Wednesday, September 28, 2011

The Miracle Of Women

A woman I only know through the blog world sent me a piece of writing today which she had done and it was so fierce and beautiful and frightening and real that I almost stumbled off the planet for a few moments and read it again and found myself wishing I could speak in her poem language but afraid that if I did, my mind-tongue might burn itself to a cinder.
I felt so honored that she would let me read it. I love her for that.

I love women. I just do. I love how women can share hearts and souls at the drop of a hat. How when women meet certain other women they just fall in love with each other in a way that is unlike any relationship that they will have with men or with lovers or with children although you can, I am fortunate enough to know, have that love with daughters when they grow up. Just, boom, heart-to-heart, blood-to-blood, and love is born. I can't explain it, I can't predict when it will happen. I just know that when it does for me I pay attention. I don't take it for granted.

One of the high points for me last weekend was an experience like that. A woman that I "knew" but didn't really, and I started talking while I was helping her with her costume or doing something, I don't really know, and all of a sudden we were talking about real stuff. Deep in the bone stuff. Stuff that made us both cry and look at each other and go, "Wow." We saw each other, really and truly and in twenty minutes or so of conversations, we had made each other laugh as well as cry and I felt as if I'd found a ruby in my coat pocket, an emerald in my garden.
On the surface we are as different as oil and water but in our hearts, we are much the same and we had no idea.
I fell in love.

When Lis came by on Monday we settled into that deep place where she and I can go in two seconds. Coffee? Yes. Sit down, open mouths, open hearts, tears and understanding. Laughter. Do you know how hard it was to let her go?
I love her.

I think I have always done this- this falling in love with women. When I was very young, my best friends were so very important to me. My girlfriends, the ones I shared things with. Not everything. There were so many things in my young life that I could not or would not share with anyone, but other things. Yearnings and how to insert tampons and crushes on boys and sewing patterns and complaints about teachers and questions about life and what it all meant and boys and periods and how it felt when a boy held your hand, and would he kiss you? Would he? Would he?

There were some friends you could talk to about all of these things and you did and you wanted to and you needed to more than you needed food, almost and you bonded together and you knew each other's thoughts before they were said and you never, ever ran out of things to say. Ever. Not even during sleepovers and you talked until you were too tired to talk any more.

Those friendships, they were formative and necessary and they sustained me.

As I have gone through all of the stages of my life, I have found women with whom I've had relationships like this and for that, I feel so lucky. Some women have been my friends since childhood, some I have only recently met. Some women were friends during a certain life-stage and then, like lovers, we grew apart. I mourned those losses for years when that happened but I saw the necessity of it. Women who had held my hand in childbirth grew distant and then became strangers. Women I would have thrown myself under a bus for, or to whom I had told my deepest secrets to struck off on new paths or I did and unbelievably, bonds were broken without either of us really knowing why or how. I still dream of those women. But I do not care to call them.

Some of them have died.

So when I meet a woman now, either through the cyberspace sphere or in my kitchen, with whom I feel that instant connection- who will leak her heart to me and who lets me know I can leak my heart to her- I am humbled, I am amazed, I am lifted up. It is almost as if we allow ourselves to strip naked in front of each other and we can see each other's beauty. Not in a physical way, although I find all of these women beautiful but in a way that goes so much deeper. Look- here I am, here are my imperfections, my sacred secrets, my darkest moments- and she says, "I know. Me too."

It is a mother-thing. It is a sister-thing. It is a thing which cannot be explained by anything short of mystical. It is a woman-thing. It is a thing which bears us up and which saves our lives. It is a thing which brings comfort. It is that hand during childbirth and the eyes which look into yours and say, I know it's hard. I've done it too. It's the writing of a woman you've never met and most likely never will. It's the sharing of emotions about music or children or maybe you have nothing in common at all and there you go- no explanation, just that connection. It may be chemical. It may be genetic. It may be a recognition which we cannot even recognize with our usual senses.

But whatever it is, I am grateful for it. It is a trust which is given and which is received. It is a bond that forms in a second or in years. It is a knowing.

It is love. And when it happens, it is amazing. Women are amazing. Believe me. We are. And the women who know that are so lucky. And when we meet each other, we are the luckiest of all and we are not afraid to strip our souls naked in front of each other. We are not afraid to cry. We are aware enough to find the ruby in our pocket, to bend and pick up the emerald in our garden. We are bejeweled with each other.

We are made radiant in our tears.

27 comments:

  1. Oh, so beautiful. I hope we get to read that poem. And I hope you know what a treasure you are, to those of us lucky enough to find you. It is these connections that make life make some sense. XO

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  2. That is exactly the way I felt about you the first time I read you and every time since.

    You just said it so beautifully. And when I say you are the best part of my day......just take it, you beautiful jewel. As Mel says, we are indeed lucky to have found you. XO from me too.

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  3. You know exactly -exactly- how I feel about this. Agreed. Very much.

