Dark Lady

The house is unusually quiet. David has the boys out. My mother is with them, too, so no surprise visits, no reprimands. It's just as I need it to be. I need to withdraw from the ordinary world and surrender.

I keep starting posts about the books I'm reading and would like to recommend, even about my favorite and not-so-favorite magazines. But today -- at least right now -- i can only think about Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper (a short story) and Allison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It (a recent novel some would place in the chick-lit category).

I cannot talk about the former. It is too much with me. I am the character in that story today.

I would like to rant about the latter. The story purports to be about how a modern (post-modern?) woman balances work, family, friends and society. But it's not fair. There are too many women who do balance all this -- maybe not as well as they would like and maybe they don't please everyone all of the time, but they do a damn good job. In this story, the woman realizes that she should give up her job and start her own business. Geez. Didn't we do that year's ago with in that Diane Keaton movie -- Baby Boom? -- she's a successful "business woman" who never wanted children and then she finds herself with a baby through some odd means (someone dies, I think, and gives her custody of the child) and faced with the demands of work and baby, she chucks her regular, high-powered, demanding law firm job and starts her own baby food company. In Pearson's book, the woman leaves her high-power, demanding financial-analysis job and starts her own dollhouse company. Lovely.

It's not that I don't think these things can happen. I'm sure they do. I'm absolutely sure there are many, many women who have the means to quit their jobs, start their own businesses and raise delightfully happy children at the same time. But I'm tired of it all. OK. I know that these books are ... well, novels. Not real life, right? Let's willingly suspend our disbelief. I suppose I can do that. But at the same time, can we remember the women of this country that barely live above the poverty level and stuggle to raise kids and go to work? Often working more than one job. Can we remember that they are the ones we should be praising?

Back to being the Dark Lady...pisces full moon. need to retreat. try opening yourself to some hidden realms. I shall meditate, retreat, seek serenity and inner peace.

peace to all of you.