I’m in the second day of Focus, the seminar following Discovery, and the past two days have been harrowing, rewarding, and plain old exhausting. It’s a smaller group, a handful of boys, including Jared and Robbie, as well as Sunny, Katrina, Roxanne. We’ve gone through another towel process, we’ve re-rediscovered our magical children, we’ve shared, we’ve sobbed. We’ve taken everything we did in Discovery to the next level, delving even deeper into what’s holding us back. For me, it’s how ugly and worthless the abuse made me feel.
Instead of David, we have Lou, a very little lady with a very big voice, who right now is asking us to vote ourselves and everyone else as a Giver or Taker. We tally our votes and line up in the order of the Giver votes, most to least. At least I won’t get reamed in this process; compared to everyone else, I have a decent number of Giver votes.
“Mia!”
I jump at hearing my name. Glenn whispers something in Lou’s ear. Why was I singled out? I’m not even at the Taker end of the line.
“Everyone who gave Mia a taker vote sit down. Of those of you standing, why did you vote the way you did?”
Roxanne volunteers, “I think Mia’s a Giver because she’s really unselfish, she’s always willing to listen to people and talks one on one with a lot of us.”
Sunny offers that I give really good feedback and am a good listener, and the rest of the girls basically reiterate what they said.
“Well, isn’t that interesting?” Lou muses, pacing back and forth. Then she stops about a foot in front of me and stares me straight in the eye.
“The feedback I’m hearing has nothing to do with you, Mia. So far I’ve heard nothing about what you give to others, just what you take from them. You listen? How is that giving, that’s taking in other people’s words, other people’s experiences. How often do you share in group, Mia?”
“I’ve made an effort since Discovery to open up in group.”
I see Glenn stand up in the back—this can’t be good.
“That effort consisted of sharing four times, Mia. You were real, you didn’t small talk, but considering we have group every day, I wouldn’t call that much of an effort.”
“Neither would I, neither would I,” Lou mutters. “It’s sad, Mia, because you take away from others the experience of sharing yourself with them. And that’s not what Focus is about. It’s about risk, it’s about standing powerfully as the gift that you are and the difference that you make. Your results don’t seem to indicate you want to be here.”
I swallow hard, resisting the urge to shout, “That’s not fair!” I have been trying lately, I’ve been curbing my attitude and making relationships. I raise my hand.
“It’s true, I have a harder time sharing in groups, but I’ve been working through my issues through letters to my parents or talking one on one with people. I don’t think it’s fair to base my progress only on group.”
Lou asks my family for feedback about this and they’re all very supportive. Maybe this will help sway her.
“Mia, notice how you create situations where others have to jump in to save you. Your family seems more eager for you to graduate from this training than you do. I experience you as being very selective about who you’re with because it gives you the illusion of control. That’s operating from a place of fear, which isn’t control, it’s cowardice. Young lady, you’re on thin ice. I want to see you get real and open up or you’re out, is that clear?”
I nod and sit down shakily. As she moves on to others, I think about what she said and start getting mad. Why is everything here based on sharing, like if you don’t publicize your life you’re not dealing? I hate how this place has this cookie-cutter idea of what change looks like. If you’re too quiet, you’re not showing up enough, if you talk too much, you’re playing show up games. You just can’t win.
Still, I’m so relieved to have not chosen out, I keep this last thought to myself.
Our final process is called our Stretch, and I’d rather face a charging bull. I have to put on glittery makeup and twirl around like a butterfly to Mariah Carey. Being Surfer Barbie would be less humiliating. It’s meant to get us out of our comfort zones by taking on the persona of the part of us we avoid most. I don’t see how making a total jackass out of myself will help me “grow.”
Jared seems equally thrilled by the idea of donning a tutu and exploring his feminine side as a ballerina, and Katrina’s hyperventilating at having to clod around as a sumo wrestler. Watching pounds of fake flesh jiggle has got to be a nightmare for someone who panics at eating more than a piece of lettuce.
We’ve spent the last two hours creating costumes from scratch, practicing moves, and making ourselves up. The center of the floor is cleared as a stage.
