3 women 4 peace.

last week, the 2011 nobel peace prize
was awarded to three women
"for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women
& for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."

liberian president ellen johnson sirleaf, 72,
is africa's first democratically elected woman president.
she accepted the presidency in 2005, following
almost 15 years of civil war & a quarter-million deaths in her nation.
known as "the iron lady," sirleaf holds a harvard university master's degree
in public administration & is up for reelection this year.

liberian peace warrior leymah gbowee, 39,
led her country's women to defy warlords,
their use of child soldiers & rape as "a toy of war."
she inspired a huge group of chirstian & muslim women
to stage a 2002 sex strike, refusing to engage with their husbands
until the violence of liberia's 14+-year civil war was over.
gbowee is the executive director of the women-focused peace-building organization
women peace & security network africa, & a mother of five.

yemen's arab spring activist tawakkul karman, 32,
leads the human rights organization women journalists without chains.
she has braved prison many times to fight for
women's rights, media freedoms & political prisoners' release,
& is a leader in the uprising against yemen's longtime president.
she has not left sanaa's change square, the center of demonstrations,
for four months, for fear of assassination by the president's gunmen.
karman is the youngest peace prize winner ever,
the first arab woman ever to receive the nobel & a mother of three.

the 2011 laureates bump the number of women winners
to a whopping 15 in the 110-year history of the nobel peace prize.
they're the first women to receive the honor since 2004,
when kenyan ecologist wangari maathai won.

the american foreign press called the choice
to award the peace prize to the trio of women's rights activists
"a celebration of women's growing empowerment
globally & especially in deeply conservative & tribal communities."

united nations chief ban ki-moon called it
"a testament to the power of women's leadership ...
& the vital role women play in the advancement of
peace & security, development & human rights."

united states president barack obama said,
"the[se] three women are all not only examples of
remarkable determination & spirit, but also a reminder that
when we we empower women around the world,
everyone is better off."

deb & abb.

it's been just over ten years
since we lost the world trade center.

it has been only two-&-a-half weeks
since we lost abby.

abby was the last living search dog
from the search dog foundation
who served her country courageously at ground zero.
& the only sdf search dog there
who lived long enough to see the tenth anniversary of 9|11.

this video, created as a tribute to that sorrowful occasion,
features debra tosch — abby's handler & the executive director of sdf —
talking with deep expertise & emotion
about her & abby's deployment to the world trade center
on september 11th, 2001.

for more info about abby, click here.
for more information about the foundation, click here.
to contribute to the sdf & its wonderful work, click here.



image source: search dog foundation.

tuesday morning gratitudes.

it's been a while since i blogged gratitudes.

the truth is, i've not been feeling the thanks lately.

i've been too caught up in my teen-next-week daughter's
sudden spiral into adolescence/puberty.

seriously, it's like they flipped a switch at the first day of seventh grade
& BAM —
she's suddenly a puddle of insecurities, rather than
the full of awesome girl
of days apparently past. for a while, anyway.

*SIGH.*

so it's taken me a couple of months
& a handful of therapy sessions
to begin to get some perspective about
her hitting her "change of life" dangerously close to
the point at which i'll likely be hitting mine.

as a dear friend reminded me recently over lunch,
this is only the beginning of what will probably be,
at minimum, a five-year process.

"pace yourself," she counseled.

great idea. just not the natural response for a go-go gal like me.

but against my nature i will need to go
in order to get us both through to the college years. & beyond.

deep breath. giant step backward. look around.
ah, there it is. the rest of my life. still here, waiting patiently to resume.

& oh, i'm grateful for it.

:: for the ceaseless sea of laundry.

:: for the perpetual meal-prep/dish-wash cycle.

:: for the dreadful trips to the grocery store.

:: for the trashy backyard riddled with poop.

:: for the gacking & the wrestling & the insistent bell-ringing.

:: for the disorderly pile of shoes & outdoors in the front foyer.

