Eve Ensler's piece "Rising" and me

Twice I've planned to perform Eve Ensler's piece, "Rising", and twice I've decided not to.  Here's the piece:

RISING
Written in Kerala for the women of India who lead the way


This could have been anywhere
And was
Mexico City
Manila
Mumbai
Manhattan
Nighttime men
waiting
like wolves
Drooling
for prey
behind
that single dimly painted door
paying nothing
a couple of  dollars
or euros
rupees
or pesos
to have her
Enter her
Eat her
Devour her
and throw away her bones.

This could have been anywhere
And was
A Buddhist nun on a bus
Trying to stay dry for the night
A woman leader speaking out against
The repressive government
A young woman traveling with her boyfriend
One lost her voice
The other her following
The last one her life

This could have been anywhere and was
Pink wooden crosses
A stack of stones
Red wilting carnations
Empty chairs in a square
Ribbons flying in a sultry wind
I ask Anna Nighat Kamla Monique Tanisha Emily
Why Why
Porque Eran Mujeres
Parce qu'elles étaient des femmes
Because they were women
Because they were women

This could have been anywhere
And was
Where she got fired for being too beautiful
Fined for drinking after she was raped
A serious offer to marry her rapist
Got told it was legitimate but not forcible

This could have been anywhere
They do such a thing
When the girls go for fire wood
Step into the lonely man’s car
Drink a little too much at the college party
Wake up with her uncle’s fingers inside
Run from the screaming machete and guns
Be taken at sunrise
Get a bullet in the brain for learning the alphabet
Be stoned for falling in love
Be burned for seeing the future

I am done
Cataloguing these horrors
Data Porn
2 million women raped and tortured
1 out of 3 women
a woman raped every minute
every second
one out of 2
one out of 5
the same
one
one
one I am done counting
And recounting

Its time to tell a new story
It needs to be our story
It needs to be outrageous and unexpected
It needs to lose control in the middle
It needs to be sexy and in our hips
And our feet
It needs to be angry and a little scary the way storms can be scary
It needs to not ask permission
Or get permits or set up offices
Or make salaries
It wont be recorded or bought or sold
Or counted
It needs to just happen
It is not a question of inventing
But remembering
Buried under the leaves of trauma and sorrow
Beneath the river of
semen and squalor
vaginas and labias
shredded and extracted
stolen
body mines
mined bodies
It is not about asking now
Or waiting
It is about rising

Raise your arm my sister my brother
Raise your one
Billion
Your one heart
Your one of us

I used to be afraid of love
It hurt too much
What never happened
What got ripped away
The rape
The wound
And love
I thought
was salt
But I was wrong
I was wrong
Step into the fire
Raise your arm
Raise your one
Billion
One
One
One
Rising.
Rising.
Rising.
Eve Ensler for One Billion Rising

The first time I was planning to perform the piece was at One Billion Rising here in Richmond at the end of our rally at the Coliseum.  Eve had put the piece out there as something to use at rallies worldwide.  It felt like the perfect fit.  I asked my friend and fabulous actress Jackie Jones if she would help me work it up so I could do it well.  She generously worked with me for a few hours to bring drama and pathos and energy and power to it.  I felt excited at the thought of performing it because it's such a powerful piece.  I was planning to have drummers pick up the beat at the very end where it says One/One/One/Rising/Rising/Rising.  I asked a friend of mine to lead the drumming.  She came over to my house one day very close to the rally to practice so we could get the timing down.

I began reading the piece.  She began drumming.  It threw me off.  We started again.  I couldn't feel in sync with what she was doing so I asked her to listen to the piece all the way through first then we'd try again.  My friend sat on my fireplace hearth and listened intently as I went through the outrages and horrors Eve describes in Rising.  When I finished, my friend told me she felt completely triggered from hearing such graphic images.  We tried again.  It wasn't working.  She said she felt like hearing that piece at the end of a rally to empower women, especially the way we'd crafted the rally, would be like going to the doctor for healing, then, at the end of the doctor's visit, ripping off the bandage and leaving the patient bloody.  I could see her point because just reading it generally left me stoked and energized, but not always in a positive way.  It was hard to perform.  I decided to NOT read the piece at One Billion Rising but instead to read what I had written.  Here's what I used:

We have heard here today some of the horrors being perpetrated here in Richmond as well as around the world.  There is so much pain and suffering, it is terribly difficult to hold it all.

