listenING

It’s funny, how baseball's always been a man’s game.

It fits so well into a woman’s schedule.

It come's in with spring.

 The small radio on top of the fridge,

belts out the game all afternoon,

between ads, and static.

 A pop-fly during the dishes,

a 6-4-3 double when the towels are folded.

You stop for lunch, and the crowd roars over a four-bagger, putting Cleveland in the lead.

It’s April, clothes waving on the line, as history is made, the longest opener ever.

16 Innings.

Night games are the most exciting, at the end of some scorching summer day

and you sit,

The porch swing, powered by the gentle movement of your legs,

fighting off the day’s fatigue, as Detroit takes the Central Division.

It’s funny, this man’s game,

America’s pastime.

but it’s us who listen, and hear it.

It's rhythm, in sync with our own.

No running clock, the work is over, when it’s done.

Image Credit: Google Image

balancING act

There  are two types of hiking packs.
One for men, and one for women.

The difference comes in how the weight is carried.


Men hold the weight on their shoulders.

Bearing up under it, lifting it up high,
wide and strong, like Atlas, under the weight of the world.

All shoulders and arms and strong backs, with grunts and heaves of power,
efficiently moving the burden from one place to another,

with such splendid strength.


A women's pack though, fastens across the two hips,

balancing the burden, evening it out, until its almost a part of them.

They carry it steadily, absorbing the weight,
carrying it for miles and miles, step after step, sometimes even forgetting it's
there, or where exactly its going.

They hold it with quiet subconscious groans and sighs, busying their free hands with some other task,
touching the world as they walk, still plodding on.



There are two types of packs,
each designed with some purpose at hand.

air conditionING

the other day along the freeway, i passed a sign,

"FRESH BLUEBERRIES, PICK YOUR OWN,"

it said boldly, blue letters on a clean white square.

i smiled, as i thought about how charming it would all be ,
picking blueberries on some sunny spring day, popping a few into my mouth, every now and again.

then i wondered,

what would happen if i told some woman,
from a hundred years ago, or even a thousand , it doesn't really matter,
about that sign,

"pick your own!" she would sigh and shout,
throwing her sturdy arms into the air,
"my whole life, i've been pickin' my own!
and cleanin' my own, and cookin' my own,
and his own, and their own! pick my own.
of all the...."

...and her voice would trail off as she thundered into the other room,
to do some thing that needed doing.

i think she would jump at the chance
to walk alone, into some fluorescent lit supermarket,
and feel the cool manufactured air breeze over her summer-stained skin,

and pick out the first, square, plastic quart of berries she saw,
throwing it in the cart, on top of the box of kix cereal,
and the boneless skinless chicken breasts.

she would remember the days she spent, up with the sun, and out in it,

knees pushing against the hot ancient earth, as she knelt down,
filling the apron that she starched herself,  watching the scarlet blue blood,
staining the perfect white,
pausing, as she used the back of or her arm to wipe the sweat from her wrinkled brow.

"pick your own." she would mutter and shake her head,
throwing in an extra plastic quart,
just for good measure.

Image Credit: Google Images

on beING a woman

Sometimes I feel like I live in these two contradicting, at-odds, worlds.

On the one side I have a typically somewhat conservative "church" world. It's almost hard to write about this because I'm not trying to criticize. I love it.

On the other side I have this typically more liberal, "school" world. Again, I'm not trying to criticize.

These two sides seem to hate eachother, and I can't understand why.

Both of these worlds have their views on women. They vary from mild views, to extreme. Mostly I'm writing about the extremes. They have been popping up everywhere lately.

Let me start with school. Here, sometimes I feel like I'm almost supposed to be mad about being woman. Like its some kind of curse, brought on by men, or religion, or ignorant women or some mix of all three. Once during a discussion on Virginia Woolf I suggested that although her writings were probably appropriate for the historical context, perhaps they don't apply to us as modern women who can

work (if we want),

go to college (if we want),

get married (if we want),

get divorced (if we want),


have a baby (if we want)

or not have a baby (if we want)

I don't support abortion, but for the purpose of discussing women's rights...there it is. The point is, I don't really feel all that oppressed or angry for that matter. I feel like a free-thinking, choice-making woman. This isn't to say that in some cultures there is still not oppression, but I found it ironic that a bunch of women sitting in a college classroom, many of them working on their doctorates, wanted to apply A Room of One's Own to themselves.

From the reaction I got, one would have thought I had suggested that I think women ought to still be oppressed, and it would be best if we were kept underground as breeding stock and baby-raisers. One lady looked on me with pity, "Poor oppressed soul", another with indignation "How dare she!", another with a blank look of shock that I'm not sure what it meant. To me it seemed....odd? It was just a suggestion, not a statement against women everywhere.

On the other side, I have my church experience. Much of this thinking isn't explicitly stated, but subtle, and much of it isn't around so much anymore, but in some circles, it is.

Church is a funny place sometimes.

I know people whose marriages are nothing I could ever want. Husbands who talk to their wives like she couldn't possibly solve a problem on her own. Wives who think I'm crazy for considering working and having kids. I haven't decided yet, and I don't think I need to.
Men who feel "usurped" in everyday conversation because a women (very politely) suggests a way of thinking different than his own.
There is the thinking that its more spiritual to married, and the thinking that it is more spiritual to be single. Ugh! What a mess!

It's almost suffocating to sit in between these two opinions and hear them yell back forth (figuratively and literally at times). You want to yell for everyone to just "BE QUIET!" just for one minute so you can think and process all of this.

Where is the line between giving your life to your family and being so consumed by your kids you really have neglected your own identity to unhealthy level? Is it possible to work and to give your kids what they need? What does the Bible really say about women's roles in life and what does that look like played out? (Both "sides" of the tension I'm speaking of have horrifying views in my opinion as to what the Bible says about women). What about being a woman without kids and without a husband? Is that less valuable if you are a Christian and more if you are sitting in a classroom in a public University?

My. Head. Is. Spinning.

Mostly, I would just like to feel free to just be a woman. Not someone lost in the battle, or overtaken by any particular side. Not a slave to anger or to ignorance. Just...a woman.

More on this later.

the science of bakING

i bought a bread machine last month,

i measured and poured each simple ingredient
and flipped a switch to "on" and went about my day.

it whirred and it hummed, and it tapped
metallic, like some alien craft on the kitchen counter

the bread came out in soft, square, blocks
warm on the tongue
and was eaten up with butter and jam and so much soup
all just the same.


but my hands

missed the feel of oil and flour and cracked wheat
sticking to my skin and under my fingernails

and the strength my arms felt
as they kneaded and kneaded to the rhythm of my own passionate breath

pausing only to brush my hair back from my brow with my wrist
leaving primitive streaks of flour across my human cheek


like a journey, a pilgrimage
to Mecca, or the holy land
or Damascus

measuring the oil as careful as Elijah's widow

choosing a place, a warm, dry womb
to watch the dough, the yeast, the flour, rise like some miraculous, living, testimony
to the way things are and have been for centuries.
















Image credit: www.ooh.com