Yes, I'm a Feminist.

Overheard today: "Why do you keep picking up sticks, you're a little girl not a boy, stop playing with sticks." I grinned at the little girl behind her mother's back and I hope she keeps playing however she wants too.

Yelled at me this week: "Hey. Hey honey. Hey pretty lady.  Snowflake. SNOWFLAKE ... Hey... Hey.... Hey! You're not going to talk to me?" He kept muttering about me as I walked home, then on the way back to the metro an hour later: "Hey girl! I'm talking to you cause I like you. Okay, you're not going to talk to me today? I'm going to talk to you tomorrow. and tomorrow. and tomorrow. and tomorrow. and tomorrow." And he was still muttering as I reached the corner of the block.

Piled on top of the news from EMU, new of sexism in the Peace Corps, my friend's recent f/b group, a hollaback-eqsue creation for intimate partner/dating violence, which in 2-days had 800 Baltimore womyn sharing stories... it all feels like more than exhausting- it hurts. This repetitive sense that the world I exist inside does not care about the experience of womyn or our safety and my own experience is just a tip of the iceberg for others who experience the intersectional oppressions of racism, sexism, abelism, classism, etc. It negates the value of female bodied humans when men can remain in powerful positions after harming us or who are given little consequence because their image and ego is considered more important than a womyn's.  It negates the value of female humans when our experiences and feelings are dismissed, mansplained, or trivilized or our emotional labor is expected and unappreciated. It negates our value when we are told (as I was recently) that two of the most important things about being a woman are being able to get pregnant and get wet.

Recently witnessing a frustrating gender-oppression based workshop I felt hurt for my friends who were unheard and subjected to microagressions. The gap is so far. I kept trying to think of what the small next step is, the link these men could make, the reasonable ask... and that also stirred up a rage and grief in me.... why should it be so hard for a male to trust a womyn when she states her experience or simply when she is saying no? Why should it be so hard for males to see womyn as peers, as peoples, and not just for what they can give to a man?

I'm thankful for the womyn in my life and for the males I know who are listening and for all of our continually work to dismantle sexism and patriarchy inside ourselves.

Love & Revolution, dears.

one for sorrow, two for joy

 These past few days have been ones of feeling deep gratitude and contentment for the lives that are connected to mine, in the quiet moments of layering on blankets to sit on the porch and watch the sunset dim the sky as storm clouds rolled in, walking through the farmer's market catching up on our emotional landscapes and escapades in loving others, whispering around the kitchen table when it was later then we meant to be awake, walking country lanes under a still sky- all of it feels drenched in the strong sense of belonging and being knotted into these ties that bind.

Chugging northeast, slowly toward Baltimore through the woods of Virginia I felt filled, brimming with the requited love of this valley. Each time I visit I feel like I have one less reason not to be in H-burg living in proximity to these ones who shape my life. 

Em and I were talking about measuring all that had occurred in our lives in time spans or within presidential terms-- Obama's election in 2008 (living in Uganda) till now... it is almost incomprehensible to me what 8 years has contained... homes in three countries, traveling through 16... submerged in the west coast and the east coast, my entire university experience, my first partnered relationships, women's study, Salinas and Occupy Wall St. and anti-oppression, CHIP and JCC and protests, the national guard with tanks in my cities streets, Black Lives Matter and prison work and all my incarcerated friends... humanitarian aid at the Mexican/US border... learning another language, the euphorias and despairs, depatures and returns... and the countless moments that glow "burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding" .... wider and wider the world presses me out to the edges of myself... and each of those experiences held their particularities (the substance of all our love and good art.) 

***

...myselves ask "life, the question how do i drink dream smile 

and how do i prefer this face to another and 

why do i weep eat sleep-what does the whole intend"

 they wonder. oh and they cry "to be, being, that i am alive

 this absurd fraction in its lowest terms 

with everything cancelled

 but shadows

 -what does it all come down to? love? Love
if you like and i like,for the reason that i hate people and lean out of this window is love,love and the reason that i laugh and breathe is oh love and the reason that i do not fall into this street is love."  t.s. eliot.