The Bold World Read online

  During those childhood summers in the South I learned about caring. How to nurture things and take my time. And although the years had caused me to forget, at Mama’s house, sitting among my family’s things, I now know what I need to do.

  I need to call on what makes me happy—recognize that there are things that make me happy: My children. My wellness. Spirituality. Travel. My work. My Joe. If I make time every day for each of the many parts of me, if I touch each element, in no particular order, in no particular amount, maybe I can get back to myself. If I welcome all of the parts of me into each day, maybe I can return.

  * * *

  —

  Listening to my mother and Georgia chatting happily in the next room the day before we leave for New York, I think about what I’ve gone through this past year. At Mama’s house, there is so much time to remember. I know now that it is dangerous to fall apart alone, without tools, without support—and how vital it is to let go. Letting go, I’m coming to learn, teaches us to know how best to put ourselves back together again.

  A few months back, a girlfriend of mine told me a story. She confided that she once fell into a manhole in the middle of the night on a quiet road. She was trying to get away from someone who had scared her, and as she was running fast through the dark, she fell into a manhole, tumbling deep down inside. Scared out of her mind and with no one to come to her rescue, my friend channeled her fear into one urgent directive: Out. She scratched and pulled at the dirt walls. Climbed and fell and climbed again. Inch by inch, hour by hour, she clawed herself upward. With her body bruised and bloody, her nails broken and skin torn, she finally made it out into the fresh air.

  Whenever I replay this story in my mind, I can’t help feeling that I was her—that I’d been clawing my way out of a manhole ever since Penelope and I walked out of that bedroom in the mountain house. In the beginning, acting on impulse and adrenaline alone, I hoisted myself into action and climbed frantically up, knowing that up there was the only chance we had. Not caring how we got there, or who I had to get rid of to make myself lighter for the climb.

  For myself, for Penelope, for my relationships with my family, with Joe, I know that I have to change. I need to relax my muscles and breathe deeply. I need to be steady, not frantic. I need to go inward and find my light. I need to be the woman my women taught me to be.

  PART II

  Woke

  I’ll grow back like a starfish.

  —

  ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS

  SIXTEEN

  This Body. This Boy. This Magic.

  RETURNING HOME FROM MY MOTHER’S HOUSE in Atlanta, I felt renewed. The end of the school year was approaching and summertime was just around the corner, which meant Joe and I and the kids would be spending more time at the house in the mountains. I was glad that we would all soon be surrounded by nature.

  In the mountains, I know what freedom feels like. There’s something about our home in Pennsylvania that makes me feel right: central, capable, and whole. I think it’s the crisp, good air—it moves through my lungs like fuel, energizing me. Maybe it’s the sky, too. The sky in the country is big and open, and nothing—not a building or billboard or power line—obstructs my view. From our porch at night I can see straight to the moon. All the twinkling stars blink back at me and I’m certain that not a single thing stands between me and the solar system. It’s just the stars and the sky and the dark, and me. I know, then, that I’m part of it all.

  During the day, I watch the eagles making their rounds, taking lazy circles around the tops of the trees—“my trees,” as I call them. I say they are “my trees” because I’ve watched them curiously ever since Joe first brought me up to this land seven years ago. I know they’ve watched me, too, from where they are. Tall and dense, they envelop the house and shield us—keeping out the crazy, shooing away the bad. Sometimes it feels as if no one even knows we’re here, except for maybe the black bears and wild turkeys we share the land with.

  Joe and I try to spend as much time in the mountains as possible. We know how important this place is to our survival and our soul. When we’re here, at this house, however we envision the world, it just is—all we have to do is name it and it becomes. If we want to be frog catchers for an entire day, we are. If we prefer to see ourselves as artists, we sit on the floor and create until dinnertime. If we’re dreamers, we lie down on the daybed on the screened-in porch and think or sleep for hours. Anything and everything is within our reach.

  “Come run with us, Pleppy!” I tugged at his arm, urging him to trust me and get up from his little corner on the porch. “Sitting is for babies. Let’s be Wild Things!” I started to wave my arms and spin around like a tornado. Making a scene, hoping to elicit some laughter.

  It’s Saturday and we have an entire day to let loose. Spring is here, and with it my favorite ritual as the weather gets warmer. I insist that we strip off all of our clothes and run from the porch to the edge of the forest, yelling “Freeeee like a bird! Freeeee like a bird!” at the top of our lungs. The first time to tell ourselves, the second time to tell the trees. Cassius, Penelope, and Othello have been doing this since they were very young—it’s a silly game I play with them, and they’ve always liked it. But truthfully, I think I like it most. Running across the grass naked, my toes pressing into the earth, is a reminder of what my freedom feels like.

  “Can we take off all our clothes, Mama? Everything?” Othello likes being naked most. Cassius is somewhere in the middle. But Penelope now refuses the game altogether. He remains unmoved, hands stuffed into his mouth, nervously chewing on his fingernails—eyeing his brothers while they frantically peel off their shirts and shorts.

  “Yes, that’s the entire point, babycakes! Let’s get this party started!”

