Women's Wisdom and Writing the Body: Dialogue

“What is your truth? Ask your heart, your back, your bones, and your dreams. Listen to that truth with your whole body. Understand that this truth will destroy no one and that you’re too old to be sent to your room.” —John Lee from Writing from the Body

What is Women’s Wisdom? It means learning to live consciously, in touch with our inner guidance through our thoughts, emotions, dreams, and feelings in our body. It means believing that our bodies are able to receive and transmit energy and information. Instead of feeling trapped by the cyclical nature, the ups and downs of our emotions, women can begin to know and understand the waning and waxing that is as regular as the moon’s cycle. A good tool is journaling, and dialoguing with body parts.

Here is an exercise I have used in Journaling Classes to help women listen to their bodies. (taken from the book Writing From Life: Telling Your Soul's Story, Susan Wittig Albert.

Take out your journal. Sit for a few minutes quietly before writing, to get you connected and thinking about a body part. Start with a centering breath exercise, hands on heart, upper and lower heart, just breathing in and out for a minute.

Then pick a body part and imagine it can speak to you. What would it say? What does it want from you? what does it give to you? How does it feel to be this body part? Example below is with breasts, our most visible part, and one which holds conflicting feelings for many women.

Dialogue sample:

What Breasts Say

Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Anton_Nossik

We sing with milk for you, we love your caress. Sometimes we sag empty, other times balloon into gorgeous melons. When you lie down we softly melt into your ribs. We are a soft cushion for your son’s head, something to pinch for your daughter. Always a safe haven. 

We love to wear brushed cotton, hate metal under wires, undulate under sweaters, push out high beams in a T-shirt. Molded to wet skin in a bathing suit we are voluptuous. When expecting, you wait for our every twinge, hold us to yourself when running downstairs or in a field of grass singing. What do we fear? A stranger’s eyes undressing us. 

We were slow to come into being, ripened over many years into something you could be proud of. Our marvelous liquid is like love; hot, untamed squirts of bluish fire, we nourish, give life. 

We are called Wonder, or Fame.

If you want to continue with this, pick another body part and do the dialogue. 

Another creative idea: make a collage for this body part, and let your intuition choose the images and put them together on a page in your journal, or on a cardboard sheet.

See the Creative Soulful Woman Facebook page for an example of What the Uterus says.

https://www.facebook.com/creativesoulful/

Writing down the body or The Story I tell myself is....

Ever since my first creative writing class and an exercise called the Taboo Journal, I have been fascinated with the power of memory held in the body, and the way our stories define us. The story I tell myself is, as one well known psychologist and author puts it. I have stored memories, hurts, traumas, griefs, and blocked energy in my shoulders, my belly, my ovaries, my pelvic area, my broken wrist and strained right knee and god knows where else. Clarissa Pinkola Estes has a quote somewhere that wherever we press on the flesh of the body, a memory surfaces....Healing through writing has always been an important tool for me.

As a writer and facilitator, this has led me to lead workshops using journaling prompts to write the body, and have a conversation with body parts that want me to shine a light on their neglected story. In one exercise, I named one breast Famine and the other Abundance and wrote a poem for each.

I had a dialogue with my vagina about what colour the wall paper in her room was, and what kind of furniture would be in there (red velvet, of course!). When I broke my right knee skiing, just on the cusp of menopause and a roiling mid-life transition, it gave me permission to take a lot of quiet time for thinking and writing about the connection between my body and my mind. I wanted to know why I broke my knee, was it significant? Was it a symbol for me needing to stand up for myself and ask for help when overwhelmed? At the same time, Louise Hay’s book and a few others came to my attention – giving me a kind of lexicon of the body-mind connection. A key resource was Dr Northrup’s exploration of the female body in Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom.

Mid-life brought up some more intense body wisdom and learnings. I was mothering two hormonal teen age children, while facing my own menopausal angst, as well as writing, teaching and volunteering to organize events. One particular project had become too large and unmanageable, but I didn’t know how to step down without looking unreliable and disappointing the others. My shoulders and upper back began to ache so badly that every night I needed a heating pad to fall sleep. When I finally made the decision to step down, my body aches disappeared. This happened at least twice, when I was over-committed to outside projects.  I began to pay attention and listen to my body more earnestly.

Recently I’ve been taking some online writing courses specifically centered on healing and releasing old family shadows. It has been very enlightening, to learn how the trauma and pain in one generation can get passed down to the next, until we become aware of it and break the cycle. Another course used the Hero’s Journey as an outline, and urged me to enter the cave of old griefs and hurts, and face the Dragon guarding my treasures and dialogue with him. During that five day class, I wondered at the marvelous ways my body was humming, buzzing, aching and releasing. Energy was moving, just by answering journal prompts and using my imagination to enter that dark cave of old beliefs about my “story”. Reading Women’s Intuition has further bolstered my faith in the embodied guidance and wisdom from within. (https://www.amazon.ca/Womens-Intuition-Unlocking-Wisdom-Body-ebook/dp/B00466HMJG)

The story I tell myself is....This is my old story: I was brought up the eldest of eight children (born in 10 years), in a Catholic family, and became the responsible one, the Mother’s Helper or Little Mother, out of necessity. My mother was alcoholic, and I stepped in to help out, putting a certain burden on my shoulders at an early age. This lead to a pattern of valuing myself externally in my life – the need to always feel productive, purposeful, and valuable by giving and doing, and almost never allowing myself to rest. My body had to force me to stop sometimes.  I look back now, and see that in my twenties I had become addicted to the high of self-less service in my spiritual life, finding great satisfaction (but also exhaustion and stress) in being always on call, evenings, weekends, and whenever there was a need. It was for a good cause but my body craved rest and a more balanced lifestyle. Once I got married, I threw myself into studying, going back to school full time, being an A student (overachiever that I am), then having two babies while doing my Master’s degree over several years.

Bringing up two children, born twenty months apart, was a wonderfully fulfilling role to play, and at the same time I was studying creative writing, teaching part-time and working on a master’s thesis, which became the book, Little Mother. I needed to explore motherhood: my mother’s alcoholism, my childhood, and my own birth journal while I was pregnant. I wrote poems about breastfeeding, sex, and the mothering overload. Writing the body was a life-saver, once again, and it helped me make order out of chaos. But becoming a mother was also my Waterloo. My wolf-mother instincts had been awakened, my hearing and eyesight were keener than ever. My nervous system went into overdrive; it was hard to sleep, hard to share the parenting roles when babies only want their mommies, even with a willing partner. That brought me to therapy, where the psychologist kindly said, you have taken on another mothering job with teaching. I was trying to be the perfect mom, you know how it goes. I ran up against my own human limitations, and more body wisdom.

