May 17: Crane Woman/Bitch Woman
I am currently in Vancouver on a sunny afternoon, writing in a coffee shop in Gastown. Sunlight is spilling in and reflecting onto the wooden tables, the bright white walls, then off the green of the plants of various shapes and sizes scattered in this corner cafe. Work is a thousand miles away and I am finally sleeping in and waking up with absolutely nothing on my mind. My days are busy, I am walking everywhere, trying new things, Sarah and I are going to a parkour class together tonight and afterwards we will get sushi and go salsa dancing. Life is full again.
Yesterday, Sarah and I went to Ikea to go find her a cabinet. We made a whole trip out of it. We had a meatball dinner, a chocolate cake dessert, then a veggie dog and strawberry ice cream to top it all off. We stood in model rooms and imagined the kind of lives we’d live there. We plopped ourselves onto every single mattress and decided none of them were satisfactory. We did everything except buy her a cabinet. In the parking lot, with both our ice creams still in hand, laughing and walking to the car, I told Sarah that there was something so fulfilling about female friendships, that the allure of the spinster lifestyle suddenly made sense; glamorous, rich old women who never get married and instead relied on their busy social lives and their bottomless wallets to keep their cups full.
But this morning, I woke up and thought about Marcelo. In the almost 9 months we have been dating, this is the third trip I have taken without him. And I mean it in the best way possible when I say that it only gets easier and easier. I feel more certain about him than ever, and it provides a grounding sense of peace that affords me the freedom to spend time apart from him from time to time, and fully indulge in experiences as an individual, rather than as a part of a whole.
Marcelo doesn’t believe in the feeling of missing someone. He believes that one should not live in a state of lack that distracts from the present moment, simply because a person isn’t there. I agree with him, but this morning I woke up with a feeling that felt awfully like missing. It is the subtle kind of missing, the kind where I still get out of bed and go on with my busy day of exploration, but the kind where I do a double take when passing by messy-haired boys wearing black pants (there were two). None of them are him of course.
Recently, I read a beautiful essay published in The Paris Review in 2019. It is called The Crane Wife, written by a woman who leaves an unhappy relationship, in which she was always made to feel like she was too much. She likens herself to the crane wife, a Japanese folklore in which a crane falls in love with a man, and every night plucks out her feathers to maintain the illusion of being a woman — proper, self-sufficient, without wild emotions, without desires. Her fiancé tells her she is loveable because she wasn’t annoying, was low-maintenance, because she liked beer. And so, she diminishes herself to fit this image he had of her, in order to please a man who convinced her that she was easiest to love when she did not have needs.
The day I read the essay, it was my last day before Vancouver. Marcelo had a busy evening scheduled in Toronto and I wanted to say goodbye before I left. As I had a day off, I decided I would take the train over to meet him for dinner. I read this essay on the train, and I reflected on myself, then on all the women who would no doubt resonate with the essay. It is ingrained in us to suppress our emotions, and hide away our moments of vulnerability to not only become more palatable to men, but to simply survive on the delicate balance beam of modern society, in which we juggle to find the right balance of emotionality that sits perfectly between the extremes of “cold” and “hysterical”.
This is an impossible and unfair standard, and it is perpetuated by men and women alike. In my years of being single, I have heard many stories from my girlfriends about terrible dates and terrible men, all leading to the same conclusion that men will inevitably break your heart. The solution? Keep your emotions closely guarded, don’t show all your cards. I was once gifted a book, in which the (female) author taught you how to be the kind of woman who is indifferent to the whims and follies that women fuss over. She is cool and distant when she wants to be, she does not double text, nor pay for dates, she is unbothered, untouchable — and at the end of the day, she does not need you in her life. The book is called “Why Men Love Bitches” and its seemingly empowering message was all just a ploy to attract more men. But look a layer further, and this advice is well-intentioned: rooted in the fear of not wanting to be hurt by men, at the cost of suppressing a part of yourself in the process.
So who are you going to be, the crane woman or the bitch woman? Neither. At the end of the day, both of these women lose. The one who tries to take up as little space as possible, and the one lets no one into her space; because neither can be their genuine selves in the relationship, and are thus deprived of the joys of being loved for who they are. In the right relationship, there is no pressure to become either of those women. Instead you feel safe being exactly as you are, taking up the precise amount of space you want or need to take. It is the argument that modern feminism does not require being completely independent of men - it means being the version of femininity that feels most authentic to you, whether that means being a stay at home mom or an astronaut in space.
Granted, it is scary, to be known to such a depth, and have your life and happiness become so closely intertwined with that of another. There is a quote that goes “If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known”. To be loved is to be known, and it is a reward just as much as a mortifying ordeal. It provides a sense of security, comfort and trust — it is the very same feeling that allows you to take a train just to have dinner with your boyfriend, or travel across the country, without feeling like it is at the detriment of your independence or at the detriment of the relationship. You are not the bitch woman nor the crane woman. Instead, you possess the freedom to be authentic to yourself, because you are known, at your best and your worst, and yet you are still loved.
When I was single, I didn’t think I would be writing about relationships in this way. I wanted to write about being self-sufficient, I wanted to write about being enough all on your own, about not needing a boyfriend to be happy. All of this is still true. But the fact is, in moments when I am happiest, what I would really love is for Marcelo to be here to indulge in this excess of happiness with me. It is in this way I miss Marcelo, sitting in this cafe, today. Not from a state of lack, but from a state of abundance and a desire to share it with those I love. It is a feeling that grounds me to the present if anything, and makes me appreciate these moments we spend apart which allow me to experience in ways that are entirely new to me. I am grateful for it. I am grateful really for all that surrounds me these days: for the brightly-lit cafes, for the Ikea meatballs, for Vancouver, for Sarah, for Marcelo — for all the good that exists in the present and for all the remainder that is yet to come.
Until next time,
Cindy