Thirteen years seven months ago today I stood in my house still and stung, cellphone in hand. I had just been told over voicemail that Pussy General wasn’t allowed to be out during the Atlanta VDAY organized One Billion Rising event. Because the woman in charge, a staff member of VDAY (1 of 12 for the entire world), had received in her Christian meditation that children would be present. I created my Peace General that instant on my hardwoods.
Before I continue…Please know I know you, you who are Christian, might have an issue or question or UGH visceral impulse about a ??? called Pussy General. I do. Know. I care. About all of us. Shade is a good place to plant seeds of peace friendship. Let’s do that?
Onward~!
The start of this story was September, 2012, at Waffle House.
I had been recruited AS the Pussy General FROM the VDAY staff off my social post I Am An Emotional Creature: the secret life of girls around the world, V’s book (formerly Eve Ensler), placed right NEXT to my plate of smothered and peppered. —that’s hash browns for the uninitiated.
I had gone to Waffle House to read with my house guest *Don the Baptist (no, not those Baptists according to my peace friend, I don’t know what he meant) because that’s where he liked to write. My peace friend, the VDAY staffer who ALSO shared my waitress lineage at Eddie’s Attic, caught my post and hit me up.
HEY, MJ, WE SHOULD TALK!
I said yes. Enthusiastically, in the moment, nothing else present in my head. Like what had happened the September before, the state of my affairs, the precariousness of my life. Or my secret of where Pussy General came from. We met up that same week in front of the fairly new sidewalk chairs next to THE SEEN Gallery in front of the (…was it a juice joint? I forget.) on Church Street.
I must press pause on the linear of this story. Don’t throw a plate.
Because what you need now is my TODAY news. I’ve recovered from severe emotional codependency which pushed me out of my Decatur, GA home (DOROTHY), and I am returning to the field. The peace organizers’ field. Healthy yet weak. Returning with the only resources I have at present ~ my heart, my breath, a few daypennies, and my voice.
Woe unto you who does not listen. THE AIR OF GUILT. Keeping us apart. I have repented for error of my codependent ways.
I am not explaining my life.
Pussy General is needed. Go volunteer for anti-trafficking work in Atlanta for a few days then cry your heart out wishing I was still there being old MJ the constant volunteer presence in Georgia Peace & Justice work.
I was a sick activist. Codependent. COMMON.
I broke the chain FORTY YEARS LONG in rotgut unaddressed emotional codependence NOT to come back to Decatur an ignorant woman not aware I’m smothered and covered in HIGH shame touching many. THUS—
*Don the Baptist as memoirIZATION for Christian white southern men (minus the Catholics) because men as individuals and as piston positions need HIGH mythic psyche PROTECTED around what I do. (sexual peace)
If you are not clear what I do, that is understandable. A woman allowing her power is a mysterious thing. I am not here for fame.
MYTHIC life is DANGEROUS. So is walking while black and going to school while migrant. The Christians I remember from Decatur are fierce supporters of justice. My hope is if my extremes prove too much, you look right past me and land your listening eyes on a messed up emotional female next to you. Secret life of girls around the world means adult women in Georgia.
Adult women like me ~ realizing what happened to them a long time ago…
So! Do you have room in your heart to buss my crusty Waffle House plate with me? Maybe you need to throw it. The epic sex in my myth is real life not fiction not manuscript. Real lives, real consequences, a real sexual assault from my peace friend not best addressed alone.
My Eddie’s Attic waitress alum of then VDAY? (ahem, Vagina Monologues, the cradle of life and stage play). Yeah, she was spot on to recruit me as parade general for One Billion Rising. Big energy, tons of hustle, huge smile. Passionate. Why Eddie recruited me. I loved my waitressing on the floor in the field.
I just didn’t love me.
Were you here to watch this moment of accumulated power? Patterns repeated. If defeated. Need presence. Need witness. Listening is how I heard my guts to walk my victim out into freed light. (right this instant.)
Your feelings about my old plate are yours. Please receive them.
(((A)))
P.S. if you are still a part of One Billion Rising Atlanta, I want to hear from you butt I am quite vulnerable. Not the lady in charge of anything except my story. I hope new leaders will be courted OUT. “Because this is a new time and new way of being” (off the original OBR brochure Top 5 Reasons 2 Rise — privileged to see it because I was there at its inception, peace organizing, my mother’s milk and lady’s breast…Christians, please forgive my mess and join me. Peace wants a landing strip. It’s you.)
