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Carrie Visintainer: Naked in Sauna World

The sign on the white swinging door at the Taunus Therme spa shows three stenciled pictures:  a cell phone, a camera, and a bathing suit. Each item is circled in red paint and then crossed out. I look down. The bows on my bikini are taut, but my hands are empty. Two out of three? With the tips of my fingers, I inch the door open, fully aware that I am in Germany, where the rules are as solid as the cars.

At first I only see bare floor, and I wonder if Sauna Welt, the world of saunas, has been spontaneously evacuated. Suddenly, a wooden door bursts open, and a crowd of sweaty men clamber out. They clutch wet towels and chat in throaty phrases. One man stretches his arms over his head. I force my eyes to his face: gray mustache, rosy cheeks, dimples. He smiles, eyes roving from my bikini top, to my bottom, then back to my breasts. His buddy follows suit.

I think of the Halloween party I attended in college a few years back, when I burst through the door in a bee costume, and everyone else was wearing jeans. I cringed, red-faced, navigating beer cups and slurred murmurs in search of my friends.

Today my costume screams “I am an insecure American!” Although I want to embrace the traditional European sauna ritual, my only experience with public co-ed nudity happened last year in Colorado in a sprawling hot spring pool on a moonless night. Even then I used my towel as a shield.

I squeeze my eyes shut, and open them again. The men are still naked, and they are still staring at my breasts. I sigh. Bikini or not, there must be a rule against this? In the three months I have been in Germany, I have discovered a new rule every day. First I didn’t bring my own bag to the Supermarkt, then I filled out the wrong form for a work permit, and then my chronic, accidental rule-breaking became almost comical. But at Taunus Therme it seems utterly obvious, even to an American, that staring is verboten.

Aware that a bikini holds more power than a striped yellow T-shirt, I snicker and decide to trump these tongue-lolling men. I tighten the string around my neck and pull the cloth tight over my butt. Like a cowgirl riding bareback, I move toward them, twirling a rope of my dark hair. They cower. I glare down at their penises and toss a smile into wide eyes.

As I navigate the maze of Sauna Welt, flip-flops slapping cobblestone, I take in my surroundings. The saunas are fully indoors, yet each one is tucked into the facade of a quaint European dwelling, complete with a peaked roof, curtained windows and arched doorways.  Wrought iron lamps punctuate the winding path. In the center sits a working stone fireplace surrounded by a semi-circle of tree stump stools, inviting one to rest a minute. Fake snow adorns the mantle. I feel like Little Red Riding Hood traipsing through a Bavarian village, except that the air smells like sweat tinged with honey. And everyone is naked. Sauna Welt is a bustling neighborhood of puckered bellies, knobby knees, dimpled thighs and wiry hair sprouting from wrinkled, dangling flesh.

This nonchalant display of “every body” should make me feel comfortable, but instead I am baffled. In Germany, naked neighborhoods may be as mainstream as Mr. Rogers, but in America I can only imagine them in pornos or rare nudist colonies. I can’t help but fear an impending orgy, the air thick with flinging sweat, muffled moans and pulsing limbs.

When I told Annika, my host sister, that I wanted to try the cleansing sauna ritual at Taunus Therme, she frowned.

“Saunas are FKK,” she said.

“FKK?”

“Naked?”

I remembered reading something about this in my guidebook. FKK was an acronym for something like “co-ed nudity without sex.”

“This is natural in Germany,” she stated.

I forced a smile. The concept, although intriguing, bucked all of my knowledge about the biological realities of human nature.

Before I could respond, Annika’s boyfriend, Tomas, strode in from the bedroom wearing jeans and a tight T-shirt. He rolled his eyes. “Why do Americans make everything sexual?”

My mind filled with images of the half-naked, fake-breasted women that blanket virtually every American fashion magazine. Hundreds of articles describe how to look good naked and please men in bed. If you don’t have the former, you can’t accomplish the latter.

My father warned me about the realities of the male psyche before I even had breasts. “If you show too much skin,” he warned, “boys will get the wrong idea.”

All through high school I wore knee-length skirts and fully-buttoned blouses, despite the teasing of my boyfriends. But then, at our playful pre-graduation award ceremony where students are voted “Most Likely to be Successful” and” Best Sense of Humor,” I  received the “Miss Derriere” award. I was too embarrassed to tell my dad.

On Trip Advisor, there were two reviews of Taunus Therme, both from American men.“BillTraveler” from New Jersey wrote that the best part of the spa is that it is “all nude upstairs, and unisex.” You could practically see him wink and belch.

Later, as I walked through the Frankfurt red light district on my way to the train station, I remembered that prostitution is legal and thriving in Germany. How is it possible that Germans have the unique ability to shove sexual desire out of their minds in the sauna?

Despite the faux fairyland setting, I have to admit that the saunas sound enticing. They have names like Yin-Yang, Aroma, Gemstone and Feng Shui, and some of them are infused with moisture, which makes my dry skin tingle with delight. A sign on the wall describes an appealing hourly ritual called Aufgasse, the pouring of the water, where a spa employee enters the sauna, whooshes out old air with a towel, pours scented water over the stones, and then swings a towel overhead to move the hot air around.

I stop outside of the Gemstone sauna and read the bold-typed sign. The focal point of this sauna is a dazzling amethyst, designed to neutralize negative energies. Maybe this experience would fill me with enough giddy joy to quell my inhibitions?  I grab my “sweat” towel from my cubbyhole in the wall, slide the door open and spot an open space in the corner, directly in front of the amethyst.

