We Are Women – for My Mother and Other Amazing Women