grrrls dont cry

Throughout my life I have been surrounded by women who took me under their wing and nurtured me as if I were their own daughter. It is as if these strong-willed women could smell my apprehensiveness towards the world. They are sympathetic towards my cowardice because they remember the feeling of being a small girl in a world of men. My first inspiration for this project began as the winter frost subsided and the spring flowers bloomed again. My maternal grandmother and I are incredibly close, I had hoped to interview her. She did not have it easy, not that any woman ever has. Each woman is presented with limitations and predisposed judgements upon birth. Each little girl holds the grief and heartache of the woman she was made from. For this reason, my grandmother is still afraid. She said it would sadden her to reflect on her life with me. So instead, we sit under our lemon tree as she tells me what she is ready for me to know. Seeing my grandmother in a state of such fragility lit a fire inside me and forced me to make a vow. This forced me to be introspective and I swore to fully embrace my womanhood in honor of those that can’t. I cannot encapsulate her in this essay, but her grace will forever be kept in a locket in my heart. 

I looked in the mirror and saw my face as a mosaic of women that fought to provide a better life for their daughters. I see my two grandmothers who raised me while my parents tirelessly worked. I see their mothers who I only know through heirlooms, yet I like to think they would have loved me. In my mosaic I saw their husbands that they grew to be afraid of. My mosaic is my bias. My blood comes from angry men and devout women. My deep compassion for my interviewees throughout this process is derived from my family lineage, where the men have let down their own women. I cannot help but have a soft spot for women who lost their lives to The Man. Therefore, I am proud to write this essay. I am the first generation granted with the birth right of individuality and this means everything to me. Indulging in my freedom has become my life’s work. 

I constructed a large variety of questions. I was not shy and asked questions about their dreams and reality, I ensured to gain trust by telling them they only had to answer what they felt comfortable with. My idealization of independence led me to work in a restaurant when I was 17. I was young and in search of freedom. The women I look up to at my restaurant are young at heart and searching for stability. We were very different but our friendships formed with ease. Lindsay Robins is one of the women that taught me everything I know about the restaurant industry.  Named after Lindsay Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac, she was predisposed to be unapologetically herself. She has long blonde hair past her hips and a heart of steel. She is a Phoenix native and our seasoned bartender of 18 years. When I met her at 17 I thought she was untouchable, I couldn’t imagine her being weak. Now, I am older and she is my friend.  I have come to learn she is no different than any other woman that harbors heartache. In booth 11 at our restaurant she let me have a glimpse into her life. I leaned back as I asked her my pre-written questions that I hoped would lead to her own self reflection. Lindsay seemed to not be phased, I was humbled as I was the one who was left soul-searching. 

I did not know personal details about Lindsay’s life prior to this interview. I assumed she was hardworking. I assumed she was intelligent and confident. I had assumed she was content with the life she had built herself. All of these qualities proved to be true as they clearly manifested into her aura that radiated integrity and confidence. I knew she did not have children and had always worked in a restaurant. At work I call her mom. When I do she glares at me as if I was her child who had misbehaved. She always says “just because I’m old enough to be your mom doesn’t mean you need to call me that”, she must think I am poking fun at her age. In reality, I started teasing her with that when saying thank you. She has always taken care of me. We held her interview in the midst of her shift, it seems she never stops working. The bar was full of regulars and the music was loud. Every shift I have with her she has different regulars come in, she seems to create community so seamlessly. Lindsay stood outside of the box I had been taught was “The Norm”. Before working in the restaurant industry I hardly knew any adults that didn’t go to college, get married and have kids. Lindsay’s story showed me how life is not always linear. She is the baby of 7 and was brought up in the Lutheran church. To her, church was comforting. I was saddened when she revealed to me she was bullied for her weight in school. It is a  disheartening reality that little girls are held to the beauty standard of grown women. I felt a lot of empathy during this conversation, I was also bullied in school for my body. Bonding over cruelty from the outside world is a pattern I’ve noticed amongst my female relationships. The world holds so much hatred for little girls, no one is fighting for women except other women. A negative perception of Lindsay was instilled in her, she has spent her life reclaiming that power back. In her 20s she worked two jobs and went to school. She has a fire within her. She is intelligent and realized at a young age no one could take care of her better than herself. As she endlessly worked in her 20s, she would clock in for a night shift as the caretaker for her father who had fallen ill of cancer. Lindsay was still lighthearted when reflecting on personal tragedy, which is something I have always admired in women. At 30 years old, she defied all odds and became the first college graduate in her family.  She laughed as she told me stories of drunken mistakes and deadbeat boyfriends. All of this was history to her, yet I am listening to her nostalgic stories while I am in my twenties and in the midst of this phase. It was comforting to me that she was a respectable adult sharing with me the pitfalls of her life. I asked her to define success. She told me, “When I was younger I would chase the title. When I got to those levels I just wasn’t happy.”  It feels like a divine gift to know Lindsay in this capacity at such a young age. Throughout this interview I appreciated her candor. For the time we spent talking, my essential anxieties had subsided. She made me feel like it was all going to work out how it’s supposed to.

