Mudhead

A kachina, a challenge, an interview with author Amy Cohen...

A Hopi kachina watches my computer screen from over my right shoulder. He wears a sanded leather loincloth over ochre skin, collar and cuffs of soft maple rabbit. He stands two-feet high, but he feels as tall as a man. His protruding eyes burn my back, transmit an ancient message of sure-footed joy.

You will dance and you will like it, he mutters. You will run and you will jump.

I try to pay him no mind.

"Hey, we're the same age, man. You can't tell me what to do."

Mudhead knows I'm right, knows we're both children of the sixties, his back rigid with curved cottonwood, my mind stiff with routine.

A rancher's wife handed him to me, made me take him in lieu of payment when I handed her a bag of frosted cosmetics and an invoice for eighteen bucks, thirty-one cents. I wanted to sell him on eBay, collect my fee by proxy, but Mudhead wouldn't have it. 

You will keep me and you will like it.

He's a difficult Spirit.

The feathers in Mudhead's hands shook as I rustled the pages of my local paper in search of the County Fair schedule. 

"Hey, boys! Who wants to help me bake a cake for the fair? I'm thinking I'll do a triple layer lemon supreme, whattaya say?"

My two sons barely removed nose from book. Louis, 12, raised one eyebrow.

"C'mon mom, you always win. Why not let someone else have a chance this year?"

Martin, 10, chimed in.

"Yeah. Besides, we don't get to eat the cake. Those judges are greedy."

I glanced at the two blue ribbons stuck to my wall with thumbtacks. San Miguel County Fair, First Place, Cake Competition, 2006. San Miguel County, First Place, Cake Competition, 2005. Maybe I have gotten complacent, I thought. I handed the paper to Louis.

"Okay, you guys think you're so smart. Find another category for me to enter."

I swear Mudhead giggled. The boys smooshed close on the couch, legs extended against my Spanish pine coffee table.

"Uh, mom? Will you actually enter the contest we choose?"

I shrugged my shoulders. Sure. Sewing, painting, pies, cookies, tortillas, I remembered the list, the old-fashioned pitting of gargantuan zucchini against watermelon, remembered last year's bevy of upstanding ranch women carrying tater-tot casseroles laced with green chile, carrying small town tradition in the crook of their arms.

"Sure. As long as it's something I can actually enter. We don't have a monster melon in the garden."

The boys whispered, laughed. They sounded gently sinister, the laugh of children giddy on newsprint power. Martin stood and handed me the paper, his index finger indicating my fate.

Mud Volleyball. Noon - 1 p.m. Open teams. Coed.

Damn that kachina.

The morning of the competition my boys brushed their rabbits. Martin checked Snowball's toenails, her tail, and packed her and Midnight into a cat carrier. The bunnies didn't care, didn't know they would be judged for size, weight, in the "Meat Pen" division.

"It's okay," Martin whispered. "The rest of those bunnies might get eaten, but you won't. We just have to tell the judge you're for dinner."

Midnight leaned one shoulder against the tight wire bars of the cage and rubbed.

My stomach flip-flopped as the car skidded into the dirt lot framing the fair. I wore shorts and a tank top, Walgreens sunglasses, my hair pulled back in a long ponytail. I never played volleyball of any type in the past, never cared much for organized sports, for the concept of a team, a group that must move as one. I stepped into the sun, into the tiny midway comprised of a few barns and several mobile units. I made the sign of the cross.

I like to do things by myself. I like to run, to move, to dance. I'm not that crazy about flying balls and muddy people. Hell, I'm forty-one years old. I'm not in the best of shape, either, not since the car accident last summer.

I tried to stop my mantra of pain, of worry, of Girl Who Can't Play Ball. My boys hustled their bunnies to the exhibition barn. I walked past the trailer serving up plates of greasy funnel cakes coated in icing sugar, walked to the wide ditch over which hung a drooping net like a useless apron. Several people stood beneath the net, waiting for any other takers, deliberately covered in mud like Dairy Queen chocolate dipped cones.

I chose a side, kicked off my sandals, and stepped into the mud. It oozed through my toes with a satisfying squish. It smelled bad, dead algae mixed with lord knows what kind of field run-off, with the stale warm water from a rancher's steer-slobbered watering hole. A referee blew a whistle. He held a trophy, a statue as big, as bold as Mudhead, and I held my breath, dropped beneath the surface, let it coat my hair, my face, my arms-who-knew-no-volleyball. Rats. Forgot to take off my sunglasses first!

The game was on! I jumped! I ran! I danced, one foot stuck after another! I felt the spirit of Mudhead move my bones, move my bones, crack my back. I hit the ball once, just once during the whole damn game, and as I did, my boys screamed, "Mommmmmmmmmm!" The muddy man to my left high-fived me, and as we slapped hands together, we both fell backward into the slippery muck. Score one more for the other team! We lost. Big time.

