How Much Is That Girl In The Window?

If I told you what just flew into my mind it would be "What if we could buy back who we used to be?". What a completely useless what if question. As so many of them are. One of the concepts heavily covered in Cognitive Behavior Therapy is the idea of core beliefs. Core beliefs are the underpinnings of everything that motivates us whether negatively or positively. Core beliefs are the underwear our spirits have on. You can hem and haw about a thousand things but ultimately you believe a few things almost incontrovertibly. To change those beliefs is like moving mountains or reshaping flesh like a plastic surgeon's knife.

I spent some time examining mine a few years ago. I don't think I was able, at the time, to recognize them all. You almost have to turn out your lights to find them because you take them so much for granted you can't see them with your conscious mind. Your subconscious knows all about them. You have to peel away at all your skin, all your rationalizations, all your behaviors, and all of your words to find them. Any thought you have, any comment you make can be traced back to some original basic belief. The foundation of everything that comes out of your life.

That's pretty big stuff. You'd think it would be easier to get at.

Exposing those beliefs can be raw. Frightening. Revealing. A relief. A revelation.

I will show you some of mine, but I can't ever show them all. This is elemental stuff. You scratch at this stuff and I could flake into a pile of ash like ancient silk.

• People are not superior to other animals, just different.

• People cannot be trusted, cause pain, and are savage.

• Sex is a violation of a woman's body.*

• Every action counts.

• We are each responsible for the experience we have in life.

I am so out of shape that riding my bicycle anywhere is quite a heaving experience. I am trying to do more of my errands on my bicycle. I went downtown to the grocery store the other day when it was cold out, crisp like icicles, misty in that soft way fall can be, and it felt so good to feel my blood moving to warm my skin. There's something so exhilarating about feeling cold air hit warm cheeks. I had my bicycle baskets full of Brussels sprout stalks and other local produce and my bike was weighted not only with my considerable heft but with the bags of groceries. I felt so pretty. It seems like the most ridiculous thing to say. But I did. Riding down the street on my old bicycle with the blood in my cheeks and the air in my lungs, I felt pretty.

I think the worst thing about being me is knowing that I used to inspire so much more chivalry in the world and now it is so much rarer. Perhaps that is not important to some people but to me it means a lot. I'm not a feminist in the modern sense of the word. I like to feel feminine, perhaps because I hated it so much when I was a teen, I like to feel pretty and I like to feel that others see that I'm not the clod-hopping old man I sometimes act like. I like to feel evidence of that.

That's another core belief but I can't actually put it to real words lest I freak myself out and cause deep and everlasting pain to myself. Interpret that how you will.

I'm a strong person but I want to be valued as a fine piece of glass.

I used to feel pretty as I walked alone on the streets of San Francisco. Not beautiful, not sexy. But pretty like a peach blossom you admire just before it drifts away from the branch into a breeze, floating like a paper lantern to some spot you haven't yet reached. I feel pretty when my body is in motion, being used like a machine, when I am pushing it towards the horizon with the wind in my sails. When my body feels flight.

I also feel pretty when no one is looking. I believe my magic fades under scrutiny.

It may be a shade of my crazy. Doesn't really matter.

I want to be in the air more often. I need to fit that in.

I want doors to open. I want protection.

It's what my dreams are of when they aren't extremely violent and dark. They are full of chivalry. Not sex, which means so little in the big scheme of life, but that protection, kindness, thoughtfulness, and --

I can't really talk about it anymore. It is too ridiculous. Something I am incredibly uncomfortable about. The fact that when I have fantasies it isn't about sex but about chivalry. Chaste chivalry. I'm not sure what it says about me but I am so uncomfortable with it.

What I do know is that this has been such a great autumn and things are falling into place. Good things. I am not how I wish to be remembered right now. I have not reclaimed myself in all the ways I need to but something is opening up that was closed before. Clamped shut with blood held back, bruising. I feel the winter coming like a mother calling to its child. I walk to winter with every happiness and a little excitement too. Coming home never felt so good.

Change takes time. To change you have to know what underwear your spirit has on. Don't fool yourself. Know what's under there before you rip the scaffolding down.




*Not a healthy or comfortable core belief.













I smell like the damned. (Totally random thought I didn't want to forget I had.)