Because the Fierce

"We are defined by the lines we choose to cross or to be confined by." A.S. Byatt

I writhe when I feel trapped.

I grew up in the Seventies with parents who embraced a Fifties-ish ethos. I don't know how, but Mom and Dad missed the Sixties. The dirty funky realness of humanity was anathema in my family. We didn't sit; we perched. The house was vacuumed and bug-sprayed and Endusted enough to foil the efforts of a crack forensic investigator.

So I turned to thought crime.

It started with brackish daydreams fueled by my mother's Pocket Book copy of The Sensuous Woman and my dad's cherry issues of Penthouse purchased "for the articles".

It's no mystery that I prefer reading erotica to watching porn.

I committed nightly thought crimes, accompanied by explicit Kathleen Woodiwiss novels where pirates overcame serving girls, peppered with a little Sidney Sheldon, chased with Judith Krantz's Scruples. Oh, how I wanted to be overcome.

In my family of origin, turning down corners in a book was forbidden. I was tutored in proper page turning. My literary wank collection was dog-eared at all the good parts.

It's no mystery that I love to write in the margins.

There is much I have not written, do not write, for fear:

*I am not a good girl. I just play one in public.

*I don't want to hurt anyone. Although if brainwaves were audible, I'd be on Death Row.

*I feel bad that others might feel bad. (See above: Fifties-era parents)

But Anne Lamott reminds me, "You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should've behaved better."

Held inside, the moldy dark tangles my steps and heavies my heart.

Writing it is dancing.