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Until She Approves
By Mary F. Rapach
“To love one’s self is the beginning of a life long romance…”
- Oscar Wilde
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I have found
myself to be a voluptuary mesmerized by the frame by frame and page by page by
page worlds of others' imaginations; preferring the assured sensuality of
fiction to the weekends where I go out to live the paradoxical life of a flaming
queen trapped within the body of a dyke - an existence that I am still
desperately trying to embrace. Very recently, I have come to the realization
that, for years, my very existence has been centrally focused on an innate
appreciation of the core of women...the absolute brilliance that is that central
light, I suppose, which differentiates the fairer sex from their rough-hewn
counterparts. I’ve spent a whole lifetime watching the late night television
movies; black and white brilliance eternally emblazoned on my retinas - Bette,
Joan, Liz, Marilyn; in addition to the neglected goddesses of the stage - the
potent voices that cry out through the generations…the breathtaking curves and
paralyzing sways of Bernadette Peters and & "Carmen Jones" herself- Dorothy
Dandridge; their voices and their essence enveloping me right along with Eartha,
Etta (James and Jones) and more ... they rock me to my core and to this
day, I sit in my apartment staring at the celluloid or soaking in the song and
feeling myself, cell by cell, growing more empowered through my exposition to
their presences.
Growing up a tomboy, I questioned where my place in things was. I wasn't averse
to femininity, it just wasn't a cloak that fit me well. Passing through (and at
the time, I thought being passed by) puberty, I was just one of the guys,
and for some reason no one ever felt uncomfortable sharing their lusts and
longings for my female friends with me... perhaps it was the hope I'd put in a
good word or perhaps it was the fact that they never quite looked at me in the
same pastel lights. It irritated me, though I didn't know why, and I took that
irritation and allowed it to manifest itself in a bipolarity that has been
haunting me for over a decade now.
I used
bitterness to build comedy - the shield, the wall, the fortress that prevented
me from cracking entirely in the face of such blatant rejection. I didn't
necessarily want the men in my presence... I just never comprehended why
they never seemed to want me. Because of my muddled desires, I learned to
repress my fleeting thoughts of the women on screen - setting them off as merely
admiration... looking at it as my inner longing to embrace that which my outer
form just couldn't seem to grasp. The opposite pole to my crystalline comic
sense was a deep depression that I fight even to this day. When you try to
convince yourself that the thoughts that consume you aren't correct, you find
yourself mired in a state of self-made confusion, repressing who you are and
never quite embracing that person you were meant to be.
For years, I thought that finding myself with a woman would only mean I couldn't
get a man. The insecurities that have plagued me since I first realized those
things that set me apart manifested themselves in the form of a self-loathing so
potent, I denied the very heart of my existence to myself...subjecting myself to
a life of mediocrity instead of a life of happiness merely because I thought
that the same mediocrity was what life was, or at least what it should
be. For years I battled against my unchosen sexuality, using the only force I
had at my power - my own womanhood. I used it to validate who I was; what I was;
and if I could bed enough men; see enough ceilings; I could feel enough power to
fight down those feelings of confusion and rage that bubbled to the surface when
I thought about the part of me I never wanted to admit existed.
Something happened six months ago that turned my life upside down. Just as I
began to resign myself to the patterned world of feminine perfection, I began to
work on a one-woman show detailing the last 5 years of my life - a piece that
deals with virtually every woman's saga; stories of a lifetime that happened
to be compacted into half a decade of my own. I began to write the show because
I was asked to... I was told that I needed to tell my story because I was the
only one who could tell it well. In trying to create that show, I twisted my
tales; turning tragedy into triumph and laughed about the horrors I had faced
because that was the only way I knew how to face them. It was during the writing
of this piece that the demons of my past began to haunt me, though not
manifesting themselves in my daily life; causing instead the wheels in my mind
to turn a hundred miles an hour and prevent sleep from coming with any
regularity.
On one of these sleepless nights, I stumbled across a woman I had known only on
the shallowest of levels and very briefly, at that. I tossed into the air a
short hello, not really caring whether or not she would respond. The greeting
I sent out to her that night was, of every piece I’ve composed to date, perhaps
the best thing I’ve ever written. In six short months, I’ve counteracted 25
years of confusion and opened up that piece of myself that was refusing to exist
in absolute dormancy. Because she and I were writers, I chalked up a
connection with her via the written word…a mental bond, a metaphysical
connection… even then I tried to deny that I was finally opening up this piece
of myself. Such was the strength of her presence, however, I refused to deny
my thoughts and feelings any longer… I embraced the thought of love, in whatever
form it chose to reveal itself.
*******************
A month or so
later I saw the silhouette of that same woman standing before an open window
staring out into the parking lot of a hotel miles from either of our homes,
where we had escaped to discard our lives and perhaps discover ourselves, if
only for 48 short hours. A lifetime of being dominated, a lifetime of falling
prey to the traps of the traditional female role in relationships left me
bewildered. I didn’t know how to react to the beauty I saw before me, and I
didn’t know how to react to the desires that raged within me. It wasn’t merely
the thought of her before me…it was the absurd who-does-what-and-when questions
that swam about my mind as I saw her standing there.
I had fought off the side of me that was comfortable in my skin for so long,
even then I tried to fit into a body which wasn’t quite my own. Coming off a
summer of fitness, I was attired in only skirts and sandals, trying so
desperately to be desired. What I was, however, was still playing a character
that was never written for me. Even there, where I was known by not a soul, I
couldn’t relinquish society’s hold on me…the insecurities built by a lifetime of
pretending took over and, regardless of how stunning she was to me, there was
still a tiny part inside my head that told me I was admiring her for aesthetic
beauty alone…the power of her femininity frightened me because it was a very
real reminder of the characteristics I would never possess.
