Liberty - Putting Some Skin In the Game
- Chica Jo
- Jul 27
- 20 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Nine months - that’s how long ago I lived and wrote this story aboard Triplefin. Why did it take me long enough to have gestated a fresh Homo sapien? I needed to be sure that I'm baring myself (and quite literally this time) to you for the right reasons and that I've considered possible future fallout. I write partly to celebrate fellow beasts and partly to reveal the uncomfortable truths hidden around the obtrusive and shifting corners of my ego. So, it’s taken me most of a year to be ready to dive naked off this new edge. It’s chilly out here where my toes dangle and I’m scared of heights. I’m hopeful I’ll discover while freefalling that there’s actually no ground to smash into. But that’ll depend on how I and you respond to this tale.
It all happened while we had a couple gregarious boat guests doing carpentry in exchange for sailing with us to ultra-wild Isla San Pedro Mártir. They were aboard our floating home for a whole month. With us. With me. As a highly sensitive introvert I struggle to share personal space and, when emotionally cornered, feel the need to literally run, run, run away. I actually keep a loaded gun (well, a water pistol . . see video blow) in the galley to ward off anyone who dares try and chat with me while I’m in that cramped “woman’s place”. Walking and gum chewing talents aside, I cannot chop cauliflower and engage in verbal intercourse without having a full on anxiety attack/hot flash. And head (bathroom) privacy? Ha! Guess what our gracious carpenters were working on? The ceilings of both the galley and the head. I swear to Goddess, it must’ve been a set up.
The provocation commenced the second evening when I was still forcing myself to engage with everyone instead of meditating under the stars before bed. First, Meg, a fellow naturalist, had me gasping for breath in laughter after she broke the ice by spontaneously confessing that she broke one of our new ice cube trays and felt so much shame about it that she actually tried to hide the tray. I loved her instantly. Then her partner, Nils, a professional cinematographer, shared that he recently filmed and screened his first ever X-rated film and asked if we wanted to see it. All eyes shifted to me, the newbie crone. They sensed that with my adjustment to menopause, sex was perhaps a taboo subject. Under pressure and genuine curiosity, I nodded my thinning crown in consent.
The film was eerily beautiful and jubilant, artfully set on the grass under trees. It had a surreal quality due to being filmed in infrared which pinked up many green plants, including a pickle being devoured close up, in tantalizing slow-motion. (No, that’s not a vegetal euphemism and I’ll never see a pickle the same way again.) Blue veins stood way out and skin tones were smoothed and made phantasmagorically pale. Nils chose to zoom in and linger not on the sexpected body parts but on hands and feet. Oh, how blissfully happy, happy, happy were those bouncy feet! So, naturally, this gave me an idea. (Picture a mermaid Lucille Ball scheming and Paul as an apprehensive, sailor Desi Arnaz.)
Before I share with you that wacky idea that led to my break I must tell you about a certain animal that I’ve spent a lot of time studying lately because I, and I think you too, can learn a lot from investigating this species. They’re not some obscure, deep-sea beastie that you’ve never heard of. Nope. Although they are often found clustered in bunches at the seashore, I assure even you landlubbers that you’re familiar with them. Their species is super common yet little understood and often maligned. They’re social, yet often grumble at each other and occasionally even do battle. Ponder their identity as I continue my tale.
Several years ago when I lost my rebellious dance partner and youngest of big sisters, Henri, I made a graveside promise to dance every day. To a nomad like me that kind of commitment means I often find myself cuttin’-a-rug in public spaces. On summer road trips I found myself sunrise dancing in view of Pacific Coast Highway 1 and thus practicing don’t-give-a-fuck-attude when passersby would gawk and occasionally beep with (I like to think) encouragement. Even on the deck of Triplefin I occasionally find myself on display as Mexican party boats buzz by for unexpected, free entertainment. At first I felt a bit embarrassed to be flailing around like a lunatic while others watched but I have grown to welcome those impromptu performances. They allow me to practice dancing off my self-consciousness and inhibition wiggle by waggle. I even find that being observed improves my moves. I want to give gawkers my best. Even if my best is mere freaky absurdity. And I learn things too. About us human beings.
