Wow! I got
this forward from a friend -thanks Becky!- and knew it was something that I had to share. I believe it's an excerpt from
The Middle Place (has anyone read it? I'd like to), but I'm not certain. It is written by the same author, Kelly Corrigan.
I hope you will take a few minutes to listen and, I hope, enjoy this beautiful tribute to the bonds of women. I guess I'm still feeling The Love this New Year.
Thank you, all my female friends and family members! You are the best!
* Below is my attempt at a transcript, but I may have missed a few words, and it's so inspiring to hear it from the author, so listen first. *
Transcending
Words on Women and Strength
-Kelly Corrigan
I had one of those milestone birthdays a few months back. I tried to make a toast, something about my mom and her friends who call themselves the Pigeons. But I blew it.
There were once at least a dozen Pigeons, a self-effacing twist on “hens.” In the past few years, they lost two of the greats, Robin Birch and Mary Maroni, to cancer. On the Pigeons go, though, like women do, limping one minute, carrying someone the next.
They started in the 60s, in suburban Philadelphia, with bridge and tennis and Chardonnay…okay, vodka. And, over time, became something like a dedicated fleet, armed ships sailing together, weather be damned.
For me and women of my generation, it started with play dates, cutting carbs, and meeting on Monday mornings in workout clothes to do awkward moves with large, colorful balls. And I can see exactly where it’s heading:
We’ll confer about jog bras, and contractors and pediatricians.
We’ll gossip about babysitters, teachers and in-laws.
We’ll speculate about who had a shot of Botox, who cheats on their taxes, who cleans until midnight.
We’ll persuade each other to bake, fold, stuff and write checks for our favorite non-profits.
We’ll celebrate each other’s achievements, opening an exercise studio, a corner store, a jewelry business.
We’ll celebrate our kids’ achievements, making the traveling team, singing in the choir, learning to use the potty or speak French or play the flute.
We’ll borrow eggs, earrings, extra chairs.
We’ll throw birthday parties for each other and stain the rug and shatter the wine glasses and mark up new counters with the odd slice of lemon.
We’ll worry about who seems down, who looks tired, who’s drinking more and more.
We’ll say things we wish we hadn’t and have to find a way to regain each other’s trust. Things will break; they always do. Many will be fixed.
We’ll fret over our children, too shy, too angry, too needy. We’ll brainstorm ways to help them become more resilient, patient, light-hearted. We’ll protect them fiercely, pulling little bodies from the deep end, double latching windows, withholding car keys.
We’ll bury our mothers and fathers, shuttling our children off for sleepovers, jumping on red-eyes, telling each other stories that hurt to hear about gasping agonal breaths, hospice nurses, scars and bruises and scabs and how skin papers shortly after a person passes. We will nod in agreement that it is as much an honor to witness a person come into this world as it is to watch a person leave it.
People will drift in and out. Book clubs will swell and thin. We’ll write someone off, and they’ll reemerge later. And we’ll remember both why we loved them and why we let them slip away. But we’ll be softer, and we’ll want them back.
We’ll admire each other for a fine crème brule, a promotion, finished marathon. We’ll commiserate about commutes, layoffs, mortgage rates, and the High School Musical soundtrack.
We’ll confide in each other about feeling anxious or angry or uninteresting or about how many pieces of Halloween candy we accidentally ate from our kids’ bags. We’ll confess that we text while driving or that we should be having more sex or that we yell at our kids every day.
We’ll admit that we believe in God, Jesus Christ, Heaven and Hell. Or that we don’t.
We’ll give up things together, caffeine, Tylenol PM, catalogs, social smoking. We’ll take up things too, morning walks, hybrids, organic dairy, saying Grace.
We’ll diagnose each other’s brown lawns, torn muscles, basement odors. We’ll check each other’s heads for lice, examine new bumps and moles, and listen to a list of symptoms.
We’ll teach each other how to set a ring tone, make a slide show, or download a movie.
We will call and say, “I heard the news.” And whatever the news is, we will come running - probably with food. We will insist on second opinions, lots of rest, and the best surgeons. We will face diseases, many kinds, and we will temporarily lose our hair, our figures, and our minds.
Eventually, someone who’s not supposed to die will. Maybe one of us, maybe a husband, God forbid a child.
And all this celebrating and sharing and confessing will make certain essential comforts possible. We will rally around and hold each other up. And it won’t be nearly enough, but it will help the time pass, just a hair faster than it would have otherwise.
We will wait patiently and lovingly for that first laugh after the loss. When it comes, and it will come, we will cry as we howl, as we clutch, as we circle.
We will transcend, ladies, because we did all this.
In that worst moment,
we will transcend.