I let my boys hose me down next to the pig barn. A cute rancher in scuffed boots and a goatee grinned, shook his head.

"God, you were horrible. But I have to say, I never saw anyone have so much friggin' fun."

My shot of glory! I am the muddy chick who just slapped that ball over the net at the County Fair!

********
I was asked to participate in Amy Cohen's Virtual Book Tour via Blogs. Amy Cohen wrote screenplays, wrote for television, wrote for shows like "Caroline in the City" and "Spin City."

Amy wrote a memoir, The Late Bloomer's Revolution, where she talks about finding herself later in life, in her late thirties, after her much-loved (and hilarious!) mom dies after a heart-wrenching bout with cancer. Amy and her dad both approach the single's world, both begin to date. Amy even learns a skill that most of us master in childhood - how to ride a bike!

As a single woman in her 40's, as a woman who has tried a million careers, who is still reaching to find herself, her audience, her sure path, I opened Amy's book with trepidation. There's nothin' like reading about someone else's perfect success to bring ya down, to accentuate your own flaws. But Amy's stories of searching for self in the midst of city life captured my heart, my laugh, and I realized she was different from me in nearly every way except the one way that mattered: she desperately wanted, needed, to live life as fully as possible.

I sent Amy a few questions, questions that I hoped would help you get to know her, to understand the warrior under the surface. Read her answers, then go buy her book! You won't regret it... 'cause if I can hit a muddy ball over a net and Amy can haul across town on a ten-speed, you, too, can do anything. Anything.

Birdie: Amy, I opened your memoir expecting to read yet another snarky, irreverent chick lit romp like so many other new books on the shelves, but instead I was surprised to find a deeper, more thoughtful, achingly real story of a woman in search of a way to unite her family roots with her growing sense of self. The book had some incredibly funny moments where I giggled out loud, but the parts that made me stop, made me gasp, were the intimate asides where you flipped a funny story to reveal the hidden darkness below the surface. How has your great sense of humor helped you face difficult moments in both your personal and writing lives?

Amy:  Birdie (love that name!), first I want to thank you for all the incredibly nice things you said about my book. You can't imagine how much it means to me to hear that.

I'm actually convinced I've gotten a lot funnier as bad things have happened to me.  In fact, there's no question. I mean I was no laugh riot when my mother was sick, but afterward when I got fired, my boyfriend broke up with me, and then the eight month rash?   I always thought if anyone had caller I.D. at that point, they were screening, thinking, "Oy. What's happened to her now? Let her leave it on the machine."

I think humor is a coping mechanism as much as anything else. I feel so lucky to have it, because, boy, has it gotten me through some rough times.

I'm not sure I even would have known that I could be funny or see humor in those situations until they happened to me.  But you make one joke about your face looking like you went through the windshield of a car or resembling a really bad diaper rash, and that makes you feel more like yourself. Plus, laughter is such a relief – sometimes the only relief in a situation like that.

I think people often think that because you can joke about something you're in denial, which couldn't be further from the truth. It's simply a different way of expressing pain and confusion.

Birdie: You and your dad share dating (horror!) stories and advice. Did you discover new things about your dad, about your relationship with your dad, through writing about him? Has writing about your family and friends changed the way you understand them, understand your relationship with them?

Amy:  I think in particular with my father, I had such a great desire to portray him as I saw him – funny and so sweet and good.

We'd had such a rough road for so long.   And so often he can come out with things that drove me nuts, like when he said that because I'd been "on the schnide" (chaste for a few months) that might make men think they could go to bed with me easily. That was his awkward way of saying, "but you can't let that happen because you're very special," (which he said.)

I wanted to show a side of him I knew so well, but few people saw.  That was so important to me.  Our new, incredibly close relationship, which I never could have predicted, has been one of the great surprises of my adult life.

I think it's been so wonderful for him to finally realize, in print, how I really saw him.  It reminds me of what people say when they see themselves on TV, that you see yourself in a whole new way from a distance.
But what really thrills me is he has all these new fans! People just cannot get enough of him – he got an ovation at my last reading in New York – how great is that?

Birdie: As you describe in your book, you suffered a humiliating fall - and some serious road rash - as a young girl since you were too embarrassed to tell your friends you didn't know how to ride a bike. You decided to face that deep fear and learned to ride a bike in your mid-thirties. Do you think that we, as women, are improved by facing our fears?

Amy:  I think we're improving because we're talking about things more. I've gotten about a hundred emails from women saying, ‘I thought it was just me feeling scared and insecure and like a big loser!  Now I have a term for it. I'm just a Late Bloomer." 