For example, while on a prolonged layover (wait - shouldn’t that be lieover?) at the Atlanta airport recently I decided to give my travel-weary and bent-tight body and spirit a boost with a dance. If you go down to the lowest level where the breathtaking Zimbabwe sculpture gallery confidently stands and walk all the way to one end, you come to a tiny, tucked-in corner by a service elevator. It was perfectly non-obtrusive, out of view of travelers, and not carpeted, so very glide and spin friendly. On went my dancin’ shoes, my headphones, and one of my upbeat, ecstatic dance playlists and down went my limb-flinging, boogie woogie!
About two songs deep I discovered that it wasn’t just a service elevator I was dancing before but also the elevator TSA officers use to help elderly and other wheelchair-bound folks get from one terminal to another. The discovery came as a senior woman who was nodding off while being wheeled out of the elevator saw my whirling dervish self in mid-whirl, yanked her head up, and looked right at me. I had a pensive moment thinking that my four flailing limbs might ignite movability envy or perhaps a heart attack but the smile that blossomed from her crinkly face assuaged my concerns. Then I worried that the TSA officer might pull me aside for a cavity inspection but instead she too smiled, gave me a glove-free thumbs up and wink, and treated her giggling passenger to a little wheelie and spin as they passed me. Oh, my inner redheaded Lucy was encouraged! So, my grasshopper feet kept at it for a round hour as a surprising number of people and their accompanying family members were taken by surprise at my spectacle of swirl.
Almost everyone from pre-teen to retirement age had some version of this series of reactions: mild shock, awkward and quickly averted glance, sudden preoccupation with some item of their luggage, clothing, boarding pass, or (that most socially escaping of devices) cell phones. Maybe they felt embarrassment for me - some saggy, middle aged woman who should know better than . . . than . . . than what, really? The littlest kids stared with mouths agape despite their parents’ discomfort. They’d swivel their baby owl heads almost all the way around to spy me as long as possible, tripping over their own feet, as their parents trawled them away. And all the elderly folks, no matter how feeble, at least smiled, allowing their eyes to meet mine and linger. Some even raised their curtain-skinned arms and rocked in their chairs before being rolled away for flight. It’s interesting, isn’t it? How my own public dancing helped me shed some body shame while causing cultured observers to feel some empathetic shame on my behalf. What’s going on? It calls us back to the mystery animal and their appearing to carry some deep shame that they try to cover with a pretty shell.
When these critters are young they typically dance and bounce around all loose and free-living. But, as they mature, they tend to become more shy and rigid. Many hunker down in place. Most develop tough carapaces that they tuck up and into when others of their kind are present. Their most relied upon sense organs are their eyes which are miracles of evolution that can be traced back to their watery origins. Perhaps that’s why these animals tend to shrink up under those self-made mantles. Like a baby playing peek-a-boo, maybe they think they can’t be seen under there. Perhaps they believe such invisibility will keep them safe even though they’re hiding in plain sight. It’s strange, but they seem to act as though they’re guilty for merely existing. Any guesses? Keep thinking as I share my harebrained idea that was about to pull the rug out from under my own happy, happy, dancing feet.
It was soon to be my 55th birthday while our friends were aboard and I felt ready for the challenge of accepting my body as-is, for once in my life. So, like any normal person would (read irony), I asked an agreeable Nils if he would be willing to make another short art film in slow-motion, eerie infrared. One of me dancing at sunrise on the bow of Triplefin. Naked. As a jaybird. Well, except for my shredded dancing shoes. I’ve already got one bunion budding into an independent side toe. I’m not THAT crazy, y’all.
It was surprisingly nippy (so to speak) that pre-dawn morning when my feet got happy. The Brown Pelicans and Blue Footed Boobies (yeah, yeah . . . ha-haa . . . saw that coming, but in my case it should’ve been Tufted Titmouse) were just getting revved up too, clumsily hopping off their igneous perches in our lonely anchorage. As my arms and body began to twirl those pterosaur-like birds traced graceful arcs around me. I was surprised how simple it was to be in my well used birthday suit once the music enveloped me. It surely helped that Nils, ever the professional, started with just the camera on a tripod near my feet so I was alone at the start. By the time our golden star rose to heat my skin and Nils was hand-holding the camera, moving in orbit around my hyper, spinning-sun self, I was dancing unselfconsciously.
