Brick Houses

I went shooting yesterday for the first time in ages. For as unique as we are, being liberal people who own and enjoy marksmanship, I’m sure my husband and I fit some stereotype somewhere with his startup-branded backpack with an old Bernie Sanders button. Ammo tins, firearms case, shoot-and-sees. Earmuffs, my “baby Yoda” hat, sunglasses, and obligatory COVID face covering (a pink camo pattern). 

We shot next to a trio of Russians, the woman of the group constantly taking pictures and video, and being annoyingly ignorant of the rules. It’s cold range, ma’am. Please do not approach the bench. Or you will get escorted out by the guy in orange with hunting boots, small beer gut, and surprisingly patient approach to people like you and your crew.

It was unusually quiet for a Saturday, the range having been recently renovated. Fresh concrete and wood, freshly painted yellow and red lines, polite people keeping their 6-feet distance – all this populated by a wide range of languages, accents, and skin tones. Yes, this is America. It’s also the Bay Area, it’s very own country. I smell gunpowder and see fit, good-looking nerds out for a few hours of bonding with their friends or parents. Through firearms.

I so enjoy being a combination of the unexpected. A liberal who likes guns. The woman who is the primary breadwinner. An introvert in an extroverted marketing job. And as I think about this, I think it’s more a commentary on why the stereotypes exist at all. It’s not me; it’s the world. Humans are wonderously multi-faceted beings. Why shouldn’t we be full of M. Night Shyamalan twists and turns?

But I’ve also not enjoyed being the unexpected. All my life, I’ve felt the need to exert a systematic release of information with people so I wouldn’t overwhelm them with the complexity of me and my life all at once. Someone once accused me – not in a good way – of always being used to being “queen nerd.” She was telling me to get off my high horse, because I was amongst other nerds. Nerds who apparently didn’t have identify crises about being nerds.  

It’s not just my geekiness that has made me an outsider. It’s also this containership-sized pile of other contradictory and challenging things that from my experience have made me… interesting? Intimidating? Odd? It’s hard to find tribe when you have the kind of shit going on.

And all of the sudden, that was broken as I started talking one-on-one with the women in a writing group/class I entered this year. Recently, one of these beauties confessed she was in the middle of a separation. As if somehow that wasn’t a normal part of our 30s/40s something landscape. I remember how awkward that part of my life was, trying to explain to someone else that my world was being dismembered, and how I couldn’t bear to process their (very natural but most unwelcome) shock and awkwardness and sorrow on top of mine so please don’t say something trite. How comforting it would have been to be in a room where someone – anyone – would just sigh, offer expletives, ask if I was “ok” or needed anything to be fed or safe, and left the silence to speak for all the unspoken. I didn’t have that, but I offered it to her. And then the thought that frees the soul came to me, “Why can’t life be like this more? Why can we just ‘let it all hang out’ like it’s normal?”

Overwhelming health conditions. Abusive relationships or histories. Children with disabilities/limitations that make life excruciating. Devastating poverty. Death and loss. Shattered family lives. Unjust shaming of the outer self. Spouses with disorders who won’t deal with them. Jobs that suck because we haven’t unleashed our personal superpower yet. Caring for older family members in decline.

We are all brick houses. Stout and soulful, not always confident but always full of power. Our physical figures (beauty standards be damned) don’t even begin to tell the tales of our brilliance and resilience.

I think I’m close to the mark, don’t you? I’m dead on target. We are all brick houses?

 

Stacked souls. Minds with “great racks.” We are all brick houses. We are mighty, mighty. May you find a group of people with whom you can let it all hang out. And shake it down, shake it down, shake it down, shake it down now…

Shake it down, shake it down, shake it down, shake it down now…