All Over the Map

Today’s Fortune: “The soul is here for its own joy.” – Rumi

Today is Monday and I slept horribly last night, for reasons unknown to me. Just as I am all over the map in my actions, flitting from one half-finished chore to another, so goes my thoughts. Therefore this is going to be a “random thoughts, all over the map” day here, at Adulting – Second Half. Here is what is conjuring up in my wild and crazy, and very sleepy mind right now:

First Thought – If I am going to continue to be archaic and insist on using my Barnes and Noble hardback, paper desk diary, as my daily calendar, I must improve my handwriting. My handwriting has become barely legible. Further, I must stop writing “in code.” The reality is, I forget the code that I created almost immediately after I write the crazy, unidentifiable words/symbols/wtf? on my calendar, and I spend hours in puzzlement and bewilderment and anxiety, trying to understand what I am supposed to be doing. I then become my own version of Angela Lansbury, trying to decipher my own sloppily written, and not-so-very clever abbreviations, for the things that I must do in life, in a timely fashion. I must fix this problem. Stat.

Second Thought – I saw this quote on twitter made by a young woman who appears to be in her twenties: “Third wave feminism in not about empowering women, it’s about hating men, yelling in the streets, and on demand abortions. Traditional feminism is empowering. Third wave feminism is embarrassing.” Someone commented on her tweet with this comment: “Third wave feminism hurts women more than men. Men are afraid work with women now, afraid to be in the office with them, afraid to date them. Any man with a career he has worked hard for would be NUTS not to be terrified.”

I have walked this balance beam for a while now, raising both young men and a young woman, in this current divisive climate. I understand that sometimes it is necessary for the pendulum to swing far out in one direction, in order for healthy change to actually happen, but I do hope that it comes back to center soon. I think, as women, when we project anger and hatred and disappointment that we have about some “bad” men, on to every man who we meet and know, we are being completely unfair. Do we do that to other women in our lives, making every woman who we meet, feel bad about being a woman?? If a man is instantly disliked just for being a man, what makes us, as women, so likable and agreeable, to him? If a man’s experience is that every woman who he knows, are man-haters, one can see how he would start to deeply distrust women. Thus, he will project his learned hatred of women on to every woman who he knows. And thus, the cycle of inequality, mistrust and divide continues. I think that it is our responsibility as mothers, grandmothers, aunts, etc. to be strong, wise, healthy examples to both young men and to young women, and to raise up strong, confident, kind, capable, loving, self-respecting adults, who can discern for themselves who is toxic (no matter what that person’s sex may be), and to be brave enough and healthy enough to create strong values and boundaries, to protect and honor their own true selves. When they feel solid in self-love, they will share that healthy love and respect with the other men and other women in their lives, who deserve it.

Third Thought – My husband and my eldest son are currently reading the book called Empire of the Summer Moon, at the same time, so that they can discuss it when they are finished. The book is primarily about the history of the Comanche Native American tribe. Now the book sounds a bit too brutal for me to stick my nose into, but it did remind me of this scene from one of my favorite movies of all time. If you have never seen the movie, Hell or Highwater, put it on your watch list. The character development is excellent. It is one of those movies that you think about long, long after you have watched it. Here’s the scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V-5p3fM90s

Now, I must get back to more half-baked projects and to deciphering what I am really supposed to be doing today, that is, when I can figure out what the chicken scratch on my calendar really says. Have a great week, friends!

I’ll Just Wear My Feet

For most of my adult life I’ve worn high heeled shoes.  In fact, I would get so many comments on that fact that I used to joke that I had Barbie doll feet, so they weren’t capable of going flat.  When I do wear flats, I feel like I’m walking funny.  My friend mimicked my flat shoe walk one time and it wasn’t cute.  Can you say “quack, quack”?

As I’m getting older though, the heels that I wear are definitely more of the wedge variety.  I’m in awe of the women who can walk around in the spiked heels without grimaces on their faces.  When the Taylor Swift concert was over the other night, we saw many women carrying their spiked heels as they hobbled out to their cars.  Our Uber driver commented on the fact that he’s never seen women make it through any wedding without losing their heels for the comfort of their feet. He’s right.  I’ve come home from more than one wedding or Christmas party and dumped my shoes into the garbage can before I even walked through the door to my house, vowing never to wear those shiny, pointy, expensive little torture devices strapped to nails, ever again.

When I was a teenager, I babysat for a little girl who when I would tell her to put her shoes on, she would politely say, “No thank you.  I’ll just wear my feet.”  She was on to something.  I love walking around in my bare feet.  I’m pretty sure that is mostly what nature intended.  I’m pretty sure that our feet weren’t designed to sustain the pressure of a 4 ton elephant standing on them.  Our feet don’t look anything like elephant feet.

I’m pretty sure down the line, high heeled shoes are going to be in the history books of shameful practices imposed on women, like the Chinese foot binding.  I don’t think high heels are necessarily imposed on us, though.  We like how we look when walk in them.  We like the extra height and the extra wiggle it gives to our rears.  Today’s feminism seems to be very much a Helen Gurley Brown’s Cosmopolitan oriented feminism. It says I’ll look as sexy as I want to look, but while I’m wearing these 4″ heels and long, fake eyelashes, I will also run this organization like nobody’s business, I will tell this news story and interview this sports star with “no hold back” brazenness,  and I’ll stand up for my personal space and dignity with a big black #.  You can look, but don’t touch boys, unless I say you can.

As an older, more conservative woman, I have to admit that I have mixed feelings on my perceptions of today’s feminism.  Having a loving husband and three kind sons, makes me more sensitive to the male point of view than I have ever been in my life and I don’t want my daughter to think that her value comes from her looks.  That being said, when I’m not just “wearing my feet”, I love strapping on a new pair of gorgeous, girly, glittery, elevated shoes in anticipation of good times ahead.  I’m not even sure that there is any kind of statement or meaning or manipulation tied to wearing them, at least consciously.   I think it is just a matter of feeling fine and knowing that I can take them off whenever I want.