Big Dick Energy

My way

I was late to the big dick energy thing. My friend, Christina, told me about it on a quaint nature walk last year. And I was like YES!! How thrilling to have a powerful secret that drives your life, like a magic wand attached to your body. Obviously, I wanted big dick energy myself. And I finally figured out my version: big impulsive energy. That’s my mood, my vibe for this year. BIE.

Last week I wrote about my anger. I wrote the essay in a day and felt scared to publish it. Was I being impulsive? Would I forever be remembered as “the angry lady?” But based on the many generous and vulnerable messages I got, it looks like I’m in good company. Go us.

Anger and impulsivity are not exactly my ideas of how to be a likable woman. But I’m trying to remember who I was before I turned into Daisy… before I got shellacked in a pearly crust that looks shiny and feels smooth but completely dims my light. In week-three of The Artist’s Way Julia Cameron offers this prompt: “Describe five traits you liked about yourself as a child.” My first one? Impulsivity. When I was a kid, I had more BIE than I knew what to do with.

Impulsivity is enthusiasm, raw and uncut. It’s my human need to participate, and possibly with my whole body. It’s like the only rule in improv: just say “yes.” Keep the action going. You catch the ball, you throw it right back. The impulse is original, unequivocal and distinctly, you. Overthinking is the pearly crust, layering itself back on.

Impulsivity got written out of me, of course. Schools did it to me, culture did it to me, I did it to myself. But when I look back at the zinging moments of my youth, BIE was the thrust. Impulsivity is what caused me to drive my arm into a fox hole during a twilight break at CCD class, which I attended with kids from a different school. I remember the boys all looking at me like I was nuts, giving me extra space in the classroom when we came in from the church field. But there was power all around me. I was brave, I was mysterious, I was flush with life. BIE.

When I was six I became fixated on the red coils of the kitchen stove. “That’s hot,” I was told. “That will burn you.” How hot? What would the burn feel like? I put my finger down and I heard my skin sizzle. I wore my blister like a badge of honor. Frankly, I love myself for that. I want to high five that little girl on her un-seared hand and say, fuck yea, you said yes to life. (Now, of course, I’m constantly admonishing my kids to get away from the stove.) There were downsides to my BIE: the beginning of its end came when I kicked Edward Sweeny in the stomach while dancing wildly in the hallway in sixth grade. I remember the way he folded over, his eyes turning red around the rims. He looked at me, pleading and betrayed. I remember thinking, whoops.

Over the years I came to understand that impulsivity is not safe; it is not understood; it is not okay to be “just too much” as a young woman. (It was Whitney who recently reminded me of this God-awful phrase.) The look on Edward Sweeny’s face was enough for me to put my innate Elaine Benes aside for about twenty-five years.

As I think about reclaiming my BIE, I realize how closely it’s tied to my sense of mystery. Who is the secret, impulsive woman inside me, my magic wand, my proverbial big dick? I coax her out anytime I play. She shows up whenever I do something nervy, like audition for an acting class in the city, or dance down my small-town street. One neighbor will text another: I saw Isabel Murphy trying to moonwalk outside of J. McLaughlin, do we think she’s okay…? Imagine if I didn’t care?

This brings me to the thing I miss most about Manhattan. My pedestrian life let me play all the time. Walking the streets, I was watched, but anonymous. I could be anybody—depending on whether I wore a pair of Blundstones or high heels; whether I listened to Bob Dylan or EDM. I experimented with the cadence of my walk, the bounce of my step. I wore lipstick, or a stark stare. I looked away, or I held a stranger’s gaze. I had an audience of thousands, but the moment I walked by, I was gone. Playing with myself I felt open, vulnerable, powerful. I owed no explanations.

Mae West said: “Whenever I have to choose between two evils, I always like to try the one I haven’t tried before.” This is BIE in neon, all caps. How else can I make it mine? I can make tiny shifts; matters of degree. A nearly imperceptible turn today leads to a whole different lifetime. I might wear red lipstick when I run through the woods. I might, as my friend Happy suggested, appear from my bedroom in full black-tie and take myself out without explanation. I might sit at my secret bench at the MET for as long as I please, feeling the holiness of all of that art and all of that recorded, human time. I might even try locking the door when I go to the bathroom to spare myself curious eyes and questions about my anatomy. Vive la revolution!

Holy smokes, I’m excited.