Women of the World

If you had asked me as a young girl in the early 70s that the first time a woman would win a Best Director Oscar would be in 2010 I would have laughed in your face. By 2010 I would have imagined we would have had a least our first, if not our second woman president, had seen significant enhancements in the economic equality for working women and watched the quality of life for women all over world improve.


Yes, as a young girl growing in the 1970s, I believed women were on their way.


Last night I was proud that Kathryn Bigelow won the Oscar for best director not only because she deserved it but because she was honored for making a film about men in wartime. The success of The Hurt Locker is evidence that sometimes the best person to tell a story is a woman.


Today is International Women’s Day. We should pause to think of how far women have come in having their voices heard and we should also think about how much further we need to go.


I am one of the lucky ones. I was raised by a working mother and a father who believed in the equal rights of women. My parents did not bring me up to believe there was only one role for me. I did not grow into adulthood thinking I had limited opportunities. Unfortunately, the experiences of my life have revealed something very different. Too often, being a woman is a liability.


While I felt tremendous pride in the election that brought us our first African American president, I also felt sad that it took as long as it did and even sadder that it would take even longer to see a woman in the White House. (For the first time I wondered if it would even happen in my lifetime.)


These are minor concerns when you look at the statistics of women in this country that continue to be abused, and/or sexually assaulted, by the numbers of single working mothers that live below the poverty line and by the gender disparities in high ranking positions in government and corporations. Yes, we have made progress but we have miles to go and perceptions to change.


According to the website, the purpose of International Women’s Day is to celebrate the positive advances women have made in their fight for economic and social equality. The website goes on to explain that recently the tone of IWD has shifted from being a reminder of the negatives to a celebration of the positives.


While I’m all for celebrating the advances women have made I think that’s missing the point. It reminds me of taking a tour of a plantation in the South and hearing the guide boast that the slaves on that property were educated, this was after visiting the squalid conditions of the slave quarters. Was that really supposed to make us feel better?




Maybe we should spend a little less time patting ourselves on the back and little more time listening to the voices of women crying out for recognition and respect. I’m pretty sure that the rising number of Afghan women who set themselves on fire to escape a life of domestic abuse and torture would prefer it if we paid attention to their plight and did something about it.


When all is said and done, treating women with respect and as social and economic equals boils down to one thing and one thing only, when women do well, the whole world prospers. When women suffer, we all suffer.

Discovery vs. Distraction

Some days writing feels like factory work. You set a goal, sit down and have at it until you either reach the goal, give up, or get distracted. While there are days when you feel you are drawing from a well of divine inspiration, there are many more that just feel like you are a day laborer sorting words into sentences.

I've been stuck for the last two days on a scene where one of my main characters visits Goa Gajah, or the Elephant Cave in Bali. Although I was there (ten years ago) I was looking for confirmation on what is actually inside. Seems simple, but it wasn't. No matter how many resources I checked, I was not satisfied I had gotten the information I was looking for. I spent hours reading websites, looking at strangers holiday photos and re-reading guidebooks but I wasn't feeling anything click.

See, my character has a moment in the cave, this much I knew. How did I know that? I can't say other than it was a hunch, there was a reason this needed to happen but I was damned if I knew why or how (or even what the big moment was going to be.) I just knew something happens in that cave.

Research like this is like following breadcrumbs into a dark forest hoping it's going to lead you to a gingerbread house. The deeper you go the harder it is to give up but the darker it gets.

About an hour ago I was thinking about changing the story and having her go somewhere else, my breadcrumb trail was going stale. My research was a bust. I was not following a hunch I was creating a huge distraction.

And then, BINGO. One phrase, describing the deity Ganesha, changed everything. I knew why she was there, what was going to happen and why that moment is so important to the story.

What was the phrase? "Ganesha is widely revered as the Remover of Obstacles."

Just like that the obstacle was removed in both the story and my writing process. (I think I may have been getting some divine inspiration after all!)