The four other people inside the sauna are sprawled out at various angles, every orifice bathed in the positive glow of the pink gem. One woman is lying flat on her back, her enormous breasts sagging like lumpy pillows at her sides. Her arms are draped overhead. Despite the swollen beads of sweat covering her body, her mouth is curved up in bliss. Next to her, a skinny man with acne sits cross-legged, eyes roving like a lifeguard.

Each person is situated on their towel. No flesh touches the wood benches. I survey my own towel, which is only a fraction of the culturally appropriate size.

Grasping each end firmly, I stretch the cotton until it puckers in the middle. Keeping it taut, I place it neatly on the bench and attempt to hold it steady as I wiggle my body onto it, legs tucked close to my chest, until I am pretty sure I am within the confines of the rectangle. When I look down, I see that my toes are poking onto the wood, but it’s the best I can do. I glance around. The lifeguard’s eyes poke the flesh of my thighs, and then rest on the large woman’s belly. I try to keep Annika’s words in mind. Maybe he is simply admiring feminine beauty.

Sweat beads on my forehead, and I wipe it away with the back of my hand. I check the clock on the wall: 11:10. Annika said to stay in the sauna for ten minutes, take a cold shower and rest for twenty minutes. Then repeat the cycle three times.

By 11:14 my bikini is soaking wet and sagging off my hips and shoulders. Waves of sweat pour off my forehead, stinging my eyes. Even my toes are sweating, leaving wet circles on the wood. I think of hot places:  Texas, Costa Rica, hell. This sauna seems hotter than all three combined. The sparse cloth of my bikini feels like a sticky cocoon, and I resist the urge to scratch and pull at the strings. I glare at the clock. The big hand is an arthritic finger inching forward, and I want to shove it along.

I count to sixty in my head as slow as I can, and then I curse the clock, peel my towel from the bench and stumble out of the sauna and into the tiled shower room. There is one other woman inside. Her blonde hair is splayed out over the rolls of her back, water pouring over her face. I turn the knob. Icy water pours down, and I pant and squeal, heart racing. Germans are masochists.  Defeated, I tug the bows of my bikini and let it fall to the ground.

I wander out of the shower in a light-headed daze, stumble toward my cubby hole, and grab my much-larger bath towel, wrapping it around me. Nearby is a quiet corner with chaise lounge chairs. I ease myself into a chair. A man in a blue robe is lying next to me, reading a magazine.

My skin is tingling, and my vision is slightly blurry. I breathe deeply, letting the chair support the full weight of my head, abdomen, thighs and feet. Suddenly, I feel like I am floating among billowy clouds. My fingers are feathers. I half-dream about fresh berries and chocolate. I realize the full benefit of the cleanse.

After twenty minutes, it is hard to think about standing up, but I want to try another round. One. Two. I roll to my side and slump out of the chair. As I move toward my cubbyhole, I remember that I am naked under my towel. My bikini is lying in a wet heap on the floor, and I cannot fathom sliding into the soggy cloth. Exchanging my bath towel for my sweat towel, I peek around the corner. The Herbal Sauna is close by, requiring little exposure.

I step out onto the winding path. Immediately, I encounter a mass of octogenarians. Their flesh hangs loosely from their angled bones, liver spots covering their bodies. One man has a huge scar on his thigh. Accidentally, my eyes graze his penis: folds of pink skin and a maze of purple blood vessels. Disgusting. I cross my arms over my chest.

The sign outside the Herbal Sauna says it improves mental clarity, but when I open the door, all I see is haze and flesh. There are nine people lining the two benches. The air smells like stale sage. Shoulders tense, I squelch my urge to run, find an open spot on the bottom bench and quickly assume my crouched position, toes facing the man next to me. He leans against the top bench, feet planted on the floor below. His nose is bulbous and he sounds like he’s snoring, but his eyes are wide open. He stares at me out of the corner of his eye.

I summon the clock for support. Nine minutes to go. It is slightly cooler on this lower bench, but the crowd is claustrophobic. Again, everyone is sprawled in various positions, and I can’t help but expect a low, sultry rhythm to spew from the hot rocks.

The man next to me shifts. His legs fall open to the sides, one hairy knee grazing my toes. I crouch tighter. He exhales and reaches an arm over the top bench, fingers touching my knee.  I slide backward. He gives me a sleepy smile, and moves his other hand to his thigh. I swear I glimpse a mass of expanding flesh...

Maybe the heat is deceiving me, but I don’t stay around to find out. I swing my legs to the ground, grab my towel and throw the door open. I find myself once again in the shower room, and this time the harsh water feels good.

Resting in the same chaise lounge chair, my heart beats fast and my arms are heavy. All I can think about is sweat swishing around on the floors of the saunas, germs multiplying, crawling up onto toes and thighs and...

I grab my belongings from the cubby hole and stride toward the locker room, where I cannot wait to put on my jeans and raincoat and trudge out into the gray afternoon. On my way I pass a juice bar. Two women are sitting on stools sipping orange liquid from glass mugs. One of the women waves her hands as she talks, earrings jingling, breasts thumping against her belly. She looks perfectly comfortable, as if she is clothed and sitting at a cafe on the plaza.

Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse a door that says Damen.

“Hmm,” I mumble, wondering why I didn’t see this before. Maybe it is simply a restroom. But as I slide through the door, I realize I missed a hidden gem. The Damen area is a collection of saunas designated just for women, complete with plush lounge chairs, a private outdoor patio and individual tanning beds decorated with ornate Asian designs. Everything is clean, bright and shiny. Why didn’t Annika tell me about this?

