I got my Relationship with Femininity at Claire’s
Claire’s was a prominent feature of my childhood. my dad took me to the mall a lot as a child to see movies, in an attempt to relive his own childhood of summers spent in the theater his dad managed, watching The Empire Strikes Back over and over and over again. my earliest memories of the mall outside of claire’s was seeing movies for male audiences much older than myself. i saw movies like Looper and Prometheus before i was really even capable of reading. he took me there in an attempt to relive his adolescence, memories he’s etched over in a John Hughes informed font, where the mall was where he found community, and belonging. a place he was allowed to be.
But my father couldn’t relive anything in a Claire’s. And he very much did not feel like he belonged there, to the point he often hand me a 20 dollar bill and wait outside, like entering the threshold of the store would somehow taint the sanctity of his mall nostalgia. it was the only thing that felt like it was for me. my father, looming, threatening and cultivating my over-attachment to him, had no interest in fuzzy pink diaries with puppies on the front, or bedazzled perfume bottles containing scents of concentrated alcohol and candy. there was nothing interesting to him about clip on earrings or stickers or fake neon green zebra print glasses. but he had to bring me, otherwise there was nothing separating me and my brother, and nothing girly would be instilled into me. no binary would be enforced.
i had no maternal figures in my life and claire’s was the only tie i had to femininity in the slightest. my hair was forcibly kept short because my father was incapable of taking care of it. any jewelry i had would get tangled together, because my father didn’t know how to store it.* i swore constantly from a very young age, i didn’t know how to cross my legs in a skirt, and i spoke loudly and took up space without even knowing there was another way to behave.**
claire’s offered some insight into femininity for me, hairbrushes i’d never used, makeup compacts i didn’t understand, bracelets i found bothersome to wear. my cousin or school friends and i getting friendship necklaces, little displays of female friendships i would later be isolated from for my awkward disposition or queer presentation. i loved these little objects, but even at the time it felt like a drag performance, a novelty, a display of something that didn’t belong to me.
i went there a lot as a kid. my most prominent memory being getting my ears pierced. it was a trip my father, brother, and i took out of state, down the coast. i don’t remember what state, or how he described the trip to us beforehand, but we’d eventually arrive at a hotel. a woman would walk in. i would ask my father “daddy, who is that?”. she would seem heartbroken at the question, feigning a smile. my brother would ask in disbelief “mom?”. it’s supposed to be a touching reunion, i don’t know who this woman is. regardless of this fact, the next day she would take me to get my ears pierced. this would be the last time i ever saw her in person. she is dead now, as of three months ago.
*i once received a golden cross necklace, from a relative maybe, or a coworker, or a gift for me from a girlfriend i didn’t know about. his storage solution for neither of us destroying it was to place it on top of a doorframe, away from prying eyes and hands. this would later be destroyed anyway.
**i would learn very soon how to behave otherwise, upon adolescence, sexual maturity, and the expectation to understand my role in the family structure and societally.
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