What I figured out, was that I have been searching for the "strong feminine" voice all along. Something that's always been there, ready to surface, like the smell of the scratch and sniff sticker. (Insert smiley face here).
What saved me was bellydancing. In fact, I had danced throughout my pregnancy. As a scholar, I am skeptical of the origin myths surrounding bellydance, stories about ancient women’s birthing rituals, Egyptian pyramids, Isis-worship, and the inevitable harems.
When I was eight, I started to become obsessed with the Holocaust. I read every book I could get my hands on voraciously and would often go to the library checking out enough books on the subject that I was asked if I was doing a report. And the obsession never left. To this day, I am working on an advanced degree on the Holocaust and also work with Holocaust survivors in the local community.
Here I am an ex punker, tattooed since the 80s “finding myself “jumping into Chataranga with just as much rage as I did jumping into the pit of a Dead Kennedy’s show, only this time my Doc’s were in the locker and by now, my inner child had been educated on the streets with enough experience strength and hope to knew how to separate the two.
We took back her life by feeding her. Our progress was marked on charts and graphs with a color-coded number system that tracked our journey toward recovery. These numbers were based on the simple science that caloric intake was essential to survival. I kept scraps of paper in the kitchen with my mad-dash calculations always aiming for a higher number. Every week, she’d step on the scale.
My earliest idea of womanhood is limited, defined by the sexual anatomy of a female. I’m four in my mother’s bathroom watching her dry off after a shower, wrapping her hair in a green towel and propping one leg up on the bath-tub.
It scares me sometimes how automatic my body is. When I get too drunk, body takes me home, puts my hands and face under warm water, plucks my contacts from my eyes. Sometimes body remembers to brush my teeth but not always.
