I’m just being honest

I was looking forward to wandering purposefully around New York City by myself until I stepped out the door. Not to say that suddenly the cold air against my naked ears and my unfamiliar surroundings robbed me of this awaited joy, but the actual experience was clouded with an underground swirl of activity within me that dreaming from inside the warmth of my friends’ apartment did not contain.

I was glad to find it sunny so I could put on sunglasses and hide at least a bit from the strangers I’d encounter, particularly men. Feeling beautiful in front of my friends’ full-length mirror is one thing, but when the element of real men is added to the equation, and men of that neighborhood’s culture who often find me attractive and will usually let me know in crude ways, I found myself a bit anxious. I did not want this that morning. A guy I once dated let me in on some urban core vocabulary, where sunglasses are also called “hater blockers” – and I always remember this when I put my shades on to prevent objectifying eyes from piercing me.

I remember being a much younger girl on campus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where my one fear while walking alone at night was, “What if he rapes me?” “He” was general, of course, and I’d never so much as felt threatened in a real way, much less attacked, but the fear was there nonetheless – not to mention the statistic looming in view that one out of every three or four women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. I figured that would be the worst thing that could happen to a woman, and at that point I wasn’t confident it wouldn’t be my story. That pepper spray I got from Stephanie as a high school graduation gift stayed with me each day and night as I came and went. I never needed to use it, though, save that one time I tried it out downwind on a hill to be sure it worked.

And so I wandered out of that apartment on New York Ave, pretending to know where I was going. Though slightly over-dressed for 11am (I was ready for a Broadway show that night), I walked confidently, appearing as though I was supposed to be there while silently hoping that Franklin Ave wasn’t too far off and that I’d easily find the “brunch places” that my friend’s homemade map spoke of. I passed all sorts of men, and I made eye contact because they couldn’t see my eyes. That gave me a sense of power, of being in control of my outcomes.

It sucked the life out of and colored gray this experience that I idealized and dreamt about, though, little me soaring in the Big Apple. At least the first few hours of it.

I could have let the moment pass and just pretend I wasn’t irked at all, but by Anne Lamott’s encouragement, I’m writing instead. I took her challenge to look one’s subject directly in the eye, squint and strain and strive to make it out, and get it on the page. I didn’t know what I’d find till I started writing, and I was a bit surprised to find all this. You might be too.

I’m just being honest.

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