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Friday, January 23, 2009

Of Woman Born -Rich and I

Everytime I pick up the book (Of Woman Born, Adrienne RIch) I am ashamed at how far I have let my brain slip away from me these past years. how soft I have become in some senses/faculties. Rich writes in an academic-y style that I can hardly handle anymore, and the SUBJECT? what thought and analysis she has directed at this challenge of mothering! and I know that her children were grown when she got it into form, but the plumbing the depths started while she was home... and I cannot help but compare myself and my lacks.



I took a sabbatical of some hours yesterday to attend a 'mini-retreat' for mothers in which there was snack- though not quite junky enough to satisfy (no hohos! )- and yoga and journaling and sharing. I really do love yoga and I do love silence and I have nearly ZERO of either in my current situation... however, as a staunch New Englander, I find socializing and 'sharing' to be quite difficult. When called upon to do emotional sharing in public, I find myself immediately suspicious of anyone who can do so, with very few exceptions. Sometimes it is a judgemental fiesta on my part, with my cynicism and melodramatic sarcasm doing loop-de-loops with each other, but sometimes its just a niggling feeling that other people are 'performing'. When it comes down to 'motherhood' and what we all experience while wearing this mantle, it is hard to imagine anyone has the time to 'perform', really, so maybe I'm entirely off my rocker. ? I still need work, evidently. And I am not suggesting that the women WERE performing, in fact I think it highly likely that none of them were, I am suggesting that my own judgements cloud my space sometimes.



The retreat was meant to be about finding one's center in all this wilderness of motherhood, and as Dorie (friend with wild loopyness:) and I were discussing afterwards, figuring out how to be in our - or comfortable with and without our archetypes of motherhood. Who are we as we walk within our BirthRight? That which WE were given when we arrived... what we talk so freely about in terms of our own children, our hopes and dreams for them, our desires for their safety, their sanctity, etc. IF all is right with the world, someone felt those things for US. So who the hell are we to so disrespect that?! HOW angry will I be at my children if they slough it ('it' being nothing less than THEIR SELVES) off as nothing special?
So who the hell I am to let mySELF slip under the car?

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