Dirty Women and Duct Tape

A mute finds her voice

I wrote this for her. I am doing a lot of things for her these days. Blair. 2001.

What makes us feel like we belong?

What makes us feel like we don't belong?

In groups. On earth. Within ourselves.

I wanted to write about a particular experience from my childhood, the duct tape one, I wanted to focus on group dynamics but the more I explored those moments, the better I could see Younger Me. I want to say 'the better I understand her now,' but it's more like the better I can witness her. Watch her move through moments. In groups or on her own. She is home and yet still a mystery to me.

How does our memory speak back to us?

I once had a middle-aged adult tell me that she had a photographic memory and could remember every single thing she had ever said since she was six years old . . . (I am side eyeing as I write this).

I can't even remember everything I said this morning verbatim. What is memory and what is narrative?

What's a conversation and what's a monologue?

I was beyond shy as a child. I had selective mutism which means, I didn't talk once I left my house. I'd point at what I wanted on a menu so I wouldn't have to use my voice at a restaurant. I was so overwhelmed on the bus, at school, in stores, that I would hide. I would hide in the middle of clothing racks to be on my own and my mother would have to search to find me because I wouldn't (couldn't) speak up. Crowds debilitated me. I didn't speak at school but I'd write.

I just wanted to be invisible. Please, don't let anyone see me. I just wanted to watch and not participate. This younger part of me still comes through, behind the lens. I love being a photographer. Of course. It is my first place in this world. The witnesser. This younger part of me comes through when I ask others not to take my picture. Please, don't let anyone see me.

I learned to talk to animals before I learned to talk to people. I didn't have to use my voice to talk to animals, they heard me out beyond words. I heard them too.

I felt safe. Animals didn't overwhelm me in the way groups of people could.

There is some equivalent of Dark Energy in group dynamics, it can't be seen or 100% understood but it is a force that changes the flow of individuals. We can get swept up in group identity, approval, the notion of security. We all want to belong. If we don't keep swimming we can get swept away by a current and carried to a shore we didn't intend to reach. We can become cruel when we want to be kind. We can judge when we want to stay open. We can bully when we want to be a friend. We can become righteous when we want to love. All to just be accepted. To belong.

This writing is about groups and me and not about religion. Except, it is part of my experience. I hope religion, which I call spirituality in my own life, continues to grow. But before it could grow, I had a lot to learn. About myself. About groups. About trees. About the blue lines that connect us all. About, well, everything. I am still learning.

My parents wouldn't tell me their religious beliefs as a child. They said, "We'll tell you when you're 18."

My parents wanted me to make my own decisions when it came to religion and spirituality. To practice making my own decisions because it is a practice. It is a strength we develop over time. My parents didn’t speak negatively about religion or overly positively, they talked about personal character traits they deeply admired in individuals beyond an association with a group. Often, they spoke about underdogs, honesty, and doing hard things even when the majority goes the other way.

My childhood idol, Harper Lee, said, "The only thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

Lee wrote one of the most profound books ever and then disappeared completely from public eye. Literally, my youngest self's deepest dream.

lol Imagine Harper Lee existing now and no one taking her seriously because she doesn't have 100,000 Instagram followers.

One morning, my Dad accidentally taught me about empowerment, which is different from entitlement. “Blair, if you ever walk into a classroom and the teacher brags about how many students have failed their class or about how no one measures up to ever get an A, you pick up your belongings, you stand up, and you walk out of that classroom. Because that teacher isn’t concerned with teaching, education, or inquisitiveness, they’re concerned with power. And you don’t have time in your life for people who want to have power over you.”

You don't have time in your life for people who want to have power over you.

Even if someone is in a position of power it doesn't mean they have power over you. What a lesson for a child. What a gift.

The practice of discernment. Because, it is a practice. I am still learning.

When someone hasn't yet held their own internal power. They may try to hold yours.

I have walked out of a number of classrooms that no longer served me.

