I stand naked, glowing and golden. My skin is translucent in this delicate morning light. Ah, the soft curves of my hips, my lovely breasts, my plump lips. What a miracle, I think to myself, to have a body at all. What a miracle it is to be a woman. The truth is, I chose to hide for a long time. I have feared, yes, feared, my own beauty for most of my adult life. I denied my power as a woman. I refused to genuinely see myself because I felt unworthy of the gift of femininity.
In the delicate sigh of this morning’s grace, I embrace my beauty as if she is my sister. I take her into my arms and say, I am here now and I am never letting go.
I watch my reflection move with ease. I raise my arms upwards, slowly… like a bird mid-flight. I let the shadows trace the geography of my skin. I marvel at the sunlight, softly illuminating all the parts of myself that I’ve grown to love. My eyes start to glisten; my heart beats out of my chest.
Here I am.
Here I always will be.
This is an ode to my beauty.
I am a woman now.
For nearly a year I have been on the most magnificent journey of my life: the Initiation into Womanhood. I have been pushing the boundaries of my own definitions of femininity and what it means to truly embody being a Woman. This process was birthed from self-reflections during a beautifully dynamic and influential romantic relationship, still very alive.
Through the lens of another, I recognized a significantly toxic, conditioned pattern embedded in my programming. It caused great dissonance in my heart: I expected love and pleasure to come from my partner, as if it were owed to me. This made me examine what I expected of myself, and the reality I was faced with. I am turning 30 and yet I have not yet unlocked my own eros.
How could I expect a man to know how I want to be touched? How could anyone outside of me understand the pleasures and pains from within my own being?
These questions inspired a journey of self-discovery into the sensualities and pleasures of my own body. How deep does my love go for myself? And how much deeper can my pleasure go? What is my relationship to beauty and self-care?
This is my initiation into Womanhood. It is intimidating. It is not easy. Have you felt the pain of shedding your own skin? Have you felt the grace it brings?
Are there any other women out there going through this same transformation? How has your process been? Feel free to share your experience here.
It’s New Year’s Eve. I’m sitting at a bar in the center of a large restaurant, watching Z hustle around preparing for the evening rush. I had always known Z was a bartender; he would send me silly selfies and text me during slow hours from behind the bar.
I look around. Immense windows exposing a bright, bustling avenue in Downtown Seattle. Passerbyers scatter along, clutching their coats with hunched shoulders. The intriguing shape of the mosaic-tiled bar reminds me of a golgi apparatus. Wooden beams hang parallel, one after the other across the entire ceiling. His managers spend the early afternoon fitting the space with gaudy decor. Two gold balloons floated on either side of a cliche banner that read: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! also in gold letters.
A couple walks in. Z smiles wide and yells, “Hey you guys!” They start talking about their vacation to Hawaii and the manatee that they “kind of” saw while snorkeling. Eventually, I become part of the conversation. I mention that I am from the Bay Area, and that I’m up here visiting Z. They become excited and ask how we know each other. I say that my partner kind of knew him in college, and we all moved out west and connected out here.
The couples’ names are Lisa and Mark. Lisa is a painter and photographer, and Mark is a 3D graphic designer. The three of us delve into conversation about muses, our livelihood, and then of course I bring up the documentary I am producing.
There’s a sparkle in Lisa’s eye. She says, pointing to Z. “Hey! He’s working til past midnight, right? What are you doing later? You should come out to the pre-funk party at Catherine’s!”
I explain to her that I made loose plans with some one-off friends, but I was open to anything.
“We’ve got this friend, Catherine, who is really, really cool. I love her. We met her in the desert taking photographs! You should meet her. She’s working on a documentary too. You’re welcome to join us!” Lisa said.
We exchanged contact information.
When I meet people who want me to meet their friends, typically that means something.
