These thoughts hadn’t crossed my mind — and I’m a woman. But I think they’re right on, at least for me.
It’s so weird how our education process taught all of us how men think. I had to spend the rest of my life after my schooling asking other women how they thought and then slowly reading the books that they were slowly able to publish. The statement seems right for me. I’m grateful that
coughed it up. If this rings true for you, too, I recommend you read the whole post here. If you do, I’d love to hear your thoughts about it.
I don’t begin to understand the causal mechanism, but I notice that a few sentences Joe posted recently – including these – pushed me to consider reading aloud some older pieces of writing by Ursula LeGuin to bring them back into the present. So I did that here on my Substack and I’m starting to poke around to find other short pieces of writing that put into words things the nation is forgetting. Might as well… Time is short. Why not podcast in a closet?
Reading stuff that holds immense value to me aloud in my Substack reminds me of reading the Diary of Anne Frank. It also helps me liberate the girl who grew up in a house where everything that happened inside had to be kept a secret when you went out. This is a worthwhile effort for me right now.
Especially right now - before it’s over.
At a dinner table conversation last night at a friend‘s house, a bunch of old retired people, including me, were talking about the pressures to erase the record of who we’ve been and what our values are and how we put them into action so as not to endanger the lives of our children and grandchildren.
One of the women at the table told us she wants to go visit her granddaughter — who insists on enrolling in West Point this fall. Not exactly where she wishes her granddaughter would continue her education, but she loves her deeply and wants to support her and their relationship. So she’s seriously considering– and started actively engaging in – erasing herself online so as not to imperil her granddaughter or get picked up herself by the Trump goons - at an airport or somewhere else in transit on her way to visit her at West Point.
The crazy folks running the country right now want us to forget ourselves… That’s a real declaration of war don’t you think?