Welcome to Issue 21 of Obsessions, a non-binary femmes obsession with culture, politics, the body and identity. My pronouns have changed. I now go by they/them and she/her. I will continue to slide between pronouns how I choose and for my straight allies, my only request is that you donāt educate others on my pronouns. I will remain she/her when itās better for my mental health and easier to do so. Of course, if folks land on my writing and discover stuff about me here, Iām happy about that! Being an ambitious writer is just as essential to my identity as my pronouns. What you might want to know is that I am someone who simultaneously identifies as a woman, a lesbian and non-binary all at once. I am also not interested in educating folks about the differences unless itās at an appropriate rate of pay. Welcome to my newsletter and thanks for reading!
How do I write about the mother wound ceasing metaphor or simile?
A couple years before the pandemic, I started taking pole dancing classes seriously. Like when I took modern dance for the first time, I was often the oldest non-binary femme in the room. My personal uniform was a beautiful leotard I bought from an artist named Rachel at Serpent and Bow. Thereās a moon on the belly and a big gold cross at the sternum. I wear a black sports bra and then I roll the leotard down anytime I am trying to hang from the pole. Iām often not in my body when Iām in the room with other people. Iām commenting on my friend Sarahās beautiful outside leg hang, āNow you will definitely have three Russian husbands.ā Way before the pandemic hit and Putin invaded Ukraine, I would make Russian husband jokes.
Pole attracts feminine people who used to dance or do gymnastics. Pole also attracts Regina George from Mean Girls, and strippers and sex workers who are far more self-possessed than I am. Thereās also a whole new school of young non-binary femmes showing up who werenāt exactly taught to hate their desires or their bodies or their pronouns or their hair cuts.
Here I am.Ā A historical 40 year old monument with no Russian husbands.
Before pole, yoga gave me earth and shelter. I could move through sun salutations and when I was finished, I felt like the King of Cups. Grounded, open and confident. I also injured my back once going into kurmasana and watched 45 year old white Jesus-look-alike men explain the word patriarchy to giggling long-haired women.
Pole gave me pain and bruises. Because I like ritual and I like covering my legs with shaving cream and then tacking my ankles, thighs, and hands with something sticky that will help me stay on the pole. Pole gave me one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I love pole and yet Iām often not in my body if other people are in the room. Iām not used to being anywhere where Iām doing something I love with other queer femmes there. My body doesnāt know that the word lesbian is no longer a slur. My body doesnāt know that I am safe here, covered in shaving cream, listening to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Our Motherās all have wounds. Some build potions made of burdock and licorice to save the next generation. Some take their poison and make a new poison, generously lick the arrow, and throw the arrows into the next generationās backs. Most, do a bit of both.
But a womanās hunger is repulsive in the so-called civilized world inhabited by savages. A womanās laughter seems dangerous. A womanās skepticism looks merciless. I mightāve talked about Nancy Chodorowās theory that as long as women are primary caretakers, all of a childās emotional ambivalence will cohere in misogyny. āMate.ā āASK MOLLYā (a substack) by Heather Havrilesky
The damage has been done my fellow elder millenials. The hate sunk in and has taken a long time to repair. The metaphors are failing me. HBO will never write enough Euphorias and Showtime cannot make enough L Words to make up for that.
I quit dancing at five years old. I became a little poet at Catholic school writing terrible poems that a different mother would have read to her friends. I donāt remember being in my body much. I remember oil panting classes, how the classroom smelled like a gas station, and how I loved the teacher Virginia.
I love pole and yet Iām not often in my body.
I quit dancing as a five year old. Itās hard for me to imagine wanting to quit, but I have a mother wound. My favorite movies come from the 1980ās and are about dance; Fame, A Chorus Line, and All That Jazz (okay 1979). When you watch those women, there are no queers. We are living in San Francisco creating our own dress codes and languages. We are creating stuff that will be taken from in the aughts and 2010ās and it will be taken from us like itās a generous thing and networks and television executives will make money off of their generous plunder.
