Red Room Where the Writers Are

The Female Nature

Women have many reasons for enjoying their aging. Some like having the confidence to dress and accessorize their bodies in the way they want, ignoring fashion trends.  Some like the freedom realizing everyone they have spent decades caring for – are old enough to take care of themselves – even husbands!    Some like not having to worry about becoming pregnant again; able to love their grandchildren unconditionally, and then send the little ones home for their parents to raise.

My eagerness to age and comfort with aging comes from quite a different desire.  That is the desire to put my teen age years as far behind me as possible.  When I’m interviewed on my 110th birthday I’m sure I’ll be asked, “So to what do you attribute your longevity, ma’am?  Healthy food? An ouzo a day? Swimming in the sea? “

And I will answer, “The best thing for one’s body is the emotion of joy.  Everyday when I wake up I go outside to enjoy the beauty of nature, the song of the birds and the coming of new seasons.  I look at the changes in my hands and legs before I go for my early morning walk and I smile with great happiness.  Because today is another day I don’t have to go to school and I will never, ever have to be a teen ager again.  I experience feeling of almost, giddiness.”

“I pray my thanks to the universe that I am no longer a teenager.”

Of course, I don’t really know whether or not I will have to one day go through puberty and the accompanying pain.  For this not knowing I carefully live each day by the Golden Rule.  (I always have had the habit of developing fallback positions for all my doings.)

I do my best to treat others kindly just as I would like to be treated myself.  In case the cycle of reincarnation greets me when I pass to the next dimension I will face a lovely reincarnation into a beloved pet dog or a pet dancing bird endowed with a great talent for rhythm.

I’m trying to develop a guarantee upon this body breathing its last breath I don’t end up emerging from a new mother’s womb, facing once again a future including the teenage years.

In good faith I, myself, have birthed, nursed and nurtured two female human beings only to find at my mid-century mark that these two have turned into creatures wild and nonsensical.  After a few days of observing this frightful transformation in the two beings I love the most in this life.  My whole spiritual belief system as an avid generic Christian has been turned inside out.

Perhaps, now thought, after a great deal of prayer and meditation I have seen the Light, the Holy Beams of Knowledge and Understanding.  I reasoned again and again the three certainties I knew about the character of God.  God is all-powerful, all-seeing and all-knowing.  An insight struck me just as I was about to give up solving the problem.  The insight being that since God possesses those three greatest magical powers there is no chance that God could be a bearded grandfather with a variety of moods from generous to cruel.  How could there be a wise Grandfather sitting perched on a comfortably fluffy cloud peering down through far-sighted eyes to the people on the earth below.

I grew up reading King James’ version of the Bible and learned that our species of human beings was made in the image of God.   I realized I needed to observe my own life and my own family to truly know God.

In other words I started to objectively observe the dynamics taking place in our own home.

I used the Socratic method of asking questions to puzzle out the answer for which I searched.

If a person in the family need to find an item, any item, maybe a second sock to make a pair, a pencil just one moment ago held in hand or even the romance novel that hadn’t been read since Christmas vacation . . . who was asked?  Who knows where all these objects have landed?  Who is the all-knowing presence in the house?  The Mother in the house.

When a family member is cozy in their bedroom pursuing some forbidden hobby, door locked, under the blankets, in absolute secrecy who yells from the kitchen, “Stop that at once.”  The Mother of the House.

Also there is the circumstance of a someone in the family relaxing downtown far from the house having fun with a group of friends and flirting with the boys.  Who rushes up to you with a quick hug and kiss destroying reputations?  Who is the all-powerful being in the family able to change the course of your life forever in no more time than a few seconds?  The Mother of the House.

A  Mother knows everything, sees everything and holds all power over the future.

The compilers of the chapters on God’s characteristics forgot one important pillar of personality.  Included were omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, but forgotten the overwhelmingly most crushing: omni-embarassing.  I wonder why.

Perhaps the reason was political their power grab would be ruined.  The true character of God would have been too obvious and we would be worshipping a radiant, stylish grandmother.  She would look down upon us all with lifted eyebrows signifying, “Don’t even think about it.”