:: for the glasses sitting in the kitchen sink half-full of dirty water.

:: for the always rumpled handtowel which somehow grows ever-filthier
with the drying of presumably clean hands.

:: for the turning of hundreds of inside-out socks.

:: for the freakouts, the meltdowns & the crackups.

:: for the reminders. & the reminders. & did you forget the reminders?

:: for the many, many unsaid thanks-moms.

for all of it, i'm infinitely grateful.

because without all that,
i wouldn't have them.


image source: zooz jewelry @ etsy.com.

hard to do.

when people walk away from you,
let them go.

it doesn't mean that they are bad people.
it just means that their part in your story is over.

~ t.d. jakes ~


yeah, i've had my share of breakups.

romantic ones, oh, sure.
but some significant platonic ones, too.
& overall, i've found the latter much harder.

maybe because i feel once you love someone,
you can almost always, eventually, be friends.
because the love was built upon something to begin with, right?

naturally, there are extremes & exceptions.
people who aren't really who they purport to be
while you're falling in love with them, for example.

but in your garden-variety romances —
which seem to be mostly the sort i've had —
i've found my theory holds up fairly well.

of course, with friends —
"just" friends, platonic friends, girlfriends —
you can't break up & still be friends. duh.

of course, it's unusual for friends to experience
an actual breakup — a moment or conversation in which
someone actually recognizes the relationship
no longer works for them & walks away from it.

much more often, it's simply a series of
invitation regrets, unreturned calls, unreplied-to e-messages.

because breaking up is hard to do. from both sides.

i've had a handful of women i considered dear friends
break-up-without-actually-breaking-up with me.
& i think it's that amorphous drift —
without explanation, without definition, without clarity —
that makes it particularly difficult for me.

it's the not knowing —
what i might have done or not done,
what i might have been or not been —
that gets me.

that brings these women to mind again & again.
often not for months or even years,
but inevitably, a reminder triggers thoughts of them
& musings over just what the hell happened.

& once again, i must override my self-centered insecurities [redundant?]
by listening to my sweet wise woman self —

i simply was no longer the person
who could give them what they need or
they were no longer the person
who could provide what i need
in someone we call "friend."

still, for a while, they contributed greatly to my life,
in myriad ways — in beauty, in laughter, in support.
so regardless of why we're no longer friends,
i'm still grateful for our time together,
for the part they played in my story.

i wish them well. i wish them happiness.
i wish them health. i wish them ease.

& i still hold a spot for them in my heart.


image source: pinterest.com.

riding in cars with dogs.

just a little reminder today
from photographer chris becker,
who developed his 2009-10 canine bliss series
in automobiles cruising along the coast of maine:

"much of the work i produce as a photographer
is complicated & can be interpreted
in any number of ways.

so i like that this series has a straightforward purpose:
to make the viewer smile, laugh &
remember to live in the moment."

smile. :)

laugh. :D

remember to live here now.

one day at a time.

it is only possible to live

happily ever after

on a daily basis.




~ margaret bonanno ~



image source: crate&barrel.com.

when september ends.

ring out the bells again
like we did when spring began
wake me up when september ends
[green day]

well, september, you were sort of a disappointment.

a month ago, i urged you to come
with better weather
with doable everydays
with self-care space
with change.

but no.

you came with wildfires.
you came with anxiety & negativity & temper tantrums.
you came with exhaustion & frustration & tears.

seriously, september.
you had your moments,
but mostly, you sort of sucked.

so off you go. we'll try again same time next year.

& helloooo, october.

already, you seem you hold more promise than your sister.
just your mild-enough-to-open-up-the-windows-overnight climate
helps me hold on to my faltering optimism.

& just in time, too.
what with the calendar filling up the way it is,
& with us perched atop the slippery slope
into christmas the way we are.

already, your cherubic pumpkins
your beaming sunflowers
your jauntily capped acorns
are lifting my spirits & easing my troubled mind.

you offer hope, october.

welcome.