I remember my first
bra – what it meant to me initially - that I had changed, had ‘more to
offer’ – now in a comely and conveniently packaged format. Yet it was not
only my own body image that was forming, but my growing perceptions of
what it was to become a woman and what was ‘expected’ of me. It was the
70’s - still heavily influenced by the leftover emancipation of the turbulent
60’s - and I came to insist on making my own small statements as I became
‘me’. So it was that I decided I preferred to go without a bra shortly
thereafter. Somehow, like most packaging, it seemed much too ‘contrived’
on so many levels. It felt like a harness, one among many, and I chafed
against it like a horse once broken in that had decided freedom was a far
better deal.
“Packaging” now abounds as never before. So, I can’t help
but wonder greatly about what young girls chafe against these days. Now
that feminism appears to be a done deal (it is not).
I remember my very first period. Oh, it was somewhat of
a surprise, though the junior high school Home Ec. teacher had taught us
what it was about and how our bodies operated – and I distinctly recall
how my mother obliquely and surreptitiously asked if I knew ‘what it meant’.
Yes, I said. And no other words were ever uttered again regarding the matter.
I remember instructing a friend, through a closed bathroom door, how to
use a tampon (what a gas!), and that some of the girls I knew insisted
you weren’t a virgin anymore if you used them. I rallied within against
the notion of being expected to be ‘limited’ during “The Visit”. We weren’t
taught about our sexuality then – its convenience or inconvenience, the
joys and foibles; just our bodies’ clinical functions…though it was probably
in fact a great deal more than previous generations had been instructed
in. But…
I wonder how much more young women really know about nowadays
even while Sexuality is so overtly and explicitly displayed all around,
yet its manifold and innate reasons and consequences still apparently remain
a vast mystery (and not by any stretch a mastery thereof).
I remember watching some of my girl friends in high school,
those constantly involved in the recurring melodrama of loving the “bad
boy”… ever trying to comfort, understand, and ‘save’ him from the perils
of so much male angst and inbred insensitivity. Why, if only he could be
loved enough, all would be well! They could be his lucky charm - and it
was their sacred mission to rescue him, change him, with a woman’s wisdom,
wiles, and wooing. And without this purpose, and its intended results,
they seemed utterly forlorn, yet just as ready and willing to suffer for
it.
I wonder how much of this brand of responsibility our
young women now still take on, and what ‘wisdom’ and examples they are
yet indoctrinated with, in spite of what the past has taught – that the
formerly ‘sacred’ does not portend guaranteed safety and security, neither
for them nor for future generations (and that the ‘safety’ of exploring
wisdom no further, does not portend anything remotely sacred)…
~ “Once I know who
I’m not, then I’ll know who I am…” – Alanis Morissette
Wisdom is;
how it acts,
what, when, and how
it speaks,
and what it does
in the face of adversity.
It is rarely an easy companion.
And it is never finished,
does not rest,
nor stop to conform,
but to embrace the shape of things.
And if supposed Truth
once swallowed
becomes bitter within ~
Then it was never truth
to begin with…
but a stepping stone.
And wisdom come
will replace it ~
Welcome after all…
