Get It, Girls

"The girl and the woman, in their new, individual unfolding, will only in passing be imitators of male behavior and misbehavior and repeaters of male professions. After the uncertainty of such transitions, it will become obvious that women were going through the abundance and variation of those (often ridiculous) disguises just so that they could purify their own essential nature and wash out the deforming influences of the other sex. Women, in whom life lingers and dwells more immediately, more fruitfully, and more confidently, must surely have become riper and more human in their depths than light, easygoing man, who is not pulled down beneath the surface of life by the weight of any bodily fruit and who, arrogant and hasty, undervalues what he thinks he loves. This humanity of woman, carried in her womb through all her suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she has stripped off the conventions of mere femaleness in the transformations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching will be astonished by it. Someday (and even now, especially in the countries of northern Europe, trustworthy signs are already speaking and shining), someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only life and reality: the female human being." Rilke

The Girl Project

I got this book for my sister for Christmas. Kate Engelbrecht sent out thousands of cameras and questionnaires to teenage girls all over the U.S.  The book is a collection of the photographs and questionnaire responses.  

Teen readers will be rewarded with a wonderful set of sincere, deep messages and the reassurance that they are not alone.  

My Girl on the Friday Workday Slump

Me: Pk, before you leave

Me: I need a pump up. I am tired and have this cough

Me: I just need to get to 5:00

Me: Can you give me something?

Pk: Oh yes I can

Pk: Ok. The reason Fridays are so hard, is b/c you are so close to your destiny

Pk: You have worked really hard to realize what it is that makes you tick and what it is that you need

Pk: each friday is even CLOSER to that goal. it's like you could lean out and kiss it

Pk: there is an exhaustion w/ that

Pk: but the truth is, with each passing hour, you are teetering further on the edge of glory. and pretty soon it is gonna be this sublime free fall

Pk: those are the words i have. but if you know waht's good for you - you'll queue up the flo song for your lunch break

Me: you're the fucking best

Pk: remember the edge of glory

Pk: hang on to the precipice

Pk: feel the way the wind feels from up there

Pk: it's impt too

Pk: i'm gonna light candles and think about you

Pk: k?

These women are wow. Phyllis Rodriguez’s son was killed in the 9/11 attacks. Aicha el-Wafi’s son Zacarias Moussaoui was convicted of helping to organize the 9/11 attacks and his whereabouts are unknown right now. The women met and have become friends. They have bonded over the loss of their sons. Phyllis says of Aicha, “her suffering is equal to mine.”

Friendships often include a shared past, a shared religion, a shared hometown, similar politics, similar culture, or similar norms. Phyllis and Aicha have a language barrier, a cultural barrier, different hometowns, and different stories.  In the video you can see the disparate clothing styles, mannerisms, postures, and means of expression of the two.  There are so many reasons these women should not be able to understand each other or to empathize with each other or to love each other, but they do! Watch it.

Joan Halifax has worked with the dying in Hospice centers, remote impoverished areas of the world, and with death row prisoners.  She speaks here on compassion. Some of my favorite points that she makes:

1. The best compassion cannot be attached to outcome. Have compassion for a person or a problem because there is a rough spot, not to secure a certain result from giving compassion.

2. The enemies of compassion include fear, moral outrage, and pity. I’m so into this. Fear seems more obviously and generally agreed upon as being a hindrance, but moral outrage and pity seem to be too acceptable to many.  

3. Compassion takes a strong back and a soft front.  I think having a strong back can differentiate compassion from pity. A soft front can be the difference between moral outrage and compassion.

4. Women today need to partner with men in a powerful way. She didn’t elaborate on this as much as I would have liked, but this point is not made enough and it’s important for change and for feminism. Men are not the enemy of a strong and healthy woman. Women and men can do things together that cannot be so easily done separately.

(Source: ted.com)