ON Women and doe

(originally posted on Substack)

As I write this post, I am staring out of a window, in my temporary housing, in Aspen, CO. I see a beautiful blue spruce, covering an aspen tree from my field of vision. There are so many aspen trees here, I do not mind. The spruce stands strong as the wind rushes past its branches, while the aspens dance to the wind. I am a spruce tree. I am from the longleaf pines, but I always felt distant from them. They were just out of my grasp, yet as this spruce tree stares back at me, I am forced to stare in the mirror.

I have always been an artist. It took me a long time to feel comfortable stating that. I always felt not creative enough. I would shoot down my ideas, because I thought they were too impossible. I am also very pragmatic. I feel made up of contradictions, and I am only now realising that I must embrace both, rather than moulding myself into one.

This past year has been my journey with femininity and artistry. I found myself often more bitter than sweet, like my morning coffee and signature G&Ts. In an artistic field and major, I am finding that I constantly have to be open to anyone’s ideas. In total seriousness, that is one of the things I love about it. But I find this growing frustration with the way that men and “masculinity” are coddled in the field. Looking back on my life, I see that it has always been this way for me.

I was 6 years old when I first realised that knowing that you are capable, and having that belief in yourself, is not enough. My parents had always raised me to know that I can do anything I put my mind to. That I am a strong and capable woman. That I can do anything a man can do to the same caliber, if not better. But when I started school, I realised that was not the case. I was in first grade, doing speed addition and subtraction tests. Only I and this boy in the class finished our sheets. He was praised. Maybe I was, too, but I cannot remember. I do remember the next day that we (the boy and I) were talking in the hallway, and I was the only one who got in trouble. From that day, I was convinced that I needed to prove myself as better, as I inherently was not, because I was a girl. I write of this story because I do not know what it is like not to compare myself to men. I have never wanted to be a man. I have only ever wanted the privilege that comes with being one.

I have this theory that this drive to be treated like a man is what drives women mad. Last semester in my non-fiction writing class, I wrote an essay titled “Die Opheliamaschine” also known as my female rage essay. Writing this piece was free therapy for the past year. It helped me process the 2024 US election, a former friend being a rapist, and men being unintentionally misogynistic. It took form after I had read Heiner Müller’s Hamletmachine, which, despite being written by a man, his writing of Ophelia felt like the personification of all of the feelings I had bottled up my entire life. But the real story starts on an early Sunday in March.

I was driving to campus for a rehearsal, and took a different route than I usually would have. It was a bigger road, spanning five lanes. It was around noon, the sun was high, and suddenly this doe was crossing the road. I slow down. I would have hit her if not. She ran across the road, frantically. I would not have been surprised if she had already been hit. It must have been around 5 seconds; we made eye contact. It feels weird to say, less weird to write, but staring into her eyes felt just like the spruce tree. A mirror for me to see myself. I felt her pain, her fear, her desire, her hunger, her anguish. I do not know if she was trying to kill herself or not, maybe I was and still am putting my afflictions onto her. But I still believe it was self-inflicted.

A week after that oneness between us, I was driving back home from my friend’s house in North Georgia. I decided to adventure and take the back roads for the 3-hour journey. I was the only one on the road again when I saw her. Not the same doe, but they could have been. She was dead on the side of the highway. I cried for twenty minutes after that. I could not shake the full circularity of that week. I had seen a doe gifted life, and another with their life taken away, with the only certainty being that I am the doe in one way or another. So, when I read this:

“I am Ophelia. The one the river didn’t keep. The woman at the gallows The woman with sliced arteries The woman with the overdose SNOW ON HER LIPS The woman with her head in the gas oven. Yesterday I stopped killing myself.” - Heiner Müller, Hamletmachine

I knew I had to write about it. I had to choose to let it out before the feelings consumed me, as it has other women.