But, after reading eight pages into the intro to Tara Mohr's Playing Big, felt driven to check out my previous posts & there - wonder of wonders - as the New Post button, yelling "Hit me! Hit me!" And here we are, reunited, the perfect place for me to shout to the far corners of the multiple universes, "I LOVE Tara Mohr!"
Gotta love a 15-year old who notices that all the coming-of-age books assigned by her freshman English curriculum & asks the logical question - "None of them are about girls." - which spearheads a initiative that raises the money to insure that the next freshmen class has a reasonable balance in it coming-of-age experiences. Tara writes - That was the beginning of what has become a lifelong calling for me: to recognize where women's voices are missing and do what I can, in my corner of the world, to help bring them in.
Two things about Tara that resound within me - three things, actually:
- She noticed. She noticed that all the assigned reading was about boys, none of the books were written by women about a feminine awakening. She brought it up as a reasonable question - I noticed that none of the books are by women, and none of them are about girls coming of age. It seems... unbalanced. She questioned rather than attacked.
- She heard the profound silence of invisibled voices, which is rare.
- Her question spurred action - monies were raised outside the school budget, a new curriculum was drawn & and approved, the next freshmen class were taught a balancing of experiences. Which leads me to a fourth, point that didn't hit me until writing this...
- Although Tara's question spearheaded the changed, it didn't affect her. She was a sophomore when the new curriculum rolled out. And that seems just fine with her.
Tara noticed the missing female voices, the missing experiences of girls' coming of age. For all of my life, I've been sensitive to missing voices, to doing what I can to let them know they are heard, that the people behind are seen. Not a Goody Two-Shoes for doing that, it was just my natural bent, not an option.
It's probably rooted in my older sister, who felt horrifically invisibled & there was nothing I could do to help. She felt like she had been Xed out of life & by God no one - especially not a dweebish baby sister - was going to make her feel seen & heard. Literally to her dying day.
It's probably rooted in an oldest brother, who clearly felt that his natural voice was subpar, not okay, and spent his life speaking from an assumed self that he apparently felt was closer to his sense of his true self, with the proper lineage, family wealth, status. His projected voice was harsh, distainful of perceived lessers, edged with self-loathing.
It's probably rooted in a mother whose self was invisibled by a psychotic mother who made herself the center of her middle daughter's universe, an ordeal Mom survived by losing her own voice. Miracle of miracles, she believed from the first that Dad heard a voice she couldn't, loved it & nurtured it, but she curled back up in her ball of invisible when he died at sixty-two.
Peter & Mim never did what they might have because... because of reasons I can't begin to fathom. Hard to be a true self you've disinherited. To their baby sister, they apparently hadn't a clue who they were & seemed heavily invested in staying that way.
Am proud to say that Mom did become visible to herself, at eighty-eight. And she found her voice because Peter & Mim chose to not use theirs. Ironic! I had primary - more or less sole - responsibility for Mom. She lived with us, none of the other three - all considerably older - sibs were a consistent presence in her life. I was frazzing. Wrote to Mike & Kerry, who live in Australia, and left voice messages with Peter & Mim. Begged for help, was falling apart. And I made sure Mom heard me leaving the messages.
A few days later, Mom asked if I'd heard back. There had been no answer - "Shows what they think of me."
Will always remember the look on Mom's face, the unfamiliar sound of something resembling spine in her voice, as she answered, "No, it shows what they think of me. You're doing what you can to help me stay where I am."
Years of not seeing dropped away & she was finally able to let it register that they just didn't care. Mom had fought seeing that, fought to hold onto the thin thread of hope that they would allow her to have them in their lives, on their terms, at their convenience. That hope had driven her life for as long as I had been alive, which had meant invisibling anything that might put her deepest desire in jeopardy.
In that moment, Mom became Tara Mohr realizing that things were... unbalanced.
Mom never looked back. She called a psychologist, got help seeing herself. Not her children, not her own family, not even Dad. Just herself. She came to peace with just herself. As if with a magic wand, she un-invisibled Katharine Reynolds Lockhart, made it okay to be that woman.
Helping others feel visible, valuable & valued has been my root purpose for as long as I know. I pretty much flubbed it with my family - Mom sought counseling because of what others didn't say - those three values were at the core of my teaching & corporate world success. I remember a student, now an adult with adult children, telling me that I'd brought the same quality to babysitting her family as I had to teaching history - "You made us feel engaged." Noticed. Visible, valuable, valued.
Thank you, Tara - am just up to page xviii in your intro but already feeling seen, engaged, present. What a wondrous place to be as I stride out with renewed vigor, refreshed purpose & re-spined determination to brush aside "bouts of insecurity, a sense of overwhelm & confusion about the practical steps to take." (p. xiv) ONWARD!
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