Reprieve

Moon and Me: 11/13/16

I have not even had the motivation to take to this digital space to discuss anything since election day. There are really no adequate words to express my disgust and disappointment, not just in the presidential election results but in the entire election cycle and process. It was clear after seeing what the DNC (Democratic National Committee) did to Bernie Sanders we were in trouble as a nation.

Contemplating the impact this presidency will have on my daughters (both bio and step) I really started thinking about women in general. My heart goes out to all others who are also effected, which basically is anyone who isn't a white male. 

After the gut wrenching task of telling my daughter that Donald Trump was elected president, I wrote this on my Facebook: "Kaleigh's first question this morning, Mom who won? I told her. She is expressing how I feel inside on so many levels. We will surround each other in love and hope in my home and beyond. The things no one can buy, no one can rig, cheat, control or steal from us. We will tell our daughter(s) that they do deserve equal pay for equal work even though they won't receive it in this country. We will show them, through word and deed the protection of our environment is a priority and not a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese like the president elect has stated. We will tell her that her body does not belong to the white, privileged, religious hypocrite men in power and her choices are her own. We will celebrate differences instead of mocking the disability community like the president elect has done. She will feel connection to her brothers and sisters of all races. She will practice respecting everyone's choices of beliefs and religion. She will reject the notion that women are sex objects to be grabbed, talked down to, belittled for their physical appearance as the example Mr. Trump has shown her over and over again. She will understand that HE doesn't not speak for her or represent her. But above all she will understand that LOVE does and always will TRUMP hate. In solidarity and love. L

Her reaction to the news.

It reminded me of the importance of Women's issues and the right to choose. Ani DiFranco is a singer/songwriter that I was introduced to by my best friend in University back in the early 2000's. I fell in love with her intelligent lyrics and poetry that resonated with me on several levels and continues to do so today.

During this time I am reminded of a poem of hers that was the title of her 2006 Album 'Reprieve'

I wanted to share it in hopes of inspiring some introspection about your values and what you may be willing to do to stand up for ourselves and our daughters as the Trump mess unravels over the next four years.

"Manhattan is an island
Like the women who are
Surrounded by children in the car
Surrounded by cars
Or Manhattan was a project
That projected the worst of mankind
First one and then the other
Has made its mark on my mind

It's sixty years later near the hypo-center of the a-bomb
I'm standing in the middle of Hiroshima
Watching a twisted old eucalyptus tree wave
One of the very few lives that survived and lives on
Remembering the day it was suddenly thousands of degrees
In the shade

And what all of nature gave birth to
Terror took in a blinding raid
With the kind of pain
It would take cancer so many years just to say
Oh to grow up gagged and blindfolded
A great big mans world in your little girls head
The voice of the great mother drowned out
In the constant honking haunting the accident scene up ahead
Oh to grow up hypnotized and then try to shake yourself awake
Cause you can sense what has been lost
Cause you can sense what is at stake

Yeah it took me a few years to catch on that those days I catch everyone's eye
Correspond with those nights of the month when the moon gleans like an egg in the sky
And men are using a sense they don't even know they have just to watch me walk by
And me, I'm supposed to be sensible, leave my animal outside to cry
But when all of nature conspires to make me her glorious whore
It's cause in my body I hold the secret recipe of precisely what life is for
And the patriarchy that looks to shame me for it is the same one making war
And I've said too much already but I'll tell you something more
To split yourself in two is just the most radical thing you can do
So girl if that shit ain't up to you, then you simply are not free
Cause from the sunlight on my hair to which eggs I grow to term
To the expression that I wear, all I really own is me

I mean to split yourself in two is just the most radical thing you can do
Goddess forbid that little adam should grow so jealous of eve
And in the face of the great farce of the nuclear age
Feminism ain't about equality, it's about reprieve"

Songwriters: Ani Difranco

Reprieve lyrics © A Side Music LLC D/B/A Modern Works Music Publishing

Hear her recite it