women in the usa | reverse threading

pretty much every day he makes me a sandwich for lunch. guess that is going to have to stop. he also makes me breakfast – after he brings me early morning coffee. to my pillow. hmmm. now i wonder about that…

the other day i went on a deep dive into the womanosphere – to which i clearly do not belong.

it is an anti-feminism movement that aligns with the pro-natalist movement which aligns with grossly understated inequity and disenfranchising. the articles i read truly nauseated me. i had to stop and re-read paragraphs, struggling to believe the article was contemporaneous and not from some other era. “what the hell?!!!” i kept thinking.

every now and then i talk about my sweet momma – who, before she discovered jeans and keds in the 90s – wore lots of house dresses around home – the kind with snaps down the front and big pockets, in a (likely) floral (most definitely) pastel print. we’ll be on the treadmill and I’ll be joking with d that i need to stay on it for eons so that the only thing that fits won’t be house dresses, whereupon i describe my fantasy house dress to him and we both crack up, knowing i would never put on anything vaguely resembling a house dress.

but in this you-must-be-thin-sexy-fertile movement, you might want to cue up your bonnets and peasant dresses, because barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen is coming back.

oh, and don’t forget to be all soft and giddy – while being ultra-hot – and be sure to make your man a sandwich.

in a country where women have valiantly fought for the same rights as men, it is gross negligence to see the undercurrent that is rising: eliminating all forward movement, all empowering. submission and servitude, throwing out birth control, awarding monetary bonuses for babies, autocrat-founded motherhood medals for multiple children, minimizing personal and professional goals, perpetuating dangerous self-hatred for “less-than” bodies, colonizing those who either lack discernment or follow blindly the bright colors and shiny lights of these new influencers. omg. so entirely disempowering. so repulsive.

and so – here we are. this is america. it’s an “ive” land. but not progressive or affirmative or adaptive or inclusive or generative or sensitive or curative or supportive or collaborative or representative.

more like regressive, deceptive, manipulative, suppressive, repressive, abusive. divisive. degenerative. destructive. authoritative.

it’s depressive.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

like. subscribe. share. support. comment. – thank you. xoxo

buymeacoffee is a website where you may directly impact an artist who work directly impacts you. xoxo

it is likely the heron’s. we have seen a couple together out there – gliding through the marshland, standing regally by the side of the pond, walking sedately. we hiked past the downy feather, that had likely fallen from where down is hidden beneath the heron’s outer feathers, and i went back, the talcum powder white capturing my attention on the trail. sometimes i pick up feathers – to keep them, beautiful signs of divine and freedom and flight. i left this one on the trail, tucked between the pine and the cone, its texture begging notice.

under the outer layer of my straight hair is an unruly curly layer. the days i do not blow-dry my hair, i am banana-curled, little-orphan-annie-curled, a combo-platter-no-real-sense curled. i personally have found it annoying. most women desire hair which they do not have – a different kind of hair – a different color – a different texture, thickness, bounce, volume. it is the way of this society.

instyle magazine did an entire month of articles on women and their hair. i read the initial article from 2018 and, frankly, found it somewhat entertaining. the most common uniting hair complaint is frizz, which, i must say, i have complained about a time or two. d has trouble understanding frizz as he is a non-frizz-haired guy (incidentally, with better hair than me – which doesn’t seem quite hair-fair). regardless, hair has become a tool of empowering for women, especially in this nation.

according to what i read, we can be flushed with excitement or nervous as all get-out, challenged beyond our perceived limits or drudging our way through the day – but, if our hair looks good, we feel good, no matter.

i wonder if the heron – in its elegant wisdom and intuition – has concerned itself with its feathers. or has it just simply concerned itself with its basic needs, its instinctual movements and rituals, its patterns and place in nature. is it thinking about its frizzy down feathers? i suspect not. compare that with the reported 81% of human women who feel more confident if their hair looks great.

according to the majority of human women – none of the hair products out there reeeeally work. everything promises to de-frizz, de-curl, celebrate the curl, straighten, give volume, grant sheen, untangle, combat thinning, retain moisture, eliminate split ends, make it bounce, make it stay still, give a hairstyle hold. but nope, none of it really works.

if you add perimenopause, menopause and post-menopause to the hair equation, you are faced with a variety pack of even more hair concerns. for me, that means that – despite all my deliberate blowdrying intentions for straightening my hair, the instant a hotter-than-hot hot flash swings by, i am frizzed. drippy hot, frizzed and curled – definitely not a jennifer aniston hair look.

“in order to cool their body temperature, great blue herons will partially extend and droop their wings and open their mouths while fluttering their throat muscles. much like dogs panting, this helps cool their body through evaporation. this behavior is called gular fluttering.” (nps.gov) the innate wisdom of the heron – gular fluttering. who knew?

so…if you see me – curly hair askew sneaking out from under a few straightened hairs trying to hold on to their straight – fluttering my throat muscles (is this synonymous with talking too much in humans???) – you will know i am post-yet-another-hot-flash and am channeling my internal great blue heron. please don’t comment on my hair.

*****