Power saws and wild women

 

Listen to me read this post…

 

 

“Can you believe my mom built an ACTUAL couch?!” Those words made me chuckle when my daughter said them to her friend. Every mom secretly covets a Daughter Brag, especially from a teenager.

Yes, I built a couch. And a coffee table to go with it. (As well as a bonus barbecue table out of the scraps.) It’s for outdoor use, built with 2X4s and covered with foam cushions that I shaped to fit and sewed covers for. It’s rough, imperfect, and simple… but it’s magnificent. And it’s big enough to host a party.

A month ago, on Father’s Day (because… what better day to buy something for yourself when you’re a single mom, and what better day to find a sale at the hardware store?), I bought a compound mitre saw. It’s a scary-beautiful thing and I’ve wanted one for a long time. It’s scary, because a part of me was scared I’d slice off a finger the first time I tried to use it. And it’s beautiful because it makes me feel powerful and self-reliant. Even in the weeks before I found time to use it, when I’d gaze at it sitting on my garage floor, I’d feel a rush of excitement just because it’s mine. It’s a badass woman who keeps a power saw in her garage!

Why did I build a couch? Because I’m not in the habit of starting with small projects once I decide to try something. I thrive on the rush of adrenaline that comes from diving into something big that almost tips me into overwhelm. It’s what keeps me going and keeps me excited and keeps me challenged.

And also because a couch feels like self-reliance, resourcefulness, and self-empowerment. If I can build my own furniture, I have the power to craft my own environment.

The couch-building was SO MUCH FUN. Cutting wood with a compound mitre saw was SO MUCH FUN. I worked for long hours in shady spots on my patio (and then in the garage when it rained), often forgetting to eat, because, like a child who has to be told it’s suppertime, I was so engrossed in play.

The compound mitre saw makes me feel like I’ve found my way back to the little girl I once was – the little girl who was most happy when she was living wild, building teepee-like structures with a friend in the woods on our farm and then begging her mom to lend them a pot and let them pick vegetables from the garden so they could cook their own stew on the fire at the centre of the teepee. Or the little girl who would spend hours on her horse, racing down country lanes, wondering what might be around that next corner. Or the little girl who begged her dad to teach her how to drive a tractor, because she wanted to be just as empowered and self-reliant as her big brothers.

I want a big, beautiful, powerful, adventurous, self-reliant, openhearted life. I want a life where scary-beautiful compound mitre saws are possible and adventure is always just around the next corner. I want a life that takes me to the edges of my comfort, and then nudges me past, into the unknown. 

I’m not saying it’s what everyone should want, but it’s what I want. It’s what I’ve ALWAYS wanted – even when I didn’t speak it out loud.

It took me a long time to believe I was worthy of a big, beautiful, powerful, adventurous, self-reliant, openhearted life, or even that I had the right to ask for it. I believed it as a little girl in the makeshift teepee in the woods, but then, little by little, it was trained out of me. Like a wild animal who’s been domesticated and then forgets how to survive in the wilderness, I lost sight of my wildness for a long, long time. I’m fifty-three and I feel like I’ve just now, in the four years since my divorce, come back to it once again.

It was trained out of me in all of the little ways that girls are trained not to ask for too much. In the playground when the boys got to be wild and adventurous and the girls were expected to be quiet and polite. In Sunday school when I was taught that my desires were sinful and should never be entertained (unless they were in alignment with God’s desires). In grade school when I was taught that nice little girls shouldn’t be too loud or too bossy or too demanding or too smart (and they should certainly never use power tools). In youth group when I was taught that I should seek a good man and become a good wife. At home when I was taught that women weren’t allowed to be in leadership positions or drive tractors or have too many opinions or speak from a podium. In junior high when girls could only take sewing and cooking classes while the boys got to play with power saws and wood.

It was trained out of me in all of the little ways that wives and mothers are shamed into giving up who they are to accommodate their husbands and children. In the ways my needs came second (or third) and keeping the peace meant giving myself up, inch by inch. In the guilt-inducing comments I’d get from friends and strangers after a business trip about how hard it must be for my children when I’m away. In the way my ex-husband’s insecurity and fear of the world were projected onto me and shamed me into staying small. In the way women’s magazines focus on decorating and dieting while men’s magazines focus on strength and adventure.

It was trained out of me, but it was still there, lurking under the surface. Every time it would emerge and I’d speak too loudly or do something dangerous or step out of line or want too much it would be stuffed back in, either by the shaming comments from someone who wanted me to behave, or by my own internalized oppression. As I said in a Facebook post earlier this week… Those with internalized oppression are the best at policing and silencing themselves. That’s how abuse works – at some point you don’t need the abuse to keep you silent, you simply need the body memory of it.

Several years ago, a friend met someone who knew me in high school and asked that person what I was like back then. “Nice. And quiet.” was the response. Those three words have haunted me for a long time. What a boring way to be described! I don’t WANT to be “Nice. And quiet.” That’s the version of me that I’ve been trained to be and I’m done with it. I want to be something different – more wild, more dangerous, and more powerful.