  Whenever I run wild or dance, or take a spontaneous dive into our pond, the kids all crack up. “Look at Mama!” they screech, doubling over. “Go, Mama, go!” They rarely see me letting loose like that. If I’m not cleaning or organizing homework, I’m usually reading a book from my favorite spot on the daybed, or scribbling in my journal on the couch. But on the rare occasion when they’re watching me sprinting, being the first one to jump into the water, or doing a cartwheel on the grass, I think it lets them know that Mama has it in her, too, that desire to be limitless.

  For me, freedom means protection. It means a safe space to run wild without prying eyes. It means family close enough to touch, a warm meal, a cozy home. But freedom is not the same for everyone. What makes me feel liberated doesn’t necessarily do it for the next person—not exactly and not profoundly. And what’s more, even if I have access to freedoms—like family and safety and love—if there’s just one thing oppressing me, I feel I’m being choked.

  I’m continuing to find that out with Penelope. Although he has those freedoms, lots of love and a caring family, he is still fighting. Fighting for his identity, warring with his body. And in this moment, on our front lawn, with our mountains and eagles and sunshine surrounding us, that fight, for him, is overshadowing everything else.

  “Take off your shorts, Pleppy. Feel the grass on your tush!” I prodded him, smiling. But Penelope continued to pull back, retreating a little more into his seat on the porch.

  “I got this.” Joe, reluctant to participate in my game, seized the opportunity to tend to Penelope. “P and I’ll watch you Wild Things from the hammock. Let’s go swing in the hammock, P.”

  Penelope grabbed his dad’s hand and in unison they took several steps toward the edge of the porch, plopping themselves into our white hammock while the rest of us streaked across the lawn. While we screamed and laughed and ran back and forth, Penelope watched, cuddled up close to Joe with his face drawn, gnawing on his fingernails.

  Even after all the conversations we had, after all that Penelope revealed to me about being “boy,” I know he’s far from free.

&nbs
p; * * *

  —

  The battle with the body is a long, ultimately solo journey. One that starts as soon as we’re born. In the beginning, our bodies serve a clear purpose: to breathe and eat, move and think, grow and refuel. The soul, I believe, is at peace with the body during this stage. But the trouble starts as we accumulate more filters—more ways of labeling ourselves: Black, female, older, ethnic, metropolitan. All those filters start elbowing their way in, vying for dominance, creating a division between our bodies and our authentic selves. The body then becomes vain—caring more about the size, shape, and color of it than about what the soul has to say. This is when the soul and the body start their battle. From my experience, no one escapes this struggle; there are no free passes.

  It’s only with wisdom and experience that we can make it through, releasing the vanity and returning, over time, to the purposeful. I think about this often from our front porch as I look out at nature: What are we humans meant for?

  Since having Penelope, I’d been thinking a lot about the body—what it was made for versus what we force it to do. And what kinds of stories it tells. My own body tells me that I birthed four children, that I’ve smiled a lot over the years, and that I am strong.

  Penelope’s body, I knew, told a different story, as all bodies do. For Penelope, the body reminded him that people saw him differently from the way he saw himself. They saw Girl, he understood Boy. Seeing him hanging back from the rest of us while we laughed on the grass, I was reminded of just how much Penelope hated his form. How much he hated the assumptions his particular body stirred up—assumptions about who he was and what he should or shouldn’t be doing.

  A few weeks later, back in Brooklyn, an old friend I hadn’t seen in a long time was passing through town and asked to stop by our place in Brooklyn. She wanted to catch up with me and see the kids. I had first met her through Serge some twenty years ago, just after I’d graduated from Spelman and was living downtown. Maripol was a photographer and fashion stylist from France who clothed the likes of Madonna and Basquiat. She hung out at Nell’s, my favorite nightclub from my high school years, snapping Polaroids of her eccentric friends—creative outsiders, just like herself.

  I was always impressed by the fact that she knew all the trendsetters, a mix of people who refused to conform: artists and singers, models and muses, all with wild spirits. They surpassed their gender, their race, and their class. Maripol was my friend but I looked up to her; she was an example of the type of human I wanted to be: free. The passing years had made her a bit more mellow, but she still buzzed with the same electricity that had drawn me to her all those years ago.

  “Your three boys are so handsome!” she’d said while she rolled with us throughout our day, tagging along during the regular routine. “But didn’t you have a little girl, too, no?” The question lingered in the air as she looked from Cassius to Penelope to Othello. I smiled, moving my head vaguely, but otherwise revealed nothing.

  “Strange, I guess I must be remembering Georgia when she was small!…But no, I could have sworn you had a little girl…?” Her voice trailed. She laughed it off as older-woman memory failure, and I didn’t disagree with her. I thought, The right time will come. Wait for it, Jodie. No need to force it.

  When it was time for the boys’ bath later that night, Maripol followed me and the kids into the bathroom. Leaning on the archway of the door, she casually watched me undress the boys while we chatted and laughed. First socks, then shirts, then jeans got tossed onto the floor. But when, finally, the kids dropped their underwear and Penelope was naked, legs spread apart as he started climbing into the oversized tub, my friend’s mouth dropped open. Suddenly, there was a break in her laughter as she struggled to catch up. There was no disgust or anger on her face, but clearly she was attempting to do some mental math, adding up the scene in front of her.

