The ghost story begins with a cold.
And the origins of the cold begin in Florida. Mickey Mouse shaped waffles and gallons of caffeine energize my sisters and I as we spiritedly adventure through the epic fantasy worlds of Harry Potter and Disney.
I pinpoint the shuttle to the airport as the sniffle agitator. The arctic air billowing out from the vents (flimsy and fragile) topples over and crushes a vacation-hijacked nervous system.
I tumble back from my rollercoaster travels with the dreaded hot hiss of a sore throat. Soon the soreness spreads and dramatizes into sneezes that viciously consume several rolls of toilet paper and a Kleenex box…maybe two.
I binge on Vitamin C and decide to treat myself to a Netflix romantic comedy. Only my selection irritates me – even more than the stampedes of lava from my nose. I find myself furiously fed up from an overt display of toxic masculinity twisted to be funny and an objectification of women that triggers my physical appearance insecurities stemming from this patriarchal society.
I return to the main menu fuming, drooling and on a mission to select a film that will present real women, a film that will educate, empower and amplify empathy.
“Suffragette.”
In uniting with the British women fighting for the right to vote, I reignite in a blaze that fiercely shines for my women, for the wellbeing, protection, celebration and joy of all feminine dominant beings.
And as my cold charades from sneezes to coughs, I feel relief in revisiting my feminist roots. Couch snuggled with my pit bull goddess, Kali Ma, I hungrily dive heart-first into documentaries: “Reversing Roe,” “Seeing Allred,” “14 Women” and “Miss Representation”. And to my feverish delight YouTube gifts me the full-feature of “Iron Jawed Angels,” an HBO film focused on American suffrage.
I sit riveted and heart-leaping to embrace the anguish, the grit, the resilient spirit soaring through the stories.
And in watching their stories, I see my own.
I shift into witnessing my past few years here in Austin – this city where I had to break a rent contract because of a stalking neighbor and I still had to pay two months of rent, even though there was a clear statement in the rent agreement that granted me the legal right to leave and not pay if these certain circumstances were to occur, circumstances that explained my predicament. And I didn’t advocate for myself because I operated on lizard-brain and fear propelled me to stay far and far away.
I forgive myself.
Then, the lights come up on the past two years in the new world of comedy, of improv, and the rising feminine strengthens me to finally admit to the chauvisnm confronted. I smiled a half-smile, struggled with a confused heart as I improvised with men whom I love, and dealt with the subtle and overt sexism that governed scenes. I revisit the past facing how I perpetuated certain female stereotypes.
Despite my college education in gender-women studies, despite my training in advocacy and working at a domestic violence agency, I still fell into silence when teased and the teasing left me emotionally whiplashed, when criticized by these male comedians about my “kindness,” and when the silence breaks, I’m the one burdened with the consequences. Nothing for the boys’ club changes.
I see the young girls I teach and how they are left out, again and again, in scenes with their male peers, and how I see their faces fall when they are pushed out, ignored, talked over, their clever and imaginative offers neglected. And how do I help you?
And I think of those boys, because their actions are not intentional, a lack of awareness that I want to effectively address, and I think of the men I have befriended in this comedy scene and how their humor is so often their armor, and how it takes time to find men who are strong enough to express feelings and stay in emotional vulnerability on stage.
As my body detoxifies, my heart releases the disappointment, the outrage, the helplessness. I slide into a lowness reminiscent of my college days where I studied human rights, which most often translated to studying how humans have had no rights and continue to be stripped of their rights, and the atrocities, the silent and everyday horrors that strategically diminish and kill people’s spirits to fight for what is their birthright – a life of freedom.
That’s right – comedian bros – laugh at me and call me too kind. Mistaking my hard-fought-for joy as naïveté. It’s because I’ve seen the ugliest underbelly of human nature that I know to lean and refuel in joy to live in this world. And in a world determined to appreciate the masculine over the feminine, I dedicate to keep expressing and honoring the feminine. And the documentaries, the films, just illuminate the controlling patriarchal threads that I know I weave in -- it just made those maneuverings so much more visible.
I brood as I move like molasses from my day-to-day to-do’s. Truthfully, I’m lodged in a paralysis. And perhaps it’s the last phase of this diligent cold, but there’s a sinking overwhelm that meets everything with despair. I keep frantically searching for my resiliency, my sparkling grit, because, as I am told over and over again, “Meredith always lands on her feet.”
And I am proud of my capacity to transmute the challenge into rallying and optimistic energy, but that spark is not here, not today.
And I don’t know how to speak. for it will be exceptionally messy and not eloquent in encompassing my feelings, but when my roommate asks me how my day is going, I cannot lie, and I crack into infuriated tears and nonlinear observations, and she listens. She profoundly listens. She understands without diving into analysis, without trying to make me feel better or worse, but she sees me and I let her see me in this grappling of mourning and integrating and attempting to understand how to be an empowered feminine presence in this world, in this society, in this improvised scene.
She changes her plans and stays with me for the evening, and this female friendship brings the light back in.
And in the morning, I feel refreshed in aliveness, I reconnect to my spark, and I credit that to Barb.
And in reflecting, in writing, I remember I promised you a ghost story, because there’s a ghost story here in the in between, somewhere between the running nose and the barking cough. In an evening after a documentary, I practice gentle yoga to sweetly stretch. An abrupt wash of cold wakens me up to a sudden emergence of feminine energy.
I have company.
I look up to see a pulsating blue light, a beautiful and bright blue light that then outlines an elegant and distinguished feminine profile, and I feel astonished and slightly unnerved, and then she recollects herself back into the orb of light, and flashes into invisibility.
I share the visitation with Barb, and we speculate it could be my grandmother, or perhaps my grandmother’s mother, Maude, an educated and independent flapper who taught kindergarten and her teaching methodology relied on LOVE – no hitting or punishment – to instruct and empower. Or perhaps, my namesake Kingsley, a suffragette who marched, had her own library and made sure all her children received an education.
Or perhaps the light was a brilliant illusion from a cold-reeling mind.
Now, at the end of my cold, caffeinated and cozied up with words and the remedy of writing, I believe that the visitation – from the other side or the ever-creative mind – appeared to affirm that I am not alone, I am connected and cared for and guided and encouraged to love myself exactly as I am (because a woman who loves herself completely and believes in her power shakes the patriarchy), and to love and support other feminine expressive beings.
The ghost story begins with a cold. The cold revolutionizes the blaze that burns through the blockages and reroutes my comedic journey. And the forward movement will be in step with the past, the present, the future feminine presence in all her radiant glory.