Menopause, that other womanly rite of passage, threw my body into hormonal chaos and sent my heart and mind onto a rough rollercoaster of ups and downs, highs and lows. Some days, I felt like I was going crazy – shrieking at my kids about crumbs on the counter. Mild depression swung me on a hook for a while. I was saved again by the writing. I started a blog, interviewed other women to find out if it was the same for everyone, researched and read a ton of books, and finally wrote my own, The Tao of Turning Fifty. Since then, I’ve given lectures on the mid-life transition and written a few hundred blog posts and articles. (http://msmenopause.blogspot.ca/)

My life has been a search of that mysterious answer or clue to what ails me....for instance, a frozen shoulder, shortly after my book came out, prevented me from working on the computer for any length of time. It took five years of journaling, osteopathic treatments, shamanic journeying and finally I felt I got to the bottom of that shoulder issue.  I was in a workshop exploring the Inanna myth and down in the underworld meeting Erishkegal when I realized that the pain in my upper back was from the good girl archetype tightly wedged between my shoulder blades! Some very simple exercises from a physiotherapist helped me strengthen the back muscles. Now I sit at a desk with better ergonomics, and a good height for the keyboard. Plus, my adorable shitzu Mollie forces me to get up and take walks, and take a break from the computer regularly.

After the wild mid-life transition, in my sixties, my continuing curiosity led me to take classes to help find my inner child artist. I have rediscovered a love of artistic expression with SoulCollage and Art Journaling and once again, been catapulted back into the body, into the wild joy a child’s body feels while finger painting, drawing, or cutting up bits of images and pasting them onto cardboard. Time does not exist when I am in creative flow, and I stop feeling those aches and pains. I am grateful for the wise body guidance I receive, when I listen to it, and I want to commit to staying close to its wisdom every day.

Your story has a surprise beginning says this collage from my art journal, with a naked woman riding a white horse, facing backwards. Yes, it is a surprising rewrite. For instance, I have loved singing and music all my life. Where was that in my old story? The story I tell myself now is different from the one I have been telling myself all these years: eldest daughter, little mother with an absent mother, carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. I have found my joy in the magical child, the story teller, the little girl who sings to the flowers, la petite fille qui chantait aux fleurs.

Embodied wisdom, the body’s wisdom, is still something I am exploring. Creativity and Flow have become my go-too therapies. When I am stuck in the writing, I immerse myself in making collage, in playing with images instead of words. I am learning to speak the body’s language – it uses imagery, metaphor and symbols. Myths and the imagination emerge from the collective unconscious, as Jung taught, in the same symbolic language that speaks to us through dreams, in poetry and art, in our body’s intuitive knowing... Now I know that anything is possible.

See my website at www.jenniferboire.com for a free excerpt of the book, The Tao of Turning Fifty, and to register for my latest class offering, Her Journey, the Heroine’s Quest at Mid-Life.

Gather the Women: Menopause and Mothering

SoulCollage(R) Card Multi-tasking Mom Raises a Hand for Help

If it takes a Village to raise a child, then it’s time to Gather the Women.

Yesterday in my Creative Circle class, six women, all mothers, were discussing how hard it is to make time for what you love to do, because it feels self-indulgent and selfish. That led to talking about how overwhelmed we feel with our own emotions at mid-life, our hormonal peaks and valleys, feeling stretched and distracted and having not enough uninterrupted ‘me’ time to journal, write, draw, collage, or just putter around in.

And that led to a story of a woman doctor with three kids who just up and left one day, and didn’t come home for six months. Now there’s a scary thought! It's perhaps the secret fear of every mother,  that we will fail at being a mom. I think the fact that women are putting off having children until our thirties, brings us closer to the perilous period of peri-menopause in our forties. Meanwhile, our children are still at home and needing us to chauffeur, cook, clean and supervise homework for them, which leads to moms feeling ‘on duty’ 24-7 with no breaks, and subsequent feelings of overwhelm. The ideal, multi-tasking ‘supermom’ hits a brick wall at peri-menopause (which begins in your mid-forties), and begins to crumble and crack at the edges.

At menopause, says Dr Christiane Northrup, the reigning expert on the subject, one of the most common needs women express is the need to get away, alone. I’d say the second greatest need is the help and support of other women.

Talking with other women about what really matters is very good for the soul, and very healing. I’ve been part of a woman’s circle for seven or eight years now.  We used to meet twice a month, and lately we’ve moved to once a month, two hours on a Thursday afternoon. We take turns hosting and providing tea, while we have a Circle Chat. It started when our kids were in high school, and we had less opportunity to meet other women while volunteering at school. 

How it works, is that each woman gets to talk about whatever is on her mind, whatever bubbles up from within her soul, for five-ten minutes; we use a crystal rock as a talking stick, so that the whole circle listens deeply,  holding space for her to speak.

This circle of women helped me keep sane and made me a happier mom. I don’t know how I would have gotten through menopause without having these women to talk to about what really matters.

I realized this morning that the discussion in my Creative Circle class yesterday about taking time for ourselves to do what we love, and what pushes a woman to the edge of leaving her kids and family in menopause, are two very related and very important topics.  It’s because we think self-care is selfish that we don’t give ourselves enough down time. Or we think it’s ‘frivolous’ to do something like writing in our journal or making a collage, or something that speaks to who we are, that feeds our creative woman’s soul. 

Some women hesitate to even mention it to their husbands for fear of appearing self-indulgent and less hard-working. Especially if you are a mom who works at home, and already feel guilty that you have time during the day while the kids are at school, so you fill it up to the max with volunteering and other ‘worthwhile’ activities, forgetting to leave yourself any time to do the things that fill the well, make you happy, revitalize and energize you.

Lately I am finding more and more articles and quotes that offer proof that it’s actually better for the people we love for us to take care of our own needs too, and put ourselves on the list. If you have a creative streak, that crankiness and irritability you feel may actually be coming from the need to get back into Flow, to express your creativity. Whatever the needs you have, don’t bury them in busy-ness.

