next day.
I was consciously bisexual by the time I was 17, but no one else around me was. Well, at least not girls. I was the primary fag hag to a the only out gay boy in my high school, before I even knew what a hag was. However, the only girl I knew who was even close to queer was post-bisexual. She was Italian, from Milan, and bucking all my current tastes, she was a blonde, and I was still drawn to her. Draped with European sophistication which showed up as a worldly knowing boredom, she explained to me that she had been with girls already, and was over it. It was a phase for her. She actually had a crush on my boy nemesis, this bully who used to antagonize me. She, however, was still very content to toy with me for her own amusement (and well, she wasn't totally heartless, she did tell me she loved me). She used to pick me up from my French class and kiss me in the hallway, right on the mouth. I never stopped her. We didn’t make out, but they were real kisses not pecks. The first time she did it, I thought, everyone who sees us is going to think I am lesbian, that thought was quickly followed by, who the hell cares, she’s kissing me! She would take my hand after that, and would walk me to lunch. After eating, we’d go outside to the courtyard, and she’d play her acoustic guitar, and sing. She liked folk music. Joan Biaz. Yea, and she claimed not to be a dyke, that takes cajones, er, not an apt descriptive there, but anyway, I’ll let it be. I liked Joni Mitchell, but I’m not sure I admitted it to her. I wasn’t about to lose my punk rock cred. She hated my music. It didn’t matter much. I just liked to sit there and look at her. At the moment I have no idea what it was about her that captivated me, as she really wasn’t my type in any way. It was just one of those inexplicable things. My last memory of her was the day she left. I was at her host family’s house, I stood in the street waving goodbye, and she waved back and looked at me through the back windshield as they drove away. That was the last time I ever saw her, and unlike me and my Japanese exchange student star-crossed lovebird slip of a girl (that’s a whole ‘nother story) Sabrina and I never kept in touch via airmail. She did tell me to read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, which I did that summer on the beach in Saint Martin listening to The Smiths and Japan on my walkman (remember walkmans? remember cassette tapes? yea, I am old). There’s much more to the story, but later. I am trying to think of what my point is. Oh yea, age. Being young, then and now, and the differences (and perhaps similarities which I’ve not yet discovered).
Perhaps most of my epiphanies are so indescribable that I can only feel them in completeness within myself. I feel their shapes and they are whole. I can hold them for moments alone. Their forms are not attached to words, or if there are any words they slip away before they can be captured. I feel so frustrated with my mind sometimes. This is one of those times. Sometimes it seems I’m so close to the meaning I can fairly brush it with my fingertips, and then the set dresser of my play moves the tree away, by increments so small, so slowly, so I keep coming at it, keep thinking I stand a chance at capturing it. I plead and make balesome entreaties. I promise I won’t put it in a cage. I just want to hold onto it for a moment before it flies away. I long and hunger and ache. It keeps me awake at night. The wanting to understand. The desire to make sense of the mess of my past. I don’t know how I am supposed to contain all this and go forward. I hear all the pep talks, all the positive pieces of advice that make perfect sense, but still, I can’t quite follow where they lead. I'm still damaged. I’m still bewildered and broken. I want to move on, but perhaps I’m afraid of leaving myself behind. Or maybe I’m afraid I won’t be honoring her, to stop being a monument to her pain. If I walk on, will I be leaving her behind in her closet? My closet. The place I went, not to feel safe, but to try to find the child’s version of invisible. There was nowhere else to go. Let me blend into the walls, and disappear. You don’t see me. You forgot I was there. Your screaming penetrated my closet, but your eyes were amnesiac. The walls in the kitchen dripping blood, the world caving in. Nothing making sense. And forever. Moments stretching into eternity, wondering when it will end. Hugging my pillow, my stuffed animals, my knees. My blanket stretched underneath me. Dark, cool and hidden, how I still like to be. My world is a long sleepless night, a big closet I live inside. Do you see me now Mama, from your home in the skies? Do you forgive me for existing yet?
posted by scribe at 2/04/2006
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