What is Freedom if you are Female?

After Dana Pedersen (1) came and spoke to our class I had to really look at what freedom means. Our freedom is only as good as our individual options and the choices we make based on those options.

As far as we, as females (white or black) have come, there is still quite a distance to travel. Women can vote. We can own property. We can have a good job.

But we still aren't men. We don't get paid as much for the same position. We continue being viewed as sex objects and are identified as such daily in advertising and across the board in the entertainment industry. We are raising up our daughters in a society where Brittany Spears and Christina Aguilara are role models as they roll around a floor half naked.

As our options increase (and they do daily) with education and people like Dana Pedersen to remind us not to be blinded by all the glitz, we need to stand as individuals in our homes, in our jobs, in our churches, and in our communities. We need to be involved in politics locally and globally.

We have a voice... our small voice gets louder when a second voice chimes in and becomes a choir to be reckoned with as each individual joins. Continue the fight, ladies! Educate yourselves and your children and then let your voice be heard!

(1) Dana Pedersen - Speech Instructor at West Georgia Technical College (http://www.linkedin.com/in/danamp)

Letter from the Queen of Drama

I'm not angry or even upset. I'm sad. I feel like that Mellencamp song when he said that life goes on even after the thrill of it has gone.

All the good and wonderful is a memory for me, except to live vicariously through others. Love and passion passed... There was a time you wanted to be with me the thought of time without me there -- within your reach to stroke my hair or touch my hand left you empty -- Maybe not, but you did used to make me feel that way.

Now when you are lonely you look elsewhere
Your beautiful words assigned to other, unknown faces or names from your long past.

I feel used... like a comfortable but dirty sneaker that's kept in the back of the closet and brought out not because you want to bring it out but because it's there and you need tennies for a moment.

I want to feel alive and vibrant.
I want to shine and see my reflection in eyes of love looking back at me.

I feel like my only worth these days is in what I can do to take care of others' mundane needs...I could be replaced by a robot.

I realize there's nothing you can do... I keep trying to figure out what it was that Dee had or did to hold the key to your heart so tightly in her grasp all these years.. Jeanne in some sick form of condolence reminds me often that it's not my fault that you will never get past your love for her and just aren't capable of loving me. I'm really not sure how that's supposed to make me feel better...

I'm also not sure how to let go of my love for you. Sometimes it feels so intense I'm surprised that I don't just spontaneously combust.. I've been in love before, but I never gave everything I am to anyone before or since you came into my life. It feels symbiotic... Like an addiction that is just going to feel like I'm dying as I come down, but ultimately I'll be whole when it's said and done...

I can take solace and find beauty in this tragic heroine that I've become. It's an amazing romance with a breathtaking end... Unrequited love and all that... Perfect really --
For a drama queen like me

Finding My Inner David

I dreamed last night
Not my normal dream
Though it started the same

Light dancing through the trees
Flora and fauna dressed in spring’s best
And there I stand in the flickering spot light
Moving to the cadence of the cicadas
An inviting breeze lifts the hem of my skirt
The gauze only slightly lighter than my spirit

But change is in the air
It hangs heavy leaving the sour salt on my tongue
The breeze turns into a wind that no longer suggests,
But pushes me in a direction that I do not want to go

There is a bridge...
I know I must cross…
I am no longer prodded but at the same time I realize
There are no options…
I can no longer stay here…
Digging my heels in like a mule
Would only prolong the pain that comes with growth

So I move…
I take a moment to glance at my reflection in the water below
I know that those are my eyes staring back at me,
But the rest is unrecognizable
As if I had commissioned Picasso for my portrait
It seems in constant flux and changes with every shift of the wind

I see no one else
And yet know that I am not alone

The first few steps are tentative,
But I am finding strength and power
As I place my left foot in front of my right
And then again

Morning breaks
I can see a light just beyond the hill
That stands firm like Goliath in front of me

I bend to find a smooth flat stone…

Our Virgin of the Guadalupe

She can be found just about anywhere and in about any form!

Chalice

Women, throughout history have been compared to a chalice. There have been sexual ties to a woman being a receiving vessel or spiritual connotations, as in the holy grail.

Here is my take on my being a cup...

I am a chalice...
More
.... For I shall not stagnate as water in closed chambers
I shall move
As a stream
That denies the world's gravitational powers
And flows
To eminent ground

Rubberband

God, perhaps in nervous state, has picked up a high-strung habit.
He takes created life and plays
Unconscious He could snap it
And here I am
A rubberband
My life too far extended
I could bounce back
But maybe not
And if I break
Can I be mended?

Susan G Komen's Race For The Cure

This is a logo I created to help promote Susan G. Komen's Bicycle "Race for the Cure" for breast cancer!