I think in some weird way, all my bad dates and failed relationships played a big part in my ability to confront things that scared me.  After my break up, when I thought I might never get up again, I had a series of painful little break ups. At first, after each one I'd cry and fall apart for a few days or weeks or months – the guy who wore a beret and sunglasses INSIDE (can you believe I cried over a guy who wore a beret and sunglasses inside?); George, the musician.  Even "John Lawrence," the newscaster, who I didn't even like that much. 

But after awhile when each new promising thing didn't work out, I started to realize I'd survive. I'd be fine. I'd done it before. I'd endured much worse. And that helped me face new scary things (like bike riding) and know, whatever happened, I'd be okay.

I'm hoping women are realizing slowly that age shouldn't be a barrier, even in ways as big as motherhood.  Which I think is a great thing because you can savor life in so many great new ways as you get older.

Birdie: Your life is about storytelling, about the art of storytelling through many mediums - fiction, television, memoir. Why are stories important? How do they help us?

Amy: Well, I think in addition to hopefully being entertaining, stories help us connect, which is a huge accomplishment in our increasingly disconnected world.   What I've loved so much about this whole experience is feeling like we're getting together a whole club of LATE BLOOMERS.  A sisterhood actually. I've gotten so many amazing letters from men and women who said, "I thought it was only me."

Birdie: Your book, at its base, is about evaluating fear, putting it to the side so that one can fully live. If you could leave your readers with one legacy, what would you want it to be?

Amy: What a great question!  Encouraging others to confront their fears would be a terrific legacy. I would love to have people attempt to confront their fears, knowing if nothing else, they couldn't fare any worse than I did.  In some ways there's nothing more liberating than confronting something that scares you and knowing you won out.

That's why I wrote the book. So people would feel not only less alone but emboldened. Even something as small as a friend of mine who was afraid to drive in New York and after reading my book, took on the scary cab drivers of the city. I love hearing those stories. And the people who whisper that they didn't know how to ride a bike well into their thirties either and were afraid to tell anyone.  I would love so much if I could be the inspiration that says "honestly, just try it. I did it and it changed my life."

Thanks, Amy! And thanks, Mudhead, Louis, and Martin, for making me step into the mud, into an existence a little less clean and oh-so-much-more beautiful for it.

Comments

[Miss T]

Great story, Birdie!

[Jonah]

What a grand liberating story! And a charming interview.

No question, you were born to write.

[Mike]

Does this make you a Mud Bird?

[Stever]

Write on!

[Wandering Willow]

I LOVE the mudhead story! Kachinas are great friends of mine. This story is exceptionally well-written and organized, I think.

[Wandering Willow]

FOR THOSE WHO DON'T KNOW WOUTHWESTERN LORE, HERE'S SOME INFO: Mudhead Kachina

The Koyemsi, or Mudhead Kachina, is a clown who may be seen in most Hopi ceremonies. Mudhead Kachinas drum, dance, play games with the audience, and may act as announcers for events. They often give prizes or rewards for the races and guessing games they organize. The term "mudhead" comes from their masks which have mud applied to them.

Most of the time they accompany other kachina; probably the only time when they do not appear with other personages is during the Night Dances. Koyemsi are usually the ones that play games with the audience to the accompaniment of rollicking tunes. These games are generally guessing games or simple attempts to balance objects of performances of some common act and the rewards are prizes of food or clothing.

They may appear as a chorus, and on First Mesa and possibly other villages their songs are in Zuni. During the rests in a dance, they may engage in games with the boys and girls in the audience. At other times, only a single Mudhead may appear as a drummer for a group. Should a dancer not have the proper mask or be late in arriving, he can easily become a Mudhead by donning that mask. These kachinas appear in almost every Hopi dance.

[Birdie]

Bonnie, thanks for posting the Mudhead travelogue! I have several kachinas, each of whom came to me under mysterious or strange circumstances. I need to tell the story of Butterfly Man and the story of Morning Singer one of these days.

Jonah, you are way too kind, boy. :) I give Amy all the credit.

Miss T, it's funny how kachinas have a personality. They hold secrets.

Stever, hey, do you have a kachina? Inquiring minds need to know!

Mike, ha ha ha ha! Yup. I'm a Mud Bird.

[Stever]

Can't say that I do... but thanks for asking.

[Blondie]

Holy crapola. I am INSTANTLY running out to buy this book. It is speaking to me in ways that are oddly painful and slightly ticklish. I can't wait to tell all of my 30-something friends about it!! And how fun that the author was willing to answer all of your questions. Thanks, Amy and Birdie!!

[Wandering Willow]

I just got time to read the interview with Amy. Wowza! I think I need to read this book. I have to tell my sister about it too.

[Barbara Ray]

No doubt about it, this is great writing, great living, great storytelling and great interviewing, Birdie. With this spirit I'm sure you'll do great in your new job. Kids love real people.