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  4. It is astounding to me that we both wrote about this tonight- you about women and me about men. A beautiful serendipity! Thank you for sharing this beautiful appreciation for the bonds that only women can share. We all of us need to honor these deep and powerful bonds or we risk losing something essential in ourselves.

    You are a true wonder.

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  5. Exactly.

    Astounding.

    We are so fortunate.

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  6. Ah Ms Moon, a woman after my own heart. I know this feeling well. What is it about women, other than as you say this ability to get to the heart of things, of course not with all women but with most or many of them?

    What do you call it here? Bone to bone talking.

    Thanks Ms Moon for another splendid post.

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  7. I feel the same way about women. I love to talk to them and be around them. I think that if women ran things in this world, it would be a better place.

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  8. How beautiful... you brushed on so many wonderful characteristics of women...we use our heart strings... I loved reading your post.

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  9. This is just how I feel about my women friends. Exactly how I feel about them. Can't imagine my life without the friendship of women. Fantastic post Ms Moon!

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  10. Missed your post while I was in Belgium. Lovely writing. As usual. Friendships are the jewels in life, the true gems. Thank you Mary Moon for writing this piece.

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  11. You know, I've been thinking lately a lot about how it's women/mothers who are going to save the world. Strong, glittering avengers, lovers and coercers.

    You've put my scattered mess of thoughts into something more beautiful than anything I've experienced in a long time. That last paragraph, my God!...Ms. Moon, do you live in my heart?

    xoxoxoxoxoxxoocx

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  12. Ms. Moon, I have enjoyed your words immensely this week. You totally rock as a woman and writer!

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  13. This is perfectly said. I love you, and I am GRATEFUL AS HELL that you are in my life.

    Our bond is forever--UNTIL DEATH DO US PART. Laugh. I'm damn serious.

    SB

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  14. That was lovely. I miss my girl time now that we have all scattered.

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  15. Mel- Those of us who gather here, who share, we are those women, aren't we? Thank you for being one of them.

    Liv- And thank YOU for being one of them too.

    SJ- Indeed I do and you have always known that about me, you sweet thing.

    Tearful- It was so odd to go read your words and see the yang to this yin. Here we are, somehow, balancing out the universe, or at least doing our parts.
    You're a wonder too.

    Elizabeth- Well, you know my heart.

    SisterDoctor- Uh-huh. You know. You are one of those women.

    Elisabeth- I do love men. Or at least, some of them. But there is something about women (everything?) which sustains me.

    Syd- You can be an honorary woman around here, okay? We'll share with you.

    Tabouleh- We do use our heart strings to talk, don't we?

    Mary LA- Thank you. I knew we would all recognize ourselves in this one.

    Photocat- We've missed you! We're glad you're back.

    silverfinofhope- Maybe. Maybe I do.

    Michele R- Well. Mmmmm. I try.

    Ms. Bastard-Beloved- You were all in there. You know that, right?
    Yours truly. Amen.

    Ellen Abbott- It does happen. We need each other.

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  16. I love this too, these relationships, but I can't hold on to them. I can't ever make them sustain.

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  17. oh, this is the most exquisite thing i have ever read about the bonds of women. we do fall in love, deeply, gratefully, a deep thirst we have no name for mysteriously quenched. your writing here is simply astounding. i emailed this to my daughter because this is exactly what i see among her and her girlfriends, budding women, and i am so grateful to know they have discovered this so early in their lives, because this, this is what sustains us through everything. you are such a woman for me, mary moon, i am so glad i found you, and i love you, simple and powerful and true.

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  18. This was so perfect and beautifully written. Yes.
    I fell in love with you the minute I read your magical words.

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  19. wow. i read tearful then i read this. who says the world is going to the dogs? right on the money. thank you for putting it out here so even we who are shyly standing on the edges can stroll by and take a peek.
    --susan

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  20. Me, too. Love, love, love this. And you. x0x0 N2

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  21. Jo- That makes me so sad. But here you are- we (you and me) are in a very long-term relationship at this point. How many years?

    Angella- Yes. It is a THIRST! And when it is quenched...
    I am so glad that your daughter already has these bonds. I am SO glad that you found me or I found you or however it happened. Magic.

    Bethany- Girl. You make me humbled.
    Always.

    Susan- How very lovely to see you here, to read your words. Thank you so much for coming by. It was a very odd thing, wasn't it? for Tearful and I to write these posts at the same time.

    N2- Love you too! Welcome back!

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  22. Every teenage girl should read this. Women can be so much for each other.

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  24. This made me cry, and laugh, and cry some more. With my newest friends of the heart, and my oldest friends, I'd like to share this valentine of a post. I'm going to link to your blog. This is a thing of grace.

    Truly, madly, deeply grateful for your writing,

    Pamela

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  25. Ms. Moon your writing does that to me every single time. I feel such a connection with you, because of it. I rarely leave here without crying, or laughing, or thinking about your posts throughout the day.

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  26. Lora- And in my experience, they are!

    Pamela- Whoa! I have hit a true nerve of joy here, I think. Thank you.

    Angie M- Nothing could make me happier.

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