After Elizabeth Gilbert’s Cleveland appearance this winter as part of the Cuyahoga County Library Writer’s Center Stage series, I had pages of notes demanding full-on essay treatment.
That was November.
In the little notebook I carry in my purse, there are four scrawled pages crammed between cabinet measurements for our kitchen renovation and notes from an early morning school levy campaign meeting. No essay. No grand reflections. A few stolen moments documented from a folding chair.
Sometimes I am very much Walter Sobchak. Minus the weaponry. I have been known to exclaim, at no one in particular, “Am I the only one around here that gives a shit about the rules?” I am so often Walter that his spastic plea has become a classic joke in my marriage. Along with a few others. Whatevs. I just have high expectations.
Wait. Bullshit. High expectations is just a euphemism for control freak.
It should come as no surprise that my dominant worldview lens is feminism. It clicked into place when I was still pretty young, but old enough to appreciate its framework. Say, about middle school.
Empowerment, personal successes, perfect pitch responses to thinly veiled misogynistic remarks…feminism cheers for these. And, man do I love praise.
But what about the times I unball my liberation fist for a moment? Am I letting the sisterhood down?