Clear as mud

This last weekend I joined four other beautiful women and got really dirty.  Specifically, we completed a Dirty Girl Mud Run. Can I just say it was awesome?  It was also the antithesis of every myth of my childhood, the dogma of my youth that continues to influence the me, and imposes a misplaced sense of self that was originally constructed by some other “wise” adult.

In my case, the wise adult who so profoundly influenced my thinking was my grandmother. Placed in the unexpected position of caring for a two year old girl and a three year old boy following my parents’ divorce, she did the best job she could. As a small child I remember waking up in the second bedroom of my grandma’s house (I never thought of it as grandpas, he just lived there). Grandma would come in and lift the shades in the morning to wake us, feed us a balanced breakfast of fruit and cereal. She washed all our clothes in the wringer washer and hung them to dry. She served sandwich lunches and comfort food dinners. She dusted and scrubbed the house. She made cinnamon rolls on Saturday and served them on Sunday. And with regularity she told me all the things I shouldn’t do.

• Don’t sit on the sidewalk; you’ll get a bladder infection.
• Change out of your wet swimsuit; you’ll get chafed.
• Don’t run; girls shouldn’t sweat.
• Don’t get dirty; girls should always look clean.

There were a myriad of other “don’ts” that have extended into my adult consciousness and I can’t possibly remember them all. When I started writing this blog entry my mind had formed a pre-written ending about busting my grandmother’s myths and proving that once again I could successfully break out of these invisible mental constraints.

But then something happened that completely changed my way of thinking.   Missouri house representative Todd Aiken said that a woman couldn’t get pregnant as the result of a “legitimate rape”. And then I read an article in Scientific American with a startling statistic “…it is rather normal to be a survivor of sexual assault if you are female. One out of six women in the United States have been the victim of rape or attempted rape, and that is using a rather tight definition that does not include many kinds of assault victims can experience. 64,080 women were raped in the US between 2004-2005. Sixty four thousand and eighty.”

Sixty four thousand and eighty, between 2004 and 2005. In an age where women are more likely to report the crime of rape. I couldn’t help but wonder about my grandmother’s reality, as she certainly didn’t grow up in a time of all sweetness and light. Just as today, the very fact of her gender could put her in harm’s way. Had she made it through her life without harm? Did she know of other women, friends or family members who barely whispered horrible secrets of shame and blame? Unlike today’s current environment, where we can call out Todd Aiken and his ridiculous comment, back in her day there were few words on the subject that could be spoken out loud. 

I realize now that every time she told me what I shouldn’t do, she was in fact expressing her fear for me. Maybe what she was really saying was, be careful, there’s danger in seemingly safe situations and you need to be aware. Maybe she was really saying “I love you.”

So this blog entry has a different ending. I’ve put a new lens on old phrases I'd heard countless times. I’ve also learned that running in the mud with friends is sometimes no more than just running in the mud with friends.