I was in ecstasy over the sheer joy of being a living, able bodied creature as natural as the Pelicans streaking by. I danced with so much feral, sweaty, rebellious vigor that at the end I got the gumption to dive into the winter water. But before I took that baptismal plunge I was ever-so-briefly disturbed by something in my peripheral vision. I wasn’t sure but I thought maybe, just maybe, I glimpsed another yet sneaky and unapproved camera pointing my direction from way back on the stern.
That same night I was late getting supper together and feeling prickly, stuck down in the galley when I’d have preferred to be out under the stars. The other three were nearby viewing each other’s recent video clips of wildlife. They asked if I’d like to see some raw footage of my feral dance. WOOOAH there Bessie! I’m a 55-year-old American woman raised in the South on ‘70’s and ‘80’s TV. Dancing was the easy part. I needed to be mentally and emotionally prepared so as not to judge my body on screen. Watching while resisting a hot flash and wielding a sharp knife was NOT a good idea. Noting the beheaded cauliflower in my other hand, they understood. But before I returned to my chopping, I noticed, on the big screen, an image of my distant dancing self as if recorded from the stern. Paul HAD meta-filmed the filming of my dance without asking me. I felt a scorching “NO!” zip up my spine. There I was, trapped and hot-hot-hot in the galley: Yoga breaths, yoga breaths, yoga breaths. Just swallow it down, Jo. Like you always do. He did not have mal intent and it shouldn’t matter. It’s not a big deal. You can swim-swim-swim it off in the morning. Well, my cauli’ tacos went down just about as well as my upset mind. At 3 am (the time menopausal mermaids are sweaty alert and primed to drag unwitting sailors, especially ones they married, to the seafloor and claw and bite to the death) I woke to tummy cramps and a sudden memory. A flashback with something deeply repressed and entangled in its smothering ghost net.
Flashback: Over thirty years ago I readily agreed to be the back-up Jill-in-the-Box who popped out of a dear friend’s bachelor party cake just in case the first, more bouncy-buxom choice chickened out. Which she did. This was no ordinary cake-pop since there was a cloaked joke baked into it.
You see, when I popped out of that fake confection in my skimpy bikini (by pre-thong, pre-twerking ‘90’s standards) not one of those familiar men from my small, rural town recognized me because my entire head was covered in a bizarre, green-lizardy, Godzilla monster mask. And, because of that mask, I shocked myself by dancing more risqué than I otherwise would have. But then, a few shimmies and a hip shake deep I noticed, against the wall of the barn, a friend of the groom holding a video camera. I remember feeling a ferocious fire rise in me just like in Triplefin’s galley and thinking “No!” Looking back I wish I’d simply shook my money maker (not that I valued my dancing “women’s work” enough to ask to be paid for it) over to the bulky ‘cam-corder, playfully waggled “nuh uh” with my finger, and covered the lens with my hand until he turned it off. Instead I kicked up my gotta-be-happy-happy feet and told myself: Just swallow it down, Steph - like you always do. He did not have mal intent and it shouldn’t matter. It’s not a big deal. You can run-run-run it off in the morning.
Even now those cherished, like-family friends occasionally view and even show for others that video as part of their anniversary celebrations. They’ve screened it to several suitors I’ve brought to visit. And every time I’ve smiled and laughed, giving silent consent to something I never gave audible consent to. I have still not opened my mouth to express what I truly feel about it. Now hear this though; I mean really flippin’ listen: Just like Paul, None of those friends, including the person who did the videotaping, are at all to blame. They are not guilty of anything. My actions and inactions from three decades ago until just this instant did nothing but confirm to them that I was just happy, happy, happy - pleased as a July peach pie - to have the video freely seen and shared. And, hear this too: Although it was my sole responsibility to be honest about how I felt, I’m not guilty of anything either. I wasn’t able to speak up for myself because I was terrified of saying “no” and being rejected by those I love. Even though I now know they would have honored my feelings instantly without question and loved me even more for my honesty. I just could not, for thirty years, reach in and pull out the voice to do it. It’s likely a byproduct of being a female baby of the family. It also illustrates that we don’t really have the control it feels like we do when making choices. Heck, most of the time, like me not actually speaking my “No” during the cake dance, we don’t even realize we’re making a choice.
