Halloween isn't a day in our household, it is it's own sub-season. Sometime in early October one of us will see an unruly flock of ravens, or get caught in an unexpected tornado of fallen leaves, only to rush home, breathless, and declare: "The Ancestors are here!"
In the weeks that follow we build an altar to those that we've loved and lost. We add photos, a special bone found in the woods, marigold garlands, love notes, purple fairy lights, poems, and most importantly quiet moments of reflection. We also spend those weeks, of course, up to our eyeballs in costume creation. Our moods of merriment and mourning take turns leading and eventually they dance us up to the threshold of the ultimate mystery. On All Hallow's Eve we find ourselves dressed in disguise, slightly spooked by our anticipation, daring each other to be the first to step out into the dark.
Last year as we sat down to the drawing table, my daughter, age six, made a most remarkable choice in costuming. I remember immediately running to call one of the original heroines of The Red Tent on Rose Avenue. Shaking with excitement I quite fittingly blurted out, "You are going to DIE when you hear what Baanko wants to be for Halloween!"
A big green booger.
My heart swelled with pride.
I took it as a sign that so far we are succeeding in doing her girlhood differently.
Last I checked I didn't see "sexy booger" as a costume idea being marketed to women this Halloween. Baanko had proven me wrong. Clearly they cannot make a "sexy" version of every halloween costume. (Even though to my horror one company did attempt to pawn off "Sexy Offred" this season!) While sexy cop, sexy Christmas elf, sexy nurse, sexy (insert any profession that has nothing to do with being sexy) may continue to haunt us for eternity I took pleasure in the small win that my daughter came up with a costume that could never be hemmed to mid thigh with corset and underwires installed to show off "the real treats" of the holiday.
In the early hours of her trick or treating I caught a snap shot of her in her globby green glory. I smiled when I saw that it was framed with Victoria's Secret in the background. Right, in my opinion, where we should leave it and all the other ghouls that scare girls into thinking that their form is what will determine their destiny. I thought about the question that guides our red tent project, "How would your life have been different...if there had been a place for you?" and realized what Baanko, the booger, really was: The place. The other option. The choice that so many of us have forgotten that we have. She was the resistance, authentically. Suddenly her hayride through our commercial trick or treating district looked like a victory parade to me. I hoped maybe, just maybe, one other girl or woman might notice her unintended statement and remember their lives can still be different. Baanko for one magical night was a little green smear on our common cultural landscape. True to function and form she was and is a booger; determined, actually engineered, to stick, to hold its ground - almost to an impossible degree of perseverance.
Baanko-the-booger reminded me of one of the most toxic cultural messages so many women have been haunted by their entire lives: At all costs, prioritize desirability over desire. Or, in other words, your form is more important than your function to us. Yes, you can be anything you desire to be in life, as long as you are still desirable to others while doing it. The irony, of course, being that people are most desirable when they put function over form and allow themselves to be absorbed into that at which they naturally excel. The painter, painting. The runner, racing. The mathematician, proving. It is a state in which a woman is focused on the useful kind of critical thinking while navigating what she loves. I've never heard a woman ask, while standing drenched in her purpose, "Does my butt look big?"
When I think of the question "How would your life have been different...?" I think of a massive power plant containing all the energy that I, and so many women that I've met, mistakenly squandered while under the spell of this particular message. Appropriate for the season, it is a horrifying thought. So, I employ the best trick in my bag and rather than bemoaning the ghosts of my own past I think of how I can make it different for our daughters. I remember my own function and feel the familiar slide into flow. The writer, writing. I begin crafting a piece that I hope will help my daughter understand that the ability to enchant (and most other super-natural like powers) are the natural side affects of a woman who is following her bliss. And, for the record, never once do I wonder if the butt I'm sitting on while I write is too big.
I took it as a sign that so far we are succeeding in doing her girlhood differently.
Last I checked I didn't see "sexy booger" as a costume idea being marketed to women this Halloween. Baanko had proven me wrong. Clearly they cannot make a "sexy" version of every halloween costume. (Even though to my horror one company did attempt to pawn off "Sexy Offred" this season!) While sexy cop, sexy Christmas elf, sexy nurse, sexy (insert any profession that has nothing to do with being sexy) may continue to haunt us for eternity I took pleasure in the small win that my daughter came up with a costume that could never be hemmed to mid thigh with corset and underwires installed to show off "the real treats" of the holiday.
In the early hours of her trick or treating I caught a snap shot of her in her globby green glory. I smiled when I saw that it was framed with Victoria's Secret in the background. Right, in my opinion, where we should leave it and all the other ghouls that scare girls into thinking that their form is what will determine their destiny. I thought about the question that guides our red tent project, "How would your life have been different...if there had been a place for you?" and realized what Baanko, the booger, really was: The place. The other option. The choice that so many of us have forgotten that we have. She was the resistance, authentically. Suddenly her hayride through our commercial trick or treating district looked like a victory parade to me. I hoped maybe, just maybe, one other girl or woman might notice her unintended statement and remember their lives can still be different. Baanko for one magical night was a little green smear on our common cultural landscape. True to function and form she was and is a booger; determined, actually engineered, to stick, to hold its ground - almost to an impossible degree of perseverance.Baanko-the-booger reminded me of one of the most toxic cultural messages so many women have been haunted by their entire lives: At all costs, prioritize desirability over desire. Or, in other words, your form is more important than your function to us. Yes, you can be anything you desire to be in life, as long as you are still desirable to others while doing it. The irony, of course, being that people are most desirable when they put function over form and allow themselves to be absorbed into that at which they naturally excel. The painter, painting. The runner, racing. The mathematician, proving. It is a state in which a woman is focused on the useful kind of critical thinking while navigating what she loves. I've never heard a woman ask, while standing drenched in her purpose, "Does my butt look big?"
When I think of the question "How would your life have been different...?" I think of a massive power plant containing all the energy that I, and so many women that I've met, mistakenly squandered while under the spell of this particular message. Appropriate for the season, it is a horrifying thought. So, I employ the best trick in my bag and rather than bemoaning the ghosts of my own past I think of how I can make it different for our daughters. I remember my own function and feel the familiar slide into flow. The writer, writing. I begin crafting a piece that I hope will help my daughter understand that the ability to enchant (and most other super-natural like powers) are the natural side affects of a woman who is following her bliss. And, for the record, never once do I wonder if the butt I'm sitting on while I write is too big.
FANTASTIC!!! What a wonderful mother you are, guiding her through this crazy world! I love you!
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