Dozens of women are using this area, and the only language I hear is German. Affirmed, I sit down on a chaise lounge, dropping my bag to the floor. A waif-like woman strides by, holding a blue striped towel. In the corner, two round women crouch together, giggling at something in a magazine. Next to me sits a woman in her sixties, white curls tickling freckled shoulders. She is engrossed in a novel, eyes wide, pink fingernails gripping the pages.

I smile, realizing I can finish my third round of sauna. Pushing my bag under the chair, I shed my towel and wander around freely, saying “Hallo” and “Guten Tag” to women as I pass.

As I sweat in the Venus sauna, still crammed onto my hand towel, I find that my breath comes more easily when I am not concerned about where to look or what men are thinking. I close my eyes and let the sweat drip from my chin to my toes. My mind drifts back to the FKK area. I shrug. To Annika and Tomas and all those who truly believe they can separate nudity from sex, I raise a Beck’s to you and say “Prost.”


Carrie Visintainer is a Colorado-based freelance writer.  Her essays and travel tips have appeared in the Travelers' Tales:  The Best Women's Travel Writing 2008 anthology, Cahoots magazine and Journeywoman online.  She received an M.S. in genetics from the University of Minnesota.  This piece first appeared in Melusine's Fall 2009 issue.
 

Diane Payne: Politics of Mothering

Because I’ve never married, for some reason, I feel like there are many people who view me as a guerrilla mother of sorts.  Long ago, when I was unemployed, I was probably lumped as one of those hippy welfare mothers who have their babies out in the backyard like the cows.  Now that I am gainfully employed, and my daughter is fifteen and quite normal, I still get the feeling people look at me differently for not dating, for not being more whatever is considered normal motherly.  I have a hunch people think I have remained single as a form of political activism.  I also realize very few people know me.


In many ways, Ania and I have it made.  It’s just the two of us and our dogs and cats.  No squabbling.  Yesterday she returned from a weekend trip to an amusement park in Branson, Missouri with a family friend and told me, “That was fun.  It was never quiet.  I liked it like that.” Normal trip with normal family, at least in what Ania envisions to be normal.


Years ago, I remember shopping with food stamps.  It wasn't the same as shopping with real money.  Every time I placed an item in the cart it felt like I was being scrutinized by the other shoppers.  Before I even get to the cashier and had to ask how much of my total was in food stamps, I’d feel like the other shoppers already knew I was using food stamps.   Those beholders of the real cash looked at the contents of my cart to see what their tax dollars were buying for me, and not without criticism.

I'm a rather healthy eater, but admittedly, I have my weaknesses.  Take ice cream.  For less than a buck, I could buy a half-gallon of the store’s brand of Neapolitan ice cream.   For a little less than three bucks, I could buy a tiny pint of some exotic flavored Ben and Jerry's ice cream.   If I hadn’t always been a food stamp recipient, or just happened to be one of those ridiculously cheap shoppers, I may not have ever tasted Ben and Jerry's.   Because I was using food stamps, I tended to feel guilty buying the good stuff, knowing those working folk were watching my cart as if I was picking their pockets in broad daylight.
       
In line, shoppers would tell me how surprised they were to learn that food stamps paid for ice cream.  "It's a shame," they’d say.

I had the feeling their day would improve if I would return the ice cream and make sure our cart was filled with only potatoes, beans, and rice; but even the poor deserve a treat.  I had a three-year-old daughter.  Tofu just didn't do it for us every day. Though it could have, I guess, if I wanted to be more conscientious.  Being conscientious all the time is just wearisome!

One day my daughter and I were shopping at the supposedly Bovine Growth Hormone-free supermarket, doing our part in conscientious consumerism.  After driving home across the hot desert, I discovered that the bag boy forgot to put one of my bags in the cart.  Oddly enough, it was the one with the BGH-free items.  The ice cream we were just going to dig into.

So back to the store we went for another dose of humility.  I explained about the missing bag and the clerk actually believed me.  To my amazement, the clerk also told me to grab a bag and get those items.  He gave me full rein of the store.  I wondered if this was a test and I was really under surveillance.  I didn't even need to return for his approval.  Such an honest clerk, I, the customer, believed.  Such a worthless clerk, his boss must have believed.   He probably saw me as a kindred spirit of sorts.  He, too, may have shopped with his mother while she dished out the food stamps.


By the time Ania was three, I started teaching in the public schools again.  Newt Gingrich was ready to eliminate all us welfare mothers and I wanted to remove myself before he had the joy of doing it to me.

When Ania was six, she was busy writing invitations to her Girl Power birthday party on Spice Girl stationery, and I noticed the words: "Wear something Spice Girls wear."  Then I remembered the last birthday party we went to, where I heard the parents talk about how happy they were that their children wore uniforms to school.

"Look at how kids dress today," one of the parents complained. It turned out that most of these parents went to parochial schools and maybe they figured because they wore those horrid uniforms, they were going to make sure their children wore them also. I attended public schools during the 1960s and '70s, and it seems to me that I wore the same things the kids are wearing today.

Deep down, I think uniforms are for parents, not for kids. Adults are always complaining that the children are too distracted by clothes, but I teach at a public school and think they're more distracted by tedious lessons and overcrowded classrooms than by what someone else is wearing.


