The Curved Bodies of Fishes

On Harvey Weinstein and living with male entitlement to our bodies.

Grey Herons stalk their prey and then strike. They forage alone, sometimes at night. They eat mostly fish, but need a pound of food each day, and to satiate their hunger, will prey opportunistically on other aquatic creatures: snakes, insects, frogs and lizards and also on small mammals: chipmunks, squirrels, baby rabbits and ducklings. 

The New York Times headline sat in my inbox, "Harvey Weinstein’s New York Conviction Is Overturned."

I was flummoxed. Uprooted. I wanted to be angry, but I was too tired. Too bruised from the constant battle over who owns my body – the voters, the laws, the politicians who don't even know my name. 

I am also busy. Busy trying to human with some grace and independence from the calamity and horror of the world, while also trying to live utterly connected to it all. 

In a recent essay here on Substack, Steve Salinda quoted Julian of Norwich, who, near death in 1373, heard from Jesus. She wrote down the revelations, creating what is now recognized as the first book in English written by a woman. Her message, which at the time was not in line with the church, contained the idea that, “In the sight of God all humans are oned, and one person is all people and all people are in one person." 

I am not a Christian, though I believe in God and Jesus, but only the God and Jesus who wanted us to love on each other more. I believe in Krishna and Ganesha, Kali and Lakshmi, (all of the Hindu Gods and Goddesses, there are just too many to name them all here). I believe in Buddha. I believe that we are all one, that what we do affects the whole. 

Before I was first married, my Once-Husband and I had a best friend, Paul. The three of us lived in San Diego and were into rock climbing in the desert. Well, they were into rock climbing in the desert and I was into hanging out with them. I wanted to be the cool girl who did the things guys liked to do. I am glad I had this tendency to morph into who I thought Once wanted me to be, though I recognize that sounds rather creepy. Hear me out. It opened me up to experiences I would not have otherwise had. I would not have gone climbing on my own or with girlfriends. I would not have learned how to wrench on a Landcruiser. I would not have moved to Central America. 

Out east of San Diego, in a town called Santee, there is an outcropping of granite boulders miles from the foothills, forgotten by the mountains in some ancient explosion of tectonics, called Big Rock. No points were given for originality here.

One morning at Big Rock, we watched a young woman lead a climb up a large granite mound, no top rope holding her onto the rock, just c-shaped chunks of metal pounded into the granite at intervals several feet apart, through which her rope passed. If she fell, she would fall as far as the distance between herself and her last piece of protection. And then that far again. A fall on a lead climb can be a dozen feet, sometimes more. If you fall on a top rope, you only fall the distance equal to the amount of slack between your partner on the ground and your safety harness, one hopes not more than a couple of feet. Generally, people don't lead climb until they feel very secure on a top rope. 

As we watched, her friend leaned over, proud, and said, "This is her first climb." We looked at him, at her, back at him. "She's leading on her first climb?" We were a bit shocked, and also impressed. He shrugged, said, "She doesn't know it's hard because I didn't tell her it was. She just thinks this is how you climb."

She thinks this is how you climb. The mind, set free from certain limitations because it doesn't know they exist.

If turning 50 is the top of the roller coaster, the precipice at which you know there is no going back, at which you have to surrender to the screaming terror and sublime joy of free falling back to earth; 51 is that first second you tip over the apex. At 51, it's final. We are hurtling, certainly, toward the end of our lives and we can now surrender to what's come before, and to knowing what comes next is finite. We can let ourselves fall rapidly, giddily, drunk with that knowing, all the way down the track.

Last night, I took myself to my favorite swimming creek. There's a long drive involved, and then a short hike down The Only Hill in Austin, then the creek, hidden, falling over itself, at the base of the ravine. 

It was late, 8pm, by the time I parked. Other cars still lingered, but as I descended the hill, I ticked on my fingers the people leaving, Determined Biker, Young Family, People on a Date, Single Lady with Dog. By the time I got to the bottom, I was the only person around. 

I stopped, took in the sacredness of water rushing over rock. The palest of blue sky lit only by the last arc of sun moving over the horizon, the water clear, the curved bodies of fishes waving along the bottom. 

The water was cool, silky, accepting of my body, enclosing around my limbs and my belly, matting my hair against my neck. I swam out into the creek, north, then turned myself around, floating slowly downstream on my back. And then the heron came. Floating and dipping above me, an arrow silhouette in the fading light. 

Blue-grey feathers, spotted belly, long thin neck. He stood just in the rushes, semi-hidden behind a tree. I crept, slowly through the water, an alligator with a predatory desire only to see, to be in the presence of such grace and ferocity. I crawled out on a rock when I started to shiver. He didn't seem to mind. I moved away from the mini falls, towards the bank, he moved towards the river, towards me. I crept back, slowly, bird-like to my rock and we sat together like that, bird and not-bird, oned as the light faded.

I finally crept off my rock in the almost dark and started back up the hill. As a woman, I am not supposed to go swimming or hiking alone at night. As a woman, I am always aware of my body and how it only partially belongs to me. As Ashley Judd said in response to the Weinstein ruling, "This is what it’s like to be a woman in America, living with male entitlement to our bodies." This is what it's always been like, living in a female body. 

As I climbed the hill, I was aware of being the only person, a woman, and a small woman at that, in a vast area of rocks, trees and water. I sped up, and wondered if by running to get to the top faster, I would be easier prey, tired and not able to outrun a man in the dark. These were not uncommon thoughts or even particularly scary thoughts, they were the thoughts of any woman or girl, anywhere, alone at night. I tried to concentrate on memories of the heron, on the speckled feathers of its belly, on the soft, warm wind on my body. On the hushed orange glow of the last light far to the west, on the fireflies sparkling in the brush. Joy, flashing on and off, on and off, on and off, as the crickets watched, turned up their song. A chorus of light and sound. 

I slowed down and felt the rocks beneath my feet, listened to the nightjar call in the distance. I thought about how, if someone did or did not come out of the woods, either way, I am ready. Not to fight, but to surrender, right now, in this moment to not being afraid, to understanding the risk, but to also understanding that it is an inherent risk, one I cannot change.

I am ready to let go. To believe there is more good than bad, that in not letting fear take over my body, I create the space to let myself fall all the way down this ride into wonder, joy, love.

I create the space to be oned with the world.

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My grey heron.