When we truly care for ourselves, it becomes possible to care far more profoundly about other people. The more alert and sensitive we are to our own needs, the more loving and generous we can be towards others. — Eda LeShan

So back to Gathering the Women – when I meet with other women, when I share my feelings about what really matters to me, or just spill the beans about the crazy-making days when I don’t have a minute to breathe, or pee, or eat lunch….when I get a chance to feel heard and seen, and can take off the pretend mask of Perfectionism or Super-mom who has it all together, it saves my life. It probably saves the lives of my kids too, because my mood is brighter, I feel less cranky and irritable. I can give from the well, because my well is feeling rather full. I don't feel like throwing in the towel and taking a year's sabbitical from motherhood.

Can you recognize the symptoms of overwhelm before they explode on you? Can you lean on friends, hire a house-cleaner, leave the house for tea with a friend, make time to write in your journal or start a women’s circle? How can you give yourself a break, cut yourself some slack, ease up on the list of things to do and create some Creative Space for yourself? Begin by gathering other women and having the conversation about this hairy mid-life transition and the strain it puts on our mothering.

As a bonus to anyone who leaves a comment here, I will put your names in a draw for the book An Anthology of Babes, 36 Women Give Motherhood a Voice, edited by Suzi Banks Baum. In this book you'll find 36 women writers and artists, sharing their stories, writing from their souls. You will find a circle of voices here.

Namaste, Musemother

an-anthology-of-babes

Mother's Day Interview with Suzi Banks Baum

Again Ars Poetica

With your ear

to your heart thoughts

listen.

- Janet Cady Hutchinson

This is the second in a series of interviews that Musemother is undertaking with some amazing creative women.  I'm especially proud to post this interview in the week coming up to Mother's Day, because I think women artists who are mothers have a different set of challenges, and need the encouragement and help of other artists even more. Enjoy meeting Suzi Banks Baum, Artist, Author, Blogger and Full Time Mom!

Musemother: Tell me how the Laundry Line Divine and Out of the Mouths of Babes projects got started. And what those titles mean also.

SBB: Laundry Line Divine is the title of my blog site and my book, fully named Laundry Line Divine: A Wild Soul Book for Mothers.  All this got started in January of 2007, when three opportunities came my way and I said ‘yes’ to them all. You should know a few things about me, before I tell you this story. One- up until that point, I was a full time Mom for thirteeen years, having happily set aside my theatre career to focus on mothering.  Two- though I had kept a journal from the time I was 14 and written daily, I did not consider myself a writer. I was, at that point, a woman who was a mother who sought, without much conscious intention, to be creative in every way I could, while raising my kids.

On the weekend  in January in which we honor Martin Luther King, Jr., in the Berkshires frigid cold, I began a 6-month-writing course called “Journey Women: Transformation through Writing”.  I showed up for the course not expecting anything other than learning how to deepen my writing practice and maybe make some friends that I’d meet with on Saturdays. Then, on the Sunday of that weekend, I attended my friend Lydia’s graduation from Mama Gena’s School of the Womanly Arts in New York City. All the way in to New York on the Metro North train ride, I wrote, answering a prompt that had been asked in my Saturday writing workshop.  It had to do with looking at projects of mine of no particular sort, just things I had started and maybe finished and to consider the people who had provided me with necessary ingredients.

I had this list in my mind as I attended the raucously elegant graduation of 175 women who had just completed a 4-month course of study in something I had not much appreciation of at the time: Pleasure. What I witnessed that afternoon challenged me to escape the ballroom full of pink feathers, flowing tears on smiling faces and dancing. But, what I witnessed also called me to stay, to see if there was some of that joy for me in the world. I had no idea what I was in for. Both my Journey Women writing course and Mastery with the SWA opened up vistas within and around me that I had never lifted my head to see.

The third opportunity came in the art class I was in the following Friday. My teacher Karen Arp-Sandel, who is also a close friend of mine, passed my studio table as I was carefully cutting up an image of a knitted quilt with which to make a collage. She asked me if I’d consider engaging in a mail art correspondence. Another ‘yes’ from me, and to this day, over five years later, we are deeply caught in conversation about our lives as women, mothers and artists through the United States Postal Service. We call this body of work, the workshops we lead, exhibits, artist talks and merchandise, FeMail.

As I reflect on that period of time in 2007, my writing mentor Jan Lawry and my friends Lydia and Karen each provided me with the jet fuel for a renovation of my life that required no other tools than things I already had at hand. The ingredients that they supplied me with allowed me to enter in to my own garden of my soul- a secret bower that I had been tending without knowing it. It was and is the haven of my own Muse, my creative nest that I mistakenly thought I had abandoned when I left acting for mothering, but in fact, this fertile bed of inspiration had been daily nursed by my inner gardener while my exterior self had embarked on my mothering career–having two healthy children and living through the loss of two pregnancies. 

What I discovered in January 2007 and have been pursuing ever since, is the access point to my own joy, to the timbre and depth of my authentic voice, to the ownership and operation of my creativity in the myriad ways I express myself in this world. Whether I am at the kitchen sink simmering in anger over the actions of my teen ager or snuggling that same lanky kid in my arms, or if I am speaking on stage with the hot Fresnel lights on my cheeks or scribbling frantically to capture my quickly fleeing dream, whether I am sticky with gel medium slicking on a transfer to a mixed media composition or teaching women how to make packing tape transfers, or shaking heavy heads of amaranth letting loose a rain shower of tiny black seeds over the third graders I am gardening with or turning over my compost heap to keep myself from losing my temper with my own tired kids–I have embraced the knowledge that I am a brilliant articulation of the Divine. And, that I am, with proper care and feeding, capable of greatness.

And, I think you are too. There is room in this world for all of us to shine. The world requires it of us.

So, returning to your question, LLD and ‘Out’ emerged as I developed my non-fiction book proposal. When I came to the marketing section of that proposal, I really did not know how to answer the question: “How and where are you out in the world with your work?” Aside from school newsletters, I am an unpublished author. My theatre career has long been on hold and unless you consider reading the lessons in church on Sunday a performance, then, no, I have not been in front of an audience with my work in years.

Well. I have changed that. ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes: An Evening of Mothers Reading to Others’ and the accompanying blog series running at www.outofthemouthsofbabes.org has given me the pleasure of reading my work in public and sharing the stage with other authors I admire who, like me, are mothers. The blog series has widened the geographic reach of this project, involving over 25 authors from across the United States. As my Mom has said about me for years, “Suzi plays well with others”. I have created an event that can be hosted in other cities, with new authors joining me to share writing “from the soul of the mother” and participate in a facilitated discussion of the power of creativity and mothering.