The In-Between
I spend the quiet hours at the restaurant doing a bunch of work for the documentary. Before the dinner rush, I ask Z to recommend another cozy place to work. He suggests Little Oddfellows, a bookstore and cafe. I beam at the suggestion– I fucking love bookstore/cafes.
I spend time writing a blog post. Killing time. Productivity! I get a message from Mark with his address and to meet at their place at 8:15 pm. I drop my backpack off in Z’s trunk, and make my way to their house. It’s a seven minute walk from where Z works. Easy.
This is what I looked like all day.
The Portal of Sound
Upon entering their home, I immediately see a life-sized Storm Trooper at the opposite end of the room. The apartment is a carefully curated museum of quixotic art. Bonsai trees fill a corner, various textures and odd memorabilia fill the space. Big paintings hang about.
Lisa comes down the stairs at the opposite side of the apartment. She is wearing a corsette that looks like sexy armor from a world dominated by flora. She says she is just about done with her make-up, and turns to go back up stairs. She stops. Looking right at me, she asks, “Do you have any neck pain?!” I say, “Kind of? I’ve got shoulder pain.” Lisa looks at Mark. “She should do the thing! Come on up.”
I follow them upstairs and down the hall, into a small room full of costumes. Masks, leather trinkets, textured, sanguine art. Hanging on one wall are beautiful corsettes that remind me of gnarled trunks with curling vines, made of gold and bronze. She says they’re from Berlin.
Three singing bowls of varying sizes sit in the center of the floor. She hits the largest one with a mallet a few times. It begins to emit a low, resonant hum, beckoning me.
“Stand in this one,” Lisa says. I step into the singing bowl. I feel feel the vibrations run up and through me.
“Put this on your head,” she says.
It’s a donut-shaped pillow.
“Now, keep this balanced.”
She hands me another singing bowl.
It’s heavy.
I put it onto my head like a helmet, and balance it on the little pillow.
She picks up a mallet with one hand, and a smaller singing bowl in the other. She walks in a slow circle around me.
Slow, calculated steps.
She is gently hitting the smaller singing bowl. The sound waves resonate through the bowl on my head.
I breathe deeply.
Slowly.
My eyes are shut.
Sound and vibration encircle me, droning frequencies that run like electricity through my skin. She stops, and takes the bowl off my head.
“Isn’t that a trip?!” She exclaims at me. “It’s like doing drugs without the drugs!”
I step out of the portal of sound. “Am I a new person now?” We all laugh.
Before we leave, Mark asks if I want to take mushrooms. Lisa and I split half of a psilocybin caramel treat. Mark eats half.
And not so suddenly, I was along for the ride.
505
Mark buzzes the apartment where the pre-funk party is happening. #505.
Standing behind us are two guys. One of them says hi to Mark. We all enter the apartment and go up the elevator together. I am introduced to them, Jordan and Gavan, brothers.
We enter. My senses are flooded with hues of cayenne, warm lights, and a cozy vibe. Framed photographs are carefully placed along the walls. Upbeat electronic music is buzzing in the background. I am immediately attracted to the beautiful patterns on the fabrics hanging on the walls, and on the pillows, fractals.
All around me, I see art that reminds me of my friends. The following collage reminds me of my friend, Coco, who is a collage & multi-media artist.
Mark hands me a glass of champagne, then shuffles me over to a man named Nacim.
“She’s the one making a documentary about anarchists! Here, talk.”
Nacim is a lawyer and a self-proclaimed anarchist. He and I talk about the premise of the documentary and the convoluted definitions of “anarchy” and “capitalism.” At one point we both realize that we are both wearing minimalist shoes. “Cheers!” I say, and we clink the tips of our Vevo Barefoots together.
(The next hour or two were a lovely, giggly mix of story-telling, quirky introductions and staring at inanimate objects that are suddenly way more interesting you thought.)
I meet a woman with a huge ring. Apparently it’s her, “DON’T FUCK WITH ME,” ring.
And I see color palettes that remind me of Bobbi. Scarlet and gold and emerald. All of my friends are with me. I sense them, and I feel warm inside.
