conundrum.

while preparing for spring, new designs and changing some things on the RBa website i'm constantly debating whether i want to say that i'm designing for a particular audience. i believe that the term "post-mastectomy" perpetuates a sense of isolation and detachment. the very reason i don't want to sell RBa in post-mastectomy boutiques. problem is, well, "post-mastectomy" is what got us here.

right: trestle vest created 11.24.11. left: tree discovered 11.26.11.

021912. a view born from harmony.

I knew one thing.
I needed truth.
The question was not
How will I
Feel about this body
OUT
IN
The world.
But rather
How will I feel about
This body,
My body,
My flesh,
When I look in the mirror
Unclothed and
Alone with it.
My answer lies
In truth.
I could not live with
Reconstruction.
Its whispers, taunts and tease.
I could not bring myself to
Further burden my
Flesh.
Cut it.
Stretch it.
Stitch it.
Convict it.
Punish it.
For my flesh to carry and suffer the grief of beliefs beyond its control was unimaginable.
This need to speak for it,
Embrace it,
Honor it,
Give it back its power,
Was a want for harmony.
So that my
Conscience
And my
Flesh
Could live as one.

i'm back.

just give me a minute to get situated.

coming out of the woodwork.

Rhea Belle apparel will be featured in the September issue of Women and Cancer Magazine. An editor admitted that they have never addressed the population of women who decide against reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy. This article will be the first to not only introduce this innovative clothing line but the refreshing personal and social ideologies that gave birth to their design and brave existence.

photo: the Rhea Belle songbird capelet dress/tunic.

love and death.

are
2 lil'
love birds
sittin'
in
a tree
k
i
s
s
i
n
g
.

we'll start with words.

turn.

take turns
turning point
the tide has turned
turning the corner
taking a turn for the best
taking a turn for the worse
turn the clock back
the tables have turned
turns out

(to be continued...)

reflections.

for a new friend. my words on the surgery.

feed. back.

the latest for Rhea Belle apparel...

"absolutely love this dress. who says winter requires shades of gray. lightning speed shipping and care taken with packaging! again, what a beautiful concept - loving our bodies in whatever shape they are in."

(MORE HERE! and YES, i'm bragging.)

dark ages.

"For women who have opted not to undergo reconstruction after a mastectomy, it is vital to get a good breast form and find the right bra, according to personal development and image consultant Judy Fearn.
"This is really worth pursuing," she says. "Keep trying them on until you find the one that works for you. You'll be amazed at the difference it can make to your silhouette and the way you feel about yourself."

(more photos and about the photos.)

on being ageless.

It is a great essay! But after reading "What would Susan do?" by Matthew Zachary I must note that we should give credit where credit is due. The "think before you pink" project began in 2002 by BREAST CANCER ACTION - one of the leading and growing breast cancer advocacy organizations in the country. Their politics, ideologies and mission transcends ageism and is not limited to a stereotyped 40+ crowd. It's quite bothersome when "young" people (supposedly under 40) stereotype the "non-young" (anyone over 40). GenerationX has ALL generations before them to thank for paving the way for their inventions and attitudes. The only difference between my diagnosis at 36 and my diagnosis at 40 was my age in years- I was the same person. My rebellious, socially inquisitive and ageless disposition will remain throughout my years and GenX will discover this truth themselves one day. After 40 we don't automatically buy into questionable mainstream rallies like the pink ribbon. Neither did my 70+ year old grandmother for that matter when she had breast cancer. Plenty of "young" women support Komen and pink ribbon product consumption (hardcore!- trust me I've talked to some of them). Attend a Susan G. Komen walk and you'll see what I mean. It's not an age/generation thing that makes someone uncomfortable with organizations like Komen or PINK marketing in general. It's a rising social/political conscience issue that's been addressed for years by many women with strong social and feminist views even before GenX when we weren't even so saturated with it. We must all be responsible reporters/writers and not buy into ageism like so many other facets of the media where YOUNG is better. It's the ideologies and politics of rebellious generations before us of all ages that actually gives rise to progress and unveils oppressive ideologies and presents these observations to the next generation. I mean, I'm 44 but my clothing line and website are informing younger women of non-traditional/mainstream choices they didn't think they had. Many of my garments have sold to 25-30 year olds with and without cancer. I'm going to be cool and progressive even at 90! In a world where we require permission by red-carpet celebrities or DOVE soap commercials to be proud of grey hair and wrinkles it's important for those of us, of all ages, with a sensitive social conscience to come together- to be ourselves and embrace our strong voices beyond the boundaries of the number of our living years.

Komen knows exactly what they are doing and their marketing has absolutely everything and nothing to do with age. That's the brilliance of Komen. They're simply a money machine. When many women wrote to Komen and complained about this ad a Komen representative responded by saying the ad was intended to reach a "younger" crowd by using an "image they could relate to". While social and feminist conscience women were enraged even by the response, the signs remained. I'd like to say that Komen is out of touch with the younger crowd but it seems they are not. If we are really out to change the flow of this river we must address the fundamental "wrongs" in these campaigns for "cure/research" and get young people on board with the offensive social/feminine/consumer assault that these campaigns provoke and not just calling "foul" to the superficial by-products of the regime (the pink ribbons and product consumption). And even more importantly we shouldn't ever separate the old from the youth in these battles - you need some of us on board- we're fighting the same battles and we're passionate. To say "We're on our own. And as I like to say, GenX cancer will only be fixed by GenX." is a bit of a stretch.