But we have also heard tales of joy and empowerment and triumph – Claire’s daughter’s tragic murder led Claire to become a tireless advocate for others.  Carol’s mother’s death has not gone unnoticed, and thousands of children are better cared for thanks to Carol and her mother.  Rebiya Kadeer’s life has been full of pain and suffering, even as now two of her children are imprisoned just as she was.  Despite all that, we have witnessed her determination to take the higher path and to devote her life to the autonomy and safety of her beloved Uyghur people, especially the women. 

Each of the women you heard speak today is a beautiful example of power used for good.  Each has accessed her life’s purpose, the reason she is on this planet, the reason her life matters, and each is boldly and courageously pursuing her vision for a better world.

Take the time, I beg you, to listen deep within to your own still small voice that knows why you’re here, what you are meant to be doing, and pledge today to do one thing to grow that voice, one thing each day, to give voice to the beauty you have to offer the world.   Just imagine a world where each of us is living the life we were born to lead – giving the world the gifts that only we have to bestow.

THAT is the vision of SEVEN billion rising and of Heaven on Earth.  Thank you.

I think my friend was so right about Rising in that case and that it was kinder and gentler to not use it.

The next opportunity I had was to perform it, memorized, in the Richmond production of The Vagina Monologues in April.  Julie Willard cast me to do that monologue.  I felt honored to be chosen to do that one because it's the final piece in the show and is so dramatic.  I also felt a little bit scared - would I actually be able to memorize it?  how would it be to perform on stage again after 30+ years?

I started going to rehearsals and practicing it, working on memorizing it.  At rehearsals, I noticed that after I read it, I would feel hot and flushed.  My adrenalin would be pumping.  It would take me a while to calm down.  OK.  Something to notice.

I practiced it one on one with Julie.  She gave me excellent direction to say it with less umph, less drama - let the words do the talking.  Maybe I didn't need to "perform" it - maybe I could just put it out there and let the words do the work.  Be more understated.  It was good coaching.  It felt very different.  I was performing it the way a preacher performs a rousing sermon.  Speaking it as if I were talking to a friend, telling her these outrages, telling her I was done, that something different had to happen, brought it home in a different way.  I think it was more powerful.  I don't think it was any less disturbing.

I started to memorize it.  Chris helped me while we were on vacation at the beach.  I started dreaming about the images in the poem.  Nightmares.  Uncomfortable images.  Uncomfortable stories going through my head.  It wasn't fun. The words would flow through my head during the day since I was trying to commit it to memory.  I started to wonder if this was the right thing for me to be doing?

Right around this time, I got the email from the Uyghurs asking me to speak in Paris at their conference.  It was to be 2 days before The Vagina Monologues.  I could come back in time for the play then leave again shortly thereafter for China to see Dylan, a trip I'd already planned.  Then I realized that was too much.  I felt like it would be physically too grueling.  I realized that if I would go to Paris, I could fly more easily to Beijing from there.  It would mean missing The Vagina Monologues, but everything else fit really well.  I spoke with my friend Denise Bennett, a consummate storyteller, actress, and performer, to see if she might be interested in doing the monologue.  She jumped right on it!  Then I contacted Julie to let her know the situation.  She could not have been more gracious. 

I felt tremendous relief to not be doing that particular piece.  It felt perfect for Denise to be doing it.  And it felt wonderful to think of going to Paris to speak before a group of women about women's empowerment, my topic for the Uyghurs.

It occurred to me that, again, I wasn't performing "Rising". 

Then I remembered when I spoke with Eve at the Omega Institute in September.  I said to her, "When I grow up, I want to be just like you."  Without skipping a beat, she looked me in the eye fiercely and clearly and with defiant love and said, "No, be YOU!"