Heroine Worship - Part Three -- Getting high on heroines

I’m hosting an evening in New York City at KGB on Thursday night with three terrific women writers (Masha Hamilton, Stacy Parker Aab and Louisa Ermelino) We will be reading from our own work and sharing the incredible true stories of women from the Afghan Women’s Writing Project. The title of the evening is Ordinary Women: Extraordinary Heroines. Our goal is to get you to think about your favorite heroines and if possible, to begin to think of yourself as the heroine of your own story. Over the next few days I will be blogging my thoughts on being a heroine.

Part Three -- Getting high on heroines
I was reminded the other night of the many lectures I heard during high school and college about the "hero's journey." As any good English teacher will tell you it is the stuff of all the great literature. Let's face it, The Odyssey wouldn't be much if there wasn't...well...a journey. The great stories of the ages and the lessons of history are filled with men who have struggled to overcome great obstacles to triumph.

I grew up on these stories and as much as I could I was inspired by them. I have to admit though, it was hard at times to relate to these men. The problem wasn't their story, their challenge or their choices, the problem was more basic, they were all men.

You don't hear much about the great women of our time when you grew up in a suburb of Pittsburgh in the late 60s and early 70s. Sure it was a time of "female liberation" but that didn't mean public school curriculum was ready to put the spotlight on anyone other than caucausion men.

Sure there were a few notable women, but they were treated as a fluke or novelty. The apporach was less reverential and more "hey sometimes women can help too!"

I was lucky to have some solid female role models in my life and a father who believed his daughters should be seen, heard and respected (except of course when he was speaking) so although I sought out some of the great women of history and literature I never understood what it was like to feel the power of a heroine. That is until I saw Sigourney Weaver in Aliens.

My sister dragged me to the sequal and promised that I wouldn't be lost even though I never made it through a whole viewing of the original Alien. From the moment Ripley comes back to life I was hooked. Here was a flawed, jaded, intelligent woman thrust into a incredible situation and forced to dig deep and fight the aliens.

Imagine my surprise when I, the fierce gun control advociate, found myself routing for her to blow those suckers away. At last I understood what my brothers were getting from Batman, comic books and Clint Eastwood movies. When there is someone like you on the big screen or in the center of a big story you connect to their struggle, to their fear but most of all you connect to their power.

Ripley digs deep and comes out a fighter. She doesn't cower in the corner and weep over a superficial wound and she doesn't look pretty while kicking alien butt. She looks strong and powerful and beautiful. She embodies everything a heroine should be to me.

Aliens made me hunger for more. If a hollywood movie could make me feel this way, certainly there were books and women from history that could do the same. Since then I have actively sought out stories that give me that feeling of connectedness and of power. In a way it has become part of a practice I think of as Heroine Worship.

My heroines come in all shapes and sizes and are women from all walks of life. Like their "hero" counterparts, they too are on a journey of discovery. I marvel at the accomplishments and challenges of so many women and yearn to have our stories reflected back in literature, movies, art and the media. I want my nieces and all the young women in our lives to access these stories, to understand the full breadth of experience women can have and most of all I want them to fell that exhiliration when their heroine seizes her power and rises to the challenge.

The stories are out there, the heroines are everywhere, ordinary women doing extraordinary things not waiting for the spotlight of recognition or the acknowledgement of history. My guess is you know a few of them yourself. In fact, you might just be one of them.

Heroine Worship - Part Two - Ordinary Women

I’m hosting an evening in New York City at KGB on Thursday night with three terrific women writers (Masha Hamilton, Stacy Parker Aab andLouisa Ermelino) We will be reading from our own work and sharing the incredible true stories of women from the Afghan Women’s Writing Project. The title of the evening is Ordinary Women: Extraordinary Heroines. Our goal is to get you to think about your favorite heroines and if possible, to begin to think of yourself as the heroine of your own story. Over the next few days I will be blogging my thoughts on being a heroine.

There is a cashier at my local supermarket who greets me with a big smile every time I load my goods on her counter. She is short and a little stocky, has died short red hair that is lightly teased to cover some thinning patches. In the winter she wears a long green sweatshirt under her maroon smock and always has a few tissues stuffed in her left cuff. Her cheeks are pocked from a rough ride with acne during her teen years but a light pink blush highlights her soft brown eyes.