Samantha starts it off as Bananarama’s “Venus.” My jaw drops when I see our dark and moody Samantha dancing and twirling around in a costume of colored paper, streamers, and face paint as she lip-syncs. She looks radiant and I cheer loudly when she dances past me, trying to get her to hear my voice over Sunny’s whooping and clapping.
When her song finishes, we watch three guys shimmy and shout as the Pointer Sisters. They were so pissed when they found out their Stretch, the only reason the words homo or fag didn’t come out of their mouths was because they knew they’d get dropped. But something must have happened in the last few hours, because right now they’d put drag queens to shame!
Then the tone changes. An ethereal melody begins to play and the lights dim. Fabric rustles in the darkness. As low lights rise, Jared and two other boys begin to move slowly around the room to the “Nutcracker Suite.” It’s unbelievable to watch, it’s not Jared in front of me in a pink tutu, but some otherworldly creature moving slowly, surely, with grace and strength. They’re all beautiful. Not in a feminine way, in a powerful, peaceful way.
Any thought of their looking ridiculous has completely dissipated. Laughing at them would be like laughing at unicorns or angels. When they glide out, there’s not a dry eye in the room.
Just as Katrina begins to sumo wrestle her way around the floor to our applause and laughter, Sasha taps me from behind and whispers for me to get ready. I’m so nervous I think that releasing all the butterflies inside would be a more entertaining Stretch than watching me pretend to be one.
Covered in a brown potato sack, I sit under two chairs pushed together (my cocoon) and wait for the music. When I hear the first few notes of the song, I take a deep breath and start wiggling my way from under the chairs and out of the sack. Sasha did my hair and makeup earlier with sparkling green eye shadow, blush, and lip gloss. Under the potato sack I wear tights, a long billowing shirt, and I tied the ends of a shimmering scarf to each of my hands. When I let the sack fall I feel naked, almost how I did that morning I woke up on Derek’s sofa.
I try to remember the steps I planned out but I draw a blank and start to freeze up. Fuck it, I already feel dumb. Slowly, I start twirling around, circling the scarves around me and feeling completely idiotic. Then, I start to let loose and move to the music’s beat, and suddenly, I’m having fun as my body takes the lead. I’m dancing like I used to when my parents left the house and I’d closed all the blinds. I spin, I stag leap, I twirl.
I feel weightless and angelic. When I reach Sunny, I see tears in her eyes. Being a girl always made me feel weak; I equated femininity with violation. But this feeling of female beauty and grace is awesome, empowering. The song ends, the lights dim, and I’m told to close my eyes. I hear feet rustling up to me and I’m told to let myself fall back. When I do, I fall into hands that lift me high into the air and hold me there.
“…She’s a sparrow, but she’s an eagle when she flies…” I listen to Dolly Parton with my eyes closed, allowing myself to feel the support of everyone’s hands. As it winds down, I feel myself lowered and open my eyes to meet those of everyone else smiling down at me.
Everything I wanted, love, belonging, feeling beautiful, feeling wanted, it’s all here, enveloped in the arms of eighteen people I met barely four months ago.
I’m guided to the “Oasis,” a chair in the corner with a plate of fruit next to it and a wash basin on the floor. I look down and see Roxanne smiling gently at me as she puts my feet into the warm, bubbly water. Her Stretch is to serve others, which is perfect for someone who is used to being waited on hand and foot. I tilt my head back, reach for some grapes, and enjoy a foot massage.
I feel as if a new me is awakening. Or perhaps reawakening. Initially, I found my Stretch fitting in that it helped me embrace femininity as a strength, rather than a source of pain. A butterfly is able to fly precisely because it’s so delicate.
On a deeper level, though, it signified a transformation I’ve been undergoing. Just as a caterpillar cocoons itself away for protection, I began to shield myself from the world a long time ago. But, I had become so comfortable in it that, rather than protect me, I let it define me, stifle me. I became the shield, not the butterfly. Literally and metaphorically, my Stretch was about the shedding of a self that no longer serves me. One I’m now glad to see go.