And So It Is, Guest Posts

Taboo.

January 23, 2014

beauty-hunting-jen-logo-blackBy Andi Cumbo-Floyd

I heard my mother swear exactly one time.

My brother and I wanted to go to the pool on a blazing summer day. We were already in the back of the Chevette, our legs sticking to the vinyl, and Mom was in the driver’s seat.  I cannot remember what Jeremy and I were badgering her about – going sooner, staying longer, more snacks? – but she lost it a tiny, tiny bit.

“Damn it!” She slammed the door and went inside.

Jeremy and I sat in the car for a long time. I probably cried. In time, she came back out and drove us to the pool.

Swearing was taboo in our house. Even now, when I say “shit” in front of my dad, he winces a bit. . . and then gets that furrow of disapproval between his gray eyebrows.

My parents were quite open to most anything – I shaved my head in 7th grade – no reaction; I never had a curfew, just times my parents asked me to be home; no subject was ever off-limits in books. But swearing was not something that happened in the Cumbo home.

It was a taboo certainly carried over from their devout, somewhat conservative Christian faith and from their generational expectations – polite people just don’t swear.

***

Fuck taboos. I hate them.

I hate the way they make people feel small and tiny. Limited.  Controlled.

I hate the way they are wielded like weapons at dinner parties – in polite conversation, we don’t talk about politics, religion, or money – or touted on blogs as the guidelines for being invited in – “swearing is unnecessary.”

I hate the way that people judge each other – and themselves – when people “air their dirty laundry” as if sharing our pain is somehow violating the limits of proper etiquette.

No.  No!

I believe in hanging it all out – the shit stains and the blood marks and the semen etched by love and loathe into the sheets. Because when we hang it all out, the air gets in and opens it up, opens us up.

Because when we show ourselves, even the inky, burnt parts we normally keep turned inward, we heal.  We breathe again.

***

Someone surely is going to say that there are limits to what we should share and when. . . . and I don’t disagree . . . at least not with the idea that we can be wise about what and whom we open up to.

I do, however, disagree with the “should” because “should” is an agent of control that comes from someone other than ourselves.  “Should” is that pesky, belittling voice that silences us because it is almost never coupled with “breathe” and “rest” and the honest touch of a warm hand.  “Should”- and its brother “should not –  are the voices that shout, not the ones that caress.

I am a Christian. I have been taught for almost four decades what I should and should not do, what it is to be “good” and what it is to be “bad.”  More often the lessons on “good” washed over me like silk that flowed to other people – the girl who was prettier, thinner; the boy who read his Bible more; the woman who always smiled – but without fail, the “bad” sunk into me like acid, leaving my skin intact and burning into my skeleton.  The “should” sticks.  The “good” doesn’t.

So I have found my way past the “should” and “should not” to the space beyond that, where God, in all God’s goodness, whispers love and hope and the kind of forgiveness that is about moving forward not miring down.

***

My mother died from cancer just over three years ago. Even when she was in agonizing pain, she didn’t swear.  She didn’t complain.

I wish she had. I wish she’d let loose with every expletive that came to her as the cancer wracked her body.  I wish she had screamed out the blood that was murdering her minute by minute.

But she didn’t.  She spoke love to us even then.  “I love you . . . ”

Every day.  Every day, I am grateful that I was raised in a family where love overcame everything. . . even the taboos we taught ourselves.  Every day, I’m glad my father’s brow just furrows when I swear . . . and that then, I feel his calloused, soft hand on my shoulder as he whispers, “I’m so proud of you.”

Andi Cumbo-Floyd is the author of  The Slaves Have Names: Ancestors of my Home. She blogs regularly at andilit.com, and you can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.

 

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Join Jen at a writing retreat in Mexico this May!  Jennifer Pastiloff is part of the faculty in 2015 at Other Voices Querétaro in Mexico with Gina Frangello, Emily Rapp, Stacy Berlein, and Rob Roberge. Please email Gina Frangello to be accepted at ovbooks@gmail.com. Click poster for info or to book. Space is very limited.

Join Jen at a writing retreat in Mexico this May!
Jennifer Pastiloff is part of the faculty in 2015 at Other Voices Querétaro in Mexico with Gina Frangello, Emily Rapp, Stacy Berlein, and Rob Roberge. Please email Gina Frangello to be accepted at ovbooks@gmail.com. Click poster for info or to book. Space is very limited.

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No Comments

  • Reply Melissa Shattuck January 23, 2014 at 1:02 pm

    ““Should” is that pesky, belittling voice that silences us because it is almost never coupled with “breathe” and “rest” and the honest touch of a warm hand. “Should”- and its brother “should not – are the voices that shout, not the ones that caress.”

    Thank you for that today. Beautiful piece for me to read as a mother, as a daughter, and as a person who often “shoulds” my way through time.

    • Reply andilit January 23, 2014 at 3:25 pm

      Thank you for reading, Melissa. I, too, should much more than I, um, should. See there> 🙂

  • Reply Donna January 23, 2014 at 3:02 pm

    “because “should” is an agent of control that comes from someone other than ourselves”

    For some reason I never saw the external control in “should”, just always saw the internal control. Thank you.

    “I hate the way that people judge each other – and themselves – when people “air their dirty laundry” as if sharing our pain is somehow violating the limits of proper etiquette.”

    So true. And, so sad. The healing can’t some if the pain can’t be shared.

    Beautiful Andi. So good for the soul. Thank you.

  • Reply andilit January 23, 2014 at 3:25 pm

    Thank you, Donna. I have those internal “shoulds”, too, but I think they were taught to me from the external ones. 🙂 And yes, the sharing is the step toward healing. . .

  • Reply Emily Weaver January 23, 2014 at 10:10 pm

    Wow! I love this bit of your thinking while there is something in me that really dislikes “bad words!” Guess which generation I’m from? I heard all these words growing up. More than one member of my family and also friends ranted colorfully, sometimes in humor, but most often in frustration which I perceived to be anger….external? Something in me early on…declared that I wouldn’t…..internal? Sometimes today, I am confronted by a torrent and I feel that all this “stuff” has been thrown at me. While I usually just remain quiet, I really feel that I have been hit….external/internal??? Andi, I am thinking that with her pain and sadness over leaving all of you, your mother was also experiencing a peace which did pass understanding and that those words perhaps just weren’t in her. I love the relationship that you share and have shared with her and with your Dad …itself probably much desired, but rare.
    Both of my children apologize, or at least look sheepishly my way, when a word slips out in front of me. Our son, has said that I have left them no possible vocabulary for the human anatomy or its functions! So with my own wrinkled brow and pride in you all, you now have what I think….tonight. Who knows? Maybe I will mellow!

  • Reply InfiniteZip January 24, 2014 at 2:53 am

    Touches a chord on how we were raised….if anyone was swearing, look out…..also tasted a bar of lava soap….not tasty at all, nope.

  • Reply Kelly January 24, 2014 at 3:52 am

    Really great piece. Thank you for sharing. I can really relate to this story as I was raised in a very conservative Christian home. Now at 44 I’m busting through those shoulds and should nots with gusto. #MSH

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