Posts tagged “politics”

Tuesday Isn’t the End

Posted on November 6, 2016

I have been writing online since 2003. When I go back to what I wrote in the early days I sometimes cringe, but I also have compassion for who I was and where I was. If we are really all works in progress, then to improve we have to have times, experiences, actions that weren’t the best—they, and we, could be improved. Last year I began writing with less restraint about feminism. I left the fear of judgement behind and allowed myself to put out anything that on my deathbed I would have wanted to say. Sometimes it left me feeling naked and nervous. Did I go too far? I would wonder, but then and now I feel that going too far is better…

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Categories: Roar

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Country, Not Candidates.

Posted on November 4, 2016

This morning I woke up to read the story about Harvard immediately canceling the remainder of the men’s soccer team season as the result of a revelation of ongoing sexual harassment. It is a bold and unequivocal move, penalizing some who may not have participated. Or did they? Is not speaking up complicity? Was it only the soccer team or is it more prevalent as one female soccer player said? This behavior is unfortunately new, what is new is the effort to address. I have been grateful for Kirsten Gillibrand here in New York who has worked on how sexual assaults on college campuses and in the military are handled. You don’t have to look very hard to find the accounts of women who…

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Categories: Me, Roar

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From the first breath

Posted on November 3, 2016

I remember the way it felt when the ultrasound tech put the gel on my belly. I was not yet accustomed to the frequency and casual way that I would be expected to undress. Looking back I realize it was good preparation for a kind of naked vulnerability that never goes away once you are a parent. Fear, hope, longing to make things right and have everyone happy, it strips you bare.   This year I had to get an inhaler, my stress levels make it hard for me to breathe. It’s funny because all my life I’ve been so strong and healthy, and it’s literally my insistence to do it all that I cannot breathe. You’d think that would knock me into better behavior,…

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Categories: Me, Roar

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Let’s Do This #ImWithHer

Posted on October 8, 2016

I remember in high school I had two really close friends and a third who occasionally joined us in our shenanigans. The two I spent the most time with, Kristie and Rebecca, were both shorter than me. They also tended not to get as worked up about things as I did. I always felt kind of clunky and out of control by comparison. When there would be misunderstandings between us they would talk in back channels and often use our other friend as a way of talking with me. This of course only made me more frustrated. I look back on those years, awkward and tumultuous as they were, with great affection. These girls still cared for me in spite of how fiery I lived,…

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Categories: Random

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It’s You

Posted on September 23, 2016

Sometimes when I am driving by myself I turn the radio off to ride in silence. This morning as neighborhoods passed by in a blur I thought of how I told Finley after we straightened her hair that it “Looks so long!’ I said this because that’s what she wants, and it does actually look longer when it’s straightened. A few blocks later it hit me that almost all compliments to people, women in particular, seem to be about how something about them is different. “You look so skinny” “You don’t look 40” “You look taller” It’s weird, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be great if we said, “You. You are wonderful.” Are we only better when we change? I don’t have the answer, but…

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Categories: Roar

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