Gender Issues

Life, my crafty old nemesis, seems to keep moving forward and bringing more and more Blog-worthy things into my sphere of awareness. This is great, because it's nice to actually have something to write about when one sits down to write, but also profoundly not great because it means that if I let too many days go by, I find myself simply unable to catch up to all the wonders that have transpired before the here and now. In the last batch of days we've had Florence, food, absurdist Russian spectacle theatre, romance, reunions, and raving relatives. However, I'm going to have to leave the great majority of these topics scattered around the globe in various letters, because this particular blog is going to be about my mad Grandmother and the specifics of female anatomy. Tantalized and titillated? Read on...

I arrived back in England on the 20th (a much anticipated date) and managed to locate my mother on an evening train bound for King's Lynn the following day. After much happy leaping and giggling, we managed to settle down enough to exchange stories of all that had transpired in the five months since we'd last clapped eyes on each other. The end of the WGA strike came as particularly welcome news, as it means I'll actually have a house to come home to instead of a refrigerator box with bookshelves. And the Oscars got to happen. Which I suppose is good for those people who won Oscars. Well done there.

We've ended up together in Sedgeford, a very small town in the wilds of Norfolk inhabited by various relatives of mine. The only one who's actually related to me by blood, my grandmother Wendy, has Alzheimer's and is quite mad. I may have touched upon this is a previous post. She is, however, a delightful woman who is still quite shockingly silly and incredibly rude. (See: Unafraid to gesture as to just where I could stick the carrot I was trying to feed her this evening over dinner.) Unfortunately, she has very little short-term memory, and therefore tends to forget who I am a great deal. I was alright with this on previous visits, but as I've cut off all my hair in recent weeks, she keeps mistaking me for a member of the opposite sex.

Granted, I have become used to this since I first cut my hair short six years ago, but under normal circumstances a single correction is all you need to make the offending person blush scarlet and apologise profusely. Not so here. Regardless of how many times I patiently explain that I am, in fact, a girl. Named Lucy.

"Yes, that's right. Lucy Bellwood. Your granddaughter. Yes. Daughter. No, really I am. And that's my mother, who's your daughter. No, I just said. I'm a girl. Yes. Why? Because I like having it this short. No, we're visiting from America and we -- FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T PUT THAT IN YOUR MOUTH!"

Etcetera.

It's essentially like re-living the same five minutes over and over again for all eternity. Or at least all of ten days. I try to maintain my sanity by doing the crossword every morning and knitting with concentrated ferocity -- two activities which, in and of themselves, already seem to suggest a distinct lack of normal. Maybe I'm not doing so well after all...

Anyway, the moment in particular that I'd like to draw your attention to took place over breakfast the other morning. Sunshine was slanting through the French windows, turning the kitchen pleasant and warm. My mother was sipping a suspiciously green healthy smoothie and Wendy, sat opposite me, was spitting bits of tomato skin about the place with reckless abandon. In the course of her circular conversations, she had been asking "And who's that lovely young man over there?" quite frequently. At first, I had answered patiently that I was, in fact, her granddaughter, and hoped that she would get the idea, but no luck. I moved on to just saying "GIRL" very pointedly every time she used the wrong personal pronoun, but still to no avail.

The sheer hopelessness of it all started to get to me. I was also stuck on a particularly obscure crossword clue. And I hadn't eaten. I also hadn't slept much the night before. Basically, I'm just trying to find an excuse for what happened next, but there isn't really a good one to be had. The fact of the matter is that after I'd shouted "I'm a GIRL!" for about the 13th time, she looked at me in a befuddled manner and asked "But why are you a girl?" In retrospect, I have been able to correctly identify this as The Last Straw, mainly because, in response, I proceeded to tear open my kimono and bellow "BECAUSE I HAVE THESE!"

Many things happened in quick succession at that point. My mother spat smoothie across half the table, I realized that I had, effectively, just flashed my oldest surviving relative (at the breakfast table no less), and my grandmother looked quite taken aback for a few moments before bursting into peals of laughter. After expelling the remainder of her smoothie (Thankfully into the glass from whence it came) my mother did the same. And I, breasters akimbo and feeling slightly silly, couldn't help but join in.

This may now go down in history as the defining moment of what it means to be a member of the long and noble line of Christie women. In short: We're all raving lunatics, Alzheimer's or no. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

For those of you who take a scientific interest in this sort of thing, I am happy to report that my drastic exhibitionism did actually result in a lack of gender confusion for all of the next five minutes. Still, one has to start somewhere.