All Women Are On The Frontlines In Some Way

Human beings are such caricatures of what it is to be female and breathing in this warped world we live in today.  Being that there were already remnants of inequality, some natural some unnatural, and the crushing weight on women, the caregivers of the world, will become heavier and heavier as we try to keep us, our partners, our children, friends, and extended family, as safe as humanly possible. The weight, as caregivers, nurturers, co-creators, can grind us down.  

We are being forced to cut back, to find food, to keep a home running more cleanly, to have less support, and to feel the strain of doing more with less.  Children are home, or we are caregivers to a partner, and that takes more concentration, manic work, and we step into being warriors in our very own homes as we guard the doors and try to be supportive and fulfilling the roles of those people who gave us support (teachers, nurses, care….). We continue to do the cooking and cleaning as always, but at a more serious level.  And the more weight is added.

We are natural at sacrificing; that is part of our very DNA. We tend to take care of others before ourselves.  We will become ground down as the levels of work within the home build.  We are working with less money, most of us, and having to make things spread further.  Many women are already strained, financially.  Many are single mothers.    We absorb the emotional conditions of everyone in our family.  Some are immune deficient and there is that worry.  We have to make decisions like who is going out for an emergency run for food, etc.  

We are dealing with a total disruption of our lives within the home.  Emotions will run high.  How do we ever find who we are in this new environmental disruption?  Do we paste on a smile and run it beautifully, satisfactorily, even a bit chaotically, but safe?

Truly this is a disaster for any of us who are experiencing our own crises.  All of us are at high risk for overload.  We have become front-line workers in our own homes.  Some women are having to work in service-oriented jobs.  How do they stay safe?  The decision-making is huge.  These are dark days of society, or global situation we find ourselves in.  How do we find time for ourselves, how do we nurture ourselves, how do we find a moment of peace within it all?

What are you doing to cope?  We are here.  We are support to each other.  Reply and give us some ideas.

As for me, I am here with my partner and we are managing well.  We have a young woman who buys our things we need and delivers them safely to our doorstep.  I am ‘arting’, I am writing, I am smudging, I am learning new skills, I am reading about new things.  I am watching movies and documentaries.  I break up my day in to cleaning, cooking, supporting my antsy partner.  I am crocheting for a time in the day.  I am reading a book out in the gazebo behind our house.  I have projects I wanted to do and now have time.  I organize for a half hour a day.  I have plenty to do to keep myself occupied, but, there is a longing to be with my girlfriend and spending time with her, like we did once or twice a week before all this.  Being senior and having few things I already did outside the house, I find that those breaks meant a great deal and I am grateful for them now that I cannot do them, for sure.

I began by drawing face shapes in yellow ochre, watered down.

 

I used charcoal to get some features in. I wanted wacky features because, well, some of us are feeling wacky , sad, peace, stunned, and simply not who we were before this all happened.

I, then, wanted to give different skin colors.

I did some writing above the faces and it was spontaneous.  Afterwards, I realized that I had just exposed my depth of feeling a lack of hope.  It reminded me to work on that /those issues, now, before I tended to squelch those feelings. 

©Carol Desjarlais 4.14.20