When Mark and I start peaking, our laughter becomes uncontrollable. The chandelier in the main room looks like a spider. I glance over at the snack table– a vase with long, silky pampas plumes draw me in. Mark reads my mind. He pulls out his phone and gestures at me to take a photo. I begin face-rubbing the fuzzy plant. I can’t stop giggling.
What I love about mushrooms is how silly mundane things become. The things in life we take seriously, or see every single day that we take for granted, suddenly become quite meaningless– in a positive way. In this, we start to understand ourselves better. We shed the weight we put on ourselves. We find out what truly is important.
I hear someone say, “Tonight’s going to be AWESOME. I can’t wait.”
The woman he’s talking to asks, “Yeah? Where are you going after?”
I turn to Mark and say, “Isn’t it funny that on this specific night, New Year’s Eve, everyone in the world is waiting for a single moment: midnight. Yet here I am, already having the time of my life at the “pre-party”, and I already feel like this is it. This is where I want to be. I don’t want to wait around for the next great thing. I want to be living it.”
He smiles at me and agrees, and I see his thoughts drift into colorful spirals. He’s tripping waaaay harder than me. My phone buzzes.
“Travis is coming!! He just got off work.” (Side note: Everyone in Seattle knows Z as Travis. Everyone from New Jersey knows Travis as Z).
Kissing in the Car
After some more intense conversations, Mark, Lisa, Z and I leave for the Mercury, a members-only Goth club. Z offers to drive. As we seek parking, we hear screaming from various directions.
“What happened?! Oh shit– is it midnight?” Z asks, while pulling up to a stop sign.
The entire car confirms that it is, indeed, midnight.
Z parks the car, and I see Mark and Lisa kiss.
The next moment is wonderful. Z gently pulls me towards him. My lips are pressed against his, ever so simply. We remain like that for what seems like a long while. His cool fingers hold the sides of my face. And it’s over.
“Well, that was cool!” Z says out loud.
We find a parking spot, and hurry down the street, down an alley way, and through steel doors.
Baptism
Black lights. Industrial music shakes the floor. We’re at the Mercury, Seattle’s Goth club.
The woman at the front desk verify Mark and Lisa’s membership, then Z and I are signed in. Stamps on the inner right wrist. Tunnels of people; old friends swooping in from left and right to say hello. I wander through, admiring the corsettes and suits, costumes with fringes and frills and lace and metal, chains and gears and ribbon.
After sipping on a drink, I hear a Crystal Castles song start to play. I start to laugh out loud, recalling high school, but determine that I actually did want to dance to Alice Glass’ abrasive voice. So I donned my things, and snaked my way to the center of the dance floor.
I feel my body curl upwards,
my arms snaking further into the air, hips swaying,
My eyes are shut. Hair brushes the edges of my face.
I feel powerful. I feel like a huntress.
Terrifying and beautiful:
My independence.
To dance, by myself, is one of the greatest acts of self-care I can do for my mental and emotional health.
When I open my eyes, Lisa and Z are dancing beside me. Z and I leave not too long after that.
January First
I think this is the part where I reflect on everything that had happened. During one conversation at the pre-funk party, I was speaking with a man named Gavan, who I told this to.
We are capable of curating our own realities.
He agreed with me whole-heartedly.
I can’t say I believe in fate, or even coincidence. I think, through a very, very long chain of events, magic occurred. Magic in the timing. Magic in the openness of each person part of this story. Magic in the celebration of humanity surviving yet another full trip around the sun.
Let your choices unfold the lives you want to live. Choose the shiny path. Explore the unknown and learn to enjoy it. Dance with your eyes closed, with friends. Kiss in the car, because it doesn’t matter where you celebrate love and friendship.
