This Is Us

I didn’t want to choose between my father’s and my husband’s names

20 years ago

I got married! I am 20 years old. I replace my family name with my husband’s without a thought. Two become one—how romantic.

15 years ago

Back in university at the age of 25, and after birthing two beautiful children, I explore self. I realize I have come to dislike my married name. It is unbeautiful. Most people mispronounce it, and when they get it right, it sounds like “grunt.” I miss the meaning of my old name, “summer field.”

I also begin to learn about patriarchy—through my classes and at home. The men in my husband’s family are unlike the men I grew up around. They hold power, control, and judgment over their families. There is a clear hierarchy. They have anger issues. The family tree is rotten with violence. …

This Is Us

Confidence, discernment, and sexiness develop over time

Many years ago, when I was in my mid-twenties, my boyfriend at the time was explaining his categorization of women. Apparently, it was shared amongst his friends. It went something like this: Women between the ages of 20 and 25 were considered “gazelles.” He described them as being like “a deer in headlights.” They were naive and a little bit useless. Women 25 to 30 were “bobcats.” They were playful, fun, and, most importantly, agreeable. This, apparently, was the most desirable age range. Women in their thirties were “cougars.” They were on the prowl to find a mate. They were also more set in their ways, so they were more demanding than the cute bobcats. Women over forty were “mountain lions.” And “no one wanted a mountain lion,” he told me in all seriousness. Just thinking about becoming a mountain lion sent shivers throughout my body. …

Humans 101

The answers are in the darkness

I watched 10 minutes of American network news on January 2nd. The gloom and doom were in full swing: infections, political vetoes and overrides, deaths, and snowstorms. I didn’t stick around for the short feel-good story at the end that’s supposed to make me all warm and fuzzy after being shoved into a vat of burning tar.

2021 is off to a dark start.

Or maybe not?

It depends on what you know about black holes.

A black hole is a place in space where a tremendous amount of matter is packed into a very tiny area. Think of a star 10 times larger than the sun squeezed into the size of a city like Boston. Its gravity is so strong that light doesn’t escape. Black holes are hard to detect, but scientists locate them through their influence on surrounding stars. They have great power over anything that comes near them, and despite their name, they contain plenty of light. …

Planet Soul

Weekly horoscopes from astrologer Rob Brezsny

This Is Us

Notes on a childhood memory

My earliest memory, and thus the beginning of my selfhood, has absence at its heart. I don’t remember much about knocking out my front tooth. By that I mean I have an incomplete, fragmentary recollection of what happened Before and what happened After. I remember sliding around the kitchen floor in my socks. Getting a bit of momentum, sliding toward the stairs at the back landing, then turning around and doing the same in the opposite direction. My mother was in the kitchen, too, moving between the sink and the stove. My sister was sliding with me, sometimes in front, sometimes behind. …

Lived Through This

No matter what, the Universe is looking out for you

I was nervous when I walked through the door of the clinic. I was even more nervous lying on the table in my surgical gown, legs apart as the nurse happily shaved my balls. Maybe they gave me some Valium. I really can’t remember. I doubt it.

But I do remember when the doc brought out the needle filled with local anesthesia. It was the largest I’d ever seen, and it would be inserted not once, but twice into my now clean-shaven, yes — those. “You’re going to feel a little pinch now.” Ouch. Thanks for that. Fuckers.

I didn’t pass out, perhaps because the doc and the nurse talked the entire pre-op phase about their weekend plans and how the local football team was doing. Do they even realize I’m lying here on the table, scared out of my mind? I figured they didn’t take the class on helping patients feel like you care about them. …

Planet Soul

To me, the cards are tools for introspection rather than prediction

I was never one of those kids who played with Ouija boards. Was it a game or a spooky prediction tool? I didn’t know and frankly, trying to predict the future scared me. I was afraid it might predict someone’s death, or my own. I stayed far away.

That changed when, as an adult, I turned to Tarot cards. I went to my first reading in an occult bookstore in New Orleans as a fun afternoon diversion. I left a believer and purchased my first Tarot deck that day. I told myself I was just having fun — but after a failed relationship and job loss, a little part of me wanted the cards to predict my future. I wanted to know if my bad luck would continue. I wanted more control over my future, or at least to know if something bad was coming. …

Planet Soul

Weekly horoscopes from astrologer Rob Brezsny