Reflections on Great Women in History

Last week I had the most wonderful opportunity to attend a Martha Graham Dance Company production. I have heard Martha Graham's name bandied about over the years, but had never seen the dancers or learned much about Martha Graham. While billed as a modern dance company, the troupe is extremely fluid and the dancing dynamic (not jerky and stilted as I had expectd). There is almost a story with each movement. I learned more about Martha Graham too, because this production was documentary, using film and voice, as well as performance based. Martha Graham is quite simply the founder of modern dance. I am sure that I was not the only one in the audience thinking that the late, great Michael Jackson most certainly must have spent time studying her patterns of movement and putting his own spin on them.

Her contemporary, Coco Channel is another female great. She can be credited with such inventions as the business suit for women, the popularity of pearls, and the little black dress. Like Martha, Coco Channel took the road less travelled for women of her time and forever changed the fashion industry and the way that women dress. Over the years, I have often heard comments to the effect of "women don't invent anything," they do, you just have to look and pay attention. The next time that you see a dancer use a contract and expand movement or glance at a woman dressed gracefully in a black dress and pearls, think of the mothers of invention.

Mother's Little Helper

I just got through watching a very disturbing news clip from ABC. It was a part of a 20/20 focus story on mothers and drinking. While the episode was designed, using face-to-face interviews, to bring this secret habit to light, I found the interview tactics to be appalling. The woman conducting the interview phrased almost every question posed to a recently recovering alcoholic mother in terms of "Did you realize that you were putting your child in danger?" Although that question was only asked directly once during the ten-minute clip that I watched, every other question contained subtexts of this message. What the hell! Of course the mother knew in her heart that she was putting her child in danger. Here we go again, it seems like every issue that is supposed to focus on women is turned inside out in order to display her failures as a caregiver. Quite obviously this poor woman was struggling with leaving a high profile job in order to be a stay-at-home mom. For many women the transition to staying at home comes naturally and easily, for others it can be devasting and the subsequent guilt that they feel for not enjoying it can be overwhelming. So here is this mother admitting on national television that she drove her daughter while drinking and the interviewer asks "So you drove your daughter when you had been drinking, weren't you aware that you were putting her in danger?" I had to hand it to this mother who, after a long pause, said, "The answer to that is kind of obvious don't you think."

Here's to Great Friends!

When I take the timeto stop and reflect on what wonderful friends I have, I can't help but feel overwhelmed with good furtune. The other night a friend of mine in my neighborhood threw an awesome party. It was so awesome in fact that her recently laid off and moved back home twenty-three year old son had the date circled on his calendar as a date when he would be spending the night at his sister's apartment, away from his version of hell, a party thrown by his mother for her friends! We ate food prepared by a local hobby chef, drank Bazooka cocktails, we danced and later in the evening the theme song became "I am not a Whore" by LMFAO. After this fun filled evening, which ran far too late for a "school night," I began my self reflection on my fortunate friendships, not just in my neighborhood, but in places throughout the world. If there is one gift that I hope to pass onto my children, it is that ability to choose great friends and keep them close, no matter how far the distance. Here's to great friendships!

Time Management-Take it in a New Direction

Last night I read an interesting article in the latest edition of the Utne Reader. It was a discussion regarding attention and focus. New research suggests that we don't have a finite amount of attention, each of us can tap into more attention and focus by directing ourselves to attend and focus on the right things. In regards to the right things, we are all different I have been thinking about this lately and realize that I direct more focus and attention than I would like to things that aren't really important to me such as, picking up my house, doing laundry, running never ending errands, and driving.

As a mother it is essential that I do some of this, but I have been thinking about how to gift myself with more energy and attention to important things and I realized that those seemingly meaningless tasks bring me no joy whatsoever, but the outcomes bring me happiness. I like the house to be clean, I love the smell of clean laundry and it is nice to have a choice of what clothes to wear, I like to check "done" on my to do list, and driving usually means that I am doing something that a) needs to be done for myself, b) is important for my children, or c) may be taking us somewhere where we actually want to go. So, in that light, all of these things that take my time and attention are important and need attending to.

What needs to change is how I make these necessary activities part of my life and enjoy said outcomes without allowing them to take over. I will start with picking up the house. What makes me eternally joyful and ever so happy is when my children and my husband actually clean up their own messes. To that end I will be directing more attention to teaching my children how to do this. I doubt that I will be able to actually teach my husband how to pick up after himself, but I have heard the children remind him to do so on more than one occasion and that is a start. For me, there is always meditation or copious amounts of red wine. Messes don't seem to bother me as much when I engage in either one of those activities.

Whenever a mother says that she wants to "be happy," it is considered selfish. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that if I ain't happy, this household of mine isn't very happy either. I don't mean this in a selfish, surface kind of way. True inner happiness is important, mother or not. In this most people are the same. People are happy when they are able to attend to things that bring them pleasure. Attention is an ethereal concept. I am trying to make it more solid. The Utne Reader article recommends using some form of meditation, or having periods of time when you are able to empty your mind and "zone out." Apparently it is during these periods of time that humans are able to recharge their capacity for creativity and center on the things that are important. This has always been challenging for me, I sense that is the case for many of us type "A's," but I have to say that I am getting better. Yoga at least once a week has been a good start. Sitting down and actually completing this post without jumping up to attend to every argument going on between my children or to clean up the leftover dinner food has been another. Day by day, hour by hour...

Half The Sky

I am currently reading the book "Half the Sky" by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Rather than summarize the book, I have decided to print the quotes that headline each chapter, here goes:

"Women might just have something to contribute to civilization other than their vaginas"
-Christopher Buckley, Florence of Arabia

"Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself."
-Abraham Lincoln

"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people."
-George Bernard Shaw

"The mechanism of violence is what destroys women, controls women, diminishes women and keeps women in their so-called place."
-Eve Ensler, A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer

"Preparation for death is that most Reasonable and Seasonable thing, to which you must now apply yourself."
-Cotton Mather, in a sermon advising pregnant women

"Would the world stand by if it were men who were dying just for completing their reproductive functions."
-Asha-Rose Migiro, UN Deputy Secretary General, 2007

"Whenever cannibals are on the brink of starvation, Heaven, in its infinite mercy, sends them a nice plump missionary."
-Oscar Wilde

"A majority of the dwellers of hell will be women, who curse too much and are ungrateful to their spouses."
-Muhammad Imran, Ideal Woman in Islam

"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."
-Derek Bok

"Are women human yet...If women were human, would we be a cash crop shipped from Thailand in containers into New York brothels...Would our genitals be sliced out to "cleanse" us...When will women be human...When..."
-Catherine A. Mac Kinnon, Are Women Human

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
-Mahatma Gandhi

I am going to work on that last one starting tomorrow, good-night!