Healing the puer

“...a windblown spirit who cannot fly and therefore cannot fulfill [her] fate.” ~ Ralph Severson, Puer's Wounded Wing

I dreamed last night that a funny-looking boy came and put his head in my lap.

My impulse was to reject him; to push him away. But then I realized he needed me, and what could it hurt? He was just seeking simple comfort, no more.

So I let him rest his head there, and stroked his hair, gently. He seemed calmed by it, and went to sleep.

***
This is the part of *me* that I’m trying to re-absorb – that rejected adolescent, the one my father didn’t want.

Why is it the puer? I think it’s a boy in my dream because boy represents the active, or outgoing? part of the self. But (he) was made to be *passive* by my father, because my father couldn’t handle a woman who could outdo him at anything – be smarter, faster, cleverer, more talented. So I learned to hide myself, my wings were clipped, so to speak, as the price of being accepted by my family.

Now? I *insist* on flying. No more nice.

***
But it is not only my *father* who blocks this flight in me: It is the culture as a whole.

Men feel threatened by strong women. Or, at least, *many* of them do. They act it out in all kinds of ways, from overt violence to verbal undermining and emotional gaslighting.

For example, I called about a car part the other day, and, without thinking (maybe I was a little tired? not enough sleep and up too early), I kind of ‘barked’ at him, the guy on the other end of the phone. I wasn’t really brusque, so much, as just very sure of what I needed and not making that extra effort to sound ‘feminine’ so as not to bruise the fragile male ego on the other end of the line.

Of course I was ‘punished’ for it – he left me on hold, and when I finally hung up and called back, he said, “Oh yeah, we don’t have it. Sorry, kiddo.”

What the *fuck* is with the ‘kiddo’? To a grown woman, a total stranger. I’ve been in to that shop before, and I know for a fact that the guy on the other end of the line is the same age as me, if not younger. It’s pure power play, plain and simple. (wow, look at all that alliteration! :-) Accidental.)