to me that women shave their legs. I hadn’t been around many women in a setting to see their legs. It was an entirely new idea to me that year. A light dusting of feather-fine blonde hair had cropped up on my shins just months before, and after seeing Diane’s perfectly smooth, lotioned limbs, I resolved I better follow suit.
One night I crept into the bathroom and got Dad’s razor. I went back to my room like some refugee and locked the door. I turned out the lights, so my brothers wouldn’t see them on and come knocking as I struggled to figure out this strange ritual I knew nothing about. Not knowing was deeply shameful. I know. Common sense should have informed me otherwise, but it was foregone in favor of secrecy and shame, both powerful blinders.
Using one hand to guide the other, I began to apply the dry razor to dry skin, only to realize in short order that some water might help things along. I rolled my pants legs down, went to the kitchen as nonchalantly as possible, and filled a glass. My dad and brothers were in the living room watching TV, none the wiser. I went back to my room and got the job done, occasionally swishing the razor in the cup of water as quietly as possible. When I finished, I turned on the light to admire my handiwork, only to see by the cuts and nicks along my shinbone and ankle area that I would need some tissue. And more practice. And light.
The next day I ill-advisedly wore a skirt, and my dad, noticing the telltale cuts, took me aside that evening and said calmly, “Jewel, I am going to ask your mom to come by tomorrow. Maybe it’s time she takes you bra shopping.”
Just hearing my dad utter the word “bra” in the same breath as my own name made me want to crawl under a table. I thought we had an unspoken agreement not to discuss these things. He wasn’t prudish or shy, and in fact he was the one who explained to me how babies are made when I was quite young. He had a book with pictures and handled it with a social worker’s discipline. No shame, no awkwardness, just the facts. But that was before the divorce, before he had a string of girlfriends coming and going, strange women sitting with mixed feelings at our breakfast table while I made them oatmeal and my dad slept upstairs. And it was before I had figured out I was fantastically modest. Back on the homestead, I was the only one within a twenty-mile radius who did not take part in the group saunas on Sunday nights. No one in our area had a shower, so Sunday was basically a potluck and bath night. My grandfather would build a fire in the sauna and anyone who came by would get naked and pile in the small hot wooden room together to bathe and scrub and sweat. The brave would jump into the ice-cold pool outside the sauna door, which was basically a five-foot hole in the earth with visqueen to cover it and keep water in. Then folks would get dressed and share food.
I have vivid memories of all shapes and shades of body hair. You saw it all in that sauna. Chubby with bush. Cherubic with no bush. Thin with gray hair, the occasional exotic redhead. All the kids stripped down as well and everyone drank fresh birch-sap water we collected in jugs. I hated it though. I was the only one who wore a bathing suit in the sauna, waiting it out until everyone left to strip down and scrub up with fresh creek water and a cloth I brought from the house. My understanding of women and sexuality was from barrooms: that women gave themselvesaway and that men were perverts. I saw firsthand what a woman was willing to do for a compliment, and that men made chauvinistic and creepy comments with no idea any line had been crossed. At home there was little privacy to be found, and so I took it where I could get it.
As much as I hated to admit it, and as much as I hated the situation, the fact was I did need a training bra. All the girls had them, and while I can’t say I was developed enough to have earned one, I hated to be left out of the teasing
One night I crept into the bathroom and got Dad’s razor. I went back to my room like some refugee and locked the door. I turned out the lights, so my brothers wouldn’t see them on and come knocking as I struggled to figure out this strange ritual I knew nothing about. Not knowing was deeply shameful. I know. Common sense should have informed me otherwise, but it was foregone in favor of secrecy and shame, both powerful blinders.
Using one hand to guide the other, I began to apply the dry razor to dry skin, only to realize in short order that some water might help things along. I rolled my pants legs down, went to the kitchen as nonchalantly as possible, and filled a glass. My dad and brothers were in the living room watching TV, none the wiser. I went back to my room and got the job done, occasionally swishing the razor in the cup of water as quietly as possible. When I finished, I turned on the light to admire my handiwork, only to see by the cuts and nicks along my shinbone and ankle area that I would need some tissue. And more practice. And light.
The next day I ill-advisedly wore a skirt, and my dad, noticing the telltale cuts, took me aside that evening and said calmly, “Jewel, I am going to ask your mom to come by tomorrow. Maybe it’s time she takes you bra shopping.”
Just hearing my dad utter the word “bra” in the same breath as my own name made me want to crawl under a table. I thought we had an unspoken agreement not to discuss these things. He wasn’t prudish or shy, and in fact he was the one who explained to me how babies are made when I was quite young. He had a book with pictures and handled it with a social worker’s discipline. No shame, no awkwardness, just the facts. But that was before the divorce, before he had a string of girlfriends coming and going, strange women sitting with mixed feelings at our breakfast table while I made them oatmeal and my dad slept upstairs. And it was before I had figured out I was fantastically modest. Back on the homestead, I was the only one within a twenty-mile radius who did not take part in the group saunas on Sunday nights. No one in our area had a shower, so Sunday was basically a potluck and bath night. My grandfather would build a fire in the sauna and anyone who came by would get naked and pile in the small hot wooden room together to bathe and scrub and sweat. The brave would jump into the ice-cold pool outside the sauna door, which was basically a five-foot hole in the earth with visqueen to cover it and keep water in. Then folks would get dressed and share food.
I have vivid memories of all shapes and shades of body hair. You saw it all in that sauna. Chubby with bush. Cherubic with no bush. Thin with gray hair, the occasional exotic redhead. All the kids stripped down as well and everyone drank fresh birch-sap water we collected in jugs. I hated it though. I was the only one who wore a bathing suit in the sauna, waiting it out until everyone left to strip down and scrub up with fresh creek water and a cloth I brought from the house. My understanding of women and sexuality was from barrooms: that women gave themselvesaway and that men were perverts. I saw firsthand what a woman was willing to do for a compliment, and that men made chauvinistic and creepy comments with no idea any line had been crossed. At home there was little privacy to be found, and so I took it where I could get it.
As much as I hated to admit it, and as much as I hated the situation, the fact was I did need a training bra. All the girls had them, and while I can’t say I was developed enough to have earned one, I hated to be left out of the teasing
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