Straight from the Shoulder
Nonfiction by Tammy Storey
Study by Jawhara Danez (2021)
Bare shoulders. Nowhere to go to justify wearing something off-the-shoulder. Sigh. I stand naked in front of my hanging closet, crisscrossed arms, tapping my fingers along my collarbone.
Post-lockdown, I think more about the motivations behind the decisions I’m making.
Clothes are a vessel to help externalize an emotion, to help feel confident when socially anxious. Until I feel an impulse to slip into a new persona—my moods change, and then I must change, because I feel dishonest.
I can’t justify this particular persona: “Sexy-baby; intentional but looking like I wasn’t trying too hard.” I am married and have emotionally outgrown most of my clothes and the message they’re conveying. But what does sensuality feel like again?
Bare shoulders speak to a time of longing. Bare shoulders, and tanned skin. Feeling beautiful, because I had beautiful friends, and we all wore beautiful things. Before I valued myself for more than just what I wore. Before life really began, whatever that means. I was always longing for life to begin. I don’t know how to live in the present. The pandemic didn’t help. I will always be longing for something.
I bared my shoulders for self-absorbed reasons. When I was young, I wanted to attract my soulmate. I defined a soulmate as someone who mirrored me, who was thoughtful and introspective like me, who moved through the world the same way I do. As opposed to what I have learned about real relationships, particularly with my husband—someone who continues to change over time, and sooner than expected, again and again over sixteen years. In so many ways during pandemics, for the both of us.
We live independent lives now, but fiercely support and consistently motivate the other to achieve goals. This is a healthy evolution in a long-term relationship. Sometimes I forget our marriage is a blessing. I selfishly long for someone who is more emotional like me, who communicates like me, instead of having to choose compromise, understanding, and forgiveness, day after day.
I also bared my shoulders because I wanted to dance. If I had rhythm, I would be a dancer. The clothes dancers wear symbolize power, and comfort with intimacy. Traits and qualities I lack.
I didn’t dance during the pandemic. I did watch viral videos of those who danced all alone, facing mirrors in basement apartments. The human ability to creatively persevere, and find humour in darkness, and choose to try and encourage others, speaks to the universal compassion for suffering that often arises during tough times.
My own ability to feel flatlined, my system overwhelmed by such novel circumstances. I learned it is impossible to consistently choose empathy, seeking to understand why people I loved were making decisions that seemed unloving. I wish I had unlimited capacity to be all-understanding. I wish I hadn’t wounded others with my own words and actions. And all I was learning about the human condition eventually reached a saturation point.
I understand the need to temper emotions to function, but I shut down due to the amount of loss experienced over the pandemic. This last year, I have started to feel again, albeit in primal ways. Like wanting to feel attractive by baring my shoulders and dancing. I recognize I need to express repressed emotions in healthy ways. As sensations arise, I let myself freely move through them.
Some highly astute doctors with deteriorating compassion will confidently state emotions are irrational. They will say most people, despite experiencing adversity, remain well-adjusted and do not suffer long-term. So, I guess I’m maladaptive. I prolong suffering because I question why we must go through suffering in the first place. I understand, and I don’t. How can we not have some sort of emotional response when reflecting on this question, if we are being truly honest?
I have to find healthy outlets to express longing, hurt, loss, grief, and pain, so I can also consistently feel joy and love and peace and compassion again.
Now that the restrictions of the pandemic have eased, I am always dancing. I think the period of numbness is passing, though some days are better than others. But with the hardships and lessons learned over the pandemic, I do not yet feel the frivolity to go “out” dancing. I hope that impulse will return someday. Until then, I will fantasize about baring my shoulders. A simpler time. More hopeful.
Tammy Storey’s writing has been featured in Imprint Magazine, The Institutionalized Review, Bywords, Seagery Zine, Dot Dot Dot, and Pocket Baby Zine. Her first chapbook Best Friends is part of the Toronto Zine Library collection. She is a third-year student in Sheridan College's Creative Writing & Publishing Program, and associate editor of Imprint Magazine. Through her freelance editing work, she enjoys assisting clients with memoir and nonfiction manuscripts, and has a profound interest in pathography (illness narratives), a specific genre of literature comprising stories of being sick. She currently resides in Toronto, Ontario.