Like the teenagers today, I remember wearing baggy bell-bottoms and flannel shirts, then listening to my parents whine, "How are you going to get a boyfriend dressed like that?" And when I wore hip-huggers and a halter-top that was held shut by two strings in the back, they'd scream, "Why do you want to go out looking like a hooker? You're never going to get a boyfriend looking like that!" In my parent's opinion, my clothes were supposed to be used as some kind of discreet mating call. But in my view, my clothes were for my girlfriends. We huddled in our bedrooms modeling them, swapping our clothes with each other.  It was a female thing. We didn't discuss clothes with boys, or expect them to comment on our attire. They may have responded to it, but not nearly as much as our girlfriends did.

I preferred the Spice Girls to all those Barney tapes we listened to for years while driving down the freeway. The lyrics aren't profound, but neither were The Monkees - the all-male group that catered to kids when I was young.

Some may have argued that the Spice Girls wore clothing that was too seductive, and write them off as not having the capacity to make a feminist statement of any quality, but I don't see why a seductive-looking woman can't also be a feminist. My daughter was only 6, and Girl Power seemed to be making a feminist impact on her.

We lived in an old adobe house out in the desert and for quite some time it was infested with mice.  One day, there was a dead mouse in the cupboard, and Ania swept it onto the dust pan chanting, "Girl power!" It helped that I bribed her with money, and assured her it was twice the money a boy would earn for doing such a nasty chore. I can't stand dead mice and I was more than happy to offer such a large sum that I didn't have to reach in there and sweep it out.


One day Ania came home from school and told me that her principal had gathered the entire K-2 school in the cafeteria to remind them not to wear any clothes that left the belly exposed. The funny thing is that my daughter's father is from India, and I wondered what would happen if I sent her to school in a sari. The only body part showing is the belly. Strange how our cultures respond so differently to the navel.

When Ania was eight, she started getting excited in pop music. I remember when she used her money to buy her first CD. , I not only helped her count out all her dollar bills and change at the music store, but I helped her find the latest CD she wanted. The one she could afford to buy after losing two teeth in one week and saving all those nickels and dimes.

It wasn't until we stopped at a friend's house, and she asked to play him our CD that I realized the CD had a parental advisory warning: explicit content. I quickly read the titles of the songs. The same way it's hard to judge a book by a cover, it's equally hard to judge the content of a song by the title, but, by the time I made it to the last title "Don't Pull Out On Me Yet," I started imagining what the lyrics would be, and felt my somewhat open mind closing rapidly.

Our friend, who is a musician, said it would probably be rated "R" if they had printed the lyrics. He shook his head, quietly wondering how this could be considered music, and why I'd let my daughter listen to it.

Back in those days, Ania didn't pay much attention to the meaning of the lyrics, so I didn't point out the significance of the words.  She'd be embarrassed if she knew what those three ladies were singing about, and it'd lessen her enthusiasm about her CD collection if she started worrying about the lyrics. Listening to the music that's advertised in all those teen magazines is what makes Ania feel a part of our culture.

At one point, Ania decided to make a tape that was a compilation of her favorite songs. After she had a sampling of Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync, Robyn, TLC, and the rest of her collection, I heard her add music from my pile: Aretha Franklin, Doc Watson, Joni Mitchell, Michelle Shocked and a variety of others. She labeled one side "Old Favorites" and the other "New Favorites." I think of this cassette when I fret over letting her buy a CD with a parental advisory. None of her other music has had a parental advisory, and since I was with Ania when she bought this one, I'm responsible for the purchase. I should have noticed the label at the store, not afterwards.

Throughout the years, Ania has become quite fashion-conscious.  Friends say it’s her act of rebellion to be the opposite of her mother who dresses like a slob and never wears make-up.  She’s making her statement, apparently, the same way I am by not putting effort into my looks.  When I remember Ania and the mice, I think about how squeamish she has become today.  Sometimes it’s maddening the way she screams when she sees a cockroach or worm.


The other morning, right after Ania left the house to wait for the bus, I sat down in the porch to enjoy a cup of coffee, and the phone rang. “Mom, you need to hurry!  There’s an injured cat lying next to the garbage!   You need to help it before the garbage men pick it up! Please!  Her head is bloody and she can’t move.”

This was not a pretty picture.  I made a loud grumble, then promised I’d go check on the cat.     Before I saw the injured cat, I realized why the other cat had left looking so downtrodden.  That gasping sound was horrid.  I started walking back home, not feeling up to this task.  Then I knew I could never face my daughter if I didn’t bring the cat to the vet. 

When I picked Ania up after school, she never mentioned the cat. “Anything you want to ask me?” I hinted.

“What’s for dinner tonight?”

“What about the cat?”

“Oh, the cat. How is it?”

I told her the cat was at that vet, and the vet had never called, so I didn’t know if the cat was on the road to recovery, which I seriously doubted, or dead.  “I felt sick listening to that poor cat struggle to breathe while kicking her legs around in that box as we drove to the vet.  It was awful!”

Ania laughed.  She loves it when something dreadful like this upsets me.  She continued laughing.  I wasn’t sure if this was a form of hysteria or purely pleasure.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. That weird, cyclic laughter.

I got a beer and returned to my chair in the porch, the same exact place I was sitting this morning when the phone rang.


Since Ania is in band, I go to all the football games.   Every game I take a book.  Every game someone sits next to me and asks, “Is that a book?” I close the book while a mother snuggles close to me and whispers, so her boys won’t hear, “Yesterday Julie came home wanting to know if Ania was an atheist.  She was truly worried.”

I say nothing. She looks confused, maybe hurt that I remain silent.

“She isn’t, is she?”

“I’ve never asked her.”

