My coming of age story began in the 1960's when young people all over the United States were speaking out about civil rights, freedom of speech, peace and love. It was an amazing time and i was greatly influenced by my peers to speak up and speak out. The zeitgeist of the time was about taking personal risk for the betterment of all. Some did this for the thrill of rebellion and many others because they passionately believed these were political responsibilities that belonged to everyone.
Some of my peers did this by way of military service and patriotism. Other's by way of opposition to almost anything that was considered conformist. The social experiences of my youth have had far reaching implications for the way in which i see the world and my place in it. I learned to believe that the personal is the political, that the way in which i live, the personal choices i make, matter to the world at large for good or evil.
Within my own family there was great strife over these issues. The ideas of community stretching beyond family, radical action for the greater good and that one had a personal responsibility to take unpopular stands on political issues were not the stuff of my parents experience. In fact there was a great clashing of ideas and emotions between my parents and myself during my early years. My parents were embedded in a far different political and personal history than i or my friends. They approached their own lives and parenting with the idea that with social and political conformity came safety. And the influences that placed them on that side of the fence were no less compelling or dramatic than my own.
But the single most life changing influence that resides deep in my heart is so simple an idea and so obvious that i wonder i didn't know it all along.. and maybe i did but it needed to be awakened. In 1974 i took my first course in Women's Studies. I heard about radical feminism, patriarchal society and the ways in which women's voices were suppressed throughout history. I became passionately committed and deeply involved in women's consciousness raising as my mission and vocation.
Along the way i married, had a child, moved across the country and my life became filled with the conventional activities of a nuclear family. I lost touch with the fierceness of my political passion and many of the women i had met during those early years. There was a quieter way in which my personal life was my political life. But i continued to live by the passion and knowledge that my women friends were the most important relationships of my life. I understood that to be without female friendship was to be alone in some inexplicable way, simply not a whole woman.
Over all the stages of my life i have stayed true to this belief and now in the midst of my fifth decade i see it ever more clearly and feel happy to have learned this about myself so early. Women keep me honest, they challenge me be whole, a part of this world and simply myself. I love and adore, value and cherish my women friends. I am very excited to be meeting new women among the blogging and internet world. I wrote a recent post about loving blogging but to be more precise i would have to say i love meeting and making friends with all the women along the blogging path.
The picture included in this post is of myself and my oldest and dearest friend Sandra from childhood. Today i am driving the short 100 miles to spend the day with her. She is a part of me and i a part of her. We have shared our long lives together and no one has seen me change as much as she. I love her with all my heart. And off i go on my visit!
What place does female friendship have in your life?