Her son and daughter work part time at the supermarket with her. Her husband is on disability from his job working for a local builder. He is recovering from throat cancer. She has survived two bouts of breast cancer.

She tells me she is grateful for every day as she passes my yogurt, bananas, milk, cookies, eggs, potatoes, cans, jars, and paper goods past the scanner with lightening speed. She doesn't even have to look for the bar code on most of the items, she tilts the packages as if she sees it in her minds eye.

She spent some time in foster care after her mother died and her father drank himself off the grid for a while. He cleaned up, took her and her brother back home for her remaining teen years. She married her high school sweetheart when she got pregnant, had her first baby at eighteen and took her father in when he got too sick to take care of himself. Three years later her daughter was born and her mother-in-law moved in with them.

Her son is diabetic, she shot him with insulin until he was ten and then taught him how to do it. She wants to go to Italy one day but doesn't know when since there is so much to do every day. She thinks I should eat more beets and tells me if I pickle them they will taste better.

She said she misses the sound of her husband's voice, the way he growled a little right before he laughed and in spite of all the rough days they had together they laughed a lot. Now he wheezes a bit when he laughs, his voice is repairing and it will be a while before they know whether or not he will be able to speak.

She works the register like it is an extension of her, another limb that can calculate quickly. She troubleshoots the other cashiers problems and shouts out prices without turning to see the item in question. Her conveyor belt is clean, if your chicken spills juice she wipes it down before the man behind me unloads.

She is taking a class at night, trying to slowly earn her undergraduate degree. She reads two books a week and the paper every day. She likes Hummus now after I told her to try the Horseradish flavor.

She is one of the cashiers at my local supermarket, a mother, a daughter, a student, a friend, a wife and she is a heroine.

Heroine Worship - Part One - It's a bird, it's a plan, it's YOU!

I’m hosting an evening in New York City at KGB on Thursday night with three terrific women writers (Masha Hamilton, Stacy Parker Aab and Louisa Ermelino) We will be reading from our own work and sharing the incredible true stories of women from the Afghan Women’s Writing Project. The title of the evening is Ordinary Women: Extraordinary Heroines. Our goal is to get you to think about your favorite heroines and if possible, to begin to think of yourself as the heroine of your own story. Over the next few days I will be blogging my thoughts on being a heroine.

Part One -- It's a bird, it's a plane, it's YOU!
What comes to mind when you think about heroines? Is there a book or story that inspired you or is there someone in your life you consider a heroine? Have you ever thought about the women that have influenced you over the years? What qualities do they possess that you admire?

Now think about yourself, what qualities do you like about yourself? What is heroic about you? Have you ever thought of yourself as a heroine (or hero?) If so, why? If no, why not?

The word heroine is expansive. When I give myself permission to think of myself a heroine I have the urge to stand with my hands on my hips and my face pointed toward the sun (exactly like the graphic on our poster!) Heroine is a word that has power. It makes you feel like you are the captain of your ship, the pilot of your plane, the CEO of Corporation You. It feels that way because it is true. You may play lead or supporting roles in other stories but there is no other story in which you are the hero but your own.

Take a moment and imagine a movie or book being written about your life, who would play you? How would you describe YOU as a character in a novel? What would the story be about?

The greatest stories ever told are not always fantastical adventures, in fact, if you want drama, heartache, battles with dark forces, adversity, pain and suffering, chances are you can find it in your own story. The trick is to decide whether you triumph in the end and “live to tell your story” or whether you wither in the background and let fate determine your destiny.

We are all ordinary people and extraordinary heroines. Keeping our stories to ourselves is kind of like having a cape and not using it. So dare to tell your stories with you as the hero, struggling and achieving, and ultimately triumphant. Share your truth with the world. It may just be the most radical thing you ever do.

New Year, Old You

It is clear we all need to improve. If you don't believe it just turn on the television or pick up a magazine and you will find lots of advice on what we can do to stick to our New Year's resolutions. If you believe what you read you will discover we are all fat, lazy, and unhealthy adults who don't save enough money or plan for our future.