“Well, I went on to explain that her father’s a Muslim and they believe in a higher being, and you, well, you don’t go to church, but you know there’s a Creator, and Ania believes in a Supreme Being.  That’s right; isn’t it?”

“Her dad’s a Hindu and his wife is a Muslim.”

“Well, it’s all the same. They believe in a Higher Being.”

She seems disappointed her father was a Hindu. Too many gods, too many possibilities.

“Ania has a religion, right?”

“She hasn’t mentioned it if she does,” I admit.

“Oh,” she says before moving away.

Then another mother moves next to me and explains how the kids were discussing their mock elections held at school while they were at church on Wednesday night, and how upset one girl was when a Catholic admitted he voted for Kerry. “He supports abortion. I teach chastity.”

Chastity?  Sounds like something that may require a Chastity Belt.   “If people are so against abortion, why don’t they support the morning-after pill?” I ask.

“Isn’t that like contraception?"

“It is a form of contraception.”

“I support conception.”

Immaculate?


After the game, Ania wants to know what we were talking about.  “The gum stuck on the bottom of my shoe, the fear you may be an atheist, and why one Catholic is voting for Bush, and another for Kerry, nothing too exciting.”

“You’ll miss not talking to these people.  I know you will.  No matter what you say.”

And in a weird way, she’s probably right.  Again. Still, I’ll continue to take my book to the games.


The other night I started off feeling like a somewhat decent parent by meeting my daughter’s flag line team and taking pictures of them in their fright night costumes before they did their half-time show at the football game.

“Can you take the pictures after half-time?” the captain asked.  “We’re almost out of time now.”

That made sense, so I agreed.

Then the girls gathered in a huddle.  I thought they were going to do one of those team chants that included a loud grunt before running on the field.  Instead they asked this other mother and me to join them.  The other mother walked up and joined hands.  I balked.

“I’m not really into hand-holding,” I said.  “I’ll come back later to take pictures.”

The girls seemed desperate that I joined them.  My daughter, Ania, was giving me the dirty eye, the look that both begs and threatens.  Reluctantly, I joined them.  First I was told I was holding hands wrong.  There was obviously a protocol about crossing my hands first, then connecting with the others.    To my surprise, this wasn’t a gathering to do a spirit chant but to pray to some spirit.  Ania stared at me the entire time, as did this other girl across from me.  I said nothing but felt plenty.

We live in the Bible Belt.  There is always at least one prayer before the game begins.  For that reason, I rarely come to the games until after they start, unless I’m working in the concession stands where I can only hear food orders.

I watched their half-time show, then decided to leave the camera with my daughter, and simply go home.  When I handed the camera to my daughter, I ranted.

“Did you know they were going to pray?” I asked. 

“We always do before half-time,” Ania explained.

“Why?  Don’t you think those pre-games prayer include you? Who are you praying to?  What were you asking for?  If someone had dropped a flag, does that mean God wasn’t listening?  Why weren’t you praying for God to stop genocide?  Praying for someone other than you girls?”

Ania looked horrified.  “Would you rather I stand here by myself because I don’t pray at school events?  Is that what you want?”

“That’s why they keep school and church separate, so people don’t have to feel left out or coerced.  What were you really praying for?”  I was relentless.

“Good luck.” Ania was close to tears.

“Bring that kind of prayer to a casino,” I said before stomping off, the epitome of irrational, lousy parent.

Unfortunately, during the third and fourth quarters, I didn’t cool off. I wanted to talk to my daughter about this prayer business after the game.

In tears, she screamed, “You’ve never taught me about prayer!  How am I supposed to know how to do it?”

Ouch.  She was absolutely right.  Her father is a Hindu.  I’m a nothing.  About the only thing I believe is that there really isn’t a heaven or hell, and in my nothingness, I always add, “but anything is possible.”  I tell Ania she’s more than welcome to go to church, but I’d rather not.

Guilt-ridden, I asked if her friends questioned her since I saw a couple watching us after half-time.  Ania has told me how her friends tell her at lunch that they pray her mother starts going to church.  I tend to make a nasty retort about how her Baptist friends aren’t even allowed to watch a movie if there’s a gay character. Remind her that the preachers in her friends’ churches think Hindus are sinners for praying to false gods. She told me her two friends wanted to know why I was so angry with the prayer. “I just told them you were mad. Then they didn’t ask again.”

I apologized for over-reacting and made a feeble explanation about how I felt only she could know what or why she wanted to pray, and praying for good luck was her business.  I understood why she prayed.  To not join in would mean ostracism.  No holding hands.  No huddle.


If I hadn’t been a holy roller during my teen years, I may not have reacted so vehemently.  Back then, prayer was legal in the public schools but I don’t remember it ever occurring, unless my Jesus Freak friends and I were rallying together outside praying for the war to end or whatever our cause for the day happened to be.  I was one of those people who addressed strangers walking downtown with the greeting:  “If you die tonight, do you know if you’ll go to heaven or hell?”  Most kept on walking.  Some cursed first. I spent my teen years being a zealot.  I operated purely on an emotional level, never intellectually.

At the football game, I felt like a zealot operating on both emotional and intellectual levels.  More disturbing, I felt like a creepy parent muddling through one more religious experience.  If Ania and the girls want to huddle to pray that they don’t drop the flag, that’s their business.  I was most upset that my daughter never felt comfortable telling me that she prayed at football games, upset that I am too tyrannical to discuss prayer, frustrated that I was trudging deeply in the world of being imperfect at something I honestly hope to do well at, knowing every error I make will be locked away in my daughter’s memory, ready to be used against me when I make my next fumble.

