i had planned to go to disneyland with christy yesterday, but ended up spending the cloudy day slowly unwinding from an intense weekend retreat in the mountains. of course, as my new summer roommate pointed out, renting Monster, (a movie about the female serial killer) going running till my shirt was soaked, and having a serious and long overdue heart to heart with old friends might not be the best way to unwind from one of the most emotionally powerful weekends of my life, but i think this is what i needed...


our home feels like home these days. i spend hours talking to leslie, appreciating the gift she gives in holding the space for me to reflect and emote and be myself. there is something about the kitchen that draws us, and we often end up sitting on the floor alternately giggling and opening pieces of the brokenness inside. both feed my soul deeply, and i feel immensely thankful to be able to share my space with someone who understands my journey and walks her own with humility and grace.

chandra will spend the summer with us, and she brings a lightness and humor that radiate. her spirit is young and full of goodness, and she is flexible and relaxed. she'll work hard at her engineering job, interning on some kind of new express bus line that connects north la to hollywood. as we lay on the bed talking last night, staring at the ceiling, i imagine sisterhood being something like this, and i know i will love this young woman for the length of life.

our piano is used often now. the music on the stand shifts between leslie's praise and worship, and my bach or beethoven. it is life giving to have in the house, and i often wonder what our rap playing neighbors think of my classical tendencies. as my fingers feel more fluid again, i get excited about bach's ingenious part writing and a harmony that surprises. i plan recitals in my mind and imagine taking lessons again and recording an audition tape for grad school applications this fall.






i watched a little more than half of Monster last night, and woke up thinking about women and abuse and rage. the movie is "the shocking and moving true-life story of Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute executed last year in Florida after being convicted of murdering six men. While Wuornos confessed to the six murders, including a policeman, she claimed to have killed only in self-defense, resisting violent assaults while working as a prostitute."

i in no way advocate taking another life, but more and more i do become an advocate for a space for women to respond to abuse against them with appropriate and necessary rage, anger, even violent energy. of the women i know, most have been subject to some kind of violation or abuse by the men in their lives, strangers, uncles, pastors, fathers, babysitters. i finished reading the collection of writings by imprisoned women and felt shocked again, that almost 100% of females in prison, women who have committed crimes of violence, were themselves victims of violent and sexual abuse as young children. why do we not make this connection? why does it surprise us that a women forced to sell her body, a woman raped and violated would retaliate in violence herself? and the encouragement, the necessity is that she relatiate, not in direct violence, but in freedom to know her own powerful and important anger. this is the sign of life within in her, the appropriate response to a violation so personal and intimate that to not rise up in rage would be an impossible death.

so what i want to say is let's define beauty correctly. a beautiful woman is soft and tender and dressed in pink with nails done and smile sincere. but in this righteous anger from the spiritual core, she is beautiful in the truth of all she is.


may we make more space for the cry to rise up.