I'm all for being the best version of yourself you can be and I have committed to a few New Year's resolutions that include health and well being but my biggest resolution is to appreciate myself more. Sounds crazy, I know but I think the most radical thing any of us can do is to simply like and accept ourselves.

I know it's easier said than done. So much of our thinking and self-awareness is based on messages we are bombarded with daily through the media, our friends and our own personal history. If something goes wrong in our lives, the fault must lie within, bad things wouldn't be happening if we weren't lacking in some area. Feeling bereft of some critical quality or talent leaves us wanting and what is better in a consumer society than that?

I think if I asked you right now to name five things you want to change about yourself you could come up with the list pretty quickly, some of us would have to pare down. Now if I asked you to name five things you like, well I'm guessing that would be a little harder. It's bad enough we don't allow ourselves regular access to those things but when we do we feel embarrassed to "brag" about it.

Back when I was studying acting at NYU I did a love scene with an actor in my class. During the class critique the teacher asked my partner if there was anything specific he did to prepare for the scene, he said, "I focused on Teri's lips, she has the best lips I have ever seen." I was confused by this as I never thought my lips were anything to write home about, they are thin (I barely have an upper lip) and not voluptuous at all. I caught up with him at dinner that night and told him I couldn't believe he said that about my lips. I was trying to convince him that what he liked about me was wrong. He smiled and said, "Teri, you don't get to pick what I like about you."

Sometimes I hear a friend lament the length of their eyelashes, their inability to finish a book quickly, their lack of taste in men, their weight, etc. I rarely hear anyone say, "I like how I look in this or I love how I listen to old people." Why don't we do that?

Maybe the best resolution for all of us us to encourage each other to focus on what is good about each of us and instead of spending our time seeking a new and improved self we should take our old self out for a nice lunch and enjoy its' company. After allm like my scene partner taught me, we don't get to pick what people like about us, we only get to do that for ourselves.

Here's to a New Year filled with wondrous discoveries about YOU!

Happy Holidays?

I got the call from my Mom on Christmas morning last year that my Aunt Rosemary had passed away in the night. My Mom and Aunt had traveled from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia to be with all of us to celebrate the holiday. I was about to leave to meet everyone there. I spent forty-six Christmases with Rosemary. I got forty Christmases with my Father.

There are a lot of ways of looking at the holidays. You can stack up the frustrations, the anger, the petty jealousies and the massive amount of stress and say it just isn't worth it and truth be told, some years it just isn't. While we had our share of good holidays as a family we also had many that, well let's just say could have included police activity. Time together with our loved ones is often a crap shoot.

There is no way to know how it will go. Some years our hopes are so high we can't help but end up disappointed. For some it is the lack of the Lexus in the driveway with a big red bow and for others it is the failure once again of a loved one to open their heart.

Perhaps the holidays would be easier to bear if we had an idea of how many we would have with each other. If I had know I would get forty Christmases with my father I may not have endured them any better but I would have known I was working with limited opportunities. It wouldn't have made the bad times much better but it would have made me appreciate the smaller moments more.

I have spent the holidays in almost every way one can, I have been alone, gone to the movies, eaten with strangers, and split the day between different families. I have participated in angry quarrels, pulled loved ones off of each other, laughed so hard I cried, and cried so hard I started to laugh. I have watched the unguarded excitement of my nieces and nephews opening their gifts and felt the thrill of knowing that what is inside that package with your name on it is EXACTLY what you wanted.

I have had all the experiences you can have at Christmas, after all it is just another day in a life filled with ups and downs, joys and triumphs, tragedy and accomplishment. And, like you, I keep at it. I keep trying to make my relationships better. I work on letting go of old resentments and I try to let the good times fill me up. I do the best I can to stay connected and to enjoy the time we have together, after all we don't know how many holidays we get to share. It is hard but nothing worth having is ever easy is it?

When all is said and done I take comfort in the notion that in spite of all the trouble, we are all still trying to do our best. And when my best won't do, there is always wine and time spent locked in the powder room sipping it.