I came to call my first book “Laundry Line Divine: A Wild Soul Book for Mothers” because it was at the laundry line where I realized that this quotidian act could become a communion with my Muse if I invite her. ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes’ came to be because I am interested in mothers as women. I want to take a fresh look at what it is to be a feminine presence today. I loved the double play the title suggests, of stories coming from women who at times think of themselves as babes, who may at times share stories of their own babes, and who are likely to be caught reading to those babes on a nightly basis. I love the playfulness of this title. So much discussion of mothering is about how hard it is. I have room for that in this series, but I encourage women to let their expression begin to make themselves whole. To do as Virginia Wolf says:

“It is only by putting it into words that I make it whole; this wholeness means that it has lost its power 

to hurt me; it gives me, perhaps because by doing so I take away the pain, a great delight to 

put the severed parts together. Perhaps this is the strongest pleasure known to me.”

I am still working on the non-fiction book proposal because I want to build my author platform. I am still a full time Mom who is a blogger, artist, author and actress, but I am all these things to a greater degree because I have found my VOICE by putting the pieces of my life together through writing and making art.

Musemother: What do you believe about the connection between women, creativity and spirituality? i.e. Is there a feminine spirituality?

SBB: Oh my gosh, Jenn. This is a great question. I will try to answer it briefly. It is my fervent belief that creativity remembers a woman to her soul.

Through consciously engaging in her daily life, appreciating the myriad of creative acts every single woman makes every day, simply because women are in every way- creative- this awareness builds the listening muscles so we can each hear what our authentic selves are calling for. By then taking the steps to engage artistically, in small ordinary ways or in bigger ways, women become familiar with their authentic voice and from that point, every decision is made in collaboration with her soul. Happiness becomes familiar ground, Inspiration flows and your ideas percolate, giving you suggestions of other things that will create that kind of joy and good feeling.

The faith practices I have studied all suggest that the collaboration of your inner and outer world is where the Divine manifests in our daily life. When you bring your ideas in to the world through pen or paint or frosting on a cake, you begin to make space for more inspiration. You open the door to possibilities you would never have encountered had you not made the way clear. My Mom used to share this aphorism “Make way and the path opens”. I believe that the appreciation of these ordinary acts of creativity make the way for bigger acts of creativity.

As to a ‘feminine spirituality’- I don’t see how there cannot be. We hold within our bodies the blueprint for the future of our planet. We are ultimately creative. And in this potential to create life, we collaborate with the Divine. However you name the Divine, whether you attribute a gender to this holy presence, it exists for us all here. If you consider the debacle of the Patriarchy over the last 5000 years and the way women have been silenced from speaking their experience of God, it is not surprising that some of us might feel timid to speak of this topic. We might be burned at the stake, as women, very close to where I am sitting right now, were, simply for expressing and carrying out their innate experience of God.

Musemother: Creative women who are mothers may feel like they need a wife or a full-time househusband to take care of the kids before they can get any creative work done. How do you manage the split between mothering and your creative work, ie collage, art, poetry? Note: for me it was sometimes a huge conflict – the desire and need for solitude, to create without distraction and interruption, to get away from the domestic sphere and hear myself think versus the need to be there for my kids at 3:30, shut everything off and forget about my projects until the next day when they were back at school.

SBB: Oh Jennifer, here again, I wish we were closer and in person to talk this all over. Yes. I’d love a househusband. I’d love a wife! But, in reality, I am here, hauling up rolls of toilet paper from the basement and folding wash and straining against all that keeps me from my pen or paper. But here, in this place of constriction, is exactly where Laundry Line Divine was born. When I began to embrace the mundane acts of mothering as some of the expressions of my soul, I began to see even hanging the wash as an opportunity to see grace, to be inspired, to exert my love upon my family in ways that they may never be aware of, but, still, I could affect them by loving what I was doing.

Surely, loving the wash does not make it go by any faster or does not cook dinner-, which, of all tasks, is the one I find the most lamentable. My friend Janet likes to say “Dinner? We had dinner last night.” (As in, do we have to do that again?) Shifting my perspective on these daily tasks from drudgery to opportunity gets rid of my anger about being the one left to do them. This shift really put me on the spot to ask for help from my real life husband who wants to support me living to my fullest potential. So, he is the one who takes over every family task on Thursdays, my art day. He drives the kids where they need to go, answers the phone if they call, makes dinner and counsels them when they need an ear while my door is closed to the world. I admit there have been a few exceptions to the sanctity of these art days. And times when it is inconvenient. We have learned to live with that discomfort. Jonathan is dedicated to supporting me, as I have been dedicated to supporting him. We work it out.

I still still still get frustrated. I always want, need, require more time. But, I have learned what minimum levels of sustenance I need. I meditate and write every day. I spend a little time in my collage-a-day practice. I take a class once a week. I take weekend retreats once a season. But, in the day to day, balancing community participation, child care and feeding, family demands is a juggling act that I just get better and better at, with regular moments when it all falls to the ground in a clattering mess.

My children have learned to respect my need to work. By my being clear about my work time away from them, they are learning a level of independence. I am not as involved in their school lives or our community as I was before I engaged in writing Laundry Line Divine and blogging. I say, as involved, because I am still doing things outside my home that are not work related, but service, but not at all to the crazy assed degree I used to be. I must tell you in retrospect, those years of massive time spent volunteering helped me see myself as confident. I learned and honed leadership skills that help me do my work today. And, I had an impact on my children’s schooling that has made a lasting impression on them. I am so glad I had the chance to do that.

What would be enough, I’d like to know. Some days I wish that I just didn’t feel hurried all the time, always thinking that I could be doing 6 things at a time, all equally important. I write about what I call ‘Solomon Moments’ when I have to choose between two perfectly perfect things and in choosing one, I am really not doing a service to either. Both choices call me. Having time to write or watching my daughter run lacrosse both feel vitally important to me. 

This is where I remember what the fascinating children’s author Katherine Paterson said:

“As I look back on what I have written, I can see that the every persons who have taken away my time are those who have given me something to say.”

Ó Suzi Banks Baum  May 2, 2012

Suzi Banks Baum’s favorite roles in her 53-year career as a woman have been mother and rat.  She took up the former 17 years ago, upon the birth of her son, and the latter in 1965 at Potawatomie Park in Chicago, in the after-school theatre program.  Suzi actively blogs at laundrylinedivine.com where she writes about seeing and celebrating the sacred in everyday life. Her upcoming book, “Laundry Line Divine: A Wild Soul Book for Mothers” recounts the wild tale of her adventures raising herself while raising her children. Her standing room only event for the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes: An Evening of Mothers Reading to Others’ premiered her work on mothering and creativity. Suzi is an actress, artist, gardener and good friend. Suzi lives with her husband and two teenagers in Great Barrington, MA.

