Held and Holding

two forces that compel me

In my childhood - between 9 and now - there are two feelings that have captivated me. The first was when a friend hugged me. I was playing at being a woman, he a man. He wrapped his arms around me - and I was held. I melted there, my heart running into his, my breath becoming his, there was nothing in the world I had to worry about. I was at peace. That feeling has haunted me. I crave it, and I know how to find it. In the arms of a man.

Then there was the second feeling. My first memory of it was as I, curious what it would feel like to be with woman - ok maybe even obsessed- decided to turn my pillow into the body of one. Locked in my embrace, hard against it, with my arms around it, a second feeling appeared. Holding. The feeling of being really and truly male. That feeling in your chest of being hard and strong, of being needed and powerful. A woman in my arms.

I found that feeling elsewhere, a girl in pain, wrapping her arms around me and sobbing against my neck brought the feeling. Hugging mama I found a hint. I slowly learned how to find it A female body against mine, looking to me for protection, was the key.

Two feelings, one I know is my destiny - one I have pursued for far too long. It is not my place to own both. No one has that right.

Life begins in being held. First in the womb, then in your mothers arms. Childhood is held more symbolically. Your parents hold you in their concern, they hold the practical elements of life, breakfast and dinner, the rituals of a home. I was held.

As you grow up, you can no longer sit in her lap, nurse at her breast, you can no longer let others take care of you with those enfolding arms of ritual. Food must be self prepared. Slowly you drift away from that holding embrace - it is because you must. Parents can suffocate a child by not letting them go.

Before this time we are children. After this time we are men, and we are women. After this time the roles of the two differ. In some relationships it is the woman who does the holding, but it seems that this is when he has not really grown up. In some relationships there is mutual holding, in such it never seems as if anyone is truly held. How can you melt into another's arms while they are melting into yours? You'd both end up a pile of jello - no one must hold and they must be outside the experience, keeping watch.

Women seem to be built for melting, their bodies formed to be held. A man seems built for holding, their bodies hard,muscular, and protecting. Feminists might argue . . . but to me it seems clear, when a man is healthy it is his to hold the high watch. It his to posses the second feeling.

They say that the heroic quest is a metaphor for life - the child is in the divine, the youth exits it and tries to bumble around a bit, until at last he is able to wander back into the arms of God. A man is held, I know that to be true.

I only wish it were in arms of flesh.

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

I thoroughly enjoyed this. You must be right about us wanting be held. Like you, the young me wanted to be in the arms of a girl more than anything--possibly for more than one reason. I won't go into it, but Mother didn't hold me. If I fell and skinned my knee, she'd apply a band aid, but that was all. No hugs, no kissing boo-boos. No emotional support.