Charis Brice: dancer, whiner, fisher, baller. : Magic wands, Ohio and virginity: if I had a nickel.

Recently during a quiet evening of working across the table from my sweet man, candle lit, music playing, dinner cooking, drinks a'sipping, I suddenly remembered something. The something had been so dormant in my mind, so buried in my subconscious, that I felt amazement the scene in my mind was real. I am rarely brought to hysterical laughter from a thought produced within my own, lonely head, (I usually require the chemistry of two or more gathered) but this one was quite enough.

I laughed so hard that Arnaud finally put away his work and said, "Tell me." I had to consciously gather myself before speaking. "Well," I began, snorting a few times, "I just remembered this one time many years ago my ex-husband and I played a "special" as they called it, for his sisters wedding. I played the violin, and he played the piano."
I fell immediately back into gasping, howling laughter, so deeply amused by my own story that breathing seemed secondary.
"Oh pookie, come on here." He said with a smile.
This is the broken-English phrase Arnaud uses to say "get over here" when he hugs me. I don't correct him because I love it so much; I hope he doesn't read this.

He understood. Even though he really didn't. Christ, he had been in France discovering his body and about to turn 14 when I stood in front of that congregation and made music with my ex for the glory of god and holy matrimony. But he understood enough to know that playful comfort was what I needed in the midst of my ROFL time.

There are muscles in me that can only be exercised and developed through laughter. Some people do not understand this fact. They understand that laughter is contagious and heartwarming, it makes people's eyes soften and transcends language barriers and tastes delicious in both dairy and soy, but laughter is also very hard work. Babies have tummy time, I have ROFL time: in the end we both put our heads wearily on the ground and give out a little whiny cry of exhaustion. "I am finished," we seem to/literally say. "I'd like some breastmilk/vodka now."

I am a teenager, playing the violin in a church in Ohio, a virgin, accompanied by my future husband on the piano.

Why is this memory so funny to me? Certainly I am different now; I have changed. (I got laid!) But even if I had changed every aspect of my life, body, sexuality and religion I would still expect to look at who I once was and say, "Yes, that was me - and now it is not." So why am I so damn tickled?!

I have always given people the impression that I am "mature." I know exactly what I mean by this, because you see, I am mature. (I never said I stopped).

As a baby I was advanced verbally, like a sassy little alien stuck inside a tiny, sickly body. When I was a child I remember yearning to be seen as "one of the gang" by the grown-ups. I read David Copperfield when I was 11. (NERD). I was the oldest of five siblings, homeschooled by my Mama and was daughter of a Bible church preacherman.
I received accolades beyond description for my Bible memorization and leadership skills at summer Bible camp. I could make people laugh. I was a beautiful ballet dancer, an adequate violin player, a class clown, and a Jesus freak. I was told I was special, the cream of the crop, a valuable member of God's army against the world. Jesus was the reason for the season, truth was absolute, and I loved eyeshadow. I wore combat boots and a violet plastic dress to a public-schooler's prom (he had blue hair). I picketed against abortion alongside my tearful Father and later alone at my Bible college. I was going to stay a virgin until I got married.
And so I was dubbed "mature" - like a "gifted child" title, but for Christians.

It wasn't true. Or maybe it was. All I know is that I did not know what I was doing at any given moment of my life. I was a normal child - but like magic I could wave my maturity wand, and a spell would cast a hue of rightness on everything I did or did not do. And so I waved that fucker, hard.

The wand stopped working a few years ago. For a time I could be found alone, waving and waving and waving that wand. I wacked it against the wall, covered it in neosporin, put it through the wash, put it in my vagina. "It has always worked... this must be right... pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase work... I cannot have been so completely, fantastically wrong. FUCK."

When I was 19 my wand was working perfectly. I decided to marry a handsome, outgoing, smart, Christian man I met at Bible College. He and I would live in a far away land called Seattle, and I would be a real woman. I saved my virginity for him, even from him, until we were married. He did not, but had tried his hardest and God forgave him, and that was what really mattered.

The years that followed were so dark and so sad that they feel less like a life and more like a bad dream, only instead of waking up I waved my wand. "This is right. This is marriage."

The years went on.

Other women, the never ending, all encompassing thrill of addiction, fear, rage, hurt, contempt, sexual starvation amidst sexually charged perversion. He confessed to me constantly, enamored by his chaos and distracted and exhausted by his own struggle, as was I. "I watched porn while you were out with my shirt pulled over my eyes so I could not see it." Excuse me? My soul and body continually read: Response: Unknown. There was not a single inch of room for me to exist, which made things easier. But it also made me furious. My rage could have filled up the sky and blackened out all the stars. I gripped my wand with an iron fist: magic don't fail me now.

The wand stopped working after seven years of marriage. Even magic can't be that full of shit.

I am a teenager, preparing to play the violin in a church in Ohio. I am accompanied by my future husband on the piano. I am a virgin. The scene is washed in the hue of rightness. I look to him for comfort before we play -- his eyes skitter across the crowd, darting from face to face. He adjusts his shirt and does not look at me. He begins.

I tend to feel and see my life with a sense of grandeur. "No shit," says everyone I know. I blame growing up with a magic wand of rightness. But regardless the reason, removing magic from a scene is awkward.

I did not want to play the violin for that wedding. I did not want to wear a dress and panty hose for Jesus and feel a thousand churchy eyes on me. I did not want to marry that boy and live unseen in chaos and darkness for seven years. I did it because I was mature, and it was the right thing to do. Because I had no idea how to exist without the chaos, without being special and right. I did these things and a thousand others because my wand protected me from ever having to feel what I wanted. I never had to just see my life simply as it was.

I think that is why the scene was so hilarious to remember the other night, as I sat across from my sweet man, having a quiet, ordinary evening: because without the hue of rightness, without the darkness and the magic and the grandeur, the remembered scene is just miserable, stiff and awkward, as was I.

And it turns out awkward is not only hilarious, it is also quite endearing.

"Oh pookie, come on here."