Favorite Frames of 'Out of the Mouths of Babes' at  www.laundrylinedivine.com

Mothering and Creativity blog series at  www.outofthemouthsofbabes.org

FeMail fun at www.femailart.com

Follow Suzi at: facebook.com/LaundryLineDivine or facebook.com/femailart@laundrylinediv


Part Two to be posted in the week of May 20, 2012.

Women, Solitude and Creativity

The challenge most women face, if they are creative, is that they are never alone or uninterrupted, with all the space and time they need to nurture their inner world. Without an office to get away to, or a room of their own, as Virginia Woolf put it, their imaginations are simmering on standby or put on hold, inaccessible until the precious solitude is found, or appear only in short intense bursts that quickly fade at the sound of a crying child, a teen yelling “Mom, I have no clean underwear”, or the constant demands of daily work, or elderly care.

We are the nurturers, but we also need to nurture our creative spirit or we wither and die, at least those of us who seek creative expression – whether through words, dance, music, art or painting. We need to brood and breed our art in silence and Solitude, for the most Part. (I know some writers who work in busy cafes, and that is their form of solitude in the middle of the city). I know I need this, and feel myself getting cranky without knowing why sometimes, until I realize I haven't had enough alone time to write and think in.

Where is your private sanctuary or quiet place to create? Can you recall a special moment of solitude, either in the Redwoods, on a lake at a cottage, in your music practice space, or on retreat – even in your garden shed? That place where creative flow happens, where you get in touch with your life's peak experiences and let them have voice, where you lose track of time, experience the bliss of the timeless.

In reading Write from The Heart, by Hal Zina Bennett, I found the following exercise for creating an imaginary space, an inner sanctuary: if you don’t have one already,you can  imagine one now. Use all the sensory clues you can: the colours, smells, touch (textures), temperature, sounds, and mood of this space. Fully imagine yourself in the scene and write the description. Then find someone to read it to out loud to, so you can hear your own voice and gage the response from your reader. Bennett says it’s important and completes the writing to read it out loud.

Today, in front of my desk is a quiet foggy lake. I woke up this morning to a completely grey landscape, fogged in. Only the warble of red winged blackbirds and early bird robins gave a sign of living beings. Now the fog has drifted off, sky still grey. Swallows perched on a tree near the water, oversee the grackles  pecking the grass looking for seeds. One black crow soars from the oak tree to the yard with a worm in its mouth. 

I spent some time writing this morning in my journal, pecking at thoughts and memories like those birds, looking for seeds or worms. May you give yourself permission to create a space for solitude and get back in touch with  your favourite mode of creative expression. You deserve it.

Namaste

Musemother

Clear your mind

After ecstasy, the laundry!

Zen philosopher

 Don't you love coming home to your own bed after being away on vacation?

But don't you also hate the laundry?  there are several piles of laundry on my floor right now. My husband did a few loads yesterday, and even folded them in neat piles (guess he was desperate for some clean socks and underwear). I  managed to get two more loads done today, and my daughter is doing her own, (so I really can't complain).

But besides the piles of white, dark and pale on my wood floor, it's the mental clutter and confusion that got me down today.  I was so clear on my purpose a few weeks ago, then I left for vacation and relaxed my mind, with lots of reading by the pool, swimming in turqouise waters, drinking afternoon wine and singing and dancing whenever possible.

This morning, back to ordinary life and reality: off to the dentist with my daughter, so I postponed my own writing and reflecting (tried to write in the dentist's reception area but the local radio station playing top 20 music made it difficult). Of course, she snuck in a quick shopping stop since we were downtown. And a quick stop to buy sushi for lunch (and groceries).

Did I mention I then needed a nap? 3 hours of sleep two nights ago, between airports and flights had created a serious sleep deficit (not to mention watching the Oscars till midnight last night).  All that to say, during my nap, or somewhere in the end of it, I began to mentally berate myself for all the things I wasn't getting done, for my lack of energy and focus, for the confusion I felt after reading about mommy blogs with hundreds of thousands of followers (and comparing them to my meagre following), and then the flood of things I had not done or was unclear about doing just got worse.

Finally I jumped out of bed, since it wasn't feeling very restful, and got back on the computer. Re-reading some of the emails I received while away, I ran across one from Jennifer Louden, a link to her Facebook page www.jenniferlouden.com and an entry on Simple Action. It recommended taking one step at a time, not trying to do it all at once (ie write a paragraph not a whole chapter), and also recommended being kind to myself, ie not beating myself up mentally. How timely was that! I had just been writing in my journal about how I needed to feel ok right now, and stop feeling as if there is something wrong with me.

Then I ran into a message from Lao Tzu, through my sister Sue, which said, clear the mental clutter:  Cease all restless activity and your true nature will appear. Correct your mind.

That would describe my nap, lots of useless, restless mental activity, making lists of all the things I need to do - since I  have a chorus concert and competition coming up and my quartet is singing two new songs also, there is a lot I felt I should be doing today. 

My advice to myself is simple: let go of mental anguish, clear up mental clutter. Sit in the quiet of your room and listen to soothing music. Make a mini-retreat and write in your journal. Help yourself out of confusion by staying in the present moment. I am not this flotsom and jetsom rushing downstream in the muddy waters. I am clear water. Relief and stillness floods my being just to be reminded of that.

Nameste,

jenn/musemother

New Year Begins (Again)!

(image of rising sun in the east, early December 2009)
How did we get here this fast? I mean, it was just a few months ago I was making resolutions about no more resolutions, and here it is, time to sit down with my journal and dream my way into what I want to have happen in 2010.

Here it is end of December, and the lake is (almost) freezing over with some cold mist rising from the snow and ice, creating zigzagging patterns over the surface, and some open water....it will take a few more days of minus 10 Celsius to get totally solid.  The setting sun is throwing yellow light over the whole sifting misty lake, quite magical (not as magical as seeing the landscape on Pandora, in Avatar, but hey...see http://www.avatarmovie.com/).

Here is my list of things I am already ready to receive (not 'what I want', or 'goals' nor resolutions, but what I am already thankful for because it is being provided).

