A while ago I started thinking about how and why stripping, in all of its many forms, became so important to me. It has lured me into its neon lights and soft amber washes with a force that seems almost beyond my control. I remember being a little girl and seeing ads for strip clubs, or a scene in a movie with a stripper, eventually becoming obsessed with Russ Meyer movies way too young, it seemed like I was being called to the profession in some mystical way. So I began to ask myself some of these questions, why do I love taking my clothes off in public so fucking much? As someone who has also been in therapy for over a decade, I figured I would start by looking at my family. Was there something in my childhood that drove me to this? I asked myself those typical misogynistic questions like, “why would any woman want to do this?” knowing full well that I adore what I do, and I don’t prescribe to the theory that only those type of women strip. That’s just straight up bullshit. But, it seemed like a good place to start right? It couldn’t hurt.
I thought about the women in my family. What had I learned about life, joy, sexuality from them? How did I witness them experiencing pleasure? What did I learn by watching them live their lives? Did I take a desire to be seen to the extreme because I came from a family of women that were taught to be invisible?
I started writing about the women in my family who I spent the most time with in my life, in hopes of understanding how I learned about pleasure which ultimately led me to seek my life as a naked free spirit, punk riot grrrl, rebellious stripper and lover of life.
Here is the first. My Grandmother.
I called her Gramma Lizard. She was tall, perfectly put together and disturbingly thin. So thin you could see all the bones in her chest and her cheek bones popped from her concave cheeks every time she took a drag off her cigarette. On her legs she always wore a pair of perfectly pressed high waisted slacks and a stylish button up camp shirt that hung off her bony body in exactly the same way as the hanger it came from. Her hair was all gray and set once a week with tight curls arranged on the top of her head held together with so much Elnet that it was like a pillowy silver helmet, unable to move. In between her long fingers was always a Capri menthol, the thin barely-there cigarette adding drama like a smoke machine to her flawless exterior, and the reason I called her Gramma Lizard. For to me, at the age of six, a lizard was the same as a dragon and as the smoke pillowed out of her mouth I saw her as the most glamorous dragon. Her name was Elizabeth but everyone called her Lib.
Gramma Lizard lived alone in her small 2 bedroom apartment, beautifully furnished with antiques and items she thought were special. On the walls were paintings, replicas of old masters just to let everyone know that she was a lady of class and sophistication.
Everything in my grandmother's apartment was pristine: perfectly dusted chachkis, her collection of porcelain cherubs arranged meticulously on the bookshelf, the metal candy dish always filled, dishes displayed in the china cabinet like a museum. Though a heavy smoker, the ashtrays were always washed with not a speck of ash left behind. Her bed was always made with the sheets tucked in so tight the fabric strained over the top like saran wrap over leftovers, and she always rolled her pillows into a tight tube like two long tootsie rolls at the top of the bed with the thin bedspread tucked under to hold them in place. Comfort was not the goal, perfection was.
Her pursuit of perfection was an exercise in being invisible, keeping the facade on the outside, and a denial of anything that might live under the surface. She was afraid to let anyone see what she was doing at any given moment. She never owned an electric vacuum cleaner for fear that the neighbors might hear when she was cleaning her home. And always turned on the faucet when she went to the bathroom so no one could hear what was going on inside.
She loved dressing up with my mom and I as Victorian “ladies” and sipping “tea” which was actually International House Instant Coffee, (the epitome of fanciness in the 80s). She loved spicy food and could handle heat like no one I had ever seen before. I trained myself to like spicy food because of her. I saw her savor moments of pleasure when eating or dressing up. And it was delightful when a smile would creep out of her mouth and I could hear her throaty smoker laugh fall out even for a moment.
Gramma lizard never minced words. She was one of the very few people who would always tell me the truth, no matter what age I was. She assumed (correctly) that I would understand. Her Oklahoma roots ran thick. There was something in the western lifestyle of her generation, raised by parents that made their way from Ireland, in the 1890s then across the country in less than ideal conditions. I can’t understand what would possess someone to make that trek. But her family did it. And she had the hard-ass personality passed down.
I heard this story over and over about Lizard. It was one of those family stories that became a part of our lore. I remember hearing it and wondering how my stoic, often cold, and gorgeous grandmother could have let lose sometimes. Because I rarely saw it.
The story goes like this…
Lizard and her husband Shep were in their home in Colorado, she was wearing a rugged pair of blue jeans, a blue silk scarf wrapped around her neck and a button down top with a western print. They were having a party, it was the afternoon and their friends were all gathered in the kitchen as that’s where most parties usually end up. My grandfather Shep, and all their friends stood around drinking and having a great time.
Then a dare was dropped.
Then my grandmother accepted the dare.
Shep hands Lizard the rifle he had just finished making. She walks to the door to the porch, holds it in her bony hands and fires the rifle into the backyard.
POW!
Lib flies back off her feet and into the air almost 5 full feet falling ultimately into the arms of Shep. They fall back together onto the ground hearing nothing but the ringing in their ears from the gun and the laughter of all of their friends. Shep knew exactly what the kickback from the gun was going to do, so he stood behind with open arms, ready to catch her.
Lizard and my Mom would laugh about this moment my whole life.
Shep, my grandfather, Libs husband, was a machinist, he built mainly guns from what I have heard. My whole life my mother kept one of his rifles next to the bed. I never dared to touch it, nor did I have any desire to, “it’s an heirloom, Daddy made it” she would explain when I would ask about it.
Apparently, my mom was quite the shot. And recently my father admitted that it was my mom's sharp shooting abilities that really attracted him to her. Shep taught my mother, who was tom-boyish and the youngest of 3, how to shoot with confidence and extreme accuracy. According to her living in the Mountains of Colorado in the 50s it was a necessary skill, as they didn’t have much money so the rabbits that hopped their way onto their land, and close to my moms rifle, would ultimately end up on the family dinner table. A few of my mom's suitors almost had the same fate. But I never heard anything more of those stories than, “Sometimes I wish I would have pulled the trigger, those bastards.”
Shep, Lizards one love and my grandfather, cheated on her in the late 50s and the pressure to divorce was so great that that’s what they did. From what I understand Lib and Shep remained friends, and makes me think that if it wasn’t for the pressures of the time period that they could have remained married and happy and worked through Shep's missteps. Shep ended up marrying the woman he cheated with. I don’t even know her name. No one ever talked about her. I never met Shep. He died just a couple years after their divorce when my mother was 19. My mother then secretly got married to her high school sweetheart, my Dad, to take pressure off of the family.
Omg what a legend!