"i am woman hear me roar..."

Pablo Picasso

this week beheld a miracle. my newest neice, savannah krin, saw the world away the safety of her mothers womb for the first time. holding her is like hearing the angels sing in your ear a quiet song. savannah is entirely perfectly created. makes me want to cheer away at my Mother and Father of the world for the magic of their hands. if savannah only knew how wonderous she purely is-especially when she goes into her teens and begins to doubt the reflection of her image-for she truly is as we all are, God's miracle of life.

seeing the way our Great Mother has made women able to bear weight and not fall down with it, but rise above it with her Holy grace and motherly love makes me in awe to be selected as one. when I see the burdens women bear, it stings me. knowing how much I am one, and the weight of sacrifice we must carry. especially since I have known so little of it, i know much is to come.

i love the magic of sisterhood; the raw femaleness of our souls that can meet against all the personality, generation, and cultural collisions. my mother and i have shared in the experience of welcoming our newest family member. seeing how much goes into the days of motherhood begs my grace and sighs the grief i spilled over the one who bore and still bears my burdens with her generous motherly weight. when i saw the Vatican in Rome and glimpsed art depicting the biblical epic, i became entranced by one particular statue. it was a staue of a mother holding her grown son...the Christ. this mother Mary hit me because most artists portrayals of Mary are her holding her yound child. this showed the bond of a mother holding her sons dead body in her arms feeling the same if not stronger attachment as she did when she held him nursing in her arms when he was born.for all the pain my womanness causes me, it is a cross i wear with a sisterfold of bold aching women sharing their wisdom and laughter easing my burden in the oils of their sacrifices.

somehow seeing my mother, being near to a nursing mother, seeing my two neices, i contented in the female blanket that envelopes me.

my little brother used to tease me because i found one of my moms old records a helen reddy with the classic woman song…”I am woman hear me roar.” i can’t even think of it without laughing out loud. my mama knew all the words and so i had to listen to it over and over again until i learned them too. ry would laugh so hard at it, especially this embryo part, that makes me smile even though i physically cannot hear his sweet little middle school boy voice and self, so little then singing it to me in funny voices making me laugh until he cracked up at it too. (ah! i love you goobs). he has always had the power to make me laugh harder than anyone. boys i dated used to get jealous at how everything he said, i would laugh at. i just can’t help it that my brother is so darn funny!

growing up my mom would quiet me because ryan would make all these funny faces and voices and i would laugh with my overly loud howl at him. jeff would just make more jokes about my laugh making me laugh even more. even my husband teases me for it! he does this thing where he pretends like he is starting a car when i laugh, it only makes me laugh harder! my poor girlfriends’ moms would get particularly upset with me, (mrs. t esp!), at our sleepovers brionn would crack us all up and my laugh would ring above all the others waking up everyone previously sleeping at the house. We would get a polite little “tap tap” on the door and kendall would run to answer it and say we had to be a little quieter. a little later we would get a head through the door and hear a sweet voice saying, "kendall…,” a little later we would get a visit.

with all the quirks i bear, i am fond of my womanhood and truly honored to be amongst the ranks of such selfless, dedicated, and loving souls.