I am grateful for the lakeview and the wide open sky in front of me.
I am grateful for the space to write in and create.
I am grateful for the continued health and independence of my teenaged children.
I am grateful for the continued happiness and fulfillment of my husband.
I am grateful for new opportunities for music and singing.
I am grateful for lots of growth and learning.
I am grateful for my new book Tao of Turning 50 being published and widely distributed.
I am grateful for being financially independent.
I am grateful for providing for my family.
I am grateful for many many retreats and women's circles.
I am grateful for thousands of more readers of my blogs.
I am grateful for helping thousands of women uncover the unknown.
I am grateful for my continued health and stamina, so I can create more wisdom sharing venues.
I am grateful for uncovering networks of women with similar ideals and values.
I am grateful for partnering with like-minded women.
I am grateful for the ability to focus on my new projects and publishing.
I am grateful for being able to travel and work with writing mentors like Nathalie Goldberg.
I am grateful for being with thoughtful friends who care about my needs and my work.
I am grateful for sharing love with so many people.
I am grateful for my large extended family on both sides and their health.
I am grateful for being loved.
I am grateful for being cared for.
I am grateful for new horizons opening up.
I am grateful for taking risks and stepping forward.
I am grateful for sharing these steps with all who are interested.
I am grateful for another year of creativity, in song, in laughter.
I am grateful.

Thanks to this creative universe we live and thrive in, thanks be.

(and special thanks to my mother, my sisters and brothers, for a wonderful 3 days with them in Ottawa this past weekend)

musemother/jenn

Listening for My Own Wisdom

"I listened for the faint sound of my own true voice, buried far below all of my identities and roles and accompplishments, below my shoulds and my have-tos, my fears and my hopes.

..."Finally, slowly, I began to hear the voice of my deep womansoul crying out for a life of my own, pleading for a chance to discover my own unique song; to dance to my own choreography; to define my own purpose, direction, and vision, separate from what the world expected of me; separate from trying to be good and stay out of trouble.

I heard her saying, You are enough; just you, just who you are; you are good enough. You can stop proving it now. It's safe to come out; trust me, I will lead you. Trust this process. Trust that you are not alone." I Am A Woman finding Her Voice,

I just re-read this on an earlier blog posting, and can't believe this is still my theme! But I am putting it up here again today, to remind myself, and any of you who need to hear it, that now is the time to Listen In carefully for your own wisdom.

I am always too busy for this. Every day, I get up and meditate, ok, that's a good start, but my journal sits on the desk not used, my yoga strap waits on the chair for me to lie down and do some leg stretches, the list of things to do and things to shop for is right here beside me, and I managed to pay some bills and get toilet paper holders installed - but look at the time! 11:12 a.m. and I didn't manage to write anything in my journal, or sit and calmly listen for my own inner wisdom today.

When will I make time? If I don't schedule time for writing in my journal it doesn't happen. Or rarely, on a whim, once every two weeks. I am blogging more often, and also at http://www.owningpink.com/, which is a great place to find unconditional love and support, and read about finding your mojo. I've started editing a poetry collection, and I sent out copies of my Tao of Turning Fifty to friends for comments and feedback. So yes, small steps towards acknowledgeing my Womansoul.

Had lunch with a close friend from way back on Tuesday, and she is going through menopause. The thing that she misses the most is finding her own rhythm - needing time alone so she can find out what her rhythm would be like, if she didn't have to cook meals for someone else, oversee homework, be interruped in her creative process by house management details and daily stuff. She's a dancer, movement director, choreographer living the precarious life of grant to grant funding for projects, with no fixed income.

I thought her point about rhythm and being constantly interrupted was so apropos - finally at menopause you think the kids are big enough to handle breakfast alone, drive themselves to appointments (note: I had to interrupt meditation this morning at 8:15 to drive daughter to college for exam because my son was exceptionally not going today), and you think, I love my family, love my spouse, but I just need to find TIME for ME. It sounds so selfish. We are trained not to put ourselves first. But I think it becomes a necessity, and if you are a creative person even more so, to put yourself on the TO DO list.

Ok inner voice, I'm going to schedule you in, right now. And then I'll get to the errands, appointments, bills, and things.

sigh,
jenn/musemother

Mothering the Muse

-musings on finding creative space for mothers (first published in Q-Write, Quebec Writers' Federation newsletter).

"All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy." Orsen Wells

All mothers are selfless, hardworking and compassionate would be my corollary statement. Although far from selfless, I admit the mother side has taken precedence over the writer these past few months. I wish I could leave the dishes unwashed, let moldy t-shirts lie on the floor, leave the teens to fend for supper by themselves when a deadline is approaching. In fact, the central conflict in my life right now is how to leave the mother side behind and nurture the writer. How to mother the muse?

Shehazerade told her stories at nightfall to avoid having her head chopped off. Mothers know a lot about sleepless nights and endless stories, and little tyrants demanding, “just one more” or off with your head. Maybe night feedings are conducive to listening to the Muse. I wrote some of best poems at 4 a.m. Once the young fledglings get more mobile, the invocation of the muse can be done while trimming the hedges or preferably behind a locked bathroom door.

Inherent in mothering and writing is this conflict of schedules, this conflict of roles that resist merging with each other. In my mind, I can be either a good mother, or a good poet. The poet in me hates schedules, discipline and regular habits. She is moody and rebellious and gets grumpty when she is disturbed. She equates creativity with messiness. Sometimes the Muse is hard to grab onto, so I spend days writing myself reminders to write in my notebook, and sometimes I actually do.

Maybe the trouble I have is with my image of writers and mothers: mothers are supposed to love their offspring unconditionally, drop their own projects to sew elastics on ballet shoes or drive someone to the video store. Mothers don’t say ‘go away’, when their daughters come bugging them for help with French homework. They don’t put up signs on their office that say DO NOT DISTURB. In my mind, a ‘real’ writer is a cranky old man with a pipe and beard who works in his study and never lets any children or noise in. Children tiptoe around him and never dare hug him. A wife is at the door, ready to shoo them away and answer the phone, deal with plumbers and repair men. Ah, the wife, well, that would be me.

It feels like the ‘real’ writers are cooped up like hermits behind closed doors or in mountain retreats communing with the ‘muse’. And the ‘real mothers’ are baking brownies, washing floors and carpooling hockey teams. But I am a hybrid: a writing mother, and I manage to do both, with some compromise.