Itās hard to imagine that the costumes when I went to dance as a little one werenāt enough to keep me hooked. But I have a mother wound. I currently own two black leotards, one red one with the thong back, a leopard leotard, a teal shiny one, and two coral leotards that are covered in butterflies and snakes.
Laura Callaghan Illustration. āDelugeā. www.lauracallaghanillustration.com
Maybe my Mom told me I was a bad dancer. She once told my sister, a nationally recognized competitive cheerleader with the muscles of Britney Spears in Iām a Slave For U, youāre not as good as I was. Is the flaw that I kinda believe my Mom? Or that my Mom never had the money, the transportation or the support to compete nationally? I canāt help but resent the mother wound. The way it defers to patriarchy. The way the mother wound defines itself in relationship to the nuclear family. The way we can only look at it at the very surface or it becomes the vagina dentata and everyone runs back to ordering dinner on DoorDash.
In Maggie Gyllenhaalās first movie The Lost Daughter, there is a flash back where the main character refuses to kiss her daughterās bruised finger. The little girlās whining and need sucks up space and the Mom rolls her eyes and we the audience are asked to experience emotional devastation. In this film, she has a male partner who can also meet the childās needs, but of course heās been conditioned not to do so.
Iām interested in what happens when the emotional devastation is much bigger. Iām interested in how we are going to give to each other when we realize the nuclear family is a shit show.
Iām grieving the mother who wounded me after living in a chronically damp world that gave her nothing but manipulations and tricks. I know that there are little queer kids that hate the pink tights and pink leotards. They feel so overwhelmed by the scratchy leotards that they donāt even know if the movements are fun. I was never that kid. My mother was a tomboy and I wanted to go to London and hang out with my best friendās Mother Rhonda who had long beautiful dark hair and dressed like a Stevie-Nicks-Witch-Lady.
At my pole class, I have felt like the history book in the corner, the untreated PTSD, and the metaphor.
The history book: There was a time when femme exclusively and completely meant lesbian. It wasnāt an umbrella term for all kinds of people doing emotional labor.
The untreated PTSD: There are times when I canāt feel the skin of my legs on the pole and the rubbing of pole to skin and the stickiness is what shows me Iām not going to fall on my head. Iām sometimes floating in the room uncertain if I should leave or push myself to stay. I always blame myself for diassociating because it makes me feel weak.
The metaphor: The mother wound drips down my spinal chord. She closes my jaw before I begin to speak. She mumbles jokes and flutters my fingers when they should be still. She tells me all these men are acting and behaving just darling just fine when they are behaving like shit shows. She tells me not to know the things because we all know what happens to witches, to Joan of Arc, and to Britney Spears. Holy hell, even Britney Spears who built an empire and never threatened men with her girlfriends or her big thoughts or her fatness or her hairy arm pits.
Last year, I became less consistent with my pole practice. I was learning to do things with my body that required more trust, confidence, and proprioception. I was learning to do things where I could fall on my head. And the teachers were teaching so fast, and I felt finally the way I think some of my friends felt in math classes, like everything was garbled and I was being presented a very complex puzzle rather than a set of clear instructions. My personal work schedule became really difficult and the Mother Wound called to me from little toddlers who werenāt my own. The Mother Wound said: love us even when you donāt have enough for yourself, love us even though this wage wonāt get you very far, love us because we are small and vulnerable. I always joke that the first toddler I took care of will either be a pop star, a serial killer, or a very popular girl. She wanted so much from me and I gave her all of my silly and my sweet assurances and my stories, and I canāt say that any of this really helped my Mother Wound. Her Mom was teaching her the word woman and she was obsessed with calling me woman. I started wearing higher cut shirts. My body is not someone elseās kidās anatomy lesson. I wish she called me Witch instead. To me, itās as obvious that I am a witch as that I am an artist.
Thanks for reading,
RenƩe