NEWSLETTERS

March 05

The National Women's History Project (NWHP) is the original voice behind Women's History Month, which takes place throughout the month of March. It was established in 1980 as a nonprofit, multicultural organization designed to heighten the awareness and appreciation of the influential women who've played a pivotal role in our country's history — far too many of whom, according to Congress, have been "consistently overlooked and undervalued in the literature, teaching and study of American history."
Simply put, our kids are way past due on gettin' some updated textbooks.
In all honesty, this is the first year I've truly been "aware" of Women's History Month. Oh sure, I'm certain that at one time or another I've skimmed over mention of its importance, perhaps in one of the books covered in cobwebs on the top shelf of my bookcase. But comprehension is a different matter. For me, timing is everything when it comes to unveiling awareness and truly digesting something; today's epiphany is often last week's mental taffy.
So, how fitting, that on the eve of this global event, my newfound knowledge regarding Women's History Month came by way of an introspective book I actually read (instead of stowed), called "The Dance of the Dissident Daughter," by Sue Monk Kidd. In her book, Kidd — who also wrote "The Secret Life of Bees" — asks this simple question: "Once you wake up, can you wake up some more?" Then she confesses, "In a way, my whole life has been waking up and then waking up some more."
Upon reading those words, I realized that parts of me, long tucked safely away, have been gradually creeping out of their cozy little foxholes, and with teeth on edge, begun raising their heads up into the sun these past few years. Sure, some of the signs of me venturing into a new horizon have been there for awhile; I just wasn't "awake" enough to fully notice and be able to make sense of them. Now that the cucumbers are off my eyeballs (it's a beauty secret), I'm able to see ... and in doing so, wake up some more.
 
In what I've now dubbed my "Rip Van Winkle" years, there was a time when I was actually "honored" to be the only "girl" invited to play a series of make-shift festivals located in cow pastures where the monitors on stage were propped up on deer antlers. The promoter — who couldn't stop staring at my ... necklace — toted me around in a pimped-out golf cart all over the grounds instead of taking me directly to the stage. When we finally got there, a pack of musicians in coonskin caps greeted me with a chorus of wolf-whistles. Then the MC, sporting a denim NRA jacket, peed in the corner of the backstage area just prior to introducing me as a "purty thang" to a sea of listeners who had their backs to me because they were all cheering on "women" in the audience who were flashing their pierced ... noses.
 
And there was a time I actually thought it was "nice" of me, out of fear of hurting someone's feelings, or perhaps getting a bad review, to tolerate emails from a blood-suckin', name-droppin' "critic" who could only form sentences with buzz words, frequently quoted excerpts from "Oedipus Rex," embraced plagiarism, and used his powerful position as a "journalist" (he actually edited the want ads) to guilt me into doing an interview with him over chips and sour salsa at a local truck stop. In retrospect, that's when I learned you just couldn't hug everybody. As a woman, it comes across as flirting. Especially to a "man" who was last seen, as quoted by Fred Allen, "walking down lover's lane holding his own hand."
 
I can laugh now. These are but a few of the moments — some of which are much more painful — that I've suddenly "woken up" to and that have then kept me up at night.
 
I used to peek out with a wide smile at an audience through bangs that had gleefully escaped my pony tail's rubber band. As the years passed, I jumped from stage to stage, loving music but hiding all the while behind the bib of my overalls (I had seventy-five pairs to choose from) — even though I once got a touch of heatstroke while performing in them at a blistering afternoon event. But what started out, for the most part, as "comfort" in time became my sister to complacency. And though there was a certain amount of security in having a "unisex" image on stage, it wasn't so much what I wore to perform in (that never defined me) that eventually came to disappoint me; it was how I was dressed on the *inside.* As I sank into life's rocking chair and continued to just creak back and forth with the doldrums, I grew increasingly bitter at the fresh-faced women I saw whizzing by just beyond the safety of my porch. That was, until I saw the artwork of the brilliant Oklahoma based artist Paula Jones (www.paulawillisjones.com ), who had etched  "One day you finally knew what you had to do and began" — the words of Mary Oliver — into one of her paintings. And so I began to change. I woke up. And then woke up some more.
 
By embracing insecurity and petty gossip (through a perfect shade of lipstick), drawing false conclusions, choosing to dominate rather than empower, and in essence abusing all that embodies the "sacred feminine" — what strides do we retract from those women who so heroically came before us? And when jealousy gets the better of us, and we choose to sneer instead of cheer, what negative role do we play in hampering the progress of those whose natural or hard-earned talent just may, in fact, surpass our own?
Some of those who "wake up, and then wake up some more" will make history, just like the great women we now celebrate through the NWHP and Women's History Month. Some of them, some day, may even make it into our children's newly revised textbooks. And some of them we already have the great honor and dignity of simply knowing ... today.
Enjoy the Spring ...

** In honor of Women's History Month, and in memory of two inspirational women admired, loved, and respected by many - Quyen Emerson and Rachel Bissex - you will be missed.
 

  Happy Trails,
Terri Hendrix
www.terrihendrix.com
(C)(P) March 05 THM Music

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