I personally think all women should read The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde in order to clearly understand how far we have not come in defining and owning our personal feminine ideologies and our bodies. The PINK thing transcends marketing/disease/body/consumer exploitation. It's simply oppressive and women in the fields of feminist studies, anthropology, socio-political and marketing have been writing about it for years already. Until people educate themselves on HOW we got to this point with disease marketing/exploiting/profiteering via product consumption and the landscape of advertising they will not understand what it will take to change it's course. The Susan G. Komen foundation is not a bad organization. All of the effort and contributiuons they make towards funding research and assiting the econimically challenged/medically under-served population with screening is commendable. For me, it is not only their no holds barred marketing and advertising that I find has much to be desired but their capitalistic conservative political practices are transparent as well. The foundation lobbied against a pro-consumer patient-rights bill in 1999, 2000, and 2001; the bill that the company sponsored is known as "the HMO Bill of Rights." Not to mention they clearly display absolutely no regard or interest in the causes of breast cancer. As the rising rock-star of money making/receiving organizations for the "cause" I wish they'd at least run a more progressive, socially sensitive, feminist sensitive show- stop exploiting our bodies, stop implying breast cancer is all about our breast and not our lives and stop making cancer out to be something we fight, kick and punch... or lose to. Treat us, the consuming public, like intelligent people. We have also only to blame all the companies who participate in "pink product" merchandising at the expense of those fighting breast cancer while pushing their products stamped with a ribbon. For every lid licked, every product labeled at the grocery with a pink ribbon and beyond simply lies a transparent opportunity to make a buck (with usually very little actually going to the "cause") through passive, empty empathy. Every October there's an open invitation to profit from of a disease- someone else's misfortune. The question is not "what would Susan do?"- it would be arrogant to even speculate or imply she would do anything differently than her sister.

Resources from Rebel1in8:

Patient No More: The Politics of Breast Cancer by Sharon Batt

Breast Cancer: Society Shapes an Epidemic by Anne S. Kasper

The Politics of Breast Cancer by Maureen Hogan Casamayou

The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear, and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America by Barron H. Lerner

A Darker Ribbon: A Twentieth-Century Story of Breast Cancer, Women, and Their Doctors by Ellen Leopold

Pink Ribbons, Inc by Samantha King

Unravel The Ribbon by Sarah Lochlann Jain

Pink Ribbon Madness.

Welcome to Cancer Land.

Crunch For the Cure.

Awareness and truths.

tis the season (october).

i'm a bit confused why those that support the big "pink ribbon" agenda always make those that DON'T -seem like haters. it's funny because that's EXACTLY how the marketing works- if you're not out walking, running and consuming for the cause and it's "victims" then you just don't care. god forbid we simply conserve our personal energy by NOT walking and avoid purchasing unnecessary pink products by NOT consuming and give to the charity DIRECTLY. it's all so passive. what happened to genuine compassion without a gift in return of something useless.

i don't hate the pink "campaign"- i loathe it. and not because it over-rides other diseases and causes of death. i loathe it because it is sexist and undermines fundamental feminist issues. it's an oppressive plight that uses bloated old-age feminine ideologies about our bodies and our place in the world to scare women into being "AWARE" at the expense of our integrity while practicing the sweet pleasures of capitalism. yeh, it's a mouth full. it is simply a "fear losing your breast because it has everything to do with who you are". it's a frightening day when some one says with a light, careless air in their voice- it's ok- it's breast cancer- it IS all about the breast, after all.

i've been diagnosed twice with a mastectomy the second time around with no re-construction. my grandmother had breast cancer and a bi-lateral mastectomy (no re-construction) in her 60's and died 20 years later with lung cancer. i move forward in her/our honor by NOT supporting breast cancer organizations that use the disease and women's bodies so carelessly and without a social or feminist conscience. any campaign that uses a headless woman's torso and talks about "save the breast" or "kick it" with vague misleading illusions to bring attention to it's CAUSE is NOT working in MY name or my grandmother's . in other words these organizations do NOT speak for me. we who march to a different drummer certainly are allowed to have and voice our keen socially/politically observant opinions - despite that they may go against the comfy zone of mainstream popularity. but we are far from being "haters".

my fabulous friend and patient advocate Jeanne Sather has some great suggestions on her blog. If you'd like to contribute to the "cause" in a more direct, compassionate way consider the question... "What DO You Want (Instead of a Pink Ribbon)?"

sometimes it doesn't cost a single cent to help the "cause". help low-income medically underserved women by making a simple phone call.

see the right column on this blog- i place some interesting information under "ON PINK".

in the same vain as my opinion "on pink" i design clothing for women who have had a mastectomy and choose NOT to impose society's politics and ideologies on their already traumatized bodies and do not have reconstruction or a wear the blob (aka the prosthesis). it is the very first clothing line to EMBRACE the single breasted or no breasted body... www.rheabelle.etsy.com

de-pink at Rebel1in8

please see "MY TOP RESOURCES" in the right column.

