One year into a pandemic that has wracked nearly every aspect of life, there is much to lament and grieve. But also, there is much to celebrate. Through the right lens, there is always much to celebrate, though it is easy to forget this. Even the deepest shadow carries behind it some source of light, some story of triumph or joy or simply putting one foot in front of the other.
won’t you celebrate with me
“Born in Babylon,” Clifton says, and though no one else was born Lucille Clifton, most all of us were born in the belly of a beast that wanted to rob us of something – body, land, money, family, soul. The costs are different, but everybody’s gotta pay. Why not celebrate, then, when we have hung on to our lives, our souls, our connections for one more day?
won’t you celebrate with me
by Lucille Clifton
won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
Mothers are Losing It
When the pandemic began shutting down businesses in the US, everyone had to adjust. But the greatest cost to the daily interruptions pandemic life brought on was born by moms. Isolation made traditional routes of mutual aid – multi-generational households, neighborhood exchanges, and so on, more difficult. Robust public institutions were needed to assist. They still are, even as local efforts continue to work on doing mutual care among neighbors.
Mothers All Over Are Losing It
By Jennifer Senior
Parents have suffered during this pandemic, moms especially. This we know — from social and traditional media, from polls, from studies that have survived the scrutiny of peer review. Levels of maternal depression and anxiety may vary (by socioeconomic status, marital status, the ages and needs of their kids), but the consistent theme seems to be: They are elevated.
Why? Mothers have disproportionately lost their jobs and financial security during this pandemic, and those who do work find that the burdens of family life fall disproportionately on them. The state has failed them utterly.
But here is my question, and I do not ask it idly, as the author of a book about parenthood and the mother of a teenager myself: Why is it that so many moms I know feel like failures at this moment?
The Story Behind Women’s History Month
Like most good things in the world, Women’s History months started not with a grand strategic plan, but with a single person noticing a way she could enrich the people in her circle. What followed has become a celebration of stories that need telling, and people who need celebrating. A small, local effort has become a national celebration that enriches every neighborhood that participates.
Everything Is Waiting for You
During this time of isolation, David Whyte’s poem reminds us that we are never truly alone. “Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity” shows us a path through loneliness and despair and into an alternative story.
Everything Is Waiting for You
by David Whyte
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
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