Hippie dippie time

It's probably been about 30 years since I attended a "music festival." Not that I haven't been to concerts in the park, and such. A few years ago I even went to Lilith Fair for an evening with a friend, but we didn't camp out. I recall being angry because they wouldn't let me take my bag of healthy food into Lilith Fair, but instead wanted to make sure I purchased their crappy food for lots of extra money. But the music was good. I even got to see the multi-talented Jewel belt out some classic blues and jazz. (After that, I couldn't resume my ignorant, jealous disparagement of her.) My point is, though, that I'm going to a "grassroots" music festival called "The Acoustic Cafe" this weekend with a girlfriend and her kids. I'm actually bringing my tent. And mosquito repellent. My spouse may join me for a day; that will be nice; it's only a short drive away from the old homestead to which we daily cling. I hope I can forget my troubles and get happy. Honestly, I don't HAVE any troubles, really. But perhaps I can focus on enjoyment rather than anxious feelings of "what am I supposed to do next?" I may even eat a baloney sandwich on white bread! But I am bringing my special, healthy beer.

Home stretch?

I shared my 87 pages of rambling on my topic with my thesis advisor. He said he liked the writing. In fact, he was in Mexico, working on an academic study-abroad program, and had taken the thesis with him. He said that he enjoyed reading my thesis as much as the New Yorker magazines he'd brought with him. Perhaps he was just flattering me, but why would he do that?

He did say, however, that I needed to restructure the order in which I presented certain topics, and that I needed to provide some context information for the "reader." Darn. I was trying to avoid that! To heck with the reader! My writing is about satisfying MY whims. Or used to be.

It's going to be a slugging-away summer.

"You were not a woods-colt, Janey"

After a couple of intensive reading/writing weekends, I’ve completed an 87-page first draft of my “thesis” on the books and films surrounding the legend of “Calamity Jane.” The initial response from my advisor was positive. But as for me, however much I’ve done, I know it wasn’t enough. I did not read every damn thing there was; there is always more. I barely skimmed the surface, drilling down in a few areas, like the various attitudes in 20th-century depictions of Calamity as mother. The possibility of Calamity Jane being a birth-mother who gave up her baby for adoption first came to the surface in 1941 when a woman named Jean (Hickok) McCormick claimed to be Calamity’s daughter by Wild Bill Hickok. On a Mother’s Day radio program, Ms. McCormick read for an eager public from a diary and letters that she said her “mother” left for her. The content of McCormick’s material gave new energy to the Calamity Jane myth. Such films as Jane Alexander’s 1984 TV movie, “Calamity Jane,” and Larry McMurtry’s 1990 novel, “Buffalo Girls,” were based on these letters. Many people believed that Martha Canary (“Calamity Jane”) wrote them, though she was thought to be illiterate, and presumably dictated her autobiographic-ish “Life and Adventures” pamphlet that was sold at dime museums in the 1890s. If one were to make an irresponsibly general division, it would turn out that male scholars do not believe Calamity wrote these letters, and female scholars and writers do. We women want this renegade to be more like us; to have experienced not only the hardships and wildness of frontier life, but the womanly pain of unrequited devotion and nobly motivated maternal sacrifice. The diary and letters give her a new voice, even though it might be the voice of Jean McCormick, the wanna-be who at least got a government pension out of the deal (because the documents were allowed to serve as proof of her birth date, not necessarily her lineage). Most interesting to me (at one point in my scholastic frenzy) was the seeming absence from contemporary academic “discourse” of an anthropology Ph.D., a woman named Leslie A. Furlong, whose 1991 dissertation on Calamity Jane’s social/symbolic role in the Wild West was fascinating reading. A footnote in this 500-page tome, near the end, asserts Furlong’s belief that Martha “Calamity Jane” Canary was the author of the McCormick diary and letters. Being the suspicious person I am, I can’t help but wonder if Furlong’s admission of this belief somehow cost her an opportunity because it was considered a fantasy (by some male committee member), and her imagination too active for the tenure track. Or maybe she just had kids and kep’ ‘em, and said to heck with academic stardom. She did turn up on the 'net as an adjunct instructor in Virginia, but she hasn’t yet answered my e-mail! And the mystery continues. But this weekend I'll put my magnifying glass down and try to have some fun.

On being mistaken for a man

I know of two women who have, well, turned themselves into non-women. One can’t take testosterone but (s)he’s doing his best. The other’s verging on manly. They’ve adopted new names. I try to remember to use “he” when speaking of them. I accept the situation without thinking much about it. They’d likely be pleased to be mistaken for men. Being a make-up wearing, male-gaze-craving female probably doesn’t seem all that swell to them. They haven’t even gazed at me much, that I can tell.

When I was growing up, the fairytale still shimmered. If you were beautiful enough, sweet enough, and lucky enough, you’d meet some man who would “take care of you” for the rest of your life. You’d have children, and devote your loving attentions to them and to him. You’d be honored for this, celebrated. You would work hard, but it would be a different kind of work— for love, not money. Your dependence on your provider husband would be echoed by his and your children’s dependence on you for those magical nurturing qualities. A seductive scenario, but one that seems a bit delusional nowadays.

Never mind that women (and men) have more abilities than are utilized by the above plan. Life takes over. Even if a person does marry early and “well,” suffering and learning inevitably occur. Poverty, boredom, abuse, incompatibility, angst, divorce, child custody battles, the Iraq war, you name it. Some of these I’ve experienced, some I have not. I never did produce offspring, so I often wonder if others consider me a “real” woman. However, I profoundly do not want to be mistaken for a man. But why not?

In the 1953 musical, “Calamity Jane,” Doris Day has an epiphany midway through: Darn-it-all, she looks like a guy! That’s why she can’t get the guy! Changes ensue. She must give up her wild ways, fix her hair, clean up her act. For the love and attentions of men (everyone has desires, right?) she must at least appear to be pedestal-worthy and risk being domesticated. Cultivating a single-gender appearance might skew one’s experience of oneself and others, but it’s worth it, isn’t it?

When I saw the movie I was nine years old. I did not laugh at this boisterous “Western” romp; I cried. I wanted to have it both ways. I understood that I was not beautiful (I wore glasses and had crooked teeth), nor was I sweet. I liked to play boys’ games. But, I now saw, unless I underwent a major overhaul, I’d have to sacrifice love. I couldn’t bear the thought of either. The film induced a three-year depression, or maybe a hiatus. I emerged as more of a girlie-girl, naturally. By 16, I was ready to “give myself to someone forever.” But no one I knew wanted that overwhelming a responsibility. So I tore the gift tag to pieces and went about my business for a few years.

I was tromping one day on Coast Guard-owned land near Plymouth, Mass., happily watching sea birds and feeling the wind. A stern voice called out from the next hill, “Young man! Better clear off! You’re trespassing!” My instinctive fear was not of being arrested or fined; it was of losing my gender identity. “I’m NOT a young man!” I retorted in a panic-stricken tone, strangely ashamed. I had not thought about being pedestal-worthy in a long time, but I apparently still wanted to have the option; I was still half-dreaming the dream.

I furiously strode off the property, not looking back, and the next time I stopped at a drugstore, I considered buying lipstick.But I thought of something else, too, in the wake of that unwanted authoritative attention to the “wrong” part of me. It had never occurred to me that love went both ways. I had to take charge of myself and my persona(s). I needed something solid to give, regardless of what biological sex I was or what gender I appeared to be. I’ll bet that my transgender acquaintances have known that for years.