waiting

this picture may capture best what i do these days. that's my daughter going out to the ocean (off the east malaysian coast) for her first deep sea diving, after one swimming pool training session. the instructor turned to me and asked, "You're not going to wait here for an hour, are you?" I just looked him in the eye and he knew the answer. So i sat in the sand and for an hour i waited until she emerged and came toward me. Only then, did my breathing get a little easier. And she is home now from college, and my other daughter from her new home in NYC, and i am breathing easier. Waiting is the toughest job of a parent. But oh the thrill we feel when we see them emerge, stronger and wiser in ways and very much the same in other ways. i feel that in letting them go, in pushing them out towards independence, i have earned the right to be more possessive, when they come home. all mine, you are. my little girls. i will feed you and listen to you, and hold you, and send you out again. But i will always be waiting right here.

woman shy, woman worthy, woman safe

i am currently reading Eve Ensler's Insecure At Last, a memoir of her journeys into the lives of men and women at home and abroad who have lost all security by way of rape, abuse, war-torn lives and families lost. No security, but peace and forgiveness and survival that leaves one wondering what security really is. I was looking for Ensler's Vagina Monolgues as i am helping coordinate a local presentation of the same, and i found this gem of a book instead. She refers often to her interviews with the women for the VMs and it's been pertinent to my clinic this week as i saw several women from faraway lands and different customs. I found myself answering questions for one shy woman for, well, the big night. I think the need to know and love our bodies is universal and her smile told me that what i was saying was okay. I'm not sure that talking about vaginas is the answer to preventing abuse, but the community that is built with people gathering to open up about once taboo topics is part of the answer. I am grateful that women trust me with their questions. I feel honored to offer some answers to the mysteries of our bodies, but mostly i am humbled that she asks, and in our talking together about such intimate things, her worth as a woman is validated.