Solo Mujer

I sent this to Mark in November and he asked if I would share it then...I haven't had the courage until listening to Te share last night at Share the Wealth. SO...in the spirit of healing from writing and from sharing writing, here is a monologue I wrote when I was on silent retreat in El Salvador nearing the end of my semester there. Seguimos adelante! Romero, presente

Solo mujer

I am woman, solo mujer

What is it to be woman?

And more

What is it to be woman in El Salvador? (A country ravaged by war, machismo, and systemic injustice)

To be woman is to be born into a world already in the bottom fighting to be heard

To be woman is knowing how to make tortillas before learning to read or write

To be woman is to have your childhood cut short

It’s letting the priest have the last word…or not

To be woman is to know you will never be man

It is not planning too far into the future because you don’t want to get your hopes up

To be woman is also to answer every “how are you” with “I’m here, Graciás a Dios”

To be woman is walking down the street and feeling the eye of every man you encounter undress you

Being woman is waiting, sick, for 3 days to hear if your son made it across the border safely to the U.S., (knowing he’s is there because of you)

It’s giving birth to your child only hoping you both will survive

To be woman is to look down and walk ahead when a man calls you chucha, or bitch

To be there and be woman is to know your newborn daughter awaits the same reality you have

To be woman is to hope your husband will not treat your son better than your daughter

Being woman is feeling great anguish in your womb when it is dark and your children have yet to come home from school

It is wanting, needing to rest in the hammock but knowing your place is in the kitchen

Being woman is burying your 8-month old baby because you couldn’t afford a doctor

To be woman is hoping your newborn baby will breast-feed long enough for your husband to find work to buy food

To be woman is to watch your son be paralyzed by a fall at work knowing he only started working to put food on your table

Being woman is to have man read and write for you because it’s just too hard

To be woman is having to trust the bottle of pills the doctor gave you is really what you need, because you don’t know the difference

It is your children having 3 different fathers, none of whom stuck around

Being woman is lying on your all too early deathbed knowing you are leaving your 21-year-old daughter to take care of her 8 younger brothers and sisters

Being woman is sending your disabled son to a government home because you can’t afford to care for him properly

It’s dancing with your drunk husband because it’s safer to just do what he asks

To be woman is to always look over your shoulder because you don’t want that solider behind you to follow you home and rape you

Being woman is dreading the end of the school year because when classes end, so do the free lunches

Being woman is seeing your father leave your mother to be with the woman next door

Being woman is knowing you are woman

But also…

To be woman is to know, a pesar de todo, in spite of everything, all is grace

An Autobiographical Attempt (only a beginning)

I.

It was frosty in the outer world

and I was slipping into it like racing pony

amid howls of excitement

my Nana clapping and singing

my mom in her catcher's stance, mitt in hand

as I, grabbing my daddy's paint brushes

and 2 additional cans of paint, slid by.

I know that it was this way

My Nana had a piano and played

Irish (American Irish) songs and hymns

and still many of those notes sing-song through

my brain

fluttering like birds on a wire

still the softballs fly whacking my mothers mitt

thwack, thwack

my father's mother sighing, needle and thread in hand,

“she ought to be quilting'

daddy, so far away but bristling with brushes

at the workbench or in his cellar bed

he said it would be too hard to teach painting to me

when he hardly knew it himself struggling as he was

 with life's dirty left hand, with the noonday demon

it's life, this is it

we come and we go

is the picture clear?

Okay, I forgot the priest

flinging his holy waters and sacred oils

hoping it would stick,

mother sighed, father shrugged, nana sang

and that was that

within a few years those paint cans sprouted

and 2 additional sillies joined the cooking pot

swirling and singing, laughing and crying

we swam together, ran together

played ball together

and thus it continued for a long time

mother clapped, father sighed, nana smiled

It's life, this is it

we come and we go

II.

It was one of those mornings

one of those mornings when I wished

I could stand in the warm shower forever

as if the warmth streaming down my body

would envelop me, would keep me alive

would preserve those that I love

I have been reading Joan Didion's book

about loss, more than loss, death,

and the terrible deep loss, the finality, that entails

and the warmth of the water seemed protective

like a blanket or a lover on a

chilly winter's eve

just after or just before Christmas

It's life, this is it

we come and we go

and earlier I had been remembering

all of the boyfriends that I had

that I had made out with

but had never spoken to

(I don't usually talk, you know)

what did they like? Or wish for?

What were their loves or were

they just angry about everything?

Did any of them end up in VietNam

or Iraq? Did they hold objections to war?

did they end up with PTSD?

Where are they today?

