Writing Gallery
WRITING SAMPLE #1 |
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SR, El Cerrito
Who am I; What do I want?
I am a woman – and a wife, a mother, a grandmother. I want a world that’s safe for women because I believe that when women are safe, then children are safe, families are safe, people are safe, animals and wild creatures are safe, even the earth is a safer place.
To me, “Safe” means secure, safe means protected; safe means free to grow; safe means feeling the confidence to venture, to take risks, to explore, to try – and also to know you can retreat if you want to or need to; re-gather or recharge; and then go forth again, if you want to. Or not, if you don’t want to.
If women are safe – and feel safe – I think many of the stresses and problems and difficulties and burdens of life would be lessened. I think the world would be at peace, children gently cared for, families and friends supported; schools could nurture and teach, communities and workplaces would care for and about everyone: men, women, boys, girls; young, old; strong, disabled, ill, in good health; intellectually- or artistically-gifted or -challenged; poor, rich, of any skin color, of any religion, of any anything. Everyone would feel free to go, to do, to be or try to be (or not try to be) without being judged; to work out, work with, work on whatever gives their lives challenge and fulfillment and joy and richness.
And, in a world that is safe for women, I believe so would the environment be kept safe – the earth, the air, the sky, the water, the animals, the resources – protected, kept beautiful and healthful, the natural order at work, for this is what we want for our children’s world.
Then, like circles around a pebble dropped into a pond, I think this feeling of being safe to reach out, to live life, with all its challenges and complexities and experiences and rewards, would radiate from us and touch others, joining with them to involve, affect and influence our world in ever-widening circles in which …
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Violence, which feeds on and grows from violence, poverty, anger, negligence, and disrespect, could wither.
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Poverty – financial, cultural, personal, emotional – which often stems from the problems of an unsafe world, could be ameliorated by the family, the community, the state and a nation that looks out for and protects its most vulnerable citizens.
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I think that in a world that is – and feels – safe and secure, perhaps the ruthless drive for power and money of so many in government, and the greed and profit-above-all motivation in virtually all of Big Business – none of them caring about the true cost of their actions to the people, the nation, the world, and the planet – might be less pervasive and destructive.
But, what can any woman do to make this world a safer place for women and, by infinite extension, a safer planet for everyone? For most of us, individually, probably not too much, on a global scale. But I can work to make the circle around me a safer place for my family, for my children, for the community, for the environment. And that circle, joined with others and multiplied …..
Many women will be writing in these notebooks. This sharing in “The Notebook Project” is a powerful way for us to receive new insights and ideas and to join us all – our individual worlds coming together to form a better, safer world for us and our children.
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Funny, this is not what I started to write, or expected to write. At all. But the power of the Invitation took hold, and this is what it became.