Circle

3 weeks in and I am struggling with my writing goal due to a grumpy mood and feelings of restlessness and discontentment. Woke up with a spring, saying "Blog writing day!" Then, I went into the kitchen and let something irritate me-- festering like a splinter. If I didn't have a man made deadline, then I would have watched Law & Order or Dr. Who all day. Instead I have piddled it away...well I did write an outline. Instead, among other things  I figured out why CSU Fresno had closed admissions for Spring 2013 (budget cuts) and read several articles on the topic and pondered pursuing Sociology (the only non-teacher/academic who has this degree is Kim, who works as a waitress), then came full circle in reading up on what Fatima Mernissi is working on. Which gave me some motivation.

In the spring of 2008 in my English 1A class at Merced College, my instructor Jory Taber reignited my interest in gender studies. Reading Fatima Mernissi's Scheherazade goes West, clicked something in my brain, that I couldn't unclick.  I had been on a caliwumpus path prior to that. Raised by mild Liberal Feminist parents that never discussed ideology yet were very gender neutral in raising my sister and I. Childhood was filled with home repair projects (they "flipped" several homes), sports, arts/crafts, sewing and cooking with both parents. 

I was introduced to formal Feminism when I was 18 by a friend and co-worker Jed, when I was living in Boston. Jed was a recent graduate of the University of Southern Maine's Women's and Gender Studies Program, and more amazingly to uproot my naive paradigm he was straight. My teen years had been filled with depression, dysfunctional romantic relationships, experimenting with drugs and conservative religion. Goth, punk(ish), raver, teen mom then young married--yet, Jed planted a seed, that when I came out of a blur as a mostly stay at home mom, with a toddler and pregnant, I ran to the library to ask what it all meant. I don't remember specific titles, just volumes of essays/ reader type anthologies. This went on for a few years, my mind wrestling. Feminism, Christianity, patriarchy, equality, servitude, oppression, housewife, career, second shift. Wait. These are still things I struggle with. Plus I am reading The Myth of Male Power by Warren Farrell,  which is adding complexities.

Wait. That must be it. This is my answer, that I am intrigued by the questions, answers, dialog, conversations, research, reading, analyses and it is not whether I agree, accept or dismiss--I just like the process. In there must be my struggle with nursing. I've got some more thinking to do...