Little Wee One

My nose is cold.

That was the primary thought I had in Mass today, that, and my cheeks were burning with the cold and probably blushing bright pink since I'm in our poor little parish church that keeps the heat bill low, and did I have a jacket, yes, and were other people wearing theirs, yes, but was shy little me, so worried what other people would think about the little girl in the second pew putting on her jacket and the thought 'what would they think?' kept gnawing at me, so did I put it on or did I just suffer the cold?

Yeah, right.

When ... well, we had an exchange student from Belgium when I was in high school whose name was Jean-Paul which sounds a lot to American ears like 'bean pole,' and so I would get looks when people called out his name.

I am a wee one. One hundred twenty pounds with my clothes on (and shoes) ... on a good day, and oh, so sensitive, yes, in that way (and in other ways) to the cold, it's what? 40°F outside today, and when I was leaving that cold, cold church, I sprinted to my little red car as the 'cold' knifed into me.

Stop laughing at me, please.

And if the cold kills me, the heat is worse. Back in high school near the end of the school year it was one of those hot CT summers were it was 105°F and oh-so-humid, and I was standing in the back listening to the principal, and all the sudden everything spun and then I was looking up at the ceiling and everybody was so tall looking down at me and I was lying on the floor, and I was like, 'oh, God! no, not again!' but it was just pale little nothing me fainting from the heat, was all.

"Walk of shame"? That's me, being escorted to the nurse's office, trying to tell anybody who'd listen that I was fine now.

So, well, I'm nothing to look at, if you're sizing me up, then I'm the featherweight, the push-over, the picked-on nerdy kid with her hand raised every time the teacher asks a question, the 'I could beat her up, the queer,' because, yes, some people have actually thought that.

M.J. for one. He was the school bully, and they were always having to air-brush out his raised middle fingers, in every single class photo. I mean, he was just mean, and mad, his yearbook motto was that he hated 'fags, queers, and teachers.' And I didn't think I was on the radar, his radar, his hate-gaydar, because I wasn't out, you know, at school, but one night ...

I didn't live far from school, so Julia drove over to our house one night, and she and I walked to school, past M.J.'s house with the ravenous, rabid guard dog (skirt, skirt, skirt) and went to a play or a dance or something, don't remember it, don't remember what Julia and I did, 'cause we walked back, in the moonlit night, and we were walking along, Julia and I, laughing and talking, and all the sudden Julia screamed and I felt a 'thud!' on the back of my head and saw three dark blobs. I screamed at Julia to run, and I swung my mag-light and it connected and a thug went down onto the ground.

And stayed there for a few seconds. The other two guys helped the third up, and I backed up in a crouch, and I asked something like, 'who's next?' and one of them said something to me but they kept their distance and I backed away from them and ran home to find Julia in my mom's arms in hysterics, worried that I was dead or hurt or something.

I was like so high from adrenaline I didn't feel a thing, not even the bump on the back of my head, and I drove Julia home that night in her car, and well, she was really, really wound up, you know? And all scared for me and all 'my hero!' (*ahem*: 'heroine'), actually looking up to me with big, big eyes, and she couldn't get to sleep at all and I told her mom that I would look after her tonight, and I called my mom and said I was sleeping over to take care of Julia and ...

... And, well, you do know I 'started early,' right? Julia and I were 'good friends,' you know, up to that point, and I didn't, you know, do anything, because I didn't know her, you know, preference and, well ...

'My hero[ine]' sex is right up there, you know?

That's not the point ... I think (but it was very, very sweet, remembering that night and what it meant).

The point — if there is one — was that M.J. saw me in a certain way, and, looking at scrawny little nothing me, people say to themselves, 'aw, cute.'

Well, 'aw, cute' works out every day (DDR), takes Aikido, has gone to her local police station and has taken 'self-defense for women,' and I'm looking into Escrima, after I saw a demo where this one guy put in six bone-breaking moves on his partner before I could swallow at the impact of seeing the first one.

When I say 'noone will touch me without a lot of pain coming their way,' I'm not joking around. I've read the papers since I was a little girl, and I know what happens to labeled people, we get isolated, then persecuted, then executed. And there are hate crimes happening tonight in this very city.

Somebody wanting to take something out on me or on mine has got something coming at them that's much bigger than what I look like I can deliver. Touch me without my consent? I will fvck you up.

Why do I say all this? Because you think, 'aw' when you see cute little me, don't you? 'How cute! `phfina's acting all panthery, does she need a hug?'

But not everybody thinks that.

And one of those people is my mom.

I just want to say, right here, so I will, I have never hit someone I love ... but there was this one day when everything changed. Again.

I was in the living room, reading, and my mom asked me to do something, you know? Just a nothing something, like put away the dishes or take out the trash, and I ...

And I saw red. I threw my book aside and I ran right at her, screaming at the top of my lungs, and I was right in her face. Actually, for the first time in my life, I noticed I was looking a little bit down at my mother.

And I was looking down at a face that was scared, and a little voice inside me said, 'You are scaring your mother' as I screamed and shouted incoherently at her. And she was completely pale, and looking toward the phone, and I wondered if she was going to call Dad or call 911 and have me put back in the hospital or ...

But she asked me what was wrong, so softly, so patiently, so scared.

And I had no answer for her, just this rage and anger and hate.

I hated my own mom for asking me to do a chore, taking me away from my escape in my book to help her run the house now that Dad was gone, and what was I doing to help?

We never talked about that moment. It happened, and mom tamed the beast with her soft, caring words, and then I did the chore and life went on.

And after church today, a lady in the pew behind me, older than Brenda, I guess, tapped me on the shoulder and said, 'you sing so beautifully!' and I said, 'thank you,' and smiled at her, but then, after a second, I said, 'it was nice of you to say that to me,' and warmed my smile, and she said, 'oh, no: it was so nice to hear you sing!' and then she left with her husband, and I went home with the words John the Baptist: 'I must decrease' ringing in my ears and ...

Well, Fr. P. was angry with me. I mean, he didn't say that, but this was the first time he also didn't say 'good confession.'

I told him that it was hard for me to see God's gifts to me, like he had asked me to do, when all I've been doing this week is getting into fights with people, spoiling for fights, maybe, even. And Fr. said, "As you get older ..." — yeah, look at little baby me — "you begin to appreciate the hardest prayer was Jesus on the cross saying 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'" And he told me to appreciate God's gifts in other people. He didn't ask 'can you do that?' this time.

And, well, I went to supper with my friend Greg from group. He's an excited little puppy dog, and he and his wife are having their first baby, and all supper it was about that, but also about, you know, life, and work and stuff, and he thanked me for being a friend, and listening and also not letting him get away with the bvllsh!t, you know? the lies he tells himself about himself.

And I could have told him that I wasn't drinking anymore, but he wanted and ordered a blue moon, and then he rhapsodied about single-malt Scotch and ordered the 12-year Glen Livet and ... well ...

God, I love Scotch.

Starting over — again: day one.

And "I must decrease" is burning my (cold) ears right now, and I remember the time when that actually did happen.

But that's another entry for another time addressing the question as to 'why I believe in God?'

Goodnight, my loves