Poetry Thursday

Habitation

Marriage is not

a house or even a tent

it is before that, and colder:

The edge of the forest, the edge

of the desert the unpainted stairs

at the back where we squat

outside, eating popcorn

where painfully and with wonder

at having survived even

this far

we are learning to make fire

-Margaret Atwood-

I wanted to contribute a poem by a Canadian woman author to our Poetry Thursday Collection- Margaret Atwood is one of our better known authors. I was forced to read her books in highschool, so never really enjoyed them, but her poetry is a new discovery that I'm enjoying. I was searching for a poem about women and our uniqueness, celebrating that, but couldn't find one. Anyone have any ideas?

I've found that there are a lot of posts lately about being a woman, what that entails- all the good and bad stuff. We are pretty amazing creatures. Are we still struggling with our greatness because of the paternal origins of our society? Or is it something more internal, more invisible? I hate how hard we are on ourselves, how it's accepted for us to batter our own bodies and spirits- if someone else was doing it, it would be a catastrophe, someone would step in and stop it! But, we silently criticize ourselves, feel like we're not good enough, constantly question our actions and reactions- it's become a vicious cycle. Is there some way we can help one another to end this? Some way we can celebrate everything about ourselves, the dark and the light, and develop unconditional love for ourselves, spread it to the younger and older generations? I know I personally struggle with being anxious and a perfectionist and constantly being hard on myself, not living up to the impossibly high standards I have set just for me- no wonder I'm tired! I would never treat someone I love this way, so how can I continue to do it to the most important person in my life? And I'm not a mother or a wife yet, I can only imagine adding those titles and expectations into the mix. I don't want to end us being open and honest on here, we all go through hard days, but I want to find a way to help each of us feel safe, feel loved.

I'm at a loss for solutions, so am putting it out there for this community of brilliantly strong, artistic, magical, and authentic women to brainstorm and see what we can come up with!!! Here are some of my favorite words to get us inspired!

"Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels." - Faith Whitttlesey-

"The history of all times, and of today especially, teaches that ... women will be forgotten if they forget to think about themselves." - Louise Otto -

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." -M. Scott Peck-