No wonder it was so much easier just being a rapid-fire zealot on an untouchable quest.  Back then I was certain I was right and simply plowed forward.

It’s not that easy anymore.  Now I have to own up to my words and listen to my daughter’s.


I suspect Ania has long realized that I’m different from her friends’ mothers, especially since most of them are married Baptist women who have spent their entire lives in this small town.   Yet, somehow, I think all mothers by nature are political activists.  We have to talk to our daughters about Gardasil, discuss the pros and cons, and let them make the decision if they want the vaccine.  We have to keep them informed about birth control and hope they remain celibate a long while.  We have to let them experiment with clothes, music, make-up, magazines, let them be a part of “their world”, not always stuck in “our world.”  We have to blend, assimilate, and acculturate.  It’s not that I’m politically active, it’s that I’m actively mothering all the time. I  make mistakes. I do some things right.  I’m just a mother trying the best I can. In some ways, I guess that’s politics.


Diane Payne teaches creative writing at University of Arkansas-Monticello, where she is also faculty advisor of the Foliate Oak literary magazine. She is the author of two novels, Burning Tulips and A New Kind of Music. She has been published in hundreds of literary magazines, which most recently include Fiction International, The Rambler, Tea Party, and Arkansas Literary Forum.  This piece first appeared in Melusine's Fall 2009 issue.  
 

Gail Folkins: Shoes

In the snapshot, I wear purple Converse tennis shoes with reinforced toes, faint bell bottom jeans spilling over their sides. Our yellow lab ignores the lanky arms I wrap around her. It’s the shoes that stick out, too purple despite my pride in them. Teachers note their strangeness; grade school friends grin and point at their unlikelihood. Mom thinks they’re unique.

An art instructor finds the same magic in these shoes that I do, has me draw a new picture in gentle charcoal lines. I sit in my socks and sketch, think of trees scaled on a brother’s dare, icy creeks forged. As if they’re still walking, the shoes appear on starched paper, shoelaces draping free of my feet. Eyelets gape open, shoe tongues voice their remembrance, purple shoes roam eternal through childhood forest journeys.

*

A luggage carousel in Dublin snakes around the terminal. I watch bags tumble when the handlers let out too many at once, then laugh once I spot my own broken bag, its sides and zipper burst at last from age. Only airport duct tape keeps the contents intact; one black suede shoe tries to escape. From the carousel’s edge, I claim the mangled bag and shoe while others stare. Mom would’ve laughed.

The left black shoe stays behind in Dublin. Dissatisfied with adulthood and agendas, it roams, most likely to the corner pub where I drank velvet Guinness or to rest in St. Stephen’s lime-bright grass. It might venture another look at Yeats’ scribbled manuscripts in a hidden museum, or relive the tang of fish and chips on greasy paper. Choosing a random door in the afternoon, each knocker a different bronze animal, it joins whoever answers for tea. At night, it finds a bed and breakfast and keeps my travels endless.

*

I place Mom’s brown boots, fresh moss in their tread, outside the door. She died in the house where I grew up, surprising us with sudden departure and no goodbyes. Who knew if she might need the boots for a forest, maybe one with our usual clouds and rain. Trilliums would open for her, white petals like stars, or fiery vine maple blazing if it were fall. Dad sees her boots waiting outside and asks me if that’s realistic, the right thing to do. I consider his words, but leave the boots there just in case, while summer’s warmth lives on.                 

Gail Folkins' essays have appeared in Lifewriting Annual, The Fourth River, and other journals. Her creative nonfiction book Texas Dance Halls:  A Two-Step Circuit (Texas Tech University Press) was a finalist in the popular culture category of ForeWordMelusine's Magazine's 2007 Book of the Year Awards.  This piece first appeared in Summer 2009 issue.

Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar: What Happens at Ladies' Night

Note: From time to time, we will post articles in this blog series that first appeared in Melusine's nonfiction section. This piece appeared in our Spring 2009 issue.

“What goes on at ladies' night?” This seems like an ordinary question; men are often mystified about those nights the trustworthy and stable women in their lives run out with girlfriends, dressed to the nines, with a shouted “Don’t wait up,” over the shoulder as the door shuts in their face.

In certain states in the Middle East, it is perpetually ladies' night since socialization between non-related women and men are gender segregated. For Muslim women, ladies' night means complete freedom, as they discard hijab, the veils that cover their hair in observance of Islamic dictates for female modesty.

The subject of this particular ladies' night inquiry, however, was the ladies only, invite only, evening of a fashion show hosted by Virginia Commonwealth University’s branch campus in Doha. The male faculty and staff were barred from this occasion for the entirety of the show’s annual run. They are all required to leave the building mid-afternoon the day of the show. As of spring 2007 there are no male students at VCUQ, though the first male students are allowed to enroll in fall 2007. They will likely also be left out of the ladies only evening, made even more precious by their inclusion into the school. The questioner, a male faculty member who had taught at VCUQ for three years, looked up at me and I was mystified.

“Well, not that much, really,” I said. This was true; as in any religiously conservative environment, Hindu, Christian, or Muslim, ladies' night takes on a much more sedated atmosphere.

“We just watch the show.… It’s the same show the next night too, right?”

My friend nods. He seems as frustrated by my inability to supply information, as though I’m holding out some secret, refusing to share it with him because of his maleness.

“Well, no one has their hair covered.”

He looks up again.

“Actually, no one wears abayas.”

He is suddenly really interested.

