Jumping in, as I’m wont to do, to someone else’s argument…
I saw on DCblogs that “Girl from the South”, wrote about leaving DC, a place which just wasn’t ever really home to her.
lacochran and I see it a different way: we love it here.
Sure, there’s room to snark (See, for example: http://washwords.wordpress.com/snarkvlark/)
but, on the whole, DC is definitely my home now.
Among the things that STILL make me smile: Read the rest of this entry »
Last night I watched you, literally, try to stop the rain with a small plastic bucket.
I hadn’t meant to wake you, tiptoeing through the shadows: moon, water, streetlight. I traced my finger against the edge of the bathroom window – it was too fogged up to see, just hear: water against black tar, my pink toenails against the tile.
Back in your room, I could hear it coming harder now, great gusts carrying leafy twigs, water, earth.
I had to see.
I went to the window and you heard the water, too; but didn’t hear the rhythmic drumming or the pattering poems, just the flooding basement. “Guess, I’ll start digging” you said, sliding on jeans and coat and rubber boots.
I could only watch, meekly ask if I could help, knowing you’d say no. I offered tea, warm blankets, to don boots and buckets with you, but you said no.
So instead I climbed back up the wooden staircase to the bedroom, blue draping your walls and windows and opened the curtains, lifted the window. It was 60 degrees, rain coming straight down and I watched you take that little bucket back and forth and back, shining the yellow light ahead of you then up the window at me.
I waved but didn’t break the plane of quiet, of blue. You didn’t either. I let the curtain go and turned out the bedside lamp, so when you came inside it would be warm instead.
Why should women settle for Mr. Right Enough? — Newsday.com
…by all means, if you’re truly listening to yourself rather than buying society’s relentless parenthood sales pitch, have a child, find a mate or both. But when it comes to Gottlieb’s case for “settling” at all costs, I can’t help but wonder if what’s missing from the prototypical unhappy single woman’s life isn’t a man or a baby but an imagination.
There are infinite ways to define a fulfilling life. Why enshrine the one whose accompanying illustration shows a marriage certificate and a baby stroller? Talk about settling.
