The Power of Invisibility

Today an old Helen Reddy song drifted out from the radio: “I Am Woman.” A song, no, more an anthem, of female strength and possibility, and the power of a movement built on that strength, that possibility. Today the song has become at worst a charicature, and at best an icon, an emblem. Either way, when I heard it, my heart leapt, and my mind embarked upon a journey back. This song has meaning for me, but not for the reasons one might think.

When my daughter started coming into her own just before her fifth birthday, that glimmer of self-actualization that comes with the promise of school, my husband burned a mix CD to play at her birthday party. My husband is notorious for this, the compiling of songs across genres, ages, to commemorate occasions. He has always done this, in the days of cassette recorders held close to a radio, before CDs, or the internet, before Kaaza and filesharing. He wrapped the CD in pink paper and bestowed it upon my daughter the week before her party. She loved it, and requested we play the CD ad nauseum, whenever music was appropriate, and even when it wasn’t. One of the songs on the CD was Helen Reddy’s “I am Woman.” I laughed the first time I heard it proclaim from the speakers of the stereo: “I am Woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore…” the humor inherent in the juxtaposition of my chubby bud of a flower, her round cheeks, small hands, innocence, with the concept of womanhood. And intertwined with the humor was the promise, the possibility, of full-fledged splendor in that bud.

One morning, I walked into my bedroom to find my soon-to-be five-year-old jumping joyfully in the center of our king-sized bed. She was achieving admirable height, the boxspring emitting a generous creak with each indentation of her feet in the bedspread. As she jumped she sang the lyrics of the Helen Reddy song, or her version at least. I leaned against the doorframe and listened. As she bounded up to the chorus I heard her proclaim, “I am STRONG, I am INVISIBLE, I am WOMAAAAN!” It took all my strength to suppress a laugh that seemed to begin at my toes and move up through my body, gathering momentum as it climbed. INVISIBLE. With the pure, unadulterated conviction of a five-year-old, my daughter had changed the meaning of strength for women everywhere. Rather than laugh, I walked to the bed and held my arms out, and she jumped into them. Later, at the park, I watched her on the swings. The word pulsed in my head in time with the rhythmic squeak of the heavy metal swingset. InVISible. InVISible.

It’s not self-evident, but there is strength in that word. There has always been strength in it, although I had never realized it. All my life I feared my invisibility. All my life I have worked hard to be seen, to be valued, to be recognized. At times when I have not been granted this validation, I have acted out, subtly perhaps, in socially acceptable ways, but still. I am not alone. Women as a people have done the same, gone to great lengths to equalize the recognition, the visibility, between women and men. And successful women have become hardened in the process, steeled by their own resolve. InVINCible.

But then I think about the power of invisibility. The success of an equality that is so understood, so embedded in societal norms it is invisible. Or the invisibility of a well-placed microphone, a fly on the wall, an infiltrator within a movement. A clandestine effort, or an effort no longer needed, because the goal has been achieved, fully and without question. In these ways, invisibility is more a success, and stronger, than invincibility. Perhaps my daughter is correct in her unwitting assumption. There is wisdom in her alternative hearing of this anthem, her childlike sense of it. Perhaps, by the time she blossoms into womanhood, the anthem of her childhood, as she understood it then, will ring true for women everywhere.

I no longer fear my invisibility. I embrace it, combined as it is with my strength. I am strong, and when I am invisible, I am so with purpose, intent, and the power inherent in flying under the radar. Watch out, world, for what you can’t see can change you just as effectively as that which hulks before your eyes. Perhaps even moreso.

Celebration of Earthenware

I am no lipless Lenox diplomat.
My mouth has thick red curbs that stop

the flow of words, inhale ideas, keep secrets,
press them into smaller lies and spit them out.

These lips, the indelicate curve of hip, heavy handle
of my womanhood, form an empty vessel for your pain.

Feel the hand-smoothed heft of bone, tempered
by the elemental drench of water, fire –

Nestle me between your palms, run your winter fingers
Along each blessed edge, face close enough for steam on glasses.

Remember that the light does not move through me,
I absorb, transmute, swirl it out in kiln-fired countrysides

of color. I am utterly opaque. I hold a healthy portion,
sustenance. To live, you must gulp instead of sip.

-- (c) J.E.S. 1995. All rights reserved, in all media, both domestically and internationally.

Forward

I lost a friend recently.

He was a fellow traveler on this journey. Only his baggage grew too heavy and he fell behind, or made a pitstop, or perhaps a detour. I'm not quite sure how or why it happened. My initial reaction was that of one punched hard in the stomach: the breathlessness, the valiant attempt to take in oxygen, the failure, the panic. Once I recovered my breath, the words of Robert Frost drifted to mind: "nothing gold can stay." I felt sorry for myself, and cried and mourned and railed against this life, asking why it is that the beautiful moments must be so fleeting, and why in their leaving there must be so much pain. Then there was the awful realization: There is no way I can go forward alone. I don't have it in me, it was in him all along, or in us together.

Then: I don't want to go on without him.

I was overcome with the desire to lay my body down, nestle my head in the leaves, and give up. Not write this, or anything. I was flooded with the desire to trudge home to my comfortable little brokenness and shut the door, lock it behind me, and stay. But then, like a flash of daylight through the aspen, I remembered that the journey began long before this one leg, and I began this journey alone after all, as did he, always knowing that we would probably end it alone as well. The words of a wise and passionate poet rang in my ears: "freedom is won alone, or not at all." Perhaps no truer words were ever written.

It occurs to me that in the scheme of things, this friendship has been a bit like a soft bed, a warm fire, a nourishing meal in the course of these travels. Our time together adds up to a handful of truly great thoughts, amazing connections, moments of stark clarity, of pure beauty, of much needed hope. It occurs to me that perhaps we were not meant to share the journey but to spur each other on in our separate paths. Or perhaps we were just a checkpoint, a respite, on this long, difficult venture toward becoming our truest, best selves. I don't know. There is so much I don't know. But I do know that I have been changed somehow by those moments, that connection. No one can steal that, twist or diminish it, as hard as one may try. The ways in which we have bettered each other, strengthened each other, reflected each other's greatness, are ours to keep and use as we need, going forward. Ever forward.

Today's Wisdom

“Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Continue to learn. Appreciate your friends. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is.” —Mary Anne Radmacher