It occurs to me that, with "Rising", I was trying to speak her words, but they just weren't fitting.  What worked, instead, was for me to write my own words and to speak those.  She was so right - her job is to be her.  My job is to be me.  Thanks, Eve, for wise, wonderful words, very well placed.  There's only one Eve, and there's only one me, and the world needs both of us.  And there is also only one YOU!  What unique gifts are you offering the world these days?  I'd love to hear!

The Best of Beyond Barbie

A couple of months ago a woman from Chesterfield County's Chesterfield Domestic and Sexual Violence Resource Center contacted me to ask if I would be interested in organizing a Best of Beyond Barbie show to be sponsored by her department and perhaps by the Women of Color Caucus of the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance, and Virginia State University as well.  

I am delighted to announce that we are making it happen!  Here's the information!

Saturday, April 14, from 7-9 PM, at Holiday Inn Koger Center South off of Midlothian Turnpike, near Johnston Willis Hospital.  Tickets $10, available at the door.

The following performers will grace the stage:

 

Gaye Adegbalola and The Wild Roots, Blues Singers

Megan Hicks, storyteller

Dawn Flores, artist, dancer, poet, activist

Denise Bennett, storyteller, musician

Valley Haggard, writer

Karen Morris, Eating Disorders Activist

Frances Wessells, 92-year-old dancer

Jennifer Jurlando, writer

Lisette Johnson, blogger and Domestic Abuse survivor

and yours truly, artist, writer, activist

Though we're calling it The Best of Beyond Barbie, I'm realizing that almost none of the acts will be exactly the same as at Beyond Barbie.  Almost every person is creating or presenting a new piece for this show so whether you were at our other performances or not, there will be much newness to experience!  The show will have some focus on Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse since that department is sponsoring it, but primarily it will focus on how glorious it is to be a woman, how empowering, how wonderful, how rich and fulfilling.

I will post more information as it becomes available.  I hope to see you there!

Life in the First Person: women's Stories Uncovered

Life in the First Person: Women’s Stories Uncovered

 

A novelist. A storyteller. A poet. A freelance writer. A performance artist. A creative nonfiction writer. A blogger.

What do they all have in common?

The first person.

Their experiences and their points of view are different, but their pronouns are the same.

Find out what comes after “I.”

Come out to hear life in the first person with Gigi Amateau, novelist; Denise Bennett, storyteller; Tarfia Faizullah, poet; Julie Geen, freelance writer; Shelia Gray, performance artist; Valley Haggard, creative nonfiction writer and Alex Iwashyna, blogger.

Life in the First Person: Women’s Stories Uncovered will serve as the grand finale in the event series, Beyond Barbie: Piecing Together Today's Woman running in conjunction with Susan Singer’s art opening, “Not Barbie: A Celebration of Real Women,”  on Thursday, November 3, at 7 PM at Crossroads Art Center. Tickets can be purchased online at www.SusanSinger.com or through  Crossroads Art Center or at the door.   

Featuring:

Gigi Amateau is the author of the young adult novel, A Certain Strain of Peculiar, a 2010 Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of the Year. She also wrote Chancey of the Maury River, a William Allen White Masters List title for grades 3-5. Her debut novel, Claiming Georgia Tate was selected as a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age.  She recently completed 200-hour yoga teacher training. Visit www.gigiamateau.com.

Denise Bennett tells personal stories, her original versions of traditional stories and sacred stories often interlaced with harp and vocal music.  She is a member of the Tell Tale Hearts Storytellers Theater in Richmond. Master storyteller Elizabeth Ellis has said of her, “Denise Bennett is a storyteller and a musician of exceptional talent. Her work is timeless, and flawless. Her work reminds us of the love that dwells in the deep heart's core.” Visit her at www.storiesbydenise.com.

Tarfia Faizullah is a graduate of VCU's creative writing program, and the former associate editor of Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Southern Review, Crab Orchard Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Daily, Diode, Bellingham Review and elsewhere. She is the recipient of an AWP Intro Journals Project award, the Ploughshares Cohen Award and a Fulbright scholarship.

