The Sound of a Woman's Voice
The ship isn’t quite as sound as it used to be—and the world is such a mess! Among the glimmers of hope—Kamala and Tim!—there’s so much horrifying news everyday.
In yesterday’s New York Times: “The sound of a woman’s voice outside the home has been outlawed in Afghanistan, according to a 114-page manifesto released late last month that codifies all of the Taliban government’s decrees restricting women’s rights.”
The sound of a woman’s voice?
What is it that makes them so very afraid?
Is it perhaps that the metaphorical Emperor of Patriarchy has no clothes?
In the same article, a young woman is quoted as saying, “I love Afghanistan, I love my country. I just don’t love the government and people forcing their beliefs onto others.” Relegated to pursuing her studies in physics and chemistry outside of academia—virtually a prisoner in her home—she’s dependent on friends abroad who try to convey their lessons to her in WhatsApp conversations. She pores over jpegs of textbook pages they send her by email.
How long will it be until those same enforcers cut off access to email and WhatsApp? How long will it be until she’s forced to marry and have children?
Don’t think that it can’t happen here.
Here’s a link if you want to work to help get out the vote in November.
And to my writer friends and musician friends: Is there some way we could provide online teaching/coaching/encouragement for girls in Afghanistan longing to assure that their own voices will be heard?
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I’m watching those whitecaps, listening to the wind screaming in the rigging.
How grateful I am for the life-boat I’ve been in the process of building over my lifetime as a writer. I’ve used the soundest timbers I could find, plane, and join together. I’m crafting it as beautifully as I can, and stocking it as well as I can. Because when the ship of my body is no longer seaworthy, I want my life-boat to carry me and my little treasure-trove of words into the next phase—the life between lives? My life as a tree? The disembodied life of all those words I’ve woven into my poetry, novels, and essays?
I want to be here as long as I can—in life and, later, through my words—for my loved ones and anyone else who might take comfort and hope in this glimmer of starlight I’ve been nurturing.
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Among his many other avocations—from graphic designer to photographer to cabinetmaker—my father was a sailor. He was building a small wooden boat in our carport during the part of my childhood when he and my mom were still married. Many years later, he almost completed a lap-strake dinghy, gorgeously crafted, during his third and final marriage to a very nice, much younger woman, up until the time of his death at the age of 92.
Each of us is on a journey to the same destination, always traveling with a one-way ticket and the length of the journey unspecified.
Our ancestors in the ancient world understood the importance of packing for our journeys: men of power, especially, gave themselves unlimited baggage allowances. Horses, treasure, armor and, it seems, even favorite wives or servants might be buried right there among their mortal remains. Various individuals of a curious and exploratory bent left instructions for maps and lanterns to be stashed in their grave-mounds.
Stocking one’s metaphorical lifeboat with provisions is a way of living more consciously—of acknowledging that our lives are both finite and infinite, depending on the legacy we create for ourselves.
Who will be the last person to say your name? To remember your smile? To recall the shape of your hands and the feeling of comfort conferred by them?
What are the most precious and important things you’ve learned in the course of your life? How will you raise your voice—your clearest, truest, most beautiful voice—to give that unique gift of what you’ve learned, what you know in your heart of hearts, to humanity’s collective treasure-trove?
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Just lately, on my journey, I’ve encountered the most extraordinary people! In each case, we recognized each other as cherished, long-lost friends, even though this was our first encounter in this lifetime. We saw it in each other’s eyes. We recognized one another’s souls.
I feel filled to the brim with gratitude for my companions through eternity. You know who you are.
I’m so grateful to the little girl I was, who had the courage to persist when it seemed like life would crush her. Who had the courage to stay hopeful. Whose courage, optimism, and reverence for beauty and goodness gave me the gift of my life today.
My Father’s Maritime Compass I didn’t realize, when I packed it, that it wasn’t meant to find one’s way on land. Point it at a lighthouse. Point it at the Pole Star. If you’d taught me how to use it, I could journey through the starry nights by sea, like Odysseus, with fifty strong men at the oars and a goddess watching over me. I would stand there at the helm, once again your cherished child, face tipped upward, eyes focused on the luff of the sail. Flush with your approval for my light touch with the tiller, I’d point us into the wind as close as I could without causing us to jibe. You taught me how to crew, to wait until that moment when the jib went slack and then pull swiftly on the line, hand over hand, ending in a final tug, my feet in white-soled sneakers braced against the combing of the cockpit. Wind the jib-sheet round the winch and make it fast, cinched between the teeth of the cam cleat. Shove the heavy handle in, and ratchet clockwise, while I or someone stronger tailed the line. Some things, it’s true, you taught me well— but how to find my way in life and love was not among these. I wish you had your compass with you now as you journey through the darkness with the other shades, maybe here on this island, in the starlight, on the naked rocky slopes that seem to hold the dead inside them, glowing at night with all they loved and hoped for, all they lost and all they failed to find. Copyright ©️ 2020 by Barbara Quick from The Light on Sifnos (2021: Blue Light Press)
Beautiful & powerful!