i remember the day that i melted. i think i will always remember. it was the very first day that i dared to question what was laid in front of me. i was seventeen with eyebrows tinged white from the missionary mime make-up. it was merely days after the quietest moment of my life. my toes were on foreign soil, in a land that has forever woven a spell over my heart.
it was the night of the talk. you know the one. we were gathered together, boys and girls and men and women. the words spoken to us were inspirational. at the time, they conjured something different than they would now. it was a type of shame, it made us blush. but we knew the drill :: we'd all heard it before, and the feeling it brought was familiar. they talked about shirts too low and jeans too tight, they looked us dead in the eye and told us to protect our brothers.
they taught us how to hug, arms draped around the shoulders from the side, never too long. they taught us about closed doors and warnings and dreaded plane trips home should we embrace too long, should a boy-toe ever enter the room of a girl.
and then the talk ended and the mood changed. there was laughter and friends chatting during a short break, an appropriate hug exchanged here and there, but everyone was careful. it was ingrained. we knew what to do.
and then came the mention of the yearly mother-daughter cruise. there were cheers. there was excitement. and then the lights dimmed and the slideshow started to roll. and something inside me melted like wax.
the fabric was bright. blues and whites and yellows and greens and pinks. typical bikini colours. it was a cruise after all, all full of mothers and daughters bonding together. and they were on a ship in the ocean, and BarlowGirl was singing, and the girls were wearing bikinis.
i felt his hand on my shoulder, my friend, my heart-brother. i remember the look in his eyes, the way he whispered with head buried in hands, peering up at me through his fingers,
are they watching me? is this a test? i don't know where to look.
i remember when the lights came up and the burst of courage filled me. i was seventeen. i had never questioned anything before, not like this. but i couldn't let it go. i couldn't forget that look in his eyes.
with shaking fingers, i walked to the woman who ran the show, the one whose face we all knew, the one who smiled at the door each morning and spoke God to us each night. i touched her arm and took a deep breath.
"i'm sorry. but that didn't seem right. not after what you just said. all those girls in bikinis, the guys were confused. i was confused. i don't understand. it felt wrong."
i knew what i was expecting. i was expecting an answer, an easy one, some sort of explanation as to why. but she looked at me and pursed her lips and said,
the Devil likes to cause turmoil at times like this. we don't need that kind of attitude here.
i cried that night into my pillow, my roommates gathered around me with their hands on my back. it didn't feel right to them either. they told us not to look, they told us to keep our eyes closed and bodies covered. they whispered shame but screamed contradiction in our faces.
but what could we do? we were just teenagers. we were just girls.
i was so confused, everything all twisted up inside. was this what purity meant? i always thought it was something holy, something bright and white and glorious. i didn't know it then, but this was the start of my uncovering. my casting aside the millstone and taking a lighter yoke on my shoulders.
at the airport, two days later as we all winged our way from South America to long-missed families, my soul-brother hugged my neck.
i've never forgotten.
this is why i'm a Jesus feminist.
this is why i fight.
slow-stepping out the shadows, allowing the dark soul-night to teach me something. i'm learning how to put a face to the shame, slipping a voice against the palm of the voiceless.
{this is a piece of my journey. join with the wild mystics for a deep journey into the dark night}
