I have been looking at my life and goals differently lately.
Instead of seeing myself in a race with a my own personal finish-line,
I now consider myself part of a relay team…of women.
I have been reading history books, you see.
I wanted to know how women in the past have attained success while surrounded by sexism.
I have being traveling back a century or two.
This seems to be about where the political tide would like to take us.
So I am consulting with the likes of Beatrix Potter, Marie Curie, Clara Barton , Annie Oakley and Rosalind Franklin.
What have I learned from our fore-mothers?
They stayed their course. They kept on their special path. They went with their flow. They followed their dreams.
They kept at it. They kept learning and earning, reading and writing, sowing and growing, nursing and nourishing, hoping and helping, praying and praising, painting and sculpting, marching and singing, farming and planting.
They were not defined by nor confined by the men in their lives.
This political tide is nothing new young women.
Females have been knocked down and pushed back for centuries.
You must keep heading toward your chosen shore; despite the tide cycle, current or undertow.
Stay afloat and swim forward when you can. Don’t let this get you down or make you drown.
So ladies, don’t drop your causes. Cling to them with zeal.
Use your passion (not poison) to make this world a better (not bitter) place.
My friend the paramedic/nurse riding her Harley through the Badlands.
Grandmothers, mothers, aunts, queens, witches, neighbor-ladies, and girlfriends;
Stretch out your arm to pass that baton by encouraging, teaching, and supporting and sharing.
Just keep carrying and passing the baton.
Granddaughters, sisters, nieces, princesses, bitches and baby girls
reach out and grab the baton with courage, faith, strength and grit.
My same friend as a sparkling twirler in our high school band.
Carry it on and then pass it off to your female teammates.
Twirl it if you like. Paint it, radiate it, bandage it up, write on it, shoot it, x-ray it,
even burn in at both ends, if you must.
But keep on passing it.
You can’t each reach your full potential, unless we all get to reach for ours.
This is not a race against time, it is a relay through time.
There were many women before you, there will be many more that follow.
In America, we use this saying “the real McCoy” to mean the real thing. This means that whatever is being described is the genuine article; not an imitation or fake.
This saying has several possible origins including an oil-drip can, rum during prohibition or the famous feuding families, the Hatfields and McCoys.
I am using it here with McCoy pottery, which was made in Ohio from roughly 1929 to 1967. The company started alone, consolidated as ACPC, split apart and then regrouped again.
The marks McCoy and USA on the bottom mean it was made after about 1933.
These two pieces are from my dear maternal grandmother and maternal great grandmother who were both from Ohio.
The Turtle Sprinkler sat on a table in a corner window with my great grandmother’s African Violets.
The planter held some of my grandmother’s favorite plants. I wanted to photograph this before planting one of her plants back into it.
McCoy is a highly collected form of pottery, but don’t rush to e-bay just yet.
The Turtle sells for about $45 and the planter for only $20.
These two are worth way more to me in memories than money.