It feels as if society expects women to be fun, but not too flirty. To be independent, yet married to a man. To be educated but not be revolutionized. As a young woman, the balance of femininity seems impractical. I asked Lindsay if she felt swayed by societal pressures. She told me, “I’ve always been bluntly me. I just don’t really care. I care about certain people’s opinions of me, but as long as I like myself I don’t really care”. At that moment I was envious of her and the way she’s been able to barricade herself from the standards of others. Lindsay has made me realize a lot about myself in the 3 years we’ve spent working together and it hit me all at once in that tiny booth. Prior to the workforce I had seen myself as timid and fragile. One gust of adversity and I would be blown away. Through observation Lindsay taught me my femininity doesn’t make me weaker; I can do anything if I carry myself with perseverance. I asked her if her gender hindered her career. She told me how she once held a management position but an older man made her feel like she didn’t belong. As for her job now, she responded, “I don’t feel like my gender has anything to do with my pay. We’re all making the same $9 an hour”. She acknowledged the glass ceiling theory, but at our restaurant we were all on the same team. We are all batting against The Man. She reminded me there is time to make dreams come true. It is only done through hard work and determination. From a holistic perspective, I can see Lindsay has created this life that lies out of the cultural norm because she is someone that cannot be tied down by limitation.  During our conversation, she told me her goal was to go to the army but was denied for being overweight. I cannot imagine the ambitious woman I know adhering to someone else’s orders, but people change. She was looking for herself when she was twenty years old. Today, at forty she is still learning but she is happy. As our interview came to a close, I asked her what her one piece of advice is for young women. She replied “Not everyone is your friend”. I am honored to be her friend. 

I am surrounded by mothers. I have always admired women whose tenderness appears as natural as breathing to them, because I have had to teach myself to be soft. It may be because I have never thought of my own mother to be delicate. I feel comfortable with women that are not afraid to bite; in fact I respect them for their sincerity. These women make me feel comfortable with my own anger, they consistently show me it is just as feminine and beautiful as joy. 

My mother has always been serious and practical. I have always been a dreamer. I do not think my abstract philosophies are a reaction to my mother’s black and white thinking. It is because since birth she has been adamant that I think for myself. Despite the polarity in our thinking we have always gotten along very well. My mother weeps when I do and she would do anything to see me smile. I know her love is unconditional. For her interview, we sat in my room in our pajamas and put a record on the player. Our house is warm, safe and full of love. As I conducted the interview, I wondered if she ever gets overwhelmed by how much her life has changed since her youth. My mother’s childhood home on 3rd St. and Missori was a sentence for loneliness. It was secluded from the outside world. You wouldn’t see the turn unless you were looking for it. She told me how she dreaded the last day of school because it would be the last time she saw other kids until August. Today, the treehouse in the yard has turned rotten, there are vines growing up the tall iron gates and the house is collapsing on itself. The house is crumbling and is still full of remnants of their past. No one in my family wants to go in because they do not want to remember the life they once shared. But the walls remember. The walls were witnesses to my grandfather’s reign of terror. They would tremble with fear anytime he raised his voice, which was often. The walls are collapsing on themselves because they cannot bear to carry the burden of seeing those children cry any longer. 

 The Old House is the abandoned playground of my late grandfather’s outbursts of anger. My mother recollected how he would come home and all five children would run to their rooms, because they were afraid. She told me how she was always waiting for him to be angry again. My grandfather immigrated to America from the Philippines for medical school. He was ambitious and there was nothing in the world that could stand between him and a million dollars. He was an overachiever and insisted on being the best at everything. He was always running from the poverty he escaped and nothing ever seemed to be good enough. If you wanted to be a nurse he would have said, “You should be a doctor”. In her own words she described,  “I was raised by a father who immigrated from a dictatorship country. He was mean but he always provided, we never had to worry about money. He gave me a work ethic and taught me that you do what you have to do to get the work done”. My grandmother was the opposite. She is gentle and kind. She is a fairy godmother from a storybook, all she wishes to do is make her children’s dreams come true. My mom describes, “She did everything for her kids and always put herself last. She would get up in the middle of the night to do laundry. She still worked at the office for my dad, unpaid”. A strong work ethic is a staple in my bloodline, you are as good as dead without it..