The greatest thing about this day was that I felt alive each and every moment. The feeling of embracing life’s surprises is absolutely worth taking a plunge into uncertainty. I think I just felt so certain about myself, about where the story would lead me, and that it would be great. I filled my mind with abundance, and the most wonderful experiences unraveled before me.
today was the loneliest monday.
it rained.
loneliness drove me to the pub.
the best part of this monday
was the two dollar mac and cheese,
with the sriracha on top.
five minutes left of the game,
i didn’t care. but my eyes kept wandering
to the screen like they were meant to.
truckers came and went.
i made eye contact with a chef with turquoise hair.
maybe they all stared while
i had my head in a book of short stories.
talked to a bored waitress about nothing.
it was all small-talk, anyway.
then, that foo fighters song you used to sing
came on, and i heard your voice in my head.
i cried when i got home;
curled up on the bed (i made the sheets)
in my pajamas,
in the dark,
and my cat, he curled up beside me too.
sometimes i wonder if he can recognize the sound
of a human sobbing, and what it means.
at the end of my nap in the grey afternoon
i wake from erotic dreams
psychology text books, and my best friend’s hands
running south along my body
and me sighing
writhing.
But this doesn’t happen in the real world
when mondays are sad.
in this world there is nothing but the rain
and empty bottles.
Would you like to hear a story brimming with hedonism, romantic disillusionment, adventure and a disappointed, sexually-frustrated narrator? No? Well, I’m gonna tell you anyway.
Once upon an autumn in May, a boy returned from the vineyard to the second largest city in Australia with the intent to live with his best girl-friend. They shared the same room, but slept in separate beds. What she thought at first to be a relaxing, platonic month with her visitor, turned out instead to be a rather significant and impactful period of time for her. And only her (she found out later.)
Night after night, the boy and the girl indulged in life’s sweetest, most elegant vices. The two of them drank classy Australian wines (sometimes imports) and craft beer. They smoked perfectly rolled joints and surrounded themselves in sound-scapes of music, smiling, stoned out of their minds. They relived myriad realities through many great films, and of course, filled their bellies with delicious food. Time did not exist when they were together. It merely dwindled.
On the night that changed everything, the boy had prepared a steak dinner with grilled potatoes, and mushrooms sauteed in chives on the side. The girl was ecstatic to come home each night, as he often cooked for them. They sat on her bedroom floor per usual, and drank a rich Malbec with their steak. It was perfect. After a joint or two, they put on the film, True Romance. As per usual, they sat up against the wall by her bed, and talked in the half-darkness. He told her about his best friend from home, and how he slept with her. How his friendships seem enriched after intimacy. The girl thought for a second, and realized that she was also his best friend. And she was feeling quite horny, as she had earlier contemplated to invite her English friend to her home just to fuck. She decided against it.
The girl then asked: So, technically I could just take advantage of you?
He said, Well, yeah.
So it happened. Easy, right? They had sex on that chilly, autumn night after their succulent steak dinner, red wine, a joint and a good film.And they continued to have sex. Days upon days of pure hedonism. They got lost in each other’s bodies. The girl was pummeled with orgasms, multiplying hour by hour; him above her grinning and laughing as her body writhed in ultimate pleasure, her mind transcending their plane of existence; oxytocin feeding the brain like cocaine, hit after hit of endless pleasure. The girl made one mistake, however. She allowed herself to trust him wholly and completely. For some strange reason, she entrusted her body and her heart to him. Perhaps because she was so reminded of her previous relationship, that she let her guard down. Soon enough, her emotions became her weakness. She had fallen in love, and she knew it was going to be painful. But she did not anticipate how painful it would be.
Everything was on fast-forward then, and remained that way until the boy got on his plane back to America.
She exits the bar into a midnight in January. Curtains of snow fill the crooked college streets like pulverized bones. The street lamps weep refracted light. Her peacock blue coat carries a scent of the cloves her friends smoked earlier. Frigid clouds of steam seep from her heaving lungs and flow past her red lips. The unraveling sidewalk shimmers a pale, white velvet.
