The Power of Voice

Adversity, for me this year, is a winter that just won't let go. Last night's snow and slush were gone this morning, and the sun beckoned, but the chill remained and the new yellow flowers out front lay on their sides, resigned. 

Our waitress last night in the little bistro down the street was named Ursula. No older than any of my children, she vaguely remembered her namesake, the evil octopus, from The Little Mermaid. I always loved Ursula -- ambitious, vindictive, ironic (I'm wasting away!), convinced of her entitlement. A flamboyant plus-size beauty, wise enough to know that the best thing she could take from a woman was her voice. 

As any little girl would have been at the time, our waitress had been fascinated more by Ursula's shellfish lipstick than her villainous feminism, a belligerence that had long shrouded any hint of kindness or humanity. Adversity can do that do a person (or a sea creature), but we know, deep down, she wasn't always this way. Just ask Flotsam and Jetsam. 

Disney movies always fascinate me, with their multiple layers and their hidden and not so hidden messages, depending on who's watching. It's brilliant, what Disney does, providing as much entertainment for adults as it does for the children, in its parks and on the screen. I've always wondered, though, why the beautiful heroine's mother is, well, not there.

I feel fairly certain that Ursula would never have gotten her tentacles on Ariel's voice had Ariel not been motherless. I like to think that if I have given my daughters anything other than a random contribution of chromosomes beyond my control it is their voice. A voice that, to this day, I forget to use on my own behalf, but that I've never lost when I need to spur them on from the sidelines, remind them to be kind but to never relinquish what is rightfully theirs. Ursula understood this, the power of voice, although she learned a bit too late that you cannot borrow one, you have to find your own. 

When I came of age in the seventies, I thought it was a given that women could be loud and be heard, toss their bras, be in charge of their own bodies, do anything men could do. Back then, it often meant putting on a pin stripe suit with a skirt and heels and a floppy tie. Maybe that's why we're still confused -- we never figured out how to use our voices without losing ourselves in the process. 

And here we are. I still know people -- men, mostly -- who claim they couldn't even hold their noses tightly enough to vote for Hillary. They don't seem to find this troubling, even after two years of the worst stench our country has ever suffered. And then there's me. With countless women vying for the top spot, I'm drawn to the old white guy, because he's calming and he doesn't shriek, and he has the resume. I feel like a traitor to my gender; I feel less guilty about my affinity for Mayor Pete, for obvious reasons. 

I hope we get a woman in the White House one day, but I'm not sure this is the time.  We've been knocked around a little, by a dark winter that just won't seem to let go. "Me Too" and the rehashing of ancient indignities and, yes, unequal playing fields, may help us in the long run, but right now we're confused, and we need to find our voices again.