I received a pretty email this morning from the pretty Persimmon Tree, An Online Magazine of the Arts By Women Over Sixty, and as those of you who have paid attention know (and there will be a quiz) I more or less am a woman over, gulp, sixty.
This presents a problem. I mean, look at those faces. Would you want me in your group? If you were them? (Christ, the things I’ve torn up along the way, from mediation retreats to long-term relationships …)
I don’t go into these things intending to be Bad.
I think the question is, am I Bad because I was a certified Hippie Chick, or did landing in Berkeley just in time for the real Sixties provide an theretofore undreamt-of outlet for Bad. And the answer, of, is the latter. In every class, at every lecture, there is a small group in the back of the room making snide remarks (now known as snark) entertaining themselves highly, because above all, snark humor finds itself very funny.
Snark flows onto the page like water, and then you read it and marvel that you should have been given such a gift. Where was I.
Bad goes hand in hand with seeing the truth, almost like a child—faithful readers will remember my “Why are there lobbies, in a democracy, Daddy?” —and seeing it funny. Or making it funny, so as to be remotely palatable.
A Bad woman uses the word Fuck almost as often as, routinely, do men.
A Bad woman needs men, in all the best ways women need men, but doesn’t shrink herself to suit. I used to try, like every young woman, and then the years roll on and you just plain tire of it, and the fact that you are no longer ruled first by Nice—fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.
This may not be true of younger men, some, but I can—and have—left grown men in tears, just by swearing, speaking my mind, saying No. They can’t handle it. Doesn’t compute. Fall on the floor. Their problem.
Naw, they don’t want me at Persimmon.org. Makes you wonder though, those nice grey heads. No I don’t color my hair, were any of your beeswax. But I could be all grey and still this mix of ornery and really, the very, very good. Surely I am not alone. Surely some of those women are long-time prisoners of Nice.
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Like Groucho, you wouldn’t belong to any club…and so on. Sometimes not fitting in feels real good.
You so sweet. Something tells me you maybe a bit Bad. Fun, ain’t it!