Julie Geen writes a monthly column for belle magazine and is a contributor to Style Weekly. She has published essays in anthologies, most recently “Tarnished: True Tales of Innocence Lost.” Along with raising children, dealing with pets and her own mind, she teaches creative writing classes through Hanover Parks and Recreation. Currently, she is turning one of her screenplays into a novel, and from there probably into a face book post. She blogs at juliegeen.com.
 

Shelia Gray is a graduate of the VCU Crafts Department, focusing in metal smithing, textiles and glass. She is currently involved in creating wearable art and costumes, as well as performance art and body painting for fashion shows, events and special projects. She’s writing a mixed-media graphic novel which incorporates sculptures and performance pieces. A self-employed gardener, she has winters off to do what ever she likes. 

Valley Haggard, the executive director of Richmond Young Writers, teaches creative writing to kids at Chop Suey Books and creative nonfiction to adults at Chop Suey, Black Swan Bookstore and the Visual Arts Center. On the board of the James River Writers, she has written for Style Weekly, Belle, Rhome, V Magazine and Skirt and has published chapters of her memoir in The Writer’s Dojo and Tarnished: True Tales of Innocence Lost. Visit her at www.richmondyoungwriters.com or www.valleyhaggard.com.

Alex Iwashyna went from a B.A. in Philosophy to an M.D. to a SAHM (stay at home mom), writer and poet before thirty. She spends most of her time on LateEnough.com blogging about life, parenting, marriage, culture and her inability to wake up in the morning and not hate everyone. She also writes for Richmondmom.com, teaches at the Visual Arts Center and manages enough freelance work to guarantee sexy circles under her eyes.

Beyond Barbie - You can finally buy tickets for the evenings! Here!

The last few weeks have been extremely busy as I and a handful of women have worked to prepare for Beyond Barbie.  Beginning Sept 22 and continuing every Thursday night until November 3, at Crossroads Art Center, we will be presenting a series of performances intended to showcase some fabulous women!  The series is intended for men and women and youth and most evenings will be family friendly (I would urge some discretion when deciding whether to bring your children to the evening about abuse and perhaps those on Eating Disorders and birth?).

When I realized that many of my models are performers/artists/talented women, I decided it would be a fabulous idea to give them an opportunity to strut their stuff in conjunction with my show Not Barbie: A Celebration of Real Women which opens Friday, Sept 16th at 6 PM also at Crossroads Art Center.  The topics for the evenings arose organically based on issues my models are dealing with and/or the type of performers they are.

The first became clear when I realized I've photographed and painted many dancers - that makes sense!  They're so at ease in their bodies that they are comfortable in front of the camera.  On Sept 22, we'll have belly dancers (Khalima, Heather Addley, Lelya Nissa, and Tina Batya), Hoopers (yes, hula hoopers!  Hula hoops have made a dramatic come back and have become performance art!) (Rachel Braford and Natalie Gianninoto).   Peggy O'Neill will lead all willing participants in Sacred Circle Dance, and Frances Wessells (see video) will lead us in improvisational exercises based on her 70+ years of teaching!  Dawn Flores will round out the evening with Goddess Dance.  The evening promises to be intriguing, beautiful, sensual, fascinating, and full of surprises!


Sept 29 will be a most unusual evening - did you know that Richmond is the third most tattooed city in the USA?  Well, on the 29th you'll get to learn a lot more about that.  Rachel Easter of OneTribe (a company which specializes in making jewelry for piercings) and Kim Sikorsky, a certified piercer, will screen a documentary they're working on about body modification.  Afterwards they will field questions about tattoos, piercings, and other body modification.

Oct 6 we'll have the extraordinary pleasure of hearing two fine singers.  Ana Poland-Rivera will open the evening with a couple of songs, then Gaye Adegbalola (formerly of Saffire-The Uppity Blues Women) will sing and speak about The Blues and the empowerment to be found in music.  Her music is raucous, funny, energetic, and, most of all, true.  You can watch her sing "Big Ovaries, Baby" in the accompanying video to get a sense of what you have to look forward to!


