Returning from town to my cabin in the woods, I surprised Espresso, my trusty black pussycat, holding court on a tree stump by the cabin door. I killed the engine and watched. He appeared to be communing with a fox lounging in the grass, just two or three fox leaps away.
I had slowed the car, stopped, set the brake, and slipped out, determined to reconnoiter the duo. They waited and watched, sharing a quiet interest in my arrival. Espresso typically would have come running, tail aloft, meowing a plaintive hello, but today he just drew himself up like some Egyptian cat god and watched, first me, then the fox. Back and forth his round-eyed gaze panned with only an intermittent whisker twitch.
Mr. Fox appeared robust, sleek and healthy. He had a full brush, tipped with white cream, and a thick, rich, coppery coat. He displayed no fear, only a regal curiosity, but seemed to appreciate that I, in some strange two-footed way, belonged to the cat.
When Espresso finally jumped down and meandered toward me, the fox rose, yawned, stretched, and began his own measured approach. That did it! Composure be damned! Aplomb sacrificed to the suspense of these slow speed machinations, I snatched up the cat and tossed him into the car. The door’s slam broke the spell. Mr. Fox glared at me, disappointed that I had questioned his intentions or had deprived him of lunch—I’m not sure which. I apologized and assured him that I knew him to be a fine fox but was nevertheless committed to my pussycat. He paused to taste the air in several directions and finally moved on, slowly picking his way through the low brush and weeds, several over-the-shoulder appraisals punctuating a dignified retreat into a pine thicket. I was sad to see him leave. He was beautiful, and his trust rare—a benediction.
One of the many wonders of my sojourn in the Appalachian woodlands has been the willingness of the wildlife to accept me. The deer, rabbits, snakes, birds and squirrels seem to understand that I have no interest in them excepting the wonder of our sharing this natural aesthetic. One afternoon, my mind otherwise occupied, I stepped out the cabin door straight into the muscled black loops of a snake sunning himself on the deck. A quick apperception assessed no danger since his coloring and head shape contraindicated the local poisonous varieties. So I waited, one foot still in the cabin, one planted on the deck, while the snake, warm and equable, uncoiled his smooth scaly length from about my ankle and glided peaceably across the warm boards. He chose a likely gap between the planks and slid headfirst into the abyss. It would have been a simple exodus, excepting a small bulge, probably a recent rodent snack, which brought his progress to an embarrassing halt.
Back out and find another route? No way! He demonstrated his confidence in choice of exit strategies by elevating the entire following half of his person and doing an upside down hula dance until the rest of him finally slipped through. There was no hurry. We had agreed that he was an appreciated reptile and would be given all the time and space necessary to do his thing, however curious. For many months Mr. Snake and I shared our quiet forest clearing as the best of friends. Later as snowflakes fell and wood-smoke rising curled away, we kept the silent peace.
The cabin I had rented for a year of writing belonged to a Feminist Land Trust called Susan B. Anthony Memorial Unrest Home. I had thought to enjoy a time away from the ever-puzzling testosterone dilemma—can’t live with ‘em; can’t live without ‘em. It turned out, however, to be annoying to abide with the strict no-man enforcement. Moving into the cabin took more than the one evening of unloading, so it seemed reasonable to let the two careful, quick, and kind Beacon-men-equivalents curl up in the loft until morning. They were hot and sweaty, but not wanting to offer them the run of my private ladies room, I sent them to the pond, which I found out later was for nude woman bathing only. It’s a good thing the femme Nazis never found out about that indiscretion since they would have renamed it a desecration.
So ardent was Subamuh enforcement that I began to take glee in inviting my manly sons to drop by with loads of split firewood and stay awhile for a meal at Mom’s table. Imagine the delight I took in stopping for a Silver Fox neighbor in tight jeans and tank top, overloaded with fresh picked and packed blackberries and headed into town to peddle his wares. It was a good decision to offer him a ride. For the remainder of my time in Ohio’s eastern woodlands, I enjoyed his company as yet another of the indigenous friendly fauna. The resident man-haters were fauna as well, but not nearly such good neighbors.