This is probably because every mall, restaurant, and classroom in Qatar is filled with abaya-clad females and this all you see of Qatari women unless you are related to them. (The designer abaya industry boasts top names including even Christian Dior.) Or unless you are invited to a ladies only gathering.

In Islam, a woman covers her hair only when around male non-relatives. For the student or working Muslim woman who chooses to, this can mean every moment that she is outside her house; or even inside her house if someone other than her father or brother is in the room. Women who “cover” (which usually means covering their hair, but can also extend to their whole face) adopt a variety of styles in how they carry out this practice. The Qatari approach to female “covering” is an abaya, a black robe with long sleeves, long enough to cover feet also and a shayla, scarf, about two to three yards in length, that warps around hair, ears, and neck, hiding any space down to the collar of the abaya. This is how ninety-eight percent of Qatari women dress.

I drove home that night and shook my head at my friend’s slightly dilated pupils. There are no cameras, not even cell phones with cameras, allowed at this or any other gathering where women will be “uncovered.” This ensures everyone can have a good time without worrying that photos of her hair, body, or face, will show up on the internet, or just as worrisome, blue-toothed around the country. After all, there are only about 150,000 Qatari nationals. It is a really small country and we all know how we feel about photos of ourselves … so a prohibition on photography might not be such a bad idea.

I thought back to my first ladies' night fashion show, the previous year, when I had only been in Qatar for about six months. I was shocked at what was underneath those abayas and shaylas. Behind the black of the robes and headscarves were designer labels I’d seen only in magazines or on the red carpet. This was the first night I saw my female students and almost didn’t recognize them because suddenly, instead of looking at a face, I was looking at an entire head, with hair, ears, neck, in short, everything “uncovered.” That night I was electrified and a little embarrassed at my own shock, given all my feminist sensibilities.

The women were … stunning. And I was staring at everyone and everything like a blind mouse given a promised few hours to see.

“Mohana, hi.”

I turned and smiled politely at a beautiful young woman. I had no idea who she was.

“It’s me. Hissa.”

“Hissa! Oh, wow. Look at you. Your hair is beautiful!”

Was there a more idiotic thing I could have said? Other than blurting, so that’s what you really look like, probably not. Clearly she wasn’t hiding her hair because she needed daily Rogaine treatments. She was observant of Islamic tradition; she was “covered” in public like a respectful Qatari female. And she was drop dead gorgeous.

It went on over the course of the night as student after student approached me to say hello and I was bedazzled by the mascara, bold shades of blue eyeliner, perfectly blow-dried manes, curled, straightened, artfully arranged, and satin evening wear. The actual models on the runway were only mildly interesting in comparison to the menagerie of women I knew, students, faculty, staff, who I literally saw in a different light that evening. They were chatty and friendly, eager to know what I was up to with summer only a few weeks away, boisterous. After the show, the murmur of voices rose to a dull roar as everyone piled into the reception area to eat, gossip, and compare jewelry.

The next day, back at work and in the daily grind, the previous evening seemed like a secret we shared, like I was having a dalliance with many women, all at once, because I had seen beauty behind closed doors.

This was all before I learned about the other variations of ladies' nights; weddings, as most wedding receptions in Gulf countries are single-sex, henna parties, where artists apply the dye in all designs and styles in a festive gathering, and of course, dancing lessons.

Of course, my friend can’t get into any of these.

And I, like a good friend, rub it in.


Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar is a writer and educator who currently works and lives with her husband in Doha, Qatar. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Florida with a focus on gender and postcolonial theory. She has published short stories, academic articles, and travel essays in a variety of journals and literary magazines. Her website is www.mohanalakshmi.com.

Announcing Our Finalists for the Vivienne Haigh-Wood Prize

Yes, it seems we have 11 finalists rather than 10. What can I say? I was an English, not a math major. OK, that's not quite an excuse, since distinguishing between the numbers 10 and 11 came a bit earlier in my education (say, kindergarten at the latest.) Well, they are 11 great poems, I think, so no regrets on the counting error.

We wish everyone luck with the final selection, which will be announced in the Spring issue, out late in May. The winner and runner-ups will be notified before the issue appears and the prize will be awarded in May.

The finalists are listed in alphabetical order (since I'm fairly confident I've mastered the alphabet, at least ;)

Marcia Arrieta: "Days"

Jessica Cuello: "Donkeyskin" and "In the Spired House"

Deborah DeNicola: "Eve of my Evolution"

Katharyn Howd Machan: "When I Return to Sardinia"

Jane Olmsted: "Imperative"

Lorraine Schein: "The Crystal Fairy Book"

T. Stores: "If My Father Were a New England Poet"

Jari Thymian: "Radish Mother"

Whitney Vaughan: "O Joy, Mouths the Muse to Her Suitor"

Andrea L. Watson: "Reckless Light Ordains Each Leaving"

Elayne Clift: Shadows and Stars

It seems to me that the shadows are of supreme importance in perspective.     
-- Leonardo da Vinci

Key Largo is in a word, retro – a throwback to the 1950s. You might not realize it on a drive-through to Key West, but you get it if you stop overnight. You feel it staring at the African Queen, the actual boat in which Bogie and Hepburn made cinematic history. (The boat is unmistakable with its canopy and the boiler Bogey kept banging to keep her moving.) You sense it stopping in the late afternoon at the Caribbean Club where bearded guys with tattoos play pool and drink Coors surrounded by Bogie and Bacall pictures from the movie Key Largo. If this doesn't do it, try sun-downers at the Sheraton, a flamingo-pink pseudo-tropical getaway that shouts for pedal pushers and ruffled off-the-shoulder halter tops. Key Largo is definitely a 1950s kind of place.