The twenty two year old me didn’t really have the freedom to choose to speak up about the filming of my Shame Monster cake dance. I was silenced by my fear of not being accepted and loved. Especially, I’m sad to admit, since so much of my self-worth as a woman was long entangled with looking and acting cherry-cake-poppin’ sexy. Now, at fifty five, having perhaps finally naked-danced off my culturally deep state of shame, I can’t help speaking my truth. I feel physically sick if I try to choke it down anymore. That’s what my writing to you has become. With inspiration and lessons from fellow creatures this has become a practice of finding the right way to locate and drag out of hiding the darkest and most uncomfortable truths about myself, about ourselves - we human beings misplaced in the 21st Century.
So, back to the morning after my flashback night on Triplefin. I told Paul and Nils about my 3 AM realization. About how Paul’s well-intentioned “mistake” in filming the filming was a disguised gift that revealed to me something I’d kept buried all these years. And about how Nils’ filming of my feral bow dance on my own terms helped free me from shame. Shame about my natural form and how it is ageing. Deeper shame over not respecting my own feelings as a woman and value as an artist. Shame. Shame. Shame. That cake dances us right back to the mystery creature who seems to hide themselves in shame. Have you figured out their identity yet?
Here, use my mermaid’s mirror. See? It’s you. It’s us. Homo sapiens. We’re the beastie hiding in our pretty, socially acceptable shells. We believe we carry some original sin that got us kicked out of a utopian garden where all the natural creatures live. And I’m not just talking about those of us, like me, who were forced to walk the gory, guilt inducing gauntlet of the Stations of the Cross in horrid bas-relief every Sunday on their way to their head hanging pew. Most if not all of my fellow atheistic environmentalists view us humans, silently including themselves, as an unnatural cancer on this planet instead of a miraculous species capable of mind blowing Creativity + Altruism = Love. We’re just as natural as any Humpback Whale, Acorn Barnacle, or Cardón Cactus. We’ve just been blindly believing the vengeful, warring, raping, pillaging stories that our ancestors (at least my Euro-centric ones) told us about ourselves. Because of that we poor creatures have been stuck in a self-fulfilling prophesy of humans as exiled, evil-doing destructors. Now, see the comb I’m holding along with that mirror? That’s not for me to untangle my greying, scraggly mer-hair. Nope. I’m holding it out for you to disentangle your own original, sin-free self from that judgmental, cultural ghost net of shame.
I think it’s damn time we start to tell ourselves and our children some very different tales about Homo sapiens if we’re going to create a healthier and more just world for all species’ children. For example, when you feel yourself doubting that we humans are capable of changing altruistically for greater good, just remember my sunrise dance partners - those incredible Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) wheeling into breathtaking, high dives. You see, thanks to Rachel Carson, a fellow old woman of the sea who found her true voice in her 50’s, there are still Brown Pelicans (and Bald Eagles, Peregrine Falcons, Osprey, Golden Eagles, etc.) gracing our skies. In 1962 her book, Silent Spring, trumpeted an alarm about synthetic pesticides. An alarm that an unprecedented percentage of Americans actually listened to. Sure, the chemical companies made a big fuss and tried to discredit her but Americans insisted their country ban eggshell-melting DDT and the like. Not only were the country’s policies on pesticide use turned around but our grassroots environmental movement was birthed along with our Environmental Protection Agency and Endangered Species Act.
Our birds of prey still give us something to literally and metaphorically look up to because, starting with just one iconoclastic old woman who dared open her mouth and refused to be frightened into closing it, we human beings were able to imagine a different, healthier future. Only because of that envisioning were we able to quickly change our ways to protect those majestically soaring birds. You can be reminded of the swift and beautiful change we’re capable of most any moonless night if you go outside and gaze overhead to those worn out constellations of martyrdom: the Northern and Southern Crosses. Instead, you can easily picture in their places gracefully diving Brown Pelicans. Heck, why not even join me in seeing superimposed with the Brown Pelican your own feral self up there with your arms spread in a soar of Liberty? Liberty from the bonds of thinking of ourselves as only destructive and selfish. Liberty from some manifested original sin.
