Good song. But kittens don't always figure out how to get down. Some of them do
starve in the tops of trees. Damsels sometimes are in distress, and heros
sometimes rescue them. Remember "Pretty Woman"? Great story. She and he rescued
each other.
As a woman who's been on my own a long time in the world, I relate to both
sides of the equation. I can be one tough broad when I need to be. I kick ass.
I'm the union steward, the defender of the underdog. I get my way. People don't
mess with me. But there's another side, a vulnerable side, that doesn't often
get to be expressed. Only when something tender is in the environment, making
the atmosphere soft and safe, does that tender side come out.
Edg is the kind of man who brings out that side in women. He once said to
someone who wanted me off the forum, "What if Bronte is the butterfly that will
light on the idea-flowers of your mind?" What a touching image, and one I don't
deserve or live up to, but that Edg could think of a woman as potentially being
like that touched my heart. It reminded me of that ethereal part of me that the
kick-ass persona guards and hides. It is in every woman, even us liberated
types.
In a world where women know they can't rely on anyone but themselves, we have
learned to be tough as any man. But our hearts long for the kind of man who
sees through the armour, who can honor and cherish the innocent little girl
that never disappeared, that lives inside us, often forgotten even by us. I saw
an embroidered pillow the other day that said "Grandmas are just grown-up
little girls." As Edg would say, "like that."
Edg is the old-fashioned prince-type, a hero without a respectable cause in
this world that makes fun of causes and rescuings. To place oneself in his camp
is to invite ridicule, as he is the subject of ridicule himself for his
protective ways. He senses the sensitive, and the world tells him that doesn't
exist. He's living in the Middle Ages. Women aren't like that anymore. But Edg
is right. And the man who can see and value the softness in a woman, even the
kick-ass ones, is the man who can win any woman's heart.
I once had a boyfriend who saw this in me for a limited period of time. He
got scared of his powerful feelings, so he closed down his heart, and then his
intuitive vision ebbed, naturally. He became an average guy, and we started
having average-type problems. In time we broke up. But while our hearts were
open, we had this wonderful vision of each other: that tenderest part of
another's personhood, that level of the soul, the first sprouting of
individuality. He and I called it "the bear" in each other. As in "teddy bear."
The bear became our symbol.
Because I've experienced this level, which is not universal ego but also not
anything dependent on worldly content -- a spiritual entity in itself, a pure
innocent personhood -- that's why I'm so adamant about "the individual"
existing as whole and eternal and divine and good, a pure spirit within the
mind of God. I'll never forget how that man made me feel, or how I felt about
him. It was the realest, purest thing I've ever known. And losing it was the
greatest loss of my life.
So if Edg wants to "tilt at windmills" and stand up for delicate damsels that
most people say don't exist, we women hear him and a tear wells up in our eye
because we understand. I am not surprised he enjoys a relationship "on the
level of ritam" with a woman, them finishing each other's sentences and
experiencing one another's thoughts arising before they're spoken. A man with
his vision of the tenderest side of human nature is capable of that kind of
union and that kind of love.
Truly, as he says, the rest of us "don't know jack about intimacy." And for
all the glories of individual freedom, the glees of kicking ass and being
independent, the delights of discovering nubile young folks half our age who
show an interest in us -- nothing beats being loved for who you are by a person
who will love you long after the "dripping shakti of youth" has dried up and
left.
I saw "The Nanny Diaries" the other day, a movie partly about gorgeous women
who marry the most prized men, and what happens to these folks. The men they
married loved them for their youthful "shakti." When it fades, the men look for
their shakti somewhere else. I always envied these "perfect" women, but the
film gave me a new perspective. I came to see their glory as short-lived, how
they wind up as hurting as much as anyone else.
They thought they were loved by the best, so their love would last. But no
one ever saw or loved their inner tender person. These poor women get tossed on
the garbage heap by the time they're 40, as their husbands seek out and
purchase a new and improved model of the same. I'll bet that never happens with
Edg's girlfriend. As it never happens in those wonderful relationships we all
admire, where the old man and old woman walk hand-in-hand down the street at
evening.
Someone wrote on this forum about men who can't get an erection for women
over a certain age, because of "physical toxins" in older women that turn men's
stomachs. I read it and thought, so the older men don't have physical toxins, I
suppose? Hey, aging is a process of tamas taking over, physical toxins growing
to the point where the body can eventually no longer sustain life. I believe
that process is not essential to living, that physical aging can and should be
stopped. I think we can be immortal.
But until the human race figures out how to do that, will we close our hearts
off to people our own age because they aren't as shaktified as they used to be,
because their bodies are wearing and tearing? If we do, then all we're going
for in the opposite sex is a body, not a soul. And the body will fade and die.
We're loving the material and the impermanent. We're missing the essential,
which, as Saint-Exupery said, is invisible to the eye.
"A dessert is beautiful because it hides a well. The stars are beautiful
because they hide a planet that holds a rose." - from The Little Prince
- Bronte
TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
All this talk about women and the need to "protect"
them got me remembering the best song I've ever heard
on the subject. It's by Ani DiFranco, and in the world
of women's music it's considered nigh unto an anthem.
I think you can listen to the whole song here (but I'm
not sure because it won't play for me from outside the
US):
http://www.rhapsody.com/anidifranco/notaprettygirl
Here are the lyrics:
I am not a pretty girl
that is not what I do
I ain't no damsel in distress
and I don't need to be rescued
so put me down punk
maybe you'd prefer a maiden fair
isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere
I am not an angry girl
but it seems like I've got everyone fooled
every time I say something they find hard to hear
they chalk it up to my anger
and never to their own fear
and imagine you're a girl
just trying to finally come clean
knowing full well they'd prefer you
were dirty and smiling
And I am sorry
I am not a maiden fair
and I am not a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere
And generally my generation
wouldn't be caught dead working for the man
and generally I agree with them
trouble is you gotta have yourself an alternate plan
and I have earned my disillusionment
I have been working all of my life
and I am a patriot
I have been fighting the good fight
And what if there are no damsels in distress
what if I knew that and I called your bluff?
don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down
whether or not you ever show up?
---------------------------------
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