If I don’t mother the muse, i.e. make time to do some creative loafing so I can write, my inner Hemingway comes alive. Then watch out! Cranky Ogre sets in. Mothering the muse could mean listening to her call (or the itch in my veins that leaves me sleepless) in the middle of the night, or mining the tiny cracks in the day’s schedule where inspiration wafts up, in between breakfast dishes and homework and chauffeur service to after school activities. It may also mean leaving the house to write in a café, waking up 15 minutes earlier to write morning pages, or spending a day at a friend’s cottage to have Quiet Space where the octopus of household tasks does not live. You’ll have to check “mother guilt” at the door, however; it’s only one more creative block.

Self-discipline and the courage to value my work above all other tasks are part of the challenge. Like any writer, the trick for me is the doing of it, not the thinking about it. Maybe I can’t lock myself away in a cabin in absolute stillness and silence. But in the past 10 years I have somehow managed to publish a book, a chapbook, and teach courses in journal writing, as well as raising two kids. My first book, “Little Mother”, explored in prose and poetry my first pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing, as well as the earlier drama of living with an alcoholic mother.

Ideally, with a little help to manage household duties –cleaning ladies are angels – and a little help from the muse, a manuscript will soon be in the mail to publishing houses. On the way, mothering has become my theme, a puzzle I am trying to figure out in my writing. Mothering the muse, musing on mothering, it has all become one. My latest creative project is a play about Eve’s mother. So muse, I am making an appointment with you for 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning – whoops, I forgot, school is out tomorrow. Next week?


Mothering the muse ideas: take yourself on an artist’s date (from The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron). Get outside and walk in the woods, let nature inspire you to make room for sun and snow shadows. Play! Read whatever style of writing you want to be writing, i.e. read poetry! Get together with another writer for coffee and writing in a café. Write morning pages, before the kids wake up, set your alarm 15 minutes early. Don’t be hard on yourself. Even if you only write one sentence a day, that’s 365 sentences at the end of a year. Just imagine if you wrote 3 sentences? I met a writer at the Maritime Writer’s Workshop who worked full-time for the government in Ottawa, and had 3 kids (and a wife) who managed to write for one hour every morning before breakfast! Without waking up his wife! His lecture was called Perseverance.

Snuggle with your kids in the morning, and try to turn off the flow of creativity before they come home; give yourself time to land, back on earth, and greet them happily. It takes flexibility to live in both worlds.

The battle within

For anyone interested in the creative arts, whether writing, drawing, music, dance, theatre, there is always the dilemna between doing what's easy and makes money, and doing what one loves, even if it doesn't come without a struggle,or demands too much of our time.

For me, I decided to not write poetry for a while, and stopped even opening my journal for a long time. People ask me what I do, and I tell them I lead retreats. But recently, I realized my heart is entwined around a love affair with poems, not really a love affair, but a passionate embrace that won't let go. And it surprised me becuase I thought I had let go of it, of feeding that passion, that it had died.

I read this on a blog post from Meredith Winn, that my friend and photographer Suzy sent me a link for, and it absolutely brought tears to my eyes to see this struggle defined. She begins with talking about Elizabeth Gilbert (of EAT PRAY LOVE fame http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/) and hearing her talk about writer's block, and how doing something else for a while can be the answer, not forcing oneself to write, but gardening for example, until the Muse graces your path again. For Meredith, the other thing is photography.

" i thought i had to juggle. to hold both parts of what i am (what i’ve become most surprisingly) and figure out how to make them get along without competition. figure out how to give them both time when they dance awkwardly together (and strangely do not compliment each other as one should think they would). they fight over time. they fight over energy and emotion and brain space and blood sugar and sunlight.

"photography is easy. easy in the sense of instant gratification. easy in the sense of aesthetically pleasing. easy in the sense that it actually pays me money. it is lighthearted and beautiful and easy to be around. photography is everyone’s best friend. i have fallen quite surprisingly into this role of photographer because it comes easily.

"all the while my mind, this other side of me, the wicked darkness whispers ‘traitor’ and ‘fake’! because i know that at my most inner core, i am a writer.

"writing is not easy. it has never paid me, nor have i asked it to. it is painful and exhausting and requires so much of my time that i have been suppressing it, kicking it away with disregard. i love it and yet it itches me, mocks me, drives me forward, and is all my soul wants to do simply for the process of doing it. yet here i am, i’ve been denying it water in hopes that it just shuts the hell up and withers away. (this thing i love! this thing that is deeply a part of me. how could i be so cruel?!) i don’t want it to wither entirely. but just for now, please, because life is too full, too emotional, too much, too much. there are words i want to say, but i deny myself them. because photography is easy. and writing is not, it is something that makes me human. and most often feeling human (for me) is a momentarily painful experience." by Meredith Winn at http://meredithwinn.wordpress.com/

There is much wisdom here for me to digest. Writing is painful for me, in that, there is always a certain amount of rewriting, once the project is done, or you think it's done, then you have to go back and kill your darlings, the most precious things you've said that are just redundant, or don't fit anywhere and bog the thing down. I am working on a final draft of The Tao of Turning Fifty, and dreading cutting anymore. Dreading finding the right voice, the common tone, the unique individual 'way' of saying things that will define the book - cause it is fragmented right now, a bunch of blog posts and meandering thoughts culled together.

But I do believe there are millions of women who will thank me for it, if they can get to read it!

Onwards and upwards, my soul. Courage to retreat, and listen inwards for inspiration. The blocks are moved only inches at a time, one breath at a time, one word, one sentence, one paragraph.....courage to continue.

jenn/musemother







.

Solitude

Reading May Sarton's Journal of a Solitude, I am realizing how peaceful the house is when Caitie is out (she is newly returned from Italy and a cooking class), and Julien is out (away in Europe too, for 3 weeks with his backpacking buddies), and Jacques is at work.....

We spent a lovely week on vacation together, at home, not going anywhere special, at least during the day. Filling our evenings with suppers with friends, a singalong with chorus friends, an evening out at the Just for Laughs gala with his office partners, afternoon wine with friends, and supper at a golf course restaurant with J's parents. It was not 'that' quiet, since for me it was a very social week.

So back to the peace and quiet of the house alone.

And how the mind gets silted up when there is no silence in which to turn over the thoughts, impressions, people we meet, things that occur. There is a need in some of us to capture it in writing, to examine and behold a thing, even if it's a cloud at sunset, from all angles.

