Today has been frustrating … Internet connection issues. Heat. Making Decisions about what to do next … or not! This, on top of the dreadful SCOTUS ruling on Roe vs Wade. I haven’t had much to say ’cause I just don’t know what to say! Because nothing I say is going to make an iota of a difference. I’ve lived through times when there was no Roe vs Wade, when there was and now, we’re back to the future or I guess more appropriately described as back to the past. What I want to understand is why women have this burden to carry?
So, I’ve decided that my challenge, chore, task, is to seek answers to my questions, to try to understand. And I’m sure this quest is going to take me back to the beginning, perhaps to places and thoughts and attitudes that I had once encountered as I read Greek and Roman myths, history, the different worldwide religions (ways of life), watched salacious movies – remember Peyton Place? Had friends, accquaintances who found themselves pregnant and nowhere to turn. Visited young teenage girls in homes for unwed mothers.
In the early ’90s, I wrote a grant proposal for women in the county detention center. Most were in jail for possession of marijuana – then illegal. Now, very much legal as states have discovered the wealth they can amass from legalizing and selling cannabis. The proposal – directed to these women, separated from their children, age 5 and younger – gave those mothers, while incarcerated, skills and resources to “parent” and read stories to their children. Many of these mothers were still very much children, themselves.
I remember how women have been ridiculed – and still are – for being on welfare; accused of “beating the system…” Hah!
Mother to Son*
Langston Hughes – 1901-1967
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare;
But all the time
I’se been a’climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark,
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back;
Don’t you sit down on the steps,
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard;
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
*This poem, in the public domain, is from the website: https://poets.org/poem/mother-son
Norman introduced me to Loof Lirpa – April Fool spelled backwards. Rather clever, I thought.
Decades ago, one April First, he called an emergency staff meeting, sharing that due to increased competition from rivals, sales were dipping – the office/warehouse (he was in the beer business) might need to close and staff, furloughed. Understandably, staff were flabbergasted: What would they do? How would they meet their financial obligations? Questions came fast and furious…
Norman had posted an agenda; the heading: LOOF LIRPA. He suggested that staff look at the agenda and see what they might learn from a careful analysis. After a few quiet minutes, someone shouted : APRIL FOOL! Ah yes! The secret was out…and staff, could and did breathe a gigantic sigh of relief. Years later, every April Fool’s Day, they remembered and ribbed him – even after he’d retired – about Loof Lirpa.
I remember in elementary school how much we reveled in playing a joke on classmates …and then we’d convulse in laughter, feeling quite smug that we’d succeeded in besting each other. Our jokes, crazy questions, pranks were never created out of meanness – at least I don’t recall. Just plain old fashioned fun.
I looked up the origin of April Fool’s Day and found an 
Morning Glory Studio 