We were in the mood for it when we pulled in for the night at The Blue Lagoon, post-war cottages nestled between the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Route 1. The guidebook billed it as a resort run by caring hosts who make mom-and-pop lodges worthy of your patronage. It was no resort, but it was pleasantly tropical. Driving into lush, overgrown gardens randomly surrounding the grounds with colorful bougainvillea and assorted orchid-like flowers was promising.

The woman on duty, Mary Beth, was friendly. But Lazlo, the proprietor, was hardly my idea of “Pop.” Deeply tanned, his Hawaiian shirt seductively open half-way down his chest, his square face chiseled as romance novels boast, he was remarkably handsome. His blue-gray eyes and equine nose were offset by a perfectly shaped mouth and straight, square teeth. Salt-and-pepper hair added to his good looks.

“Is this your daughter?” he asked my husband, as I approached Lazlo's pick up truck after we'd registered.

For a nanosecond I thought he was serious. Then I got angry: Lazlo had played with my ego and made me feel stupid. People named Lazlo, guys who had escaped Hungary in 1956, were supposed to be like Victor Lazlo in Casablanca, suave and chivalrous, not ridiculous or insulting.

Suddenly Mary Beth appeared. “I'm wearing your shirt,” she said, taunting Lazlo, cigarette in hand. “You put it in the give-away bag, but I got it out.” Then she said, “He was going to toss it and it's a perfectly good shirt.”

She drew on her cigarette, fingering Lazlo's blue denim shirt. “You wouldn't think he's my boss, the way I talk to him.”

Lazlo was telling my husband about his German neighbors. I don't know what triggered the conversation. Then, looking at me, he said, “You're Jewish, aren't you? You know what they did last April? They celebrated Hitler's birthday! Can you imagine!” He smiled conspiratorially. “Remarkable,” I said.

Mary Beth smiled at Lazlo as she drifted toward the office. She was clearly in love with him; her compulsions were such that she was incapable of hiding it.

The sun cast long shadows across the gardens. A chill permeated the air. I entered the cottage we had rented for the night. It was reminiscent of places my parents had rented on vacations before there were Holiday Inns. The kitchen had a porcelain table and two chairs in front of a window with Venetian blinds. Plastic flowers adorned the table. A tea towel hung from the refrigerator door. A coffeemaker and toaster sat on the Formica counter. In the bathroom, a paper mat with a map of Florida lay in front of a shower covered by a mildewing plastic curtain. Two skimpy towels hung from a towel bar above the toilet. Miniature Ponds soaps lay next to plastic cups covered in Saran Wrap. Yellowing wallpaper peeled away from the sink. In the main room, a television mounted on a shelf presided over a double bed made with overly laundered sheets. An open closet hosted naked wire hangers above a luggage rack. Two rattan chairs stared vacantly at each other across the room. Through screened jalousie windows, a breeze moved faded print curtains. I wondered if Bogie and Bacall had digs like this when they were filming.

I went to the office. Mary Beth was eating spaghetti from a Styrofoam container, watching TV. I fingered the brochures in a rack looking for a seafood restaurant.

“What can I do for ya?” she asked. She recommended Alabama Jack's, a vintage barge restaurant specializing in crab cakes, country-western music and clog dancing.

“Can you imagine Lazlo wanting to throw this shirt out?” she asked, smoothing it down over her breasts. I thought she must have been pretty once, even though her teeth were crowded and her face was sun-lined now.

“Don't forget about the comet!” Mary Beth said, jumping up. “Should be real clear soon. A friend of mine is comin' over with a telescope.”

The Hale-Bopp Comet had been making nightly appearances and was spectacular, even to the naked eye. So we fixed gin-and-tonics, grabbed sweaters and binoculars, and headed for the waterfront with other guests who were drifting toward the boat dock. Two French guys and a couple from South Africa had staked out the deck chairs. An elderly man and woman sat on a swing hanging precariously from beneath a thatch-roofed sunshade. We stood on the concrete jetty huddling against the chill. Waves rippled into the jetty and seagulls swooped into them like kamikazes. The sky turned pink, then purple. Mary Beth's friend arrived with his telescope. Mary Beth wandered onto the scene. Lazlo had disappeared.

Just before pastel hues faded into darkness, Hale-Bopp appeared. Its hazy glow looked like a star covered by thin cotton, a tail trailing at the end. It was amazing through binoculars, which we shared because Mary Beth's friend never invited anyone to look through his telescope. Then everyone talked about where they were from and what they had seen in Florida. Afterwards we dispersed into the night.

After dinner, when we lay in the too-soft bed with the faded sheets, my husband whispered, “This place gives me the creeps.”

The next morning when we drove out Lazlo was talking to some people. He waved. We didn't see Mary Beth.

Driving north, we passed the Caribbean Club. It looked like any other shack by the road. I hardly noticed the sign for the African Queen. The Sheraton stood, imperious, like any other over-priced hotel. The malls along U.S. 1 could have been on any strip in America. There was nothing distinctive about Key Largo.

Except maybe Bogie and Bacall, or Lazlo and Mary Beth.


Elayne Clift, a Vermont Humanities Scholar, is a writer, journalist, and adjunct professor. Her latest book is Achan: A Year of Teaching in Thailand (Bangkok Books, 2007). She is currently at work on her first novel, "Hester’s Daughters," a contemporary, feminist retelling of The Scarlet Letter. She lives in Saxtons River, Vermont.