It's just life, this is it

we come and we go

III.

those two little paint buckets that

followed me into the world

round and pink and female

disrupted my placid self-centered life

teasing, laughing, running

destroying all the sensibilities that

my sensitivities had maintained

they were a nuisance, a nuisance

for years and years

thank you, but all I wanted was a book

and some peace and quiet and a lack of interruption

(my Gurdjieff teacher said that I was spoiled)

It's life, this is it

we come and we go

and the terror of school, the teachers

and their tantrums

(someone said that if you climbed

to the top of the jungle gym after school,

you could see the nuns taking off their

habits, see what they looked like with their

short cropped hair) but true to my nature

I was appalled at the idea of spying

and went home to the thwack, thwack

of my mother's softball glove and my father's

sometimes painterly life in the basement

It's life, this is it

we come and we go

IV.

there is, someplace buried in my mind,

my soul, a love for the beauty of the word,

which flowered a time or two under the tutelege of Mark

a veritable Buddhist magician

drawing all sorts of triumphal flights of images

from his (mostly) younger followers

smitten as they are with his quiet and open self

traits too often lacking in the modern American male

yet beloved by most women

a male poet of feeling, rather Whitmanesque

and greatly beloved

it's life, this is it

we come and we go

surely I have a lot on my mind these days

the conflict within my family being uppermost

the criticism of my daughters and my sister

the problems and illegal behavior of my son

my own tendency to shut myself up in my room.

It all gives me a headache of immense proportions

probably because I do not know how to deal with it

I can see, as I often do, both sides of the question

which leaves me paralyzed

I neither wish to fight or flee (where would I live?)

it's life, this is it

we come and we go

V.

I see, momentarily, the emptiness of things

and yet their fullness

how what others do, they do,

and how doing nothing is also okay

how I can see and feel my fingers

on these computer keys

see and feel the thoughts rushing through my mind

but know that the quiet of my soul is what

is meaningful

I wish to keep and hold dear the few relationships

that I have – with Chris, with Tom, with Mark

and Tina? Where did she go?

And where did that child go who was slipping

so joyfully into this life?

A quote from Joan Didion -

“I have already lost touch with a couple of people

I used to be”

It's life, this is it

we come and we go.

I took a day long retreat/seminar on Ignatian pedagogy last week and one of the pillars of this paradigm is context. I have since been trying to consider the context of others and my own context while also pushing myself to share my context with those I encounter. SO here goes. My name is Lindsay and I graduated in May from SLU with my doctorate in physical therapy. In the spirit of lifelong learning, I am pursuing my specialization in orthopedics through a year long residency at SLU and SSM here in St Louis. I started last August and end this coming August. That is most of my context these days, which is why I am so grateful for being a part of this writing class and community, it expands my context. I do not normally use "writer" as an identifier when explaining myself, but I am working on it. I do not always feel in love with my life, but I try to remember that being in love is not always pretty or exciting or happy....thank you Mark and Mev. My project for writing class this season is a blog...I won't go much more into it because it is laid out in the first 2 posts on the blog. Feel free to read and share as you feel called...and if you would be so willing to contribute, send me your email address and I'll add you!


tosoothemyquarterlifecrisis.wordpress.com

Thank you for this space, this place and these people!

It's About

As I offer to share a 250-page novel/collage
(Dear Layla/Welcome to Palestine)
With a friend here and there

A typical question is–
“What’s it about?”

OK

Reflections on The Book of Mev by Cami Kasmerchak

Dear Dr. C,

This is a long time coming, but I’ve put off writing this because I want to say it right. Then again, if I’ve learned anything from you and Natalie Goldberg, it’s that I must write and not care how it comes out. So here it goes:

This winter break was the third time I’ve picked up and read The Book of Mev. My first year at SLU right after we had met, Nebu and I would read random passages out loud with our friend Michelle in an abandoned dorm room. The book was a real life love story—something more accessible and affirming than the fairytales of youth. The second time I actually read it cover to cover. I was working for the Appalachian Service Project, and finally finished it the semester I returned to SLU (after that summer). It was a rough year, but diving into The Book of Mev was eye-opening. Mev gave me hope that the things I was thinking and feeling didn’t make me crazy or unrealistic or ignorant. That time I was re-reading the book in paperback form. It is interesting the flip through those pages and look at what I underlined or commented on—it is every telling to where I was. But this winter I wanted to come to The Book of Mev fresh.  I wanted to have a new experience with it. So, I read from the hard cover copy that you and sent to me my second summer working for the Appalachian Service Project. Coming to it with new eyes was amazing. I experienced a whole new level to it that I didn’t before. I have so many thoughts about The Book of Mev, so forgive me of the following don’t flow from one experience/thought of it to the next.

Saturday morning in DC from Ellen Marie

For those who may be interested, I made a B.O.M. playlist on Spotify comprised of the list of Music in the back of the book.

You may be able to access it by a simple search within Spotify, or if we are friends on Facebook, and you're on Spotify, I can share it with you that way.

Margaret