My mother and her twin sister were born in the fall of 1972. They were the eldest of five. As the eldest, she helped out with the house and the little ones. “I’ve always been a mom since I was a kid. My mom was too. I just followed in her footsteps”.  She described herself as quiet and dorky. She was socially awkward and didn’t have a lot of friends. It broke my heart to imagine my mother eating lunch by herself. It was hard to stay composed after delving into her lonesome childhood. I felt an overwhelming amount of guilt in the pits of my stomach because she had given me the most magical childhood and liberating teenage years. In an effort to console me she said, “I’ve tried to raise you to be who you want, I know you think I was permissive. But I wanted you to have opportunities that I wasn’t allowed to have”. After delving into her life, I understand her serious personality. She was never given the chance to play.

  My mother grew up faster than the other children at school.  “Kids used to tease me because of my body. I went through puberty in first grade. I think it had something to do with the brain cyst I was born with. My doctor told me he doesn’t think there’s a correlation. But what the hell? I started puberty at seven. That’s not normal. I remember when I got my period in third grade and my mom said, ‘Congratulations!  You’re a woman!’ GAG! No nine-year-old girl wants to hear that. I suppose that influenced my idea of womanhood. I was bullied for growing up”. She was made to feel ashamed of her femininity. I felt helpless during this interview, so badly I wanted to be able to say something to wash away my mothers sorrow. The world is so cruel to women’s bodies, yet they are the vessel of life. Our interview began to dwindle down and I asked her for her final thoughts. She told me, “Even though people have hard lives they have to find things that bring them hope so they don’t give up. My hope for you is that you do what makes you happy. I hope you can be yourself. You don’t have to be the best or make the most money. I didn’t know how to think for myself until college. I promised myself I would never rely on a man. I watched my mother have nothing. My twin sister doesn’t work and trusts that her husband will take care of her, but I didn’t have that kind of trust in men. I told myself I would never let what happened to Grammie happen to me. And I hope it never happens to you”. I cried out of the love I hold for my mother. She kissed my forehead and blew out my candle. Our relationship is something sacred and nothing could replicate the way she tends to me. If I were to be dependent on a man, I would be selfishly betraying my mother. 

After the conversations I shared with these women about dreams, tragedy and love I was left with only myself and the mirror. I see the reflection of my maternal grandmother through the cat-like green eyes we share. She passed down her lust for life and the ability to see poetry where there are no words written. I see my paternal grandmother in my curly brown hair and the curves in my hips. From her I inherited my instinct to find joy and extend empathy. In my hooded eyelids I see my brilliant grandfather who immigrated to America. He spoke five languages but could never say “I love you”. My paternal grandfather is lost in my mosaic yet I carry his burden of self-indulgence and uncertainty for the world in my heart. I am constantly torn between anger and grace. I attribute it to my soulful connection to my inheritance. I am learning to cope with it and these interviews gave me a space to explore my duality freely. This project allowed me to sit with myself in the mirror and reflect on my face composed of warriors. It would be naive to believe the women in my lineage all had children out of love. The women in my mosaic fought for survival. My blood is not all tainted. I see myself as a perfect blend of my parents who have truly loved each other since they were 13. Despite their own hardships passed through their bloodline, they fought so hard for me to have a different life. This project taught me to wear my lopsided eye and uneven ears with pride because it is a badge of honor. I am the embodiment of female perseverance. This project made me realize how important it is to create a world that does not revolve around my future husband. It is a freedom that my grandmothers will never know. My last living grandmother and I are bonded through an unspoken truce that I will live for the two of us. This project made me realize how badly I want to be a mother to a daughter, the way these women were to me . The biggest lesson I learned from looking at these women through a holistic lens was how deeply people affect each other. These mothers made me who I am. I am a woman who is biased, naive, angry and spoiled. I am spoiled rotten because when I come home I am greeted by my mother that has raised me with such patience and tenderness. I am the most earnest version of myself when I am with a group of women I love. I no longer feel afraid of my own femininity because of the women who raised me to be proud. I am one of the lucky ones. I may be rotten but my cynical traits of man are washed away, because I am blessed and full of grace. 

dedicated to my mother and grandmothers.

to all the women that love me like their daughter.

i live for you!