Abstract Thursday : : Warming

Nothing says warming like a shaft of sunlight on the wall. I feel like I have been staring at this wall for four days, and am devoid of inspiration of any kind today, so the wall it is....

Today is International Women's Day, one of those pseudo holidays nobody seems to know how to celebrate. What does that mean, anyway? Back when my kids were in school, it always seemed to fall on my birthday. I often found myself at home with my own kids, plus the children of women who didn't have a holiday and found themselves without child care. Not exactly the way I would have chosen to be honored, OR to spend my birthday.

There is no woman I honor more than my mother, but there IS already a Mothers' Day, and besides, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about her, even though she has been gone  for almost 20 years.

There are thousands of women of great accomplishment around the world who deserve recognition, but all on the same day?

I think the women to be honored are the faceless, unheralded women who toil every day to have a safe workplace, a safe home for their families and food on the table.  I think of the women of the #Me Too movement who finally brought the fact of harassment and its terrible consequences into the public discourse by courageously sharing their stories.

 I think of the immigrant women being hunted, dragged from their homes separated from their children when all they are doing is trying to provide a better life for their families. And I honor Libby Schaff, the mayor of Oakland who refuses to let this happen in her city.

Above all, though, I think of the women of Syria and Myanmar and  Sudan and too many other places trying to survive and protect their families under unspeakable conditions of war. We could honor these women by working, not just one day a year, but every day to stop the senseless fighting that is robbing them of everything but their struggle to survive.