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The bartender has long curly hair and round glasses. He wears a dark buttoned shirt with pink and purple flowers. He resembles Jon Lennon through a window blurred from rain. We bump into each other—off on the wrong step. We hold eye contact too long and don’t say anything. The girl I used to be would have laughed and asked a question to break the silence. The woman I am stands with my hands visible and waits. I’ve no makeup on, and this aspect makes me less proud.
Josie and I order appetizers and wine. I chose a glass of Soleil. A Piquette, it’s dry and fizzy and bubbles in my mouth, matching my mood. Piquette is a French word for ‘prickle’ and dates back to the Greecian period. Piquette wine was called Lora and served only to the enslaved people at its inception. It’s made from the leftovers, cheap to produce, and light in alcoholic concentration. Salute! Josie orders champagne.
Over winter squash, butterbeans, and lightly roasted tomatoes, we recount the meanderings of our weekend. Josie wore the blue crop top biking in Sedona, camped out with her crush in bunk beds, and purchased boxed wine from Target. It is a luxury for someone previously living in Moab, Utah, where the strict liquor laws make it difficult to buy a cocktail.
The dismantling of the ‘Zion Curtain’ allows bars and restaurants to mix and pour drinks in view of consumers. The spectacle is what lures one to drink, so many establishments still currently conceal the liquors, wines, and hop. Josie regales with Utah’s liquor regulations: beer on tap must be 3.2%—cocktails follow an illiberal measurement of 1.5 oz of primary booze with secondary flavourings totalling 2.5 oz— beverages must be served with food (Josie would order chips and salsa)—and drinks must be purchased at a state-operated establishment. Liquor stores have limited hours and are closed on Sundays.
I ask the question I’m dying to understand and discover that Josie is not a Mormon. She is from Minnesota by origin, not Utah.
Is withholding more powerful than moderation? A great pitfall of humans is our appetite for extremes—abstinence trumps temperance. The suppression of desire leads to its rupture. The difference between a rupture and rapture is that one is pleasureful while the other is courted through guilt.
Josie feels guilt over her connection with a friend, a Taurus; I can relate.
It’s like I am always doing the wrong thing in relationships.
How so?
I love who I am with, and I also desire to flirt.
What’s wrong with that?
I know that it would hurt the other person.
That has nothing to do with you—you cannot control how others respond to you.
I haven’t been honest.
Why?
It will hurt him. I would rather be sad.
You are not in alignment with your integrity right now.
It seems unfair that one of us will be hurting. It’s me right now, or him.
What are you protecting?
The pain... This will cost me some of my closest friendships.
Why?
I feel ashamed. People will judge me.
Let them. You cannot please everyone all of the time.
I know.
What you're doing is self-sacrifice. It’s Christianity at its finest!
The whip! — she mimes lashing her back.
You do not need to suffer. Love is light. It is freeing.
It's so hard!
Your friends will understand, and if they don't, you are not losing anything.
The need to please and protect is inherent. It’s steeped in our DNA. Josie’s unfettered recount of her feelings reminds me of The Dutchess with Keira Knightly. In a wildly more subtle and less-fantastic form, Josie is experiencing a thread of what women have collectively expressed regardless of the decorous details. Loss of personal freedom; Shame for spontaneous arousal; maintaining appearances to appease the Other; negating personal truths to uphold the ideals of the collective—these constructs are not unusual.
I once knew a woman who refused to leave her abusive partner because it would send him into deeper depression and alcoholism. Her justification was that her departure from a violent situation was not an appropriate expression of Ahimsa, Sanksrit for ‘non-harming.’ We stood toe-to-toe at a yoga studio, and I whispered what I should have shouted from the staircase. Ahimsa means Radical Self Love. All things start and end with you. You are harming yourself by not acting on what you feel and what you know to be true. To practice Ahimsa is to love yourself first.
One who fakes a smile: we leave the restaurant with our hearts a little bruised.
The walk home is cold and windy. I rush my steps, my blood boiling. I'm angry at the burdens we feel we must carry. The whip! I want to shake the bowl until its contents spill out so everyone can see what's on the bottom.
I arrive home to a text; it's Josie.
Thank you again for listening and giving such great advice tonight. I already started the talk with Cancer-boy, and I’m feeling so much better about everything. You’re my advice angel!
When I smile, it's a lash against the dark sky. The stars are immobile. Nothing will burst tonight. A Jupiter-Neptune Conjunction embraces us. Astrologically, the time is ripe with Hope.
Photo, source.
