taking up space on the cricket pitch
I was not raised a ‘good girl’.
I’m pretty sure mum engineered my fiery sass from day dot. As a child, she was unheard, invalidated + powerless. As a mother she learned that she was not. All the freedom and wildness that had been stifled in her, she fiercely instilled in me. The way she chose to raise me was a big fat middle finger to the cultural + familial oppression she had endured her whole life. I was her rebellion, embodied in a teeny-tiny little girl with a grubby face and whopping big attitude. And when her parents criticised the way she parented, telling her I needed more discipline + less attachment - she just smiled quietly, breastfed me on demand and let me run wild.
I was not the kind of kid that attracted comments from strangers about my looks or clothes because frankly I was dirty + kind of pissed off most of the time (some say unapproachable - I say healthy boundaries😉). Instead, strangers would comment on my ‘inappropriate’ volume + leftfield statements. But mum never told me off for any of it. I pushed all the buttons, all the boundaries and she loved it.
My chances at ‘being a lady’ didn’t improve after moving in with dad. Barefoot and scabby-kneed, I developed mean backyard cricket skills instead. There were no tennis balls, only the ‘no-fucking-around’ hard balls that could have you end up in ER if you didn’t have your wits about you. Those balls would pop off the bat and go flying into the neighbour’s yards or rolling down the street. We’d cheer as fielders dived for the ball as they tried not to spill their beer. Regardless of the risk of field injury, I knew Dad was proud to have me out there. He’d patiently give me pointers, praise me when I smacked the ball into oblivion and chuckle whenever I’d rub the ball on my raggedy jean-shorts, holding a spit-covered index finger up to check the wind direction before it was my turn to bowl (just like the cricketers on TV).
The guys at Dad’s house missed the etiquette memo and thank god, because otherwise I never would have discovered the indulgence of eating mashed potato with my fingers, the hilarity of recording a burped alphabet onto cassette and the thrill of arm-fart lessons from my brother.
Those were the days.
So, it was confronting + disarming to arrive into the grown-up world. I was strong + confident + beautiful + enough - but all of a sudden, magazines + movies + society told me that I wasn’t. The narrative that I was unworthy had ubiquitously slithered in while I wasn’t looking. And just like that, I found myself trying to squeeze into some kind of woman-shaped canister where acceptance came only when I subscribed to society’s version of ‘pretty + ladylike’; only when I turned a blind eye to misogyny; only when I traded my integrity in order to be considered; only when I rejected myself to avoid shame and only when I withdrew from challenging the truth that violence + abuse of women is normalised, filtered and disregarded every damn day.
And so, I have spent a good portion of my adult life crawling out of that woman-shaped canister.
I do not fit into it.
And that little dirty, messy-haired, loud little girl with the mean cricket skills? Well, she is my fucking guru. So, if ever I start slipping back into a world that expects me to be quieter, prettier, thinner, curvier, more ladylike, less opinionated, less paid, less honest and anything outside of what I believe to be sovereign + free, well then… I just ask that little girl what she’d do.
And she will smile at me, shining up the ball on her raggedy jean-shorts, testing the wind direction with her spit-covered finger and then she will go for it… taking up all the space she needs.
❤️
#internationalwomensday