Strong, Opinionated, and Loud

 In this month of Women's History, today is International Women's Day.  In our current political climate (oppressive with a touch of impending doom on the horizon), I doubt it will get enough coverage.  I have always been interested in women and their history and the things that they have done and overcome and continue to do.  I miss teaching my Women, Words, and Wisdom class and watching young girls learn and inspire me to learn more every single day.  As a teacher, of course I am indoctrinating all of my students, and brought a week of Women's History Month to my 7th graders.  I had them journal for three minutes writing down the names of every famous woman they could think of.  At the end of three minutes, they had to cross out any actresses, then musicians, then TikTok personalities.  They had very small lists left.  My favorite moment came when one girl asked "Why don't we learn more about women?".  Indeed and agreed.

I think it comes from being curious. I think it comes from being ten and being told girls can't play the drums in the Fife & Drum Corps; only boys.  I think it comes from being eleven and being the first girl to play the drums in that said Corps.  I think it comes from being an athlete and treated like what I was doing was tolerated but not encouraged.  I think it is from having a boss in my early twenties that spent more time looking down my shirt than listening to what I was saying.  I could go on and on about my own perceived injustices or the mistreatment of women but today is a celebration.  Today is a day to stop and encourage and applaud.

I am grateful to the women of history who suffered so I can vote.  And own property. (not on this teacher salary but had I made better career choices, sure).  Women who demanded their fair share.  Women who voted for laws, changed laws, made laws to reflect that women were an important part of this world.  

I am grateful for the first women to do anything.  For Sally Ride and Jeanette Rankin.  For Elizabeth Jennings and Elizabeth Warren.  For RBG, HRC, and AOC.  For Katherine Johnson and Alice Paul.  For Susan B. Anthony and Michelle Obama.  For all the women who climbed and climbed until they shattered glass ceilings for the women after them.  For the women in the #MeToo movement who stood up and spoke up and said this is not boys being boys, this is rape.  Who gave other women courage to do the same.  

I am grateful for my mother and my aunts who are some of the strongest, loudest, opinionated, and caring people I know. They showed me how to stand up for myself, how to use my words in ways that matter, and how to love people around me.  I learned the importance of family; the ties we strain against when we are young and long for as we get older.  

I am grateful for my sisters, my first friends and enemies.  For carving a path of success so wide that I could pick which way I wanted to go.  For telling on me and shielding me.  We shared a room and hated each other.  We all moved out and realized how much we loved one another.  They modeled working and having babies and doing all the things well.  They too are strong, loud, opinionated, and caring.  They taught me colorful words and are in the center of memories filled with love and laughter.

I am grateful to the friends who stay with me as we age.  For the transition from moms with littles to moms with empty nests.  Who held my hand and my heart as I transitioned to other stages alone.  Who love my kids because they knew them tiny and revel in them grown as I do theirs.  Who are strong, and loud, and opinionated, and beautiful.  Who are funny, and political, and knowledgeable, and inspiring.

I am grateful for my daughter. She gives me the passion to keep fighting the things I am so tired of fighting against.  She gives me hope and purpose and clarity.  For her strength, her sense of what is right and wrong, for her laughter.  My God, for her laughter.  I am grateful for the young women I have taught and coached.  Who compete in ways that leave me breathless.  Who wonder and question and listen and learn and constantly move to me to know more, to do better, to be better.  To hope.

I am grateful to the women I have taught with and now teach with.  Who model, who listen, who deeply care about children who are not their own.  Women who expect more, demand more, and even when disappointed, do more.  Women who teach not only their subject matter but more importantly, how to be a good person. Women I have laughed with and cried with, (oh! that sad year), commiserated with and celebrated with.  Women I drew strength from when I had none of my own.  Strong women.  Loud women. Opinionate Women.  The best women.

