Imagine an attic of an old mental asylum, filled with the trunks and suitcases of the now-deceased patients. Then imagine that the suitcases are found and the contents are documented to tell the stories of their former owners. Amazing stuff.
My favorite story is Madeline’s.
women
[Note: coming soon will be a picture of E w/our local mayor–as soon as I find the cardreader for my dig camera]
–you’re supposed to wear black to City Council meetings. Black suits. with a button down shirt for men and pastel blouse for women (unless you’re Christina Shea, then you wear a pale green suit). me, I was really glad I had changed out of my jeans and t-shirt and was at least wearing the requisite black pants.
–not saying the pledge of allegiance feels weirder there.
–the mayor has her own on-call photographer to take PR shots w/schoolchildren being recognized at the beginning of the meeting
–when E is in front of a large audience, she completely freezes…with a cute, rather lopsided grin on her face
–E’s award-winning drawing wasn’t her most artistic creation. rather, it fit the event theme better than other submissions–a lesson E learned well in the PTA Reflections contest, too.
On Saturday John and I attended a concert, “The Feminine Voice in Music: Past Meets Present.” It was an evening of music by female composers. All of the singers and instrument-payers were also women. We drove quite a ways to attend this concert–two hours up to Ventura thru LA traffic.
Some highlights:
–a poem written by Julian of Norwich (1342-c.1416). It began, “As truly as God is our Father, so just as truly is he our Mother.” and in the middle of the singing switched to a solo where a lovely older woman gave voice to the divine feminine, “It is I, the wisdom of Motherhood, It is I, the light and grace of holy love…It is I who teach you to love. It is I, who teach you to desire. It is I who am the reward of all true desiring. And all shall be well.”
In this woman’s eyes I saw my Mother–the Heavenly Mother that Mormons believe in and revere.
–An original composition called “Mama” that is part of a requiem written by Naomi Stephan about her mother. The song had only one word, “Mama,” but was incredibly complex. Sometimes sung with joy, sometimes with reverence, sometimes with pain and fear. All of the choir members at once giving voive to that same word, repeatedly, in cacophony and harmony. It made my heart ache. I thought of the many times that I was in so much pain that the only thing I could say was “Mommy…Mommy…Mommy” over and over again like a mantra. I thought of the times when my kids both yelling “MAAHHHMMMEEE!!” at the same time was so wearying that I wanted to lock myself away to some private place where I could no longer hear their cries. I recalled the joy at hearning “mamamamama” for the first time from each child–speaking the words to my breasts as I fed them. Such a sweet and powerful word!! Naomi created magic with that song–to evoke such complex emotions with just one word…
–Another poem set to music–this one a delight for its imagery:
“And maybe I shall go with you, my glimmering girl
To the land of Glyn, to the land of Myrrh
Where cats wear gleaming fine faces and purple fur
And the daisies bend down singing lowly: murr, murr.”
This poem made me think of my daughter. She is (and always will be) my ‘glimmering girl.’ :)
All-in-all, it was such a delight to hear from these women. Almost all of the singers and composers were crones–not the women that our society usually values or reveres. But their music was so moving. And they women themselves were quite dynamic. Their bodies were of all sizes and proportions, their hair many shades of color from a bottle or a variety of natural grays. They were all so beautiful to me.
Some of you might be interested in my latest exponentblog post about menstruation. I’d appreciate if you would take a minute to read it and share your thoughts.
Also, John’s latest entry about his experience watching the Vagina Monologues is a nice companion piece to mine, IMO.
I’m joining in the fray with a few thoughts from vegankid.
—There are too few female tenured professors. Despite the fact that women have been at least half of all college undergraduates since 1978, women represent only 36% of all tenured faculty nationwide, and only 13% of doctoral granting universities boast women presidents. Many women in academic settings report discrimination.
—Women are poorer. Women constitute about 70% of the world’s absolute poor – those living on less than a dollar a day. In the United States in 2004, there were 20.1 million women living below the poverty level. Worldwide, women’s access to resources and education still lags behind boys/men due to double standards.
—Slavery still exists! Women and girls are the majority of the 800,000 to nearly 4 million people trafficked (bought and sold as property) internationally every year.