Clambering about on the trails of Subamuh put me into a gentle space of introspection. The leased cabin was a refuge for writing but it was not a cage. As a legitimate renter, those many acres were available to me to explore, but putting one foot before the other doesn’t occupy a lively mind, and it was left to cavort at will. The hiking became a walking meditation inspiring new insights. Inhabiting a cabin at a Lesbian enclave made even the most hetero of personalities begin to self-analyze, snooping down any number of shady corridors. I am no different, my three husbands being an exercise in brand identification, but not necessarily consummated self-knowledge.
I learned a smattering of feminist theory while eavesdropping at the back of Subamuh gatherings, one of their favorite topics being the butch-femme dynamic: A butch woman has affirmed her power. That’s what’s so compelling about her. She demands and gets respect. A femme woman worships that power and, like the moon, reflects its beauty. A butch can see her own radiance only in the eyes of her lover. It’s probably the most profound of loves, envied by the breeders, attracting their disdain and resentment. The butch employee is typically better paid since the assertive personality attracts a richer share of the world’s commerce. Everybody admires a strong confident demeanor and work style.
Such overheard quandaries meandered through my mind as boots parted grass, still wet from the last night’s dewfall. It’s fortunate they are prepared for their job with the serious boot wax I scored at Tractor Supply Store. I didn’t want to appear sissified to all those rough-hewn ladies. But then, why would I worry about such things? They were, after all, my boots. I wanted them to last, impervious to soggy aggress. Also, why did I care what a convocation of lesbians thought?
Memories of resisting assault took me back to my first Subamuh confrontation. Crissa, the ultra-femmie office manager, confused me. Was she a lesbo or what? She must have been a femme—a strong one. A strong femme is greedy; she wants it all. If she is acting out a lesbian paradox, she wants to have the butch and be her as well. I shook my head. Too complicated! I have always dithered over choosing between family and career, but this is more complex. I had questioned Crissa about sharing part of the creative work at Subamuh, offering to write for the newsletter. I recoiled at her freak-out. She stands there in memory, summoning a scowl from me all these years later.
She explains why the job is, and will remain, all hers. In her youthful exuberance, she gets carried away with herself, coyly bragging about how much fun it is making out with Molly, her sweetie. That kind of crass ostentation offends everyone enduring singlehood, not just me, but it’s not my job to express community outrage. I’m just a renter. Time and group dynamic are sure to sort the thing out. Her attitudes and behavior are not related to me personally. I can relax and just smirk at Crissa’s narcissistic posturing, no worse than my own. When I feel inadequate, it’s so easy to erect a safe intellectualism and dare an intruder to assault my tower. Ravish me, God! Open me, Holy Spirit! Sweet Jesus, let truth be your rapier. Fascinating, isn’t it, how such flights of mythic enthusiasm morph inexorably into sexual and religious fervor? This train of thought isn’t only something I read. It’s what I have long meditated about, bubbling up from murky mire. It’s interesting how, if insights are scripted, mythical references float up. Each of us is on a hero’s quest, a sojourner in our own epic. I wonder if this concept is a distillation of Joseph Campbell and all the myth and psychobabble I’ve waded through, their facts stored as meta data in a tangle of neurons?
Climbing to the property’s highest point is a treat for the eyes. I admire the view as I focus far away and remember earlier days. As a child, one of my earliest insights was that I can’t learn everything. Memory can only accommodate so much and must be conserved. I saw no purpose in memorizing arithmetic facts and rejected that task a priori. My third child, Kurt the artist/philosopher, did the same but never gave in to store a bunch of left brain twaddle like I finally did as remedy to my lack. It is only in this informed millennium that we can verify the reality of cognitive self-limitation. At five Kurt, determined to be a race car driver, swore off arithmetic. Good for him. He got to actually become an artist.
But for me, the corollary to cognitive limitation followed swiftly, informed by culture. I learned that females simply cannot learn certain things: “Girls are poor at arithmetic.” It follows that I, a girl, must be maladroit concerning numbers. Mommy said so. She said I was just like Daddy and smart like him, but being a girl I could never do his kind of work. When presented with a task in sums or differences, I would squander my first magical milliseconds mulling about how I can’t do this. Then, so disarmed, I would attempt to solve the problem—unsuccessfully. Maybe I really was number challenged?