  Maripol tugged on my shirtsleeve, and her eyes begged me for an explanation. With my own eyes, I asked her to be kind, to wait until later when I could explain. I turned away from her, continuing to splash water around, distracting the boys with bubbles. I looked over at Penelope, hoping to relay a sense of calm. But it was too late; his shoulders had started to slump, his eyes darting between my startled friend and his brothers, then down at himself as he compared notes and connected the dots. With only my smile, I tried to tell him that everything was fine, that this was just another bath time. Just another evening. That my friend wasn’t staring at him. That he was perfect and complete.

  All day Penelope had been a normal boy. All day Maripol had witnessed Penelope as “he.” All day Penelope had made sense—until his body was exposed, telling a different story.

  Here it goes again, I thought. The body stirring up trouble, making a mess and confusing the truth.

  * * *

  —

  The story of trans people, to me, was shaping up to be very similar to the story of Black people, of women, of people of color all over the world. Of all oppressed people throughout history. Stories in which some have tried to rewrite people’s identities to serve their own needs.

  I saw people trying to rewrite Penelope all the time, into a tomboy, or a misguided girl. And of course, he was none of those things. Penelope is a boy—with a vagina. That’s just how he was born. We are who we are not because of the body, but because of the soul.

  If I can work on that truth with Penelope, if I can deemphasize the body parts just enough to disentangle them from gender so that they can do the things Penelope actually enjoys, like throwing balls fast and furiously and one-arm push-ups, then, I think, I can help Penelope be free.

  He’s never been a gloomy kid. In fact, his natural disposition is joyful—he is bubbly and determined, eager to learn and be and do it all. But those emotions come out only when his armor is on. If Penelope’s hair is cut in the exact Mohawk he likes, if his underwear is decorated with superheroes, if he’s wearing his favorite wide-leg Wranglers. When all of these things are laid over his body just so, Penelope feels protected and safe. That’s when you see the dynamic kid, the chatty kid, the front-of-the-line kid. That’s when the straight-up rock star emerges.

  But take those things away, and the light vanishes—he retreats further and further from us.

  I knew that if I allowed Penelope’s visuals to take the lead, he might forever be in doubt of himself. Forever stuck in those defeating bath time moments, like the one witnessed by Maripol that left him feeling inadequate. I’d rather help Penelope—help all of my kids, in fact—nurture their emotions. Build the fortress from within. Make them see that, yes, the body is a beautiful thing, sometimes a peculiar thing, but not the only thing. And certainly not the thing we rely on to tell us fundamentally who we are. In order to push us all a little closer toward true freedom when it came to the body, I knew we had to go deep.

  Every household has a belief system. Every mama sets a tone with her kids, whether she wants to or not. Intentionally or otherwise, we teach our children values, a certain code of ethics that remains with them throughout their lives. We spend years trying to sort out what we believe in, then we share those beliefs with our children, infusing them with our ideas of right and wrong.

  At the top of my list was knowing that everything good, everything real and true, comes from deep inside, beneath the surface.

  The culture I was now interested in cultivating with my kids was one of depth, and of purpose. Of training the mind to listen to what it really has to say. If there is one thing I’ve learned over the years, through relationships, career experiences, and the many years I’ve spent reconsidering myself, it’s that we are who we know ourselves to be, not how others perceive us. We are strong, we are wise, we are capable. Regardless of what people see or assume when they look at us. Not the most revelatory of messages, I know, but one that I’ve stumbled over and kept coming back to; a message that has kept me going time and time again.

/>   And so it became my mission to steadily undo all the stereotypes we’d learned about the body—all the stories that tell us who we’re supposed to be and what we’re expected to do.

  We are not a shy family. I often cook in my underwear, as my mother did when I was growing up. And the kids regularly hang around the house in little more than their boxers all day, reading books, doing homework, cleaning up, doing chores. More and more, I encouraged the body to be exposed; I wanted to remove the mystery. Put the body out into the open so we could see it for what it is: a house of endless possibilities, varied and unique—no two ever exactly the same. I wanted to dismantle any notions of an ideal body, and to show my kids that what’s most important is that it is theirs—to admire and adorn and perhaps contemplate, but never, ever to compare.

  The body is overanalyzed and micromanaged as far as I’m concerned. Women, myself included, seem to talk more about the outside—about the length of our eyelashes or the size of our lips—than we do about what we’re feeling and thinking. I rarely hear people talking about beauty in the purposeful way, the way my grandmother taught me to think about it, where you “nurture the roots” so something strong and healthy can grow.

  Picking apart the body piece by piece—that’s not what it’s made for. What’s important is the fluidity and the connection of the different parts. We dissect our bodies, but when we put it in motion, when it either does or does not perform, we understand why it was made—to be useful, purposeful, powerful. The body is not to be obsessed over or dwelled upon, inch by inch. What’s always been most fascinating to me about it is what it can do. I’m into the doing part. My women taught me that.