Queen of the Castle

If the castle were an untidy suburban house on a cul-de-sac

If you’ve seen SIX, you’re probably singing that song in your head now, huh? I am, too, dammit. We’ll talk about SIX a little later, ok? Right now let’s talk about the queen.

Even before I saw this musical, the word “queen” had been dancing around in my head. A few months ago, my good friend and fellow writer, Pam Moore, said something in her stand-up comedy set that I absolutely loved: “My therapist told me that as a woman in her forties, I’m currently embodying the queen archetype.” Her set is hilarious, but whenever I hear that line, I stop laughing and instead don a Mona Lisa smile of sorts. Because I love that concept. As a 45-year-old woman, particularly having entered an era of increased autonomy (for better or worse) as a single mother, it seems apropos. The crown, as it were, fucking fits.

The first time I heard Pam mention the queen archetype in reference to midlife women, a little bell went off in my head—this is important. It felt like a puzzle piece. It was a few weeks later, when we published a gorgeous personal essay, “The Fifth Season,” by Cori Howard in Midstory Magazine that I made the connection:

“It’s like all of a sudden, there’s a fifth season, when before there were always and only four,” said my friend who had come to pick me up from her beach house. . . We don’t know what to do with this fifth season because we are, quite possibly, the first to experience it.”

“We are the new X factor,” I chimed, already deep into the wine. “Maiden, mother, what the fuck and crone. No chance are we going to accept being crones for fully half our lives. There’s a time for that, but we’re not yet there. We’ve got too much left to do.”

Maiden, mother, what the fuck, and crone. I mean, that is brilliant. I love love love when people reference the Triple Goddess—maiden, mother, crone— to symbolize life stages for women. Last year, I published the article “Maiden, Mother, Bitch” in Mutha Magazine, sharing my ambivalent feelings about aging and this nebulous era between Mother and Crone—the “what the fuck” as Howard puts it, or the “bitch” era, as I postulated in my essay.

From the moment I suspected pregnancy with both of my daughters, I felt possessed by something sacred and powerful, like the electricity of falling in love, that inner whisper of, I can’t believe this is happening to ME. In my dewy-eyed maternal zest, motherhood was the divine apex of existence. I was called to my next step in the mythical womanhood journey of maiden, mother, crone—an invisible cosmic bell had tolled.

Perhaps in actuality, I clawed my way to the top of the tower and clanged the goddamn bell myself. Details. Regardless, the transition from maiden to mother felt like the most natural thing in the world—I fell into it like Alice down the rabbit hole—now, at age 44, the impending mother/crone shift feels slightly more…fraught.

. . .  And yet, despite the “I have my life back!” self-worship, the era of the crone looms unappealing from the midlife mother perch, never mind stunning photos of Helen Mirren after sixty, Brene Brown’s reassurance that it’s not a crisis but an unraveling, and confessions that Nora Ephron also felt bad about her neck. In a culture obsessed with youth and all things supple, how does one embrace a role some traditions actually label a hag, who delights in their proverbial moon fucking waning? 

But now, I had a different answer for that gap in the lineup: Maiden. Mother. Queen. Crone. How could we forget the queen? Queen was so much better than “bitch,” fitting neatly into Howard’s “what the fuck” category. I am not quite a crone, my friends. And I’m certainly not a maiden. I’ll always be a mother, but right now, I am also the goddamn Queen.

Yes, that’s right, it says “fuck off.”

***

I have a love/hate relationship with choosing a “word of the year.” It seems like a lot of pressure, for one, and as person who is mildly superstitious, or to quote Michael from The Office, a “little stitious,” it seems like you’re just inviting things to go horribly wrong. Like the year I chose “ease” and then my kid broke her arm, our house flooded, I got pneumonia. . . you get the picture. When things have “famous last words” potential, I try to avoid them. Sort of like how you’ll never catch me posting “Looking forward to a relaxing plane flight!” on Facebook. I’m knocking on wood just thinking about it.

But this January, I couldn’t help but claim the word that had been reverberating daily in my mind: “Sovereignty.” This is my year to be the Sovereign—The Queen—of my life. The definition of sovereignty is “supreme power or authority/ the authority of a state to govern itself.”

This is the year when the loudest voice in my head will be my own. The year when I follow my heart, my intuition, my instincts. I will trust myself and remember my own strength and wisdom. I of course immediately made a playlist called “Queen of the Castle” featuring my favorite badass tracks and a cover photo of me wearing bright red lipstick and sunglasses to drive the point home.

And yes, I’ll do the hard and shitty things a Queen has to do when she lacks an actual court of subjects, things I have never done before and things I may not actually want to do. This December, I felt especially proud of the fact that I consistently remembered to water the Christmas tree (no small feat given my impending ADHD evaluation) and imagined singing along with Miley Cyrus: instead of boasting about buying myself flowers I was all, “I can water my own Christmas tree!” and then I wondered if maybe “hold my own hand” meant something entirely different (cough, AA batteries?) but I digress.

I felt even prouder when I independently un-Christmased the house for the first time in my adult life—a task I abhor because of my delight in all things festive. I took off all the ornaments without an ounce of sadness or sentimentality, and then my Dad and I hauled that dead MF-er (yes, it stopped taking water despite my best efforts; win some; lose some. 🤷‍♀️) outside and drove it to the tree drop site.

I can do hard things; I am the fucking Queen. I can calm meltdowns and pay the bills and grow my little career empire and feed the kingdom because I know that regardless of excellence, fed is best (I have been remembering to eat, hurray!), and every week I learn that I am capable of things I never imagined.

***

So, back to SIX. If you don’t know, it’s a British musical comedy about the six wives of Henry VIII. A few days before Christmas, I took my 17-year-old to see it as an early present, and we LOVED it. Yes, we cried a few times. It was spectacular.

The whole day was magic, actually. Before the show, we went to get her other early holiday gift—a small tattoo of the Empress Tarot card, the symbol for the divine feminine that she based her college essay on. The Empress represents the sacred female energy that has been a source of strength and protection for her during a difficult era of life.

It took my artist such a short time to knock out her ink that I couldn’t help but get a matching one myself. God save the queen.

XOXO,
Steph

P.S. See below for my paid subscriber bonus this week. I came across a poem I wrote several years ago in an old journal when I was on a book research excavation mission. The subject matter felt chillingly ironic for today’s column, and I just had to include it as my subscriber bonus.

If you aren’t a paid subscriber and have the means, I would be so grateful if you considered upgrading for $30/year to support my work and access bonuses; if the cost is prohibitive and you’d like the extras, please email me at steph.iz at hotmail.com and I’ll upgrade you free of charge.