I’m a bad feminist

My man’s love language is physical touch. And often times, as he’s nuzzling my neck in the kitchen or stealing a quick grope of my butt cheek when I pass him in the hallway, I wonder to myself “how can he love me when my body looks like this?”

As if my body is all there is of me to love. As if my worth is based on my attractiveness alone. As if my “fuckability” is all that matters.

Indigenous Peoples Day and What the Trees Say

Two years ago, Minnesota declared the second Monday of October Indigenous Peoples Day. Other states and cities have as well, and I assumed Warroad would have some official designation. Yet, last year’s school calendar read “Columbus Day”, and this year there is nary a mention of Indigenous Peoples Day.

Dear Lacey

Dear Lacey,

I remember the night you were raped. I remember some of the details clearly, other details not so much.

My parents were gone and I had friends over when I shouldn’t have. We were seniors in high school and you were a freshman. You were my younger sister’s friend, but I don’t remember if she was there. When some of the jock boys showed up, they had been drinking.

A Girl Can Dream

I want a president, not a predator. I want to read news about her kindness, not another social media attack. I want political nominees who aren’t accused of sexual assault, pedophilia, or all different manner of financial crimes. I want leaders who encourage and add to the melting pot, not those who strain out the white potatoes as their favorite part.

It Can Be Fall Now

We put our tired bodies to bed slowly, almost gingerly after the busy Angle Days weekend. “I’m so glad it’s over,” I sighed, almost falling onto the mattress.

“Yes,” he agreed. “It can be fall now.”

I went to sleep with those words on my every nerve ending that night, dreaming of cooler winds and peaceful transitions.

Memories and Legacies

 

It had been a rather perfect evening weather-wise.  The heat of the day resignedly gave way to a light breeze and a cloud cover that lowered the thermometer just enough. We sat at long picnic tables, plates full of potluck food and the sizzle of frying fish in the background. It was the first all-camp fish fry of the summer season and it felt special, a touch magical.

God is Not Other

Last fall, before the snow flew and the days were still warm enough to wear only a light jacket, I was out washing windows on our new rental home with one of those long-handled squeegee tools. I’d already cleaned the inside of the glass, but I’d wager it was nearing on a decade since anyone had tackled the outside chore. One afternoon that cloudy view, that nary a fisherman would notice, had suddenly become very visible to me. I couldn’t spend another day, let alone a whole frozen winter, staring out through a hazy lense at our beautiful woods, the visiting deer or the full moon’s path across our own private sky.

Warrior Women

Photo Courtesy http://www.upi.com

As I watched the US and Canadian women’s Olympic hockey teams simultaneously celebrate victory and mourn defeat in the early morning hours of February 22nd, it occurred to me that WOMEN ARE AWESOME. There stood two teams of highly-trained athletes, mentally and emotionally self-disciplined in myriad ways, literal warriors, shedding their tears and displaying unabashed emotions for all to see.

Joan of Oak

I met Joan Undahl only six years ago when she invited me to lunch at Sportsman’s Oak Island Lodge to gracefully hand over the involvement she still had in The Angle’s annual Blueberry Festival. We laughed and talked, and I’m sure I must have seemed naive and yet oddly familiar in my fresh-from-the-city attitudes. Over the years that followed, I saw her many times at luncheons, when she needed groceries delivered or the rare boat ride to Young’s Bay. She was always sending me letters with random ideas for The Angle she had saved over the years, and I was honored to have been chosen in her eyes as someone who might carry-on those dreams.