EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES
aka ROAD TRIP!!!
Last week, my bff Heidi and I were On the Road. We did a very quick trip through California, one that people were always implying is too fast. What is too fast, though, really? I feel liberated thinking about road trips the way that I sometimes interact with seeing art in a big museum. You can go quickly, forgive yourself for doing so, and enjoy the rush of rebellion that comes from moving fast. The point is that you notice what you notice and – if life goes as you hope – you come back later, longer, on purpose.
I anticipated the vibe for this week’s Cleanse being about how hard it can be to actually feel physically well on road trips. They’re gritty and glam, but sitting in focus-mode and driving for long stretches can feel claustrophobic. I have done three cross-country drives and many a coastal stretch and while I love the adventure, my body historically acts less like a vibrant sail on the open water and more like a buoy; bloated, bouncing, strangely tired. I have done my best, in the past, to simply honor on the holy adrenaline of a gorgeous snickers bar and many a McDonald’s French fry, but as I get older? I recognize that exclusively eating those things can make a person not feel amazing. Random!
So this time, I was braced for that lethargy and sense of being a bit off the map in terms of caring for myself. But you know what? I am excited to tell you: I was wrong!
There were so many good things to eat on the road. The amount of good snacks? I was stunned. Sure, part of that is grace à summer, which means fruit. But the world has changed! In the sense that altruistic food brands are bigger than I last was zooming around. Going into random stores and finding good stuff, not overly-processed, felt easy. Watermelon juice, easy. Quinoa chips, easy. Avocados, easy. Olipop, easy.
Walking back to the car, elated after a little hydration haul, I observed myself: I was SO happy. Maybe too happy? Felt random, but also not. Yes these snacks were exciting but they were still… snacks.
And how funny my concern, in a way. Though of course I am a holistic girlie, I also understand the absurdity of wondering if probiotics will be roadside on my literal adventure. And though health concerns are real (I do live in fear of a SIBO recurrence) and feeling okay is nothing to be sniffed at, I definitely noticed how immediately soothed I felt when I found the snacks that felt comfortable to me. This seemed… superficial? Hyper-fixated? An outsized reaction? I guess I hadn’t realized how much I had cared.
Happy, but humbled
I was reminded by the Bourdieu quote (sorry!) “The mind is a metaphor of the world of objects”. Seeing objects that feel familiar to us makes us feel safe. If we know whether a dream is a good one or a nightmare by the subversion of familiarity, why not then, feel grounded and soothed by a recognizable object somewhere new? If I had been stressing – even unconsciously – about not having the nutrients necessary, this experience made something in my system relax.
Continuing with Bourdieu, I think about his paper “Masculine Domination”. This writing is supposed to be on femininity, though I feel like we live in a world so interested in thinness that this phenomenon is a modality that transcends a question of gender. Bourdieu talks about women (people!) “held in a kind of invisible enclosure… circumscribing the space allowed for the movements and postures of their bodies.” Though I think road trips set us FREE BABY!, what is a car if not a moving enclosure? He continues that “this symbolic confinement is secured practically” by mechanisms like clothing and “has the effect not only of masking the body but of continuously calling it to order.”
Continuously calling it to order. What an expression! I think the question of ‘calling to order’ and management, in part, is what made those snacks soothing. In the fear that a SIBO flare-up or whatever might happen through the unknown of the open road, the mechanism of fueling myself felt higher stakes. More troubling, perhaps, is that in introducing the word ‘order’, we may posit the body as a chaos. Wilderness, we love. Chaos feels stressful to consider. This may mean it rings partially true.
I actually cannot believe that it has taken me this long to write about Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. For my English thesis, I actually wrote about Tom Robbins’ kooky little work crossed with the poetry of Walt Whitman from Leaves of Grass. The whole thing was about the re-figuring of the Western Odyssey, the subversion of cowboy-hood, and eco-feminism. Very liberal arts! Lol. Anyway, Cowgirls is not the best-written book ever and it actually is very weird and maybe overly provocative and you might not like it at all, and I would not blame you!
But has a very profound story to it, or at least one that I have spent a decade playing with, remembering. The protagonist (played by Uma Thurman in the 1993 interpretation!!) is born with supernaturally massive thumbs that allow her to cosmically hitchhike safely all over the country. There’s also some lesbian ranch stuff and like… it’s a wild book. And fun! But the point is that it’s all about having adventures, leaping around Americana, unencumbered by the restraints of the body. I’ll tell you one thing: there’s no “calling to order” that happens in that book. But also… maybe that’s because it was written by a man.
How does a one reckon with the undercurrent of maintenance (which even I frequently find myself dismissing as frivolous and privileged, working double-time to discern which parts of upkeep are unnecessarily patriarchal and which are necessary and beautiful)? And what maintenance is reclamation when it makes you feel better? In Cowgirls, Robbins writes that “the kingdom of formal ideas will always be a weak neighbor to the kingdom of thrills.” What if, zooming on the open road, I want to be neighbors with both :)
All I know
Is that by choosing thrills, I choose both. Thrill means anything, and anyone who channels ‘cowgirl’ can figure it out. And sometimes the thrill comes from finding a watermelon water and sipping it up and marveling at how perfect it pairs with the fucking vast wilderness that I am lucky to get to witness. Sometimes it is racing along, looking out the window, singing very loud, wind SLAPPING at the edges of the car. What a thrill, to feel better! Better than before, on the way to some place that’s better than that?!?! I love doing a little stretch in the morning, drinking a gorgeous gas station cup Michelada in the evening, watching the moon literally RISE and then resting profoundly well. To gallop over hills in a compact SUV, feeling giant, sun making freckles through the window. Feeling humbled then bold, humbled then bold.
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Next week! Home and back to routine :) we’re talking about Girl Dinner. Lord have mercy!
Ur thesis.... on leaves of grass and cowgirls and eco-feminism???? Can you please share that sounds amazing