But, I always walk into a new one.

My parents encouraged me to read everything I could on all religions. Read. Listen. Think. Feel. Connect. When we visited my grandmother we’d go to her Lutheran church, there were Buddhist books all over my childhood house, and I was given a children’s bible we read together. I was friends with Mormons, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Swedenborgians, Atheists, and kids like me that weren’t quite sure about a lot yet. What an exploration.

For most of high school I just pretended to date Howard Roark, a character in a book I fell in love with, when I didn’t know how to connect with high school boys. I didn’t know how to navigate high school in general, everything was often in groups. And, I didn't really start talking until my Junior year, so dating a fictional character seemed convenient.

As a sophomore though, I did fall in deep infatuation with a senior, he was tall and funny and he ran, and he had no clue I existed. I started going to a youth group to be in the same room as him. High School flirtation by a mute.

The Youth Group was in a large industrial building with two massive, tawdry metal angels on either side of the entrance, as only a Florida church could have. Have a church but give it a casino vibe. There were tons of arcade games, sports games, snacks, fountain drinks and slurpee machines. Religion via intravenous Coca Cola as the south can do. Hey, we're the cool church! I don’t remember a lot from those sermons except they were Southern Baptists, so it was intense, and they often talked about homosexuality as sin. My head would whip around the room looking at everyone thinking, “Wait, aren’t we over this by now?” We’re all worth all of it, we all have intrinsic worth and value. Consensual love is consensual love is love. But I didn’t hear a lot about universal worth, only salvation for a particular few. I listened. I didn’t often nod my head. I mainly sat there wide eyed and overwhelmed. It was a really big group.

Sometimes folks speak of elitism having to do with higher values and standards but it can also be about unexpressed insecurities and a fear of the unknown - including the unknown within self. Certitude has never really been my comfort. Awe and wonder feel more aligned. I kept going for a little while because I have always been a curious person. How do they see? Because, I wanted to be a good person and I wanted to make some friends. And, because, cute boys.

I signed up for a weekend Youth Camp. I can't believe I signed up, I must have really liked that boy. You can't be brave without fear and I was certainly afraid. "Scared is what you're feeling, brave is what you're doing." I rode the bus past azalea bushes, orange blossoms, and cyprus trees - natural Florida can be intoxicatingly beautiful: it has beauty in scent. Earthbound and ethereal. I found comfort in the density of Florida's humidity and trees, a spirituality of the natural world that I wouldn't have words for until I was older.

We arrived, broke into smaller groups, and spent the day completing challenges, playing games, having picnics, and listening to live music. It was awesome. We spoke about how to be better people. We practiced being brave. I enjoyed it.

After dinner they brought the teenagers into a smaller room for a skit. Two Teen Advisors walked to the front of the classroom, encouraged by the adults, and began to talk about premarital sex. Woah! I didn't know we'd be talking about sex! My ears perked up. I probably blushed. My eyes widened and I tried not to blink too much, not wanting to miss anything. One of the adults asked the Teen Advisors to hold hands, fingers intertwined, and then to lift their arms together out towards the audience. Then, the adult duct taped their forearms together. Wrapping the duct tape around them, "This symbolizes premarital sex." Ok, different than I expected but ok. Then, the adult asked the girl to unwrap and take off the tape, to hold it up, and present it to the audience. "See how dirty it is now?"

Ummmmmmmm I don't think that's how it works you all. My eyes shifted from the front of the class to the kids around me, watching. Were their heads nodding?

The adult then asked another boy, of course, another (expletive) boy to come up front. He asked the boy to hold the girl's hand and then he asked the girl to try to duct tape their arms together. But the tape wasn't as strong any longer because it had gotten dirty . . .

Ok, what the actual fuck?

They repeated this a couple more times - the tape got "dirtier and dirtier" and the girl was asked to hold it up. Always her with another boy.

