Philosphy disguised as nonsense, nonsense disguised as philosophy. That is a description of this book in one sentence. There must be more than that, you think, and there is, I'm just not sure I can do this book justice, and, as it is the book that changed my life, I must at least try.
The first time I read this book, I was thirty-six and lived in Florence, Italy with my husband and daughter. And it did indeed change my life. I went from a mostly stay-at-home housewife, to hitchhiking all over Europe, to not feeling so good aobut being a woman, to knowing that women were okay and to being able to have equal relationships with men. Pretty powerful, at least, for me, it was. Please read below the squiggle and I will explain.
The main character of Cowgirls is Sissy Hankshaw, a girl born in South Richmond, Virginia who was born with extremely large thumbs. A girl who decided her destiny when she was a child and heard her uncle say she'd be great at hitchhiking, but who didn't hear him say as he rounded the corner, "If she were a boy." So she set out to practice her future, first by hitching bugs and birds and squirrels in the woods behind her house, then finally getting the nerve to hitch a car while walking to school. After her first ride hitched, she was hooked. She never went anywhere again without hitching.
Cowgirl interlude, as the author Tom Robbins would say. I'd like here to give you an example of the way Robbins writes, as he describes South Richmond.
South Richmond was a neighborhood of mouse holes, lace curtains, Sears
catalogs, measles epidemics, baloney sandwiches - and men who knew more
about the carbureter than they knew about the clitoris. The song "Love is a
Many Splendored Thing" was not composed in South Richmond. There have
been cans of dog food more spendiferous than South Richmond. Land mines
more tender.
Sissy became the most famous hitchhiker in the world. She once hitched with Jack Kerouac, and while they kissed in a corn field, it never went farther than that, though Kerouac was in awe of her. She once taught a parakeet to hitch, and he became a hitchhiking fool, until he hitched a ride with two cats in the car. Sissy lived for motion and freedom and had no other thoughts than that. Except for sometimes needing money and then she posed for ads for a male homosexual Countess who made Yoni Yum/Dew Girl hygenic female deodorant for the parts of women men in South Richmond knew nothing about. The Countess also owned a ranch out west called the Rubber Rose after his douche bag, which was staffed with all girls. Cowgirls.
In the book, Sissy hitches out to the Rubber Rose to check on it for the Countess, and all sorts of things began to happen. She falls in love with Bonanza Jellybean, head cowgirl. She meets the chink, who is really a Japanese who escaped from Tule Lake internment camp and who the girls consider holy. The chink tells her tales of the Clockworks People who do not live considering anything but living for the moment. Time has no meaning for them. And then there are the whooping cranes. They land at the Rubber Rose and do not leave for their regular mating and birthing stop in Texas. So in comes the FBI, the CIA, the Secretary of the Interior, AP reporters and townspeople. Unfortunately, there is a shootout and cowgirls are killed and a bomb explodes and police officers are killed.
In the meantime, Sissy has been married both happily and unhappily to Julian, a Mowhawk Indian. She has been insitutionalized by her husband to try and have her become a normal woman and, when her psychiatrist wanted to release her, his boss, another psychiatrist had it out in what Tom Robbins calles the "Gunfight at the I"m Okay, You're Okay Corral." Sissy contemplates cutting off both thumbs after she causes damages with her precious appendages.
There is so much to tell in this book and no way I can figure out to do it in one diary. I can tell you that I learned from this book that I can't change the world, but I can changed my perception of the world. And that was a great thing for me to learn. I see life differently now. Rosier, and more in touch with who I am.
I learned from the book to put all good energy into doing what I want to do and if it doesn't work out, well, that's okay too. Robbins tell the story of a gourmet who all his life all he wanted was Tibetan peach pie. So, he spent his fortune and ruined his health getting to the highest lamasery in the Himalayas and when the monk comes to the door and he asks for Tibetan peach pie the monk tells him they're all out of peach. "So make it apple," is his response.
From the cowgirls I learned how wonderful it is to be a woman, but in order to get all that, you'll just have to read the book. I do reccomend it for men as well, as it's full of fun and you may find out women are okay and we can all be equal.
As I said earlier, I began to hitch all over Europe. I especially hitched to see my boyfriend in Hamburg, Germany, and once, though highly illegal, and luckily I didn't get caught, I hitched from Hamburg through East Germany and into West Berlin. That was before the wall came down and I entered at the famous Checkpoint Charlie. Scarey, but doable.
Lastly, I would like to add that I think I became the second best hitcher there ever was. The only thing I never hitched and wanted to was an airplane. And I met Tom Robbins, the author of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. It was at a book signing in Atlanta and there were so many people there he was, after a certain point, not allowed to personalize books as there were too many to sign. When I got to him, I told him about my exploits and was second only to Sissy and he stopped, stood up and said, "Let me shake your thumb." And then he signed my book - "to Rachel, with love from Tom Robbins." Unfortunately, because I don't think it' safe to hitch in America, I rode to Atlanta in my car.