I want to be “the woman who uses power tools and builds couches”, “the woman with an unquenchable thirst for adventure”, “the woman who lives close to the edge”, and “the woman who speaks boldly and without apology”. I want to be “the woman in touch with her wildness and passion.” And, for my daughters’ sake, I want to be “the woman who raises wild and unruly women.”

My ex-husband used to say, when he was feeling insecure and needy, “Some day you’ll be successful and you’ll leave me. You’ll publish a book and buy a fancy car and you won’t need me anymore.” It used to make me angry, because it was passive-aggressive and meant to make me feel guilty for the kinds of desires that would take me away from him. He wasn’t entirely wrong, though – it was in re-discovering my own power and self-reliance that I found the courage to walk away from a relationship that wanted to keep me safe and small.

In that brave act (that took me five tumultuous years to follow through on), I re-awakened the woman who refuses to be “Nice. And quiet.” I re-awakened the little girl who wanted to build her own home in the woods and cook stew over a campfire and ride her horse into the wilderness. I re-awakened the woman who longed to own power tools and build her own furniture. I re-awakened the wild heart that wasn’t willing to settle for relationships that kept her small and safe.

I re-awakened her, and though I had to abandon the version of God who wanted to punish me for wanting to much, I have found instead a God/dess who thrives in my wildness, who created me to be this way and who dances with me through this big, beautiful, wild world.

In this stunning, truth-telling article (which my daughter forwarded to me because we’ve been having many conversations about what women give up in the months since she broke up with her boyfriend of three years), there’s a story from Japanese folklore of a crane who plucks out her own feathers so that a man will marry her. In doing so, she loses her identity and her ability to fly. “To keep becoming a woman is so much self-erasing work. She never sleeps. She plucks out all her feathers, one by one.”

I became that crane wife, plucking out my wildness and losing my capacity for flight. I started becoming it when I was a little girl being taught not to want too much and I perfected it when I was a wife and mother teaching my own girls (by my example) not to want too much.

I’m not going to be that crane anymore. I’m done with plucking out my feathers. I’m going to fly even if it intimidates those stuck on the ground. I’m going to fly even if it’s risky and dangerous and others want to project their fear onto me and protect me from the danger. I’m going to fly and I’m going to use power tools and I’m going to build furniture and I’m going to follow adventure where it leads me.

In my work, I often talk about the difference between safe space and brave space. Safe space is necessary for the healing phase of our journeys, but if we stay there too long, we get comfortable and then safe becomes oppressive and growth doesn’t happen. In safe space, we start silencing others who present dangerous ideas that make us uncomfortable. Growth is limited in safe spaces.

In brave space, on the other hand, we agree to the risks inherent in speaking dangerous things into the circle and living close to the edge. We agree to occasionally make each other uncomfortable (and accept it from others) because we know that it will help us grow. We agree to look at our own blindspots and the ways in which we’re addicted to comfort.

I want to live in brave space. That’s why I’m buying power saws that might cut off a finger but that allow me to build beautiful things. And that’s why I’m growing my team and pushing the edges of my workand traveling around the world to be in places and sit in circles that nudge me into discomfort. I spent many years in safe space, healing the wounds of the past, and that was a valuable investment for a time, but now I want brave space.

Some day, I might find myself in another intimate relationship. I am not so fiercely self-reliant that I don’t crave intimacy and community and someone to walk alongside me in my adventures. Sometimes self-reliance becomes lonely and hard and closed off – I don’t want that.

I know, though, that I will bring my wildness with me into any relationship I enter, and if that person doesn’t bring their wildness too, then it won’t be worthy of my time. And if that person doesn’t delight in my wildness, then it also won’t be worthy of either of our time.

I will bring my wildness and I will embrace those who want to walk alongside me on this brave adventure – whether in an intimate partner relationship or in the many beautiful friendships I am fostering all over the world. I will bring my power tools and my willingness to walk on the edges and do brave things and I will support others in doing the same.

We will gather around fires in wild spaces and we will talk of our adventures and our fears and we will help each other find our way back to our wild selves.

This week, I plan to sleep on my new couch, outdoors, under the gazebo (which I also built), because that’s what a wild woman would do.

 


 

p.s. If you want to be in circle with others exploring brave space, come join us in the Holding Space Practitioner Programwhich starts again in October 2019. Or come join me in an openhearted writing circle in B.C. in August

 

Lessons from the magnolia tree

magnolia treeI have been sick this week, so I don’t have a lengthy reflection to share with you, but I thought I’d still take the time to offer one simple thought that came to me while I was in Vancouver.

I was fortunate enough to be in Vancouver for the blooming of the magnolia trees. We don’t have magnolia trees in Winnipeg, so it’s a rare treat to see them in bloom.