Not everything women experience is empowering at first glance.  This is certainly true of abuse.  Oct 13, several women will tell tales of their own or their relative's abuse and how they have come to terms with it and overcome it.  (Lisette Johnson, Megan Hicks, and Linda Goodman.) We will have a panel of experts to answer questions after the sharing.  The evening's stories will be moving, tragic, and ultimately leave you feeling empowered and amazed at the strength of the human spirit.


Oct 20 there will be two national experts and several local women (Christine Ennulat, Karen Morris, and Kathleen MacDonald, among others) who will speak about their experiences with Eating Disorders and disordered eating.  Well aware of the latest research about eating disorders, these women will inform, inspire, and engage you as they share from the heart.


We all begin our lives by being born, but how we are born varies greatly - vaginal births, caesarean births, home births, hospital births, taxicab deliveries, etc., etc.  Oct 27th we'll have the opportunity to hear five stories of different kinds of births then we'll each have the opportunity to tell a story of our own in a small group about a birth we've experienced.  Deep sharing accompanied by respectful listening promises to make this evening warm and wonderful.


Our final offering on Nov 3 will be a series of written word offerings, read by their authors - a story, a dramatic reading,  a poem or two, a blog entry, an essay, perhaps more - by some of Richmond's well-known and emerging talents (Gigi Amateau, novelist; Denise Bennett, storyteller; Tarfia Faizullah, poet; Julie Geen, freelance writer; Shelia Gray, performance artist; Valley Haggard, creative nonfiction writer and Alexandra Iwashyna, blogger.).  All of the offerings will be true tales of personal experiences, keeping with Beyond Barbie's theme of empowerment through personal sharing.


Interest is already high, and seating will be limited to 250, so if you're interested in coming, it would be wise to purchase your ticket ahead of time.  You may purchase them below.  We're very excited to have you with us!

Online event registration for Beyond Barbie:
Piecing Together Today's Woman powered by Eventbrite

On Getting Your Period

A couple of weeks ago, I asked if anyone had stories to tell about their bodies.  A dear friend of mine, Denise Bennett, a consumate storyteller wrote the following story about what it was like when she started her period.

 I had my first period when I was eleven years old. I did not know what it was and I was terrified that I had some horrible illness and was dying. Yes, I had seen the movie they showed all the girls in fifth grade, but the actresses in the movie (made in the early 60’s) all looked to be at least 18 years old with bouffant hair-do’s and large pointy breasts. They did not look at all like me. I was the smallest kid in my class and, at eleven, I looked like I was eight… I am sure that they used the word “blood” somewhere in the movie, but all I can remember is the girls smiling and laughing together in their June Cleaver-look–a-like dresses and a diagram of a uterus. The diagram, like the rest of the film, was in black and white, so of course there was no trace of red. I did not have a clue – the one thing I did know was that there was something embarrassing about the whole thing. The girls were separated from the boys when we saw the movie after school and there was a lot of smirking about it on their part. I remember that people talked about one girl who was heavy and very developed in the fifth grade; that she had already “gotten it”. I didn’t really understand what “it” was, but since it had happened to her and she was so unpopular (purely based on her appearance so far as I can remember) there was a aura of shame around “it”.

At one point my mother made reference to something “pinkish” happening “down there” -- maybe she didn’t want to scare me by saying there would be blood or maybe that was the way it started for her. Anyway, when my period came that summer between sixth and seventh grade, I was totally unprepared. In my panic, I hid my underwear in my Barbie doll suitcase with their evening gowns and little plastic high heeled pumps. Then I started stealing my father’s handkerchiefs to use as pads. I had noticed the always so carefully wrapped in toilet paper little bundles in the bathroom wastebasket, but I did not connect them with those bulky white things that looked like giant bandages in the pastel box underneath the sink or with "it". My mother finally figured out what was going on when she noticed that both my father’s hankies and my underwear were not showing up in the clothes hamper. I don’t remember exactly what she said to me when she spoke to me about it; she was not mad at me but she was genuinely puzzled as to why I did not tell her what was happening. What I do remember was feeling tremendously relieved that I was not dying and mortified to know that "it" had happened to me too.