A peculiar thought snakes its way into her mind: What is it about the synonymous relation between the Virgin and fresh snow?
What about the Latin word, Virgo? A young woman. A young woman, colorless and unfamiliar with the pungent scent of passion blossoming. She frowned while thinking of the colorless girl and the life she must lead. How unfortunate it must be to be associated with frozen layers of precipitation. Then, her phone vibrates twice in her palm:
Are you coming home? I miss you.
It’s cold.
Distracted by the idea of her boyfriend’s warm body, she does not yet realize that the boots on her feet offer her no traction. She nearly slips, side-stepping to avoid a relentless crowd of scantily-clad women, blue-lipped and clutching at themselves. She takes a deep breath, the cold air stinging her lungs. For a brief moment she feels sober. She continues down the road, sensing her lust rise like heat.
She pictures her nakedness underneath the layers of clothing, skin emitting heat; flesh the temperature of 98.6 °F or something like that. She was but a young woman traversing alone, abandoned by the heat of the sun. Just like the Sputnik lost in orbit.
Her head is spinning; her feet are moving faster than her thoughts.
“There is black ice beneath the virgin snow, you know,” the wind whispers into her reddening ear lobes.
She is too drunk to hear it. What happens next seems to have been caused by five things:
1. The amount of IPAs consumed
2. Her unusually quick walking pace
3. The traction-less boots on her feet
4. The weather.
And lastly,
5. Gravity.
Perhaps it was her inconsistent footing, or that she was walking too fast at exactly the wrong moment–
(How quickly it happened!)
Her line of vision thrown violently upwards–
elbows & knees rendered useless–
her fragile frame suspended in mid-air for a moment long enough for her to think, Shit!
The back of her skull hits the ice
and before her next thought, she’d recognized Gravity’s grip,
his big, inevitable hands pinning her down.
And boy, was it quick. Crowds of drunk and/or apathetic passer-byers ask if she is okay. If she needs a hand up.
No, no. Just leave me here. I want to lay here for a little.
The ice soothes her skull. She sits up and the bucket of water on her shoulders sloshes backwards in pain concentrated on the point of impact. She runs her fingers along her scalp only to find a golf-ball sized lump filling with blood. A Mexican in a red pick-up truck rolls down his window and offers her a ride home.
Sure, she says.
I’ve got some ice in my kitchen, he says.
No, no. Just drop me off here. Yes, right here is fine.
Are your friends home?
Duh.
She hops out of the truck and quickly stumbles to the door at the back of Kyle’s house.
She dials his number and says: I think I’m dying please open the door.
Kyle strokes her hair for a long time. She is laying on his bed, curled up. He gets her an ice pack for her skull. She is crying endlessly.
Kyle am I going to die? I’m dying. I’m dying. I think I’m dying, Kyle. Am I going to die? Oh God…
She is crying endlessly, as if all of the snow had melted. He cradles her with his warm body like a little child. The back of her skull pulsates and throbs with hot blood. He sings her a lullaby, the one his father used to sing, and she falls asleep in the blink of an eye.
“My nerves are turned on. I hear them like musical instruments. Where there was silence, the drums, the strings are incurably playing. You did this. Pure genius at work. Darling, the composer has stepped into fire.” — Anne Sexton
The streets I walk are laced alone with autumn.
Sanguine fruit, the glorious decay of day turned bittersweet;
I willingly bask in your absence, and there, I am insatiable.
I count the lovers after you. With seething eyes I watch them writhe.
Embraced by a naked darkness, I ask myself: Why can’t you flourish?
Already, I know the answer: they are not quite as succulent.
Embraced by a naked darkness, I ask myself: Why can’t you flourish, Sanguine fruit, the glorious decay of day turned bittersweet;
Already, I know the answer: they are not quite as succulent.
I count the lovers after you. With seething eyes I watch them writhe.
I willingly bask in your absence, and there, I am insatiable.
The streets I walk are laced alone with autumn.
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