The tree outside the window of my friend Lisa’s apartment wasn’t quite ready to burst open, so she drew me a map to make sure I’d get to see at least one tree in bloom before I went back home to the prairies. “Glorious magnolia tree” is what she wrote on the map, and I carried that map with me in search of beauty.

The map did not disappoint. There wasn’t just one glorious magnolia tree but several lining a short block. Some of the blossoms were pale pink, some were white, and some were dark pink. All were in raucous, glorious bloom.

As I stood there, staring in awe at the sometimes refined and sometimes sloppy blossoms bursting out all over the trees, this thought came to me…

A magnolia tree makes no apologies.

It doesn’t ask permission to bloom. It doesn’t apologize for being big and bold and pink. It doesn’t worry if it’s not as demure as the tree down the street. It doesn’t hide its glorious blossoms behind leaves or branches.

There is not a moment’s hesitation in a magnolia tree’s fulfilment of its purpose. It only knows that it must live up to what’s put in its DNA to do. It only knows that it must respond appropriately to Spring’s invitation to burst into bloom or it won’t be able to produce seeds for future magnolia trees.

I wonder what it would be like if we all lived more like magnolia trees.

What if we simply trusted that each of us has a purpose that involves blooming and not hiding those blossoms? What if we dared to be big and bold and beautiful? What if we stopped worrying about how others will judge our shininess? What if our only authority on when to bloom were the seasons and not the people who prefer to keep us small?

If you want your life to amount to something – if you want to produce seeds that will grow beautiful things in the future – then you need to be prepared to burst into bloom when the time is right. No, you might not have a calling that looks as bold as a magnolia tree (perhaps you’re a tiny violet hidden in the grass close to the ground) but whatever you’re called to do… 

Don’t apologize for bursting into bloom.

Just go ahead and burst open. And if it’s not your season to bloom, then rest for now and trust that the blooms will come.

What is so dangerous about women?

Over the holidays, I have been making my way through Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi. It’s a fascinating memoir about a university professor who, after teaching in universities in Iran for a number of years and giving up out of sheer frustration because there are so many restrictions put on her and the way students are allowed to learn, begins a small private class in her home. She invites a circle of young women to study some of the classics that have been banned by an oppressive regime.

More than simply the story of a circle of women reading Jane Austen and F. Scott Fitzgerald, it is the story of how the Revolution in Iran silenced the voices of women and anyone who dared to believe something other than what the Ayatollah Komeini believed. It is about how oppression can grow in a place where there once was freedom, how more than half of the population can be silenced by the use of force and bullying. Whether or not they are Muslim, women are forced to wear veils, and are subject to inspections which ensure that they aren’t wearing any make-up, showing any hair or too much skin, or even wearing brightly coloured socks.

As the regime becomes more powerful, some young women are imprisoned, banned from university, and even executed for baring too much skin.  Other women are abused or raped because they dare to speak out. One woman – a former government Minister – is tied in a sack and thrown in the river.

The thought that comes to me as I read this is… what is so dangerous about women that for so many centuries, in so many countries, they have been forced into silence? What are those in power really afraid of when they oppress women by forcing them behind veils and out of positions of power?

It’s not just Muslim countries (though those are the most obvious because of the head coverings). I’ve seen it all over the world. Some places it’s obvious, and other places it’s more subtle. In North America, for example, women appear to have great freedom, and yet if they speak too loudly they are subject to ridicule and abuse. (And not just by men – women are often the first to call a strong woman a “bitch”.)

I ask again… WHAT is so dangerous about us?

In Muslim tradition, in my understanding, it’s mostly about sensuality – women are dangerous because their bare skin causes men to fall into temptation.

But is that all? I don’t think so.

I think there’s a deep and abiding fear (all over the world) that a combination of women’s wisdom, power, sensuality, and passion could dramatically change the course of the world.

I think the old guard – both men and women who are most comfortable with masculine wisdom – are terrified that if the women’s true voice were to be heard more loudly, the world they’re comfortable with would be transformed beyond recognition.

Change is frightening – for all of us. But I think it’s absolutely necessary. I think women need to stand up and say “Look around! See the poverty, the oppression, the human slavery, the damage we’re doing to our earth. This world NEEDS changing!”

And then we need to get our hands dirty and get to work. NOT by overthrowing those who’ve lead before, but by bringing our wisdom to their tables and working with them.

What I find especially beautiful about Reading Lolita in Tehran is the reminder of the resilience of the human spirit. Despite the way that the women are being oppressed and forced to hide their beauty and strength and read literature in secret, their spirits are not crushed. Their beauty and strength is not gone – it’s just waiting to be uncovered again.

I am reminded once again of the woman I met in Bangladesh (above photo). When I motioned to her that I was interested in taking her picture, she let me, but then motioned to me to wait – she wanted me to take another one. Removing her black head covering, she revealed a colourful one underneath. THIS was the version she wanted me to see. I can’t help but wonder what she might have revealed if we’d been in the privacy of her home.

What fire lies smouldering beneath those strong eyes?

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