Are you ready for another hare-brained, I Love Lucy, idea of mine? After nine months I’m now ready to share with you, my friend, my confidant, the naked, feral-creature-Jo dance on the bow as filmed and produced by Nils Hoover. Now, there’s a catch. Actually a couple. First, I’m not allowed to share it via YouTube because somehow our culture is OK with free access to gratuitous dismemberment but not the intact human-animal body so you’ll have to use the link* at the end of this post and become a paid subscriber (for the price of a decent cup o' Jo) of my Substack writings as The Menopausal Mermaid. Yeah, I’m shamelessly asking you to pay for it because I’m trying to support us and our marine conservation work aboard Triplefin with my writing and art. Also, because in the cake-popping past I have undervalued my artistic work by not expecting payment for it. Of course I realize you may not pay five cents much less five bucks to watch a few splendid minutes of a new-born crone slinging body parts around in the desert sea’s sun and that’s ok. It’ll erode some of those sharp corners of my ego. But if you do become a paid subscriber of The Menopausal Mermaid know that you’ll be joining me on an epic circumnavigation of ourselves in which we’ll navigate towards those icky truths lurking behind the sandstones of our egos.
Now, here’s the other catch. If you decide not to watch my feral dance be sure to ask yourself, “Why?” It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? And if you do decide to view it by tossing a green Lincoln at my feet, then be sure to listen to your own internal voice judging as you watch. Just take care to not feel shame at your dark thoughts, whatever they are, because you/we can’t help having them. You’ll likely find yourself helplessly judging my body as well as your own. That’s just what we’ve been taught to do. In fact, I have two confessions for you.
One, I’ve watched the video a half dozen times and I still notice some negative judgements at my not-so-mer-sexy body. Before the sun rises and backlights my form, the infrared light is quite unflattering, making my skin look like a newborn’s covered in waxy, vernix caseosa (Of course I had to look it up). The very first shot is quite uncomfortable for me. It focuses in on my not-long legs and land-sliding micro-butt. I almost asked Nils to take it out of the final cut. But I kept myself from doing so because that is exactly the kind of body shame I was dancing off. Does that make me “brave”? Nah, just sick and tired of body shame. I danced that morning so that I, and maybe you, might start accepting and examining our harsh judgements because we are all gorgeous, loveable beasts in any age and shape. Now, when I watch my dancing form, my automatic judgements are mostly occluded by the magnificent splendor of an aged mammal body as it spins and eclipses the sun with light beams shooting out from her once-life-sustaining breasts and pelicans crowning her in a rebirth of Liberty. But, I wonder, if I was say fifty pounds heavier or fifteen years older would I still have danced and had it filmed to share? I like to think so but I uncomfortably admit that it would at least have been more difficult to shed shame because of our cultural biases.
Now, back to my historical cake pop. When I dirty danced under that barn roof long ago there was a telling moment at the end where I yanked off the shame monster mask to reveal the surprise of my true identity. With the mask on I felt unseen - safely anonymous. When I pulled it off I steamed with instant, red-faced self-consciousness and burning shame. I remember hiding my hot face in my long hair and bikini-streaking to the corner where I’d tossed my Daisy Dukes. This time ‘round, as you may see, at the end of my bow dance amid Pelican wings under the open blue heavens, just before spontaneously diving into the frigid sea, I turned and looked straight into the camera and smiled the genuine smile of a newborn, liberated, Menopausal Mermaid. And yet, it seems there's perhaps an even deeper and more uncomfortable truth to "uncover" regarding feeling trapped and bound when things heat up. For now that's just too hot to handle. But get this . . . .
Absurd Postscript: Speaking of heat; you will not believe what circularity occurred while I was stalling on sharing this story. A daughter of my old friends, yes - the couple who possess my cake dance video, asked me to be in her wedding. No, not as a surprise dancer but as their feral, feminist referee. Uh, I mean officiator. Except I did find myself having to ensure fair play and adherence to the rules of ceremony all while struggling to keep my clothes on. Yeah, for real. Here’s the play-by-play as it went down just a few weeks ago, mid afternoon in midsummer in the Shenandoah Valley where it was as hot, moist, and oppressive as the cloaca of a randy Snot Otter (AKA - Hellbender - Cryptobranchus alleganiensis).
