Day 26
Day 26, as we move toward the end of the month. Tonight I was thinking about the girls I knew in school, grade school, mostly. When I was in grade school, things were in a very seismic state. We were being told we could have it all, and at the same time, we were being taught to be wives and mothers. The women’s movement was still in its early years, and we were getting mixed messages from our parents, our school, our movies and music. A lot of us had dreams…big dreams, maybe. For me, I had enormous dreams, but I never believed I would actually live any of them. They seemed too far away, like, out near Neptune or something. So I dreamed but didn’t expect. Many girls dreamed, and expected their dreams would come true. They were the beautiful girls, the girls who wore the right clothes, did their hair the right way (yes, even in grade school), who weren’t socially awkward or prone to saying something stupid at the wrong moment…or for that matter, saying something smart at the wrong moment.
I went back to my class reunion after 20 years, and discovered that most of those girls were, well, not dreaming anymore. They did everything they thought would make them happy. But it didn’t work. It was a shock, coming from the school I did, to discover that the women didn’t have advanced degrees; only myself and one other woman had achieved a degree beyond bachelor’s, and most of the women were not working in professional jobs, in spite of all their dreams. I was probably assumed the least likely to succeed when I was in school. What happened? Perhaps the difference was in those expectations. Maybe it was what we dreamed. Maybe it was because I played tetherball alone. I don’t have an answer, but I do think about it a lot, especially when I’m playing tetherball alone. (Kidding; I don’t have a tetherball.)
So tonight, a poem. But first, five awesome women:
Joan of Arc, led French rebels against British rule
Nadia Comenechi, Romanian gymnast, first gymnast to win a perfect score in the Olympics
Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese diplomat
J. K. Rowling, author
Oprah Winfrey, talk show host. Probably one of the most influential women of the late 20th century
PLAYING TETHERBALL ALONE
Playing tetherball alone
While the beautiful girls
Gather on the playground
To talk.
About life
About boys.
About dreams.
About boys.
About movies.
About boys.
The boys watch
The beautiful girls
And ignore the girls
Who play tetherball alone.
The playground is silent.
The girls are not there.
The tetherball pole has rusted.
The ball is flat.
The concrete broken.
No one is gathered
To talk about life.
To talk about dreams.
To talk about movies.
To talk about boys.
No one is there
To watch the beautiful girls
While the lonely girls
Play tetherball alone.
The beautiful girls have married.
Had children.
Divorced.
They left dreams in the dust
Of the playground,
Broken with the concrete.
I listen to them talking
About life.
About children.
About ex-husbands.
About Prozac and alcohol.
I go off to work
And live a dream I dreamed
While playing tetherball alone.