Saturday, June 7, 2014

The Literary Adventurer Goes on Holiday

Dearest Readers,
  You don’t know me, but we share affection or love or trust or acquaintance with one Cathy Welker. As she is off enjoying ocean breezes and following her bliss, (join me in a great sigh of joy and appreciation of her fella!) I am here to serve as a sad substitute. I was a student of Cathy’s in the late nineties and I can assure you with a sober face that she saved my life in more than one way.
  Dramatic? Yes. I was a drama kid. Sue me.
  All hyperbole aside, I spent this week in anticipatory throes of angst trying to decide what to blog about. I tossed around a few ideas: Mothers – how I have many (6!) and the role they play in the life of a woman. Children and education and how a super-liberal, big-mouthed mother raising two boys in Texas is quite an adventure. I even imagined just recycling from my own blog which you can find HERE if you’re interested after today.
  But then, yesterday, I had my 14 week appointment with my midwife to finally hear the heart of my third and last bean and behold…no heartbeat could be detected.
  I shared this news with my dearest loved ones through a combination of text and Facebook posting. And I was surprised at the number of responses I got from people recounting their own miscarriages. For the record: this is my second. My first was a few years after an abortion and I had some very clear feelings of being struck down by a less-than-merciful God.
  Upon reading these stories of pain and loss by so many of the women in my life for whom I have always carried a bit of awe, I began to realize that I am most certainly not alone in this world or even this particular experience. By which I mean – I have always viewed myself as an outsider who experiences the world in a collection of emotions and responses that no one else has ever felt in such a way. I live a hyperbolic existence. I have always lived in the margins of the page. I am a footnote or an appendix or a bit of fringe. I have never been the stuff found within the meat of the book. 
  In short, I have always been WEIRD. Other. Especially these days in Texas.
  So when I raced through these pages of text from women for whom I hold the highest esteem – these poised and perfect ladies. These perfect paragons of femininity and grace. When I knew that they too had felt the hole punch open in their heart and abdomen where once potential had lived…I was so grateful…
  And then I got pretty pissed.
  Because WHY AREN’T WE TALKING TO EACH OTHER?!? Why aren’t we having more conversations about what matters. Sharing war wounds and battle stories? Why aren’t we younger women seeking out mentors? Why aren’t the older women sitting us whippersnappers down and FORCING us to listen to what you have to say? Because we need it. Oh my GOD do we need you. We need to know you felt what we feel. We need to know you loved the way we love and lost the way we lose and that even if the hair and the skin showing and the music is different: you were HERE. You lived the life we are living.
  Because we will listen. Or at least I will. I swear it.
  We need you, ladies who are not our mothers and grandmothers. We need you to help us not feel like Facebook and Tumblr and Instagram are our only lifelines in this world. Because they are good ones, they truly are. They’ve kept me and Cathy friends these many years past my time as her pupil. They allow me to read her words of wisdom each week and remember how lucky I am to have six mothers.
  And younger women – the responsibility does not fall just to the wiser of women. This responsibility also lands squarely on our shoulders as well. We must seek out women who possess the best of what we long to have. We must seek out advice and companionship and affection and even discipline. We cannot grow if we contain ourselves inside vessels of friendship that offer no space for change and no diversity of thought.
  Your social media page is controlled by an algorithm that streamlines your people, products, politics, and thoughts based on WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW. Do you really want to live your life exactly as you are now? I don’t. I want to push and be pushed. Teach and be taught. Love and be loved.

  A hand reached across a linen tablecloth, a clasp of fingers five on top of five…an embrace of new Chanel and old mingling together…a ten minute tea on the front porch that turns into an evening…these things…these are the things that will save us. 

  Thanks for your attention, dear reader, Cathy will return soon with adventures and tales and (I hope) a bit of euphoria from so many days in the surf.

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