Denise's story is distressingly close to my own.  I think my mother tried to tell me about all that stuff, but I was unable to listen.  She gave me a book about it.  I grabbed it, ran up the stairs, and stuffed it under the rug between the rocking chair and the bed without even thinking about looking in it.  The horror!  I was certain it was NOT something I wanted to know about.

When I was 13, I was in study hall at school and noticed, with mortification, that I had a dark red stain spreading rapidly over my jumper.  I got up, put my pocketbook over it, and ran to the bathroom.  I was very confused when I saw that my underpants were clean, but my dress was not.  Then I noticed that a dark red marker in my pocketbook had lost its top and was "bleeding" all over my dress.  I didn't have a clue what to do about the stain, because anyone who saw it would assume it was my period, but at least I didn't have the double horror of also getting my period!

When I did finally begin my period at about age 14 I had horrible cramps, so bad that I didn't want to get out of bed.  I woke up with brown coffee grind crud in my underpants.  I think I knew what it was but was so grossed out, I didn't know what to do about it.  I was much too disgusted and mortified to tell anyone about it, so I took off my underpants and hid them behind the toilet.  Mom had bought me a pack of "napkins" and a sanitary belt, but the thought of a) trying to make it to the closet to get it without bleeding all over the floor was impossible and b) trying to figure out how to put it on was also impossible, so I opted for toilet paper.  Lots and lots and lots of it.  Every hour or so, as I lay in bed moaning, in pain, trying not to let anyone know what was up, I had to get up to change the toilet paper pad which was already bleeding through.  Thank goodness it was a weekend, so my family just figured I was caught up in a good book and didn't want to stop reading - typical behavior on my part.

Finally, a couple of days later, our dachshund Snoopy blew my cover.  I heard my younger sister calling to my mother, "Mom, Snoopy has something and it's really gross!  Come here!  Quick!"  I tried to get very, very small so I wouldn't be seen, but Mom traced it back to me pretty quickly since I was the only possible choice since she'd had a hysterectomy, and my sister was only 11. 

She asked me, dismayed, why I hadn't told her.  What was wrong?  All I could do was mumble, "I dunno" and hide my face in my shoulder, hoping she would go away.  Fast.

Thankfully she did, leaving me to my shame and embarrassment, but now at least I could open up the new pack of pads she'd bought for me and use them instead of the wads of toilet paper I'd ineffectively been using.  Clearly, it was very difficult for me to make the transition to being a woman.

I tried to make periods more normal in our household.  I think my kids knew I had periods and that I used pads and tampons, all that stuff.  I talked about them some, though since it was only the three of them and me, there weren't all that many opportunities to talk about it naturally.

I talked to my daughter and told her about her period.  She'd already learned about it in school, I think.  I should ask her what she remembers - I'm guessing my mom doesn't remember telling me even though it was so memorable to me, and I don't remember talking to my daughter about it all that much, though I would guess she does.

I know I found it a bit awkward to talk about with my daughter.  I wanted it to be very natural and normal and fine.  I wanted her to feel comfortable talking to me about it and asking me whatever she wanted to know.  I'm not sure I quite pulled it off though.  I could talk to my women friends about all that stuff, all the gory details of childbirth, all the ins and outs of basically everything, but that didn't quite transfer to my daughter - she was younger and had some natural resistance to bodily functions, and I had some shyness because of my own experience when I was younger.  I know my mom did her best and did a darn good job, given my utter resistance, but it was tough!  I'll be curious to see what my daughter says when I ask her what her experience was like.

My fantasy was to give her a big Blessing Way (the link is for a blessing way for pregnancy, but blessing ways can be for any transition, not just birth), a ceremony where we had her friends and my friends, as a way to welcome her into Womanhood.  I wanted it to be a celebration.  But I think we were both a little bit too shy to do that, so we settled on my taking her out for a special dinner and a more private celebration.  I hope she felt better informed and less embarrassed than I did, but I think for most women in our culture, it's a very personal, often embarrassing event.

By the way, here's a link to a nice youtube video about what to expect when you're getting your period.

What's your story?