I couldn’t let go, even there. Even in the safest of places, I fought my own feelings of demi-masculinity because I thought, as that me, I could never be attractive. But there was a moment, however, where I felt as if I was free… coming up behind her as she stood there, I allowed myself to hold her in my arms…and, as I wrapped myself around this stunningly beautiful woman, feeling her melt comfortably into my embrace, I gave in momentarily to my need. I allowed myself to be myself for the first time in 24 years that night, as I felt her soft curves melding with my own figure and all the thoughts that passed through my mind, the most potent were those of chivalry.
Here I was, with a woman who was definite proof that being with a woman had nothing to do with not getting a man…here I was, hundreds of miles from home holding within my arms not a concession, but an angel. That night I clung to her, reveling in the sight, the taste, the touch of her. I let myself go for a moment, as it was in that instant that she gave me back myself. I realized, as I felt her breath upon my skin and her eyes searing my soul. that every ceiling I had seen in my lifetime was just that…another bed, another ceiling. It was there, in the southern fall, that I discovered what I had been looking for all along was another pair of eyes.
The weekend ended and we each headed back to our respective lives, neither one ready to admit to the world what we very obviously had admitted to ourselves that weekend. While I was thrilled to be experiencing this woman, I was not yet ready to fully experience myself. Admitting perhaps that I was, in fact, a lesbian didn’t give me the strength to admit that the lesbian I was still wasn’t quite the woman I was meant to be. The self-loathing that had haunted me for years called itself up again, telling me this time that I was unworthy of the woman who was gracing me w/her presence. When I was around her, I was in awe - whether in jeans or a floor-length skirt, she moved with the grace of a dancer, while I felt that I was merely lumbering about. I refused to wear jeans, refused to wear flat shoes and refused to leave the house without my makeup thoroughly applied, regardless of where we were headed. It wasn’t me, and she knew it…the only problem was, I didn’t.
I wanted to be able to capture the grace I saw in her because I thought it would win her; never once admitting to myself that, perhaps, what she needed wasn’t someone like her, but that person who would compliment the stronger parts of her that were not so evident. It is far easier to imagine a perfect life then to create your own, and so in the midst of my awakening, I stunted my personal growth by refusing to admit that I was perhaps the person I had always feared I would become.
My father mocked my apparent lack of femininity throughout my life, my cousins called me “Mark” as a child, and my best friend spent 7 years trying to help me dress when we would go out on the town. I was so unused to being comfortable in my own frame, I rebelled against the one thing that would finally set me free…my own strength. Instead of showing myself to the woman who had shown me so much light, I pulled back; trying time and again to become the “perfect woman” that I believed she deserved. What she deserved, I realize now, was an honesty I was unprepared to give to her. What she deserved was the me I didn’t know existed.
That relationship ended, for love is never enough to save a sinking ship. My
insecurities ate at me and ate at “us” because I was too busy trying to hide
myself to ever take the time to see her. What I realize now, however, is that
it was a blessing to have been thrust out into the world on my own without the
safety net of her love because it forces me to look at myself as myself
instead of part of a couple. When I was with her, I never had to admit to
myself what I wanted because all I really wanted was her. Standing back I see
that there is far more depth to this side of me than I was willing to admit to,
and standing out now, I see that the woman I loved never got to know me, only
the perfect character I was so desperately trying to create for her.
*******************
Setting myself free of the pressures of trying to impress someone (regardless of whether or not they expected, or even wanted me to), I stumbled upon someone I’ve never met before…me. In the midst of a nervous breakdown, I went to the salon and cut off about 9 inches of shiny brown hair, grabbed some gel to spike it and dyed it burgundy to match my glasses. Along with that, I grabbed a baby doll tee and a men’s oxford to go with my khakis and threw on jewelry I hadn’t worn in months and I would bet my ex didn’t even know I owned… chunky silver beads, my brother’s chains and simple silver hoop earrings w/a silver cuff for the top of my ear. I thought of the last time I felt comfortable in my skin and it was 5 years before, when I was chastised for wearing a similar ensemble for a night out in Tucson, AZ, because my friends warned me that if I went out in that everyone would think I was a “dyke”.
Inside the walls of my studio apartment, I was away from the eyes of everyone I’ve been trying to impress and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, gasping at the woman I saw before me…it was as if someone had cracked open the shell and let her out, because she certainly wasn’t the same one who was there months prior. I stared at her for an eternity, sure she would fade away to the uncomfortable being I was; sure this woman standing before me was not myself - because, unlike the woman whose long brown hair I combed out the day before, she looked happy.
As much as I would love to believe the world has changed dramatically, this emergence of a truer me isn’t quite an instant transformation, and certainly the metamorphosis hasn’t completed it’s cycle. Noting the look on my coworkers faces when I stride into the office in a new ensemble; noting the joking tone that is taken when I overhear a joke that no one knows they’re saying just might be about me and, most tragically, noting the look of disdain on the face of one of my friends as she realizes I am no longer trendily bisexual, but in fact an almost-cliché lesbian…it makes me realize why it was that I played the role I have for so long. However, I stated before that what I had been searching for my entire life was another pair of eyes…at some point, I will find the woman that compliments the phantom parts of me I tried to create throughout the years but until that time, the most important eyes I face are a pair of icy blue that greet me every morning. Until she is satisfied with me, no one else could ever hope to be…for none can call me worthy until that moment when she finally approves.