if you live in new york city...

i highly recommend the play "The Clean House" by Sarah Ruhl. it's currently at the Tisch theater until Sunday, October 5th. get your tickets in advance through smarttix. i don't witness much theater but this play is worth an evening out.

an excerpt:

Ana:
"People talk about cancer like it's this special thing you have a relationship with. And it becomes blood count, biopsy, chemotherapy, radiation, bone marrow, blah blah blah blah blah. As long as I live I want to retain my own language.
Mientras tenga vida, quiero aferrarme mi propio idioma.
No extra hospital words. I don't want to have a relationship with a disease. I want to have a relationship with death. That's important. But to have a relationship with with a disease -- that's some kind of bourgeois invention. And I hate it."

it's a play about discovering/opening your heart for the perfect joke and love. and some stuff in between.

(some costume consultation provided by Rhea Belle apparel.)

what matters.

it's the rebellions that matter.
despite the powers that be and what some may think.
fight the doubts, the resistance, the opposing grain.
that's what makes a rebellion... a rebellion.

imagine a long commercial
cutting in
on a setting sun.

that's what the days are like.

at the end of the day, though
i try to remember what matters.
my true guides are inside my heart
speaking through the gut
with swords protecting my spirit.
i just keep saying, because it is true

.
.
.
stay close to the believers
the passion getters
the joy seekers
the givers of kindness
and to hell with
those
whose
arrogance
prevents
them
from
sharing
or even
knowing
the
sounds
of
the
drumming
rain.

Truth be told.

From the Los Angeles Times

Opinion
Palin: wrong woman, wrong message
"Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger."

By Gloria Steinem

September 4, 2008

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked aboutIraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.

Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's MediaCenter. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.

a new place to gather...

under THE SONGBIRD BRANCH.

Rhea Belle apparel... the beat goes on.

i just received the following email today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"I received the items I ordered, and I love them -- Now I'm wondering about another...
Thanks again -- Your clothes make me feel so good......
Mary"

a wordless narrative #2.

a train ride.
towards friends, gregg and marisol.
rich blue skies.
sun kissed wood.
licks and jumping fur.
cool water in evening light.
a love story on a rippling sheet under stars and amidst crickets and birds. and a fire.
chocolate cake and beer. (yes together) after steak and garden greens.
sleep.
and then.
morning swimming. alone. floating. and summersaults.
taking it in.
a puppy named chica.
a smooth sweet flirty dog named chulo.
and elegant maya. 15 years old. sleeping. always. and dreaming of play and running and treats and all the hugs and kisses in foreverville where comfort and endless memories with her cool mama, marisol await her.
and gregg. i wrote a poem for him once. or twice. a friend for life. years ago he walked deep in the woods with me. he, a shovel in his hand. me, my dead cat's body in a back pack. we buried her together. he was the only one near that i trusted. he lost a shoe (a dress shoe at that) down a steep hill while climbing towards the best spot. we buried her on a hill near a stream. i planted poppies. we found his shoe.

and then a train ride back to brooklyn. to "meat".

enjoy the show.

unleashed.

the new designs have been unleashed. my description for this garment:

NEVER before has a mastectomy garment been offered that actually embraces the transformed body. This dress was designed solely with my body landscape in mind- a single right side mastectomy. The rich raspberry tie gently wraps the flat chocolate terrain- protecting, embracing and empowering it with style. Radical times call for radical measures. Thousands of women walk the sidewalks with post mastectomy bodies hiding them with prosthetics, frumpy over-sized garments and fear. I refused painful, potentially harmful reconstruction and the humility I find in the use of a prosthesis. I'd rather adorn my deserved body with beautiful garments and confidence and this piece is the first to be available for sale with such a brave bold statement.

If you haven't had surgery it's still going to be fabulous on you!!! Just fabulous. Wear it with glorious support for all the women with transformed bodies and spread empowerment. It will be available in other colors soon. But I'm in love with this combo! The wide tie can be made to embrace the left or right side. Please specify upon purchase.

"A reasonable man adapts himself to his environment. An unreasonable man persists in attempting to adapt his environment to suit himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw
***

is this "in your face"? you bet! do i care? what do you think? but i will not let 30+ years go by again and passively sit and wait for "time" to forgive my body politics. i wish Audre Lorde were still with us to perhaps witness a day free from oppressive ideologies and submissive practices based in fear.

i simply don't want to be "nearly me" or "nearly you"

Please pass the knowledge of Rhea Belle apparel around! or go shopping for yourself. it's really not about the sales. it's about unleashing the lovely sweet REBELLION!!!!! a rebellion created for ALL women- so if you ever need to make those hard pressed decisions regarding what to do with your body if diagnosed with breast cancer you'll have choices. choices based in your personal ideologies NOT fear of social rejection.

and i'm not the only one wondering "if thousands of women are having mastectomies a year... where are they? where are "the women like me"?

(i'm wearing this number this weekend. i'll post photos as i'm always getting comments like "let's see YOU in it". so ok. ok already.)