Nourishment for the soul, being alone during the day and having the space to do the homely tasks, water the plants, feed the cats, walk the dog, wash sheets, and yet also do the reading and writing and reflecting that are so needed too, like water or food.

Speaking of food, the least favourite activity of mine is preparing food for myself. I have a quick toast with something on it and coffee in the morning, and often reheat a frozen Indian meal for lunch - it's got the protein, carbs and vegetables all there in one plate. Taking time to prepare a meal during the 'work' hours is too intrusive.

So, although I am not living alone or in total solitude, I have the luxury of my days with the computer, with my blog, or diary, with my books to read and thoughts to think. Of course, I don't allow myself recreational books or fiction, during 'office hours' - except for last week, while on a home vacation, I got two historical fiction books read by Sarah Dunant. The Birth of Venus and IN the company of the Courtesan, set in Florence and Venice respectively, in the 16th century, and both full of great story lines and fascinating details about the period.

I have not written every day in my journal, and am only writing once a week on the blog, but since I am doing more reading the thirst for writing is returning, and I have done some revising of stories - which I realize I've kept in draft form on the computer for years without editing or attempting to send out anywhere.

Perhaps there is a short story writer slumbering in me.....given more solitude, it may just awaken.

Solitude is the water, the nourishment, the balm and lotion needed for a writer, to soothe and provide the space to work in.

have a great summer day,
musemother

Embrace Writer's Block

and overcome it....

this is what I plan to do, and here is the quote that inspired me:

Embrace your writer's block. It's nature's way of saving trees and your reputation. Listen to it and try to understand its source. Often, writer's block happens to you because somewhere in your work you've lied to yourself and your subconscious won't let you go any further until you've gone back, erased the lie, stated the truth and started over.

taken from 36 Assumptions About Writing Plays, by Jose Rivera on the internet somewhere

My plan appears simple on the surface. I am going to write in my journal every morning for a minimum of 10 minutes for 100 Days. call it, 100 Days of Solitude (instead of 100 years).

On my computer I have a file called Fiction and Stories, with material in draft form for a whole book length manuscript. I thank my sister Sue for nudging me towards writing the story of my life - but I have already started years ago in classes taken on-line and various Autobiographical writing workshops. The problem is I hate editing them. I get mad at myself for the lousy writing, I lose interest in my own bleeping adventures, no matter how exotic they seemed at the time.

The material is there, and yes, I may have lied to myself many times about the 'me' in some of those stories; to find out where the 'lie' is, I'm going to re-read all of them and write in my journal till I get at the nugget of truth. (It helps that my kids are not here so no-one is even figuratively reading over my shoulder. The censor always kicks in when I get to about age 16....)

This great project idea just occurred to me five minutes ago, as I was considering spending $347 US dollars on a publishing reset course, supposed to give me tools to approach an agent or publisher with a Hook of a Book. (along with 6 CD's and a huge workbook). The thing is, I know a little about publishing, and I know a little about how to find an agent, and how to have a web presence (this blog). What I really need is to sit down and Just Do It (as my scented candle reminds me from my desk top), just bust my shoulders by typing the thing. (oh yeah and buy a wireless keyboard so I don't hurt myself)

So, as part of the adventure, I will blog a little about how the stories are coming along and maybe 'publish' a few extracts, as they come up.

Stay tuned for the life and times of,
musemother

(yes, she was a little mother once, but was she ever little?)

Mothering, writing, solitude

notes from my journal about busyness, writing and mothering:

'I am missing the solitude of my journal, reading a book of short stories (Bang Crunch) woke that up in me, the need for self-expression or a quiet self-reflective mode - I am not obligated to write for anyone or anything but to recover lost parts of me - the urge to flaunt convention, to leap up in the face of tyrannical duty-bound daily life and its obstinancies of order. Truly, I tell myself lately, you must let go of the house-tasks, let go of cooking (alternately I berate myself for being lazy and not experimenting with new recipes). There is a battle within between the housemother who organizes and the artist who rebells, as if I can't decide which one I am.

But that black or white either-or thinking, is false, fatalistic, not creative - I am both and neither. I am all sides of myself, mother, writer, creative spirit, and I do not need to neglect either one - just satisfy the call right now for less 'outer activity' and more writing.

It is a sincere desire to create, not to escape household duties. but the frame or grid I put myself in leaves no time for 'being lazy' or loafing creatively. Thyroid issues are all about time, according to my dictionnaire des malaises et maladies, and so I imagine that my body mind soul are struggling with the same issues - what I tell myself becomes a reality. so I tell myself that time is elastic and stretches into whatever container I need to buoy me through the day. Being rigid about time allows it to pick me up and grind me in the teeth of agendas, appointments (did I really need a manicure today?) and then spit me out in pieces.

Pieces I have struggled to keep together may fall apart. I am a hostess with a unique style, not hyper orgnaized in advance (nor was my caterer for the prom cocktail, l hour late!). Being better organized reduces stress, so yes, we will improve.

I am juggling - or I am letting go of juggling all these balls - caitie julien jacques molly oreo zoe - am impatient when their needs pile on me - when is it time for me? Another typroid message. Ok I get it. I must create boundaries, limits, practise saying no, and getting down to the work at hand. Just do it! says my zena mooon candle on the desk - better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly. (Robert Schuller)

Poet May Sarton in her Journal of a Solitude quotes a letter from a woman, who is complaining of something similar: "Can one be within the framework of a marriage do you think? I envy your solitude with all my heart and your courage to live as you must."

Then Sarton continues, "It is not irresponsible women who ask that question, but often women with children, caring women, who feel deeply frustrated and lost, who feel they are missing their 'real lives' all the time. Has this always been true and only now are we able to admit it? and what is the solution? It is partly no doubt, as women's lib has insisted, that it is time the warm nurturing powers, usually taken for granted in women, now be called out of men in equal measure. Roles should no longer be assigned on the basis of sex or of any preconceived idea of marriage, but should grow organically from the specific needs of two human beings and their capacities and gifts....no partner in a love relationship (whether homo or heterosexual) shoud feel that he has to give up an essential part of himself to make it viable.

But the fact is that men still do rather consistently undervalue or devalue women's powers . ... and women, no doubt, equally devalue their own powers. But there is something wrong when solitude such as mine can be envied by a happily married woman with children. "

Happily married and still craving solitude, I have just had my first day totally alone, with only the dog and 2 cats, in a long time. Caitie has flown away to Italy, J & J are fishing till tomorrow, and the silent lake flows under a pewter sky.....

jenn