I actually could have used a referee’s whistle to motivate the guests, who were clinging to the air-conditioned interior of the manor house, to venture out and take their spectator seats in the still and steaming field. Once ushered to chairs family and friends stood as the lacy, poof-sleeved, breathtaking princess of a bride (who is a daughter to me) strolled down the grassy aisle in her white Converse™ sneakers. The typically composed groom’s eyes grew unexpectedly dewy. I stood there thanking the unrelentingly dry blue sky that I decided to wear a bra. That sweat trap was a last minute concession to the society I was raised in. The loose-fitting dress I impulse-bought in Mexico turned out to be extra loose around the crocheted, double-V neckline. So loose that if I’d slightly shrugged my shoulders during the ceremony it would have fallen straight off my body, leaving this referee/officiator standing amid a swampy puddle of linen in just my underpants. But that last bra I still own, my emergency tit sling, ended up being secretly safety pinned to the dress at the shoulders so as to hold up my remaining dignity and friendships. But then things really heated up and I found myself feeling like I was standing on the very edge of a precipice realizing just how simple it would be to take one final step to my social death drop. Drop, drop, drop . . . .
Drops of sweat were already raining on his handwritten vows as the sweet groom unfolded them. We all agreed that the plain-spoken words he vowed to the bride were the most honest, vulnerable, and romantic of any we’d experienced. Creeks of mascara and aftershave trickled down the necks of our gathering. The groom’s vows were so heartfelt that he found himself speaking through unexpected sobs. His tears joined his sweat to create a great confluence of saltwater that began cascading from his cheeks and chin and then spattering onto his inky words. Y’all know how empathetic I am, right? I couldn’t believe that I had forgotten, being fast to cry myself, a handkerchief. Of all things! I scanned my lightly sheathed body for something - a shirt sleeve or long skirted hem to lift to the dear, young man’s face - and found nothing that would reach. That’s when I thought the thought. The thought that if acted upon would have easily drop, drop, dropped me over that precipice into thin air.
I thought: I could pull off and offer him my undies as a handkerchief. (I know some of you may be impressed that not only was I sporting a bra on that sauna of a day but also, uncharacteristically, underpants.) That mere thought ignited a mini hot flash that almost drop, drop, dropped my entire body into a puddle on the grass. I reeled at just how easy it would be. Just one hand up my skirt, grab, yank down, gracefully tug off each foot and elegantly lift to face. Can you imagine the absolute horror that would flash across the mostly rural-conservative crowd some of whom were already tottering at the ledge of religious offence with our non-traditional ceremony and who (I blame it fully on heat stress) I forgot to remind to sit back down once the bride was in place so they, even those deep in their 80’s, were all erect and wavering in the heat waves. It’s a testament to my wise crone self and her admirable impulse control that I did not do it. Instead I kept my panties on and stood stoic, trying to telepathically send support and strength to the groom who was precariously tipping further and further towards the woman he felt so gravitationally moved by.
Somehow we beatifically made it to the part where I was pronouncing them equal partners in marriage. Then, before I could give the groom, who was tilting to the point of toppling over, permission to kiss the bride he began to rush over the line of scrimmage to tackle her with smooches. That’s when the photographer snapped this picture of me using my referee arm to halt his illegal maneuver. I feel honored to have stood with them and their parents on that day.
*Here’s the link to my naked Feral Creatura (Jo) Dance with the option of becoming a paid subscriber ($5/month or to my Menopausal Mermaid pieces on Substack. As a paid subscriber you'll also get other exclusive content, including my "podcasts" in which I read my stories to you instead of you having to read. If you join me in putting some of your own skin in this game by becoming a paid subscriber, I thank you for your support of my work as a rebellious artist. Now more than ever in our lifetime artists are essential workers.
Screenshot from Feral Creatura (Jo) Dance/Video - Dance and concept by Jo, video by Nils Hoover
**If you want to watch an equally natural and shameless creature celebrate their bestial self then here’s Nils’ 5 minute short film aboard Triplefin with the California Sea Lions at wild and free Isla San Pedro Mártir. And be sure to check out Nils' other work on his site!