Every week I checked out the 6-book limit at my elementary school library and enjoyed hauling them home, consoled by their mass, feeling surrounded by words, learning early-on the satisfaction of cohabitating with a library. I was no different from early cultures that scribed their understandings and used them for companionship. Alexander and I were surely soulmates. Consider the Torah treasured in its ark. How could God not have been understood as word?
Even before word, God was before all else number. Mathematicians acknowledge that any and all civilizations, throughout each and every universe, must hold in common the understandings of number science. That reality existed long before primitive humans began to numerate fingers and toes. My child brain quickly correlated integers with things Daddy could do, things Daddy could know, things Daddy could be, over and against things possible to Dotty. It was all because I was made to be a flawed version of Daddy. In all things visible I was like Daddy save at the fork where all important things converge and contend. Daddy had a special tool for peeing that was superior in function to my own, which allowed fluid to dribble stupidly down legs and fill shoes. No matter how smart I might become, everyone would know my squishy secret: Daddy was better. Even as an adult bringing the principles of design to invention, I am haunted by how evolution left women holding the short end of the proverbial prick. Gynecology is so patterned like a simple cell employing a contractile vacuole to facilitate removal of metabolic detritus. Our only superiority over the male model seems to be having evolved beyond utilizing a plenum to evacuate urine and cum. But then—there are the babies. Even Daddy couldn’t make a child without a woman as co-conspirator.
I didn’t realize how poignantly held was such painful mis-belief until my daughter was born. Her genitals were angry and red from having been bathed in my own rich endocrine brew. My first vision of her opened diaper reminded me of my own tragic wound. It filled me with love and pity for her and for what she could not become. While hot tears of rage and compassion coursed down my cheeks, I blessed the small swollen mound—a mother’s kiss.
How sick is such belief? How universal may it be—this lie? Do I have this in common with other sensitive analytical women? Is this why I obsess over much? In high school I was called the nose since I appeared to be trying way-too-hard to please teachers. Classmates didn’t understand that it was the lie that must be pleased. I was the consummate overachiever that delighted teachers, but their praises were immaterial. Those kids were so, so wrong. It was my idea of Daddy that I was trying to please, not even the man himself. Teachers were not a function of my equation. I never spoke in defense of my behavior since I didn’t understand it myself, fearing only that I must embody some evil truth, hidden even from myself. Mommy had constantly chided my behavior, telling me “Be nice, Dottie. Be nice.” That was the last thing I wanted. Nice girls were stupid cows. I didn’t want to be nice.
It was good to return to the cabin, greet my trusty pussycat, and shed the boots, heavy with muck and mire. It feels like I have shed more than foot-coverings returning from these lonely rambles. I didn’t hesitate taking a writer’s cabin. It was the right move at the right time. My year of introspection completed, I realized that I had stayed long enough in the presence of the unspeakable.
It was time to rejoin my tribe. I had forgotten how afraid we are of standing in the presence, most especially our own. I had expected the long silence to demolish my lie, but was amazed at how thoroughly it fell away. As I swished through wet grass and weeds along the trail, no thought was worth speaking to the quiet air but absolute Truth. I had learned long ago how dangerous that can be. Truth is a double-edged sword meant for good but capable of bad. Even so, who can argue with my Truth? Whatever it is, it is mine.
Perhaps it’s time to start being nice. In 2021 Cincinnati, I am in the presence of people too smart and strong to believe lies. I don’t have to defend any secret. Others can affirm my path for me even though they may have chosen a different one for themselves. I keep begging for rules and approved vocabulary, wanting to be given the keys to the kingdom, not understanding that I am the key as well as the kingdom. It will take a long time, perhaps forever, to forget the machismo suffered in Daddy’s world—tech types gathering, comparing resumes, boasting prior accomplishments, utilizing jargon to flush out the uninitiated, and only then getting down to the real business of ego defense. In 1957 at CIT, freshmen compared slide rule lengths. I was the only one with enough gumption to spin a round rule, twice as fast but not the least bit phallic. How beautifully the metaphor holds: the one woman plying a round rule, vanquishing an army of long stiff sliders. In my cedar keepsake chest I have nestled my round rule beside my father’s straight one, a family paradox. They both speak and compute God’s truth. My Truth is mine to calculate.