–For those of you interested in thinking about sexism in the LDS world, read and ponder the following quotation from the original Woman’s Exponent Magazine.
For those of you interested in the Mo world, check out my inagural post on exponentblog.
I’ve been asked to be a bi-weekly columnist. I’m humbled by the request because I’m following in the footsteps of women who I’ve long admired for their tenacity, humor, and honesty.
Everywhere I’ve gone in the last few days I’ve gotten the same question from people:
“Are you ready for Christmas?”
The first time I got this question (about 3 weeks ago) I was at the doctor’s office and I was still in the throes of classes. I think I shocked the receptionist when I answered,
“No, I haven’t really even thought about it yet.”
She gave me a weird look in response. I started to qualify my answer, explaining that I can’t really ‘think’ about Xmas until after finals week, etc. But the weird look stayed on her face….
And yesterday, when all of the other women at church were chatting about their holiday preparations, I realized that I must really be strange. One lady was saying how she doesn’t mind if she can’t quite get all the decor up in time–it makes it just that much more fun the next year when she ‘rediscovers’ the stuff she didn’t use. Another was talking about the hassle of mailing packages overseas early, etc. I sat back and was very quiet. I thought about how quickly my one box of Christmas paraphenalia can be put up and taken down (2 hours, tops), and how our easy-to-assemble fake tree takes about 20 seconds to put together.
Several years ago I decided that I wouldn’t ever make my holiday preparations complicated because I didn’t want the decorating headaches–esp the one that comes after Christmas when it takes weeks to get all the decorations put away.
Ironically, each year the process becomes simpler, not more complex. So when other people are moaning about being “ready,” I have little to add. And while they’re fretting about the Martha-like perfection of their preparations, I’m sitting in a patch of sunshine on the LR floor with Ellycat–listening to carols, basking in the warm glow, and savoring every moment of the holiday season.
Just finished watching “Being Julia.”
I’ve had a hard time finding movies that I really like lately. Most of the acting is so bland and I found myself counting the minutes until the film is over. Not tonite, though.
Perhaps the film just struck a chord because I’m facing my own aging. That I know how Julia felt when she thought her young lover adored her. The giddy joy that came from that feeling. And then the horror of knowing that he had deceived her, had used her, didn’t love her.
I may not be an aged theater star. But tonite I felt like one. I was there with Julia when she felt the thrill of infatuation, as she glowed under the ardor of her young beau. My throat felt tight when I realized Tom’s true aims and as I ached with Julia over the same realization.
Like her, I know what it’s like to ‘act’—to play a proscribed role to satisfy others’ expectations or to manipulate the people around me in ways that will protect me from pain. Like Julia’s conversation with her son where he challenges her to step out of her ‘role’, I have had moments where my script falters—a moment of the ‘uncanny’—where I am forced into a mode more authentic [I can’t even say that word w/o thinking of Gerard in Jean de Florette. Another must-see film!].
Yet I rarely garner the sense of success that Julia experiences as she carefully crafts the dialogue of her new play—the one where she will not be the jilted lover, but rather the triumphant dame. Instead I find myself more isolated, more sure that life is not the march-of-progress story of learning life’s lessons, of each of us becoming better over time, of growing up.
In those moments I see the hazy outline of truth lying before me and I try to look away because I don’t want to acknowledge it. Learning once again that“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.”
Last night E told me that I’m building a house. I looked at her, puzzled. She replied:
“Well you have AROOM and you have an Outhouse, so I guess you should just go ahead and get the whole house.”
I giggled at her insight. AROOM is my reading/writing group (it stands for A Room Of Our Own Making–an allusion to Virginia Woolf that’s highly appropriate for our all-female group). Outhouse is what we call the group of liberal Mormons that we meet with every Wednesday night [The name came from a funny discussion about a year ago that we had about “in-house” versus “out-house” intellectuals. The name seems to fit our ragtag group of Mo’s pretty well and has stuck ever since].
I’d never thought about the group names in relation to an actual architectural structure. But, in a way, it’s apt. For, as a result of these groups I’ve found a community of friends to call “home.”