Q So what would a young teenage girl do when she felt out of place and desperate to fit in?
A Nothing, because her mother would do something first—in the name of love well meant.
Scene VII. Dr. McGregor
My mother never could just let me be the introvert to her extrovert. I should never have complained to her about booblessness, let alone the absence of what I was sure would make me normal and get me a boyfriend—monthly blood. Of course this blood could also make me fertile, not a concept I internalized, although I’d heard: “For God’s sake, don’t get pregnant like slutty girls.” A “slutty girl” was a girl who, for no reason and without explanation, would suddenly disappear from school for a long time.
My mother, ironically, fretted about my gynecological immaturity. She hauled me off to a new doctor for a consult. Before I knew enough to protest, the kindly old doctor, coaxed me, with saccharine affect, onto an examination table, spread my legs and lifted my feet into stirrups—not like the stirrups on a saddle, but I was in for a ride.
“Let’s just take a little peek, shall we?” the doctor said. Who was we? A peek at what? I quickly realized that he was not going to check my chest for emergent boobs, and that I couldn’t possibly “take a peek” at anything from this position. I froze.
When had I been in this deep freeze before? There wasn’t time to ponder, because the old doc was speaking, not to me but to my mother. “She may have difficulty conceiving a child. Small cervix. . .” I cannot possibly describe the cement mixer of emotions that churned within me at that moment, so I won’t.
We drove home—me silent and my mother chattering on about how relieved she was to know there was nothing really wrong with me. I could now safely explore a career in slutdom—a way to fit in or to be fit into. Did slutty types get to go to beach clubs? Even I didn’t know what a cauldron of contempt I was developing—for myself, for the predatory old doctor whom I called Dr. McAsshole, and for my mother who knew no better.
For God’s sake I shouldn’t be a slut? For God’s sake I shouldn’t get pregnant?
Scene VIII. The Bible
What did God have to do with all this? I’d met God when I was only three under a table where I'd fled to escape the omnipotent Cocktail Hour. My mother told me I was a gift from God. I wanted to meet God. Under the table I chattered vigorously to God about all manner of things, but mostly about parental neglect. It was a glorious feeling—to be utterly accepted.
I never forgot what happened under that table. God, silent and invisible, simply listened—did not tell me what to do, or what not to do. In the course of our non-conversation, I munched on Ritz crackers but left one on the table’s cross beam for God when I left for bedtime. God listened and I knew that I mattered. I was learning about prayer, its futility and its wonders.
At fourteen, however, I needed God to talk. I loved school and books. God’s book was The Holy Bible. In church they’d even called this the Word of God. What could be better? I compulsively read the whole huge book, skipping most of Leviticus. What I learned was not exactly what I sought. I learned that in God’s world everyone fit in, everyone and everything belonged. Seriously, it was astounding.
Again and again, God’s people messed up in big ways. They broke their own rules and God’s too. People were much worse than slutty. They were making God crazy with rage. They begged, wept, cajoled, also lied. Sometimes God reached out with longing. This God was seriously the dumbest parent I’d ever heard of. Every single time God and the people broke up they got back together—every single time. Thrilling.
Jesus, star of the New Testament, who everyone thought was God but I doubted it, was as furious with such mess ups as God was. He taught right behavior, even did demos. Still, he didn’t force it, but simply invited—over and over and over, like God. Nevertheless, his “Let’s go to Jerusalem” plan was so dumb I cringed.
I didn’t understand this book much, except the stories. They were recognizable. Women like Mary Magdalene, possibly a slutty type, was Jesus’s best friend. Old Sarah laughed at God’s assurance she’d get pregnant. How profoundly, divinely anti-biological. I’d have laughed too. And young Mary, a virgin like me, got pregnant with God, not without her consent. God even gave her a rationale: this angel did it. That must be why they could still call her Virgin. What a deal!
This Bible was crazy, yet hopeful to me. This adoringly partial God was so impartial that everyone fit in. I didn't name it this way back then, but my experience was letting me know how not to be racist, how to love and listen equally.
I was learning about Love—for God’s sake.
Scene IX. Betty Singer
Betty Singer had this voice, unlike any I’d ever heard— high and angelic. Some of us junior high school girls would circle around Betty at recess and beg her—beg her—to sing her song, Ave Maria. We swooned. I didn’t understand a word. It was in Latin, but it sure wasn’t on Miss Povey the Latin teacher’s reading list. Betty told us this song was Catholic. It was in the Bible, she thought. I’d missed it if it was. Still, this Mary song had something to do with the God I knew under the table, because when Betty sang my mind stopped all its worrying. I listened.
