18 Years of God Damn Bullshit: A Memoir

Femininity as a Memory

June 11, 2021

Today my abuela came to me with her big tub of jewelry. She sat it on the table, a child's smile on her face, and began taking out plastic Ziploc bags, grimy and worn with time, filled with condiment cups, and little cardboard boxes full of earrings and necklaces.

She showed me her mother's day gifts, tarnished silver from 2007. A gem for each of her children. A cheesy poem inscribed.

She showed me her kitchy pins and broaches.

Snails, squirrels, our home-state.

It touched my heart in a way I'd forgotten was there.

This was old, deep, ancient.

This reminded me of the women in my family adorning themselves for special occasions in their loud, clunky jewelry they kept. Things that only matched their vast array of blouses.

Jewelery they'd sort through when someone died or just late at night when they wanted to reorganize something, and as a little girl you'd watch eagerly, knowing they'd find something they wore when they were younger, or something their mother gave them that they were now passing onto you on the condition you'd care for it.

And you did. When you had your jewelry box you got when you were 10. When you still slept with those pink and green floral bed sheets. When you had your own room. When you had your mother.

And when your mother would comb your damp hair, she called you her precious baby girl, held you tight, and kissed you on the top of the head.

When your mother knew it was picture day, she'd get up early with you and do your hair, and you still remember the green apple smell of the detangler that sometimes seeped onto your neck. And you remember the sound of the mousse (that always made you think of the animal or the dessert) when she sprayed it into her cupped hand and used it to crunch your curls from the bottom. And you remember that blouse you used to love because it looked just like hers.

I remember how girlhood was something I loved because it was what connected me to the women I loved.

Because I liked being pretty.

Because I imagined so well the woman I'd become from the ones I looked up to.

I still feel it, that connection to elegant femininity.

To dangling earrings, and necklaces that went down to your navel.

To standing tall when your family needed you, because the secret was that women held it in the first place.

I picture myself still with it someday, but I will do it my way this time.

I will wear the jewelery of my mothers and grandmothers, and stand tall with pride

I will adorn myself as the angels taught the humans long ago, but it will be different

I will have my father's beard, and the cuff links of my grandfather

I will speak with the timbre of my brothers, and the kind masculinity of my uncle

Because my heart is with both of them

It is my body which is both

Hips and hair

Breast and broad shoulders

It is my soul which cannot "pick a side"

And my spirit that holds the ability to carry it all