I hadn't even kissed a boy yet. I wasn't sure I wanted to even have premarital sex. I mean, I was probably pretty sure, I just needed to start talking more.

I was curious. I also wanted love. None of this felt like love.

And, she wasn't dirty. Neither was I.

Maybe she was just learning to discern kindness from people pleasing (I am too) and that's how she ended up in this weird skit.

I didn't know exactly what I thought about premarital sex but I knew I didn't want a room of people involved in my decision.

The adults then handed out contracts to every single teenager in the room and asked them to commit and sign, stating that they would never have premarital sex. Ever. They presented it as being a good person or a bad person. Black and white. No conversation. No questioning. No curiosity. No layers of perspective.

My parents taught me to make my own decisions. They also taught me the value of my word. I wasn't going to sign a contract I wasn't sure I wanted to keep, they were speaking of defiling bodies but I heard defilement of my word. My word is my word. Not yours. I hold its value. My body is my body. Not yours. I hold its value.

"No."

Holy shit. I said it. "No." But, it was the South so I probably said, "No, thank you." (I could really use that one adult's lifelong photographic word memory right now...)

I used my voice, I kept my word. I said it out loud. For me. I didn't have a menu to point to and I didn't want to just point.

I wanted to say it. No. And, then I wanted to immediately disappear. I was the only child that refused to sign the contract that day. (“I’m proud of you, Young Blair!” I yell back to a timeline. A photograph. A memory.) I must have also been one of the most shy children sitting there, cross legged, alone in herself. And yet, something shifted internally, maybe externally too. I said, “No,” and I said it for me. I said it for Future Me too.

Choosing something different from the group was a pretty great way to be . . . admonished.

I went from group member to outsider pretty quick. Cool.

I felt weird but also proud. I felt shy but also tall. I felt like I just wanted to go home. I was tired.

I never went to another youth group.

I had a lot of anger towards religion in my younger years because I didn't fit in. Because, I lost friends. Felt rejected.

Groups can help bring out great unexpressed potential from us and they can also ask us to become smaller. They can maintain order by kicking someone out and only allowing them to return if they return muted. Smaller. Submissive. Apologetic for questioning. For being.

But, I never tried to return.

Religion, Spirituality, found me instead. Thank you. Out on the trails in the mountains or running between the trees. When a raven's wing brushed my cheek mid-flight. When a friend fed me dinner. When I was in the presence of a horse. When I sang in a sweat lodge.

When I had sex with my husband when he was still my boyfriend. Physical love ironically became one of the most spiritual acts of my life, with him I learned we could travel the cosmos together. That we could detach from the fabric of existence, only to reattach again. Death and rebirth in becoming. Together. We explored that through love. I hadn’t known.

I found spirituality when he encouraged me to speak. To write. To love.

I found it when he died and my soul left my body to go be with him.

I found it when I felt my soul reenter my body and she brought a part of his soul back to me. Thank you, Trav.

I found it when I returned to the trails and the trees turned and looked at me. Maybe they were the first witnessers of my life. I placed my hand on them and apologized, "I'm sorry, Tree, I didn't know. I witness too but I didn't see you before. I'm sorry. I see you now.”

I found spirituality in post-marital (is that a thing?) sex. When physical love brought me back to life, when I wanted to be closer to death.

Once, Mark and I were touching but then we completely dissolved. Our essences left their bodies and we just joined the great stream of everything above our bed. We could have looked down and watched our bodies but we didn't have eyes any longer. We didn't need eyes any longer. We were everything and nothing simultaneously and I was birth and death at the same time and filled with nothing but love and wonder. And, awe.

I don't know. I think that’s Religion too.

I wanted to write about a moment but it all just swirled into everything and nothing like we did above our bed in the river of life, love, and death. Unbecoming to become.

I didn't have to sign a contract to get there or to avoid there - I had to find my voice. I had to stay curious. I had to love. I had to keep learning.

I still am.