When I was about ten or eleven, my parents bought my brother and me a pair of silver ten-speeds at Sears. With few exceptions, everything they bought came from Sears. Those orange sherbet-colored pants embroidered with an opossum on one leg and “Hang in There” on the other? Sears. That outfit with the Kermit green painter’s pants and the yellow golf shirt that I wore in seventh grade? Sears, again—The Lesbian Couture Collection. Those navy blue pull-on polyester pants with the attached brass elephant belt buckle that were later transformed into Fire Island shorts for my “Kitten” summer? Thank you, Sears. I have attached the bill from my shrink. I found something you don’t sell.
I was fine with my bike for a while, even though it looked a little wimpy compared to my brother’s. The bikes weren’t really the same. His was the standard grown-up size with the seat as high as it could go. My bike was only slightly larger than a German shepherd. So one day, I decided to take his bike out for a quick spin around the grid. (Part of my neighborhood is very matchy-matchy, cookie cutter, driveway-and-three-trees-one-of-which-will-eventually-have-to-be-removed.) I was doing well, despite having to stand up and completely shift my weight from one leg to the other in order to pedal. I was doing well, but then I stopped. I stopped suddenly and landed on the crossbar.
This was bad. My brain went into problem-solving mode: If I just sort of fell the rest of the way over, I would be able to get my other leg away from the bike without bending it. (The model for this technique would include one of those wooden clothes pins that look like little people without arms.) I could then roll into someone’s yard and go to sleep. Brilliant. Thank you, brain. I was going to have to walk home. (A similar clothes pin is used in the model for this technique, but it has pipe cleaner arms and a frowny face.)
I made it home. Sometimes making it home just makes things worse.
“Mom, I’m bleeding.”
She and my grandmother were standing in the kitchen. They were joined by a choir of angels.
“No, I fell off a bike. I landed on the bar.” It was too late. The Gummer and The Babushka were herding me back into the bathroom. No one in this family ever listened to me. I needed an ice pack and some ibuprofen. I did not need an impromptu performance of “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon”.
When it actually happened, the Gummer said very little. She is not good at that stuff. She showed up at my door with a coat-sized avocado-green box with the words “So You’re A Woman Now…” written in ornate, finishing school script next to a pencil sketch of two happy Gidget-y girls entering a building which was probably a school and not a Planned Parenthood outpost.
“Here. I ordered this.” She tossed the box onto my bed like she was feeding a walrus at Sea World. Then she left. She had emoted. We had bonded. Carry on, carry on. Nothing to see here. I opened the box.
My memory of this moment has been edited. It is not likely that there were 1000 pieces of 15 different kinds of external-use feminine hygiene products which I then threw into the air like autumn leaves while I danced and spun around in celebration of my womanhood. I’m pretty sure that my reaction included the dumbfounded “What the hell?” that appeared in almost all of my Gummer encounters during those years. She had already confiscated my copy of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, and it took her at least six months to actually hand me the training bra which she purchased all by herself (There may have been a sale at Sears that she just couldn’t pass up.) I had been allowed to read Why Was I Adopted? which included a traumatizing illustration of a baby coming out of a gumball machine, but she had a death grip on that copy of Where Did I Come From? which included those kid-friendly illustrations of the caveman from The Joy of Sex.
Like most people, there are some things that I think I can do better than my parents did. I told Jack about the winkie /vagina combo when he was about four. Granted, I get all kinds of verklempt whenever I realize he’s doing things like growing and thriving, but I didn’t want this weird stigma attached to something that wasn’t really that big of a deal. I’m pretty sure Jack agrees, but then four-year old Jack had his own opinion: “Boys have winkies. All girls have is stupid ‘ginas!”
Take your time, kid. Take your time.
(After writing this, I found the following note in my ”journal”/ hamster pile of paper scraps :
“8/19/10 3:28 PM Watching TV. Gummer reading, waiting for Jeopardy to come on. Penguins getting ready to mate on TV. I said, 'See Jack. That’s how penguins make babies. The boy gets on the girl and just jumps up and down.' Gummer rolls her eyes and shakes her head." )
Dammit. All girls have is stupid ‘ginas!' was going to be the name of my Mexican Restaurant.
ReplyDeleteLaffo.