I do see the theme of strong and loud and opinionated women running through this thank you and it makes me smile.  I hope you can take some time today and be grateful for the women in your life and let them know. Pick up a book about women and read it and pass it on to the next woman in your life.  Annotate in the margins!  Share your thoughts and your passions and your voice.  Celebrate the women before you and the women with you now.  Change this current forecast to one that is cloudy, but a chance of sun on the horizon.

Winter Weight

 One year, when the kids were tiny, we went to Buffalo for Christmas.  There was a bunch of snow and cousins to play with and fun to be had and I believe the kids and I stayed a solid two weeks up there.  It was also bitterly, bitterly cold and every single time we went outside those two weeks, my sweet Texas-born baby William would burst into tears.  Like instantly.  Step outside, face crinkled up, real tears and sobbing within seconds.  I am reminded of this right now as the full weight of winter settles upon me and I, too, want to burst into tears every time I step outside.

Yesterday, it was -26 with the wind chill.  Oh, that's the wind chill, you say.  Okay, true, but until you have had a midwestern winter wind come barreling over the plains and punch you straight on, you may not talk to me of wind chill.  I find that even I am at a loss as to how to best describe that first assault of -26 wind on exposed and unexposed body parts.  Bitter, biting, bracing, polar, vortex, criminal.  Adequate descriptors, I guess. Cutting, slicing, and murderous might be better.  You can wear as many layers as you want; that wind finds a way in.  And settles right into your bones and gives you a weird, instant headache.  I have found it has made me religious once again as all of my curse words are preceded by "Holy".  This morning, snow was added to the wind and when those tiny pellets of murderous, menacing, maniacal moisture hit my face along with that wind, I did not burst into tears, but I did burst out with "What even is this?"

You may be wondering why I am even outside to begin with because surely school is closed when it is that cold.  Some schools did close yesterday, but not mine.  It is the Midwest and people soldier on here.  That put me in a mood beyond grouchy. Despondent, despairing, depressed.  I had forgotten how winter eats away at you and your best intentions to enjoy winter.  Grey skies, subhuman temperatures, salt everywhere.  Omg.  The salt from the roads tracked in every where you go.  Puddles of snow-ice-salt slush at your feet.  Good intentions to eat better blasted away by bone-chilling cold that demands hot things smothered in cheese and meat and carbs.  And not moving from the couch once you get there because you need that heated blanket as you eat your heated carbs.

I am really trying to not let winter beat me, but holy crap, winter is a really worthy contender!  We do try to bundle up and get out when the sun is shining.  We went sledding recently and that was as exhilarating and death-defying as I remembered!  WHOOSSSSSHHHH! You are careening down a frozen hill on a piece of plastic with no real way to stop or steer along with people who stop for no reason mid-hill.  And the long hike back up where your heart is pounding from nearly dying and the steep incline march and your nose is kind of runny and your cheeks hurt from smiling and freezing.  That was a good day.  My person and I also bundled up the other day to hike when it was 9 degrees.  We were like Arctic explorers!  The only people in the park trudging our way to the frozen lake.  I did stand on the frozen lake for a minute which was kind of neat. I was too worried about it cracking because of all the cheese meat carbs; I knew if any part of me went through the ice, I would have to just lie down and die right there.

as brave as I could get.

I do know that one day, it won't be freezing.  Or below freezing.  One day, the sun will come out and actually warm the earth and my bitter soul.  I will have survived a Chicagoland winter and add it like a major award to my accomplishments and achievements.  Until then, I will just try.  I will try to eat a vegetable with my meat carbs.  I will try to find beauty in the stillness of a frozen pond.  I will revel in placing a Buffalo Bills picture in my daily agenda and telling young boys that they are wrong when they claim allegiance to any team other than the Bills.  Other days, I will just give into that bitter biting world outside and be bitter and biting back.  (apologies in advance to those around me).  Yesterday broke me, but today I am trying and tomorrow is Thursday and Thursday is hot yoga and hot yoga is an hour of being warm from head to toe.  And if that doesn't sound amazing to you right now, you have not been punched in the face with a Midwestern winter wind enough.