Let’s Celebrate Women for International Women’s Day

Hey everyone… it’s International Women’s Day. In fact, it’s the 100th International Women’s Day!

Women…. ROCK. We do! And we roll, we dance, we fall in love, we fall out of love, we climb mountains, we fly in space shuttles, we fight in wars, we run for president, we sing, we write, we knit, we do karate, we cook, we eat, we collect things that make us happy, we have babies, we adopt, we travel the world, we fight for freedom in the streets of Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, we fight for the freedom of our own bodies in the streets of America, we fight to find the remains of our disappeared relatives in the deserts of Chile, we fight for our government to apologize for the use of Comfort Women at the embassies of Japan, we fight for the right to wear our headscarves in the streets of France.

Women’s work is hard, people. And we do it because if we don’t, who will?

At the Red Tent Temple last night, my hands were literally blessed by my friend Honeybee: “It is good work that you do, it is work that must be done. Bless these hands for the work that you do.”

As Honeybee reminded us last night, we are each shooting stars. We blaze our own paths of womanhood, each of our experiences unique, valid, and purposeful.

Women have so much to teach the world (if folks would just listen once in a while!) – we have so much we can teach other, as women. We have so much we can teach each other as infertile women, as mothers, as daughters, as sisters, as aunts, as wives and partners.

There is no tome big enough to hold all of the things I have learned from all of the women in my life.

In honor of International Women’s Day, let’s celebrate women and womanhood. Tell me (pick one or all three):

1. What rocks about being a woman?
2. What women’s work do you do?
3. Who is a special woman in your life and what is one thing she has taught you?

It’s only fair I do the homework assignment, too, so here goes:

What rocks about being a woman?
Women rock because we are fundamentally vessels of creation. This creative power is one that many have tried to squash, take away, or subdue. But when we remember that we are the keepers of that creative power: we are a force to behold.

What women’s work do I do?
Certainly not household chores, my heavens I’m a lazy one. But… I make tea. I stop to take pictures of random flowers. I write. I think about all the cool things I’m going to teach my niece and hopefully one day, my own children. I brush my cats and stroke their little furry chins. I cook and boy howdy do I eat. I volunteer. I make short films. I appreciate nature. I travel. I go to the Red Tent. I talk about other women’s work.

Who is a special woman in your life and what is one thing she has taught you?
My sister Jasmine is amazing. She’s my older sister, a loving wife, a kickass new mom, and quite literally, Teacher of the Year. So it only makes sense that yes, shes’s taught me many, many things. I could go on for days about all the things she’s taught me, but I’ll tell you the one thing that’s probably shaped my whole life: my sister taught me to love learning. I only ever did drama club because she used to do theatre crew. I only ever joined chorus because she did color guard. I wrote tragically awful poetry because she did the lit mag and took creative writing. I took French with Madame Venanzi (no matter how much we both hated her) because she took French; I went on the French Club trip to France because she had completed a semester abroad in England. My sister did all these awesome things that cultivated her mind in such creative ways that I learned from her that knowledge, creativity, and reading are profoundly important. So thanks, Sis. Thanks for teaching me that an intelligent mind is a beautiful, powerful thing.

So celebrate with me today for International Women’s Day – share your celebrations in the comments!