Break the Chains

Jax

This past fall, wanting music but unwilling to learn the technology to change the stations in my car (old lady, I am), I started to listen to 95.5, the pop station already there. I was introduced to Victoria's Secret, Made You Look, and Flowers, my favorite of the three. 

This winter a friend turned me onto the book Lessons in Chemistry, and then this past week I finally began The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, a show in its fourth season, that, in its first ,I had been encouraged to watch.

Being a woman born in the 50s, growing up in the 60s and becoming a feminist in 70s, it is interesting to be watching shows and reading books of my first decade. In fictional form, the trials for and triumphs of  women come alive. Through the music of today, I hear the change and I love it. 

Jax

This week's song, Cinderella Snapped, takes the fairytales of the past and turns them into the present.

Miley Cyrus

And, frankly, don't we all? To break the chains that held women for hundreds of years, we need to be reminded and encouraged to be ... ourselves, proud, strong and independent.

I'll Work on That

I work in a district that works at honoring diversity and respecting the student as they are, as they are in that moment and not as someone might want them to be. There's a lot of talk and little consequences. They work to support the students as they are, hoping to not lead but walk with them to a new understanding of why education, respect for others, and guidelines of general life might be good for society. 

While in theory, I agree, in practice I've struggled. Let's leave it at that.

But, then came this:

Yes!

....but still...I struggled. 

And then this:

Okay. I'll work on that. 

Time will tell what worked and what had to be tweaked. The pendulum swings, and then swings again, but always with a bit of a different, more enlightened path. 

That's called learning. It's not only the young who learn but all who want to keep evolving.

I Remember Her

There once was a woman, an amazing woman, who, before I knew her, served in WWII, as a nurse. 

Now I read books, Code Name Verity and The War Librarian (the most recent ones),                  and I picture her. 

And with every read, I remember what I didn't know, and in doing so, I remember her.

Transformation

5:48am

A line, a wave

5:51 am

a blurring of both

5:57 am

to become 

a backdrop

for a heron's first flight.

A New Beginning

Morning beauty

Soaring eagle