Lost Woman Song

I opened a bank account
when I was nine years old
I closed it when I was eighteen
I gave them every penny that I'd saved
and they gave my blood
and my urine a number
now I'm sitting in this waiting room
playing with the toys
and I am here to exercise
my freedom of choice

I passed their handheld signs
went through their picket lines
they gathered when they saw me coming
they shouted when they saw me cross
I said why don't you go home
just leave me alone
I'm just another woman lost
you are like fish in the water
who don't know that they are wet
as far as I can tell
the world isn't perfect yet

his bored eyes were obscene
on his denim thighs a magazine
I wish he'd never come here with me
in fact I wish he'd never come near me
I wish his shoulder
wasn't touching mine
I am growing older
waiting in this line
some of lifes best lessons
are learned at the worst times

under the fierce flourescent
she offered her hand for me to hold
she offered stability and calm
and I was crushing her palm
through the pinch pull wincing
my smile unconvincing
on that sterile battlefield that sees
only casualties
never heroes
my heart hit absolute zero

Lucille, your voice still sounds in me
mine was a relatively easy tragedy
now the profile of our country
looks a little less hard nosed
but that picket line persisted
and that clinic's since been closed
they keep pounding their fists on reality
hoping it will break
but I don't think there's a one of us
leads a life free of mistakes

--ani difranco

I haven't been here in a while. I've started a new blog with fewer aspirations.

But I can't forget Cassandra, as hard as I may try by telling myself that there are daily struggles and hungers that are more pressing mysteries than the problem of being a woman in a patriarchal lifestyle. But the more time that goes by the more I realize, and being home doing homework with josh has helped that realization along-- that everyday and every moment is an opportunity to teach and to learn something important about who we are and why we are.

So this book I'm reading is called Dance of the Dissident Daughter. It is by a woman named Sue Monk Kidd and it is a memoir of sorts. She writes about her journey as a woman from a spirituality and identity based in the patriarchal christian tradition to her identity as a woman in feminine spirituality.

So far here are some points and ideas and quotes that resonate with me....

"I often went to Catholic mass or Eucharist at the Episcopal church, nourished by the symbol and power of this profound feeding ritual. It never occurred to me how odd it was that women, who have presided over the domain of food and feeding for thousands of years, were historically and routinely barred from presiding over it in a spiritual context. And when the priest held out the host and said, "This is my body, given for you," not once did I recognize that it is women in the act of breastfeeding who must truly embody those words and who are most excluded from ritually saying them." (Kidd, 15)

"When those particular thoughts struck me one morning as I was writing, they pricked a bubble of anger I didn't know I had, and I surprised myself by throwing my pen across the room. It landed inside the fireplace in a pile of soot. I had to go get the pen and clean it off. There had been so many things I hadn't allowed myself to see, because if I fully woke to the truth, then what would I do? How would I be able to reconcile myself to it? The truth may set you free, but first it will shatter the safe, sweet way you live." (Kidd, 15)

"All in all I have been what some have called an "unambiguous woman." I didnt know this term at the time. It was coined by feminist theorist Deborah Cameron and later referred to by author Carolyn Heilbrun in her book Writing a Woman's Life. 'What does it mean to be unambiguously a woman?' writes Heilbrun. 'It means to put a man at the center of one's life and to allow to occur only what honors his prime position. One's own desires and quests are always secondary. '" (Kidd 18-19)

"Living without real inner authority, without access to my deep feminine strength, I carried around a fear of dissension, confrontation, back-lash, a fear of not pleasing, not living up to the sanctioned models of femininity." (kidd 19)

"Disconnected from my feminine soul, I had also unknowingly forfeited my power to name sacred reality. I had simply accepted what men had named. Neither had I noticed that when women give this power away, it is rarely used to liberate and restore value to women. More often it is used to shore up and enhance the priveledged position of men. In the beginnings of Christianity, church fathers debated whether women had souls at all. Later the issue became whether or not a woman's soul could be saved. Today the issue is one of women reconnecting with their souls." (kidd, 21)

"Although outwardly appearing stable and satisfied, inwardly we may feel silenced, afraid, stuck, self-doubtful, unable to carry through with things, angry but unable to express it directly. We may grow perfectionistic and driven, but strangely at the same time we may feel powerless, without boundaries, overwhelmed by the roles we are expected to carry out. Moreover, we may harbour fears of being left alone, of risking ourselves, of conflict." (kidd, 22)

"The so-called God-ordained image of female as under male, incapable, disobedient, unworthy- all of which added up to inferior-- was a devastating notion to me as a girl. It snuffed out something vital, some hope for my female life. Years later when I came upon some words by theologian Elizabeth A Johnson, I felt the deep click of truth inside. She said that experiences like the one I had 'give girl children from the beginning the experience of a world where the male is the norm from which her own self deviates.' Over the years the idea of being 'other', of being the lesser sex, had continued to seep into me. I saw now it had penetrated the marrow of my tiniest bones." (kidd, 27)

"I read a moving example of this interplay in physician Christiane Northrup's book, Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom. She recounted being in the delivery room countless times, hearing new mothers apologize to their husbands when the baby was not male. She described the experience as staggering to her. But, she writes:
When my own second daughter was born, I was shocked to hear those very words of apology come into my brain from the collective unconscious of the human race. I never said them out loud, and yet they were there in my head- completely unbidden. I realized then how old and ingrained is this rejection of the female by men and women alike." (kidd 31)

"Mostly, I didn't want to believe I could have been wounded by my own faith. I didn't want to acknowledge how it had relegated half the human population to secondary status and invisable places." (kidd 33)

"One of the primary forms that resistance takes is trivialization. Surely I was making a big deal out of this, I began to tell myself. So maybe there is a feminine wound in me, in women, in the church, in the earth, but what about all those other major problems I should be concerned about- the environment, crime, war, homelessness? What is a little feminine wound by comparison? Yet the truth is, as long as one woman is dehumanized, none of us can be fully human." (kidd, 33-34)

"Once when I led a discussion at a mixed-gender retreat, a couple of women began to express their pain as women within Christianity. A male clergyman, who I suspect was feeling uncomfortable, said, "Oh come on, the church is human, it makes mistakes. Why can't you just forgive and be done with it?" I'm not sure he realized what he'd done- brilliantly trivializing and dismissing their feelings. I mean, who could argue with what he said? Yes, the church is human. Yes it makes mistakes. Yes forgiveness is good.........

There is a time to be gentle and a time to be fierce, and each of the two women managed to be both at the same time. One said, 'Must you focus on my need to forgive and let go? I'm not yet at a place where I can do that. I really need to express what's inside me, and I need the church to listen. Why not go to the heart of it and focus on the church's need to repent and change?' The other woman said, "Think a moment. If men were at the bottom and women were the ones in charge, if our theology tended to give us the power and excluded you, if it deified the feminine only, would you still be saying, "the church is only human, why don't you just let it go?" (kidd 34)

"Going to another woman for help can be a breakthrough act, because throughout history women have been programmed to turn to men for help. We might go to other women for solace, for 'domestic wisdom', but for solutions and insight, to find out how the world works and how to name reality, many women tend to go to men. Certainly we can find real help there. I have been encouraged and blessed by enlightened men. But it alters something inside a woman when she begins to turn also to women, to see women, and therefore herself, as namers of reality. (kidd 38)

I'm sure there will be many more quotes to add here, but for now I'm caught up and ready to continue reading. I'm sure the amount I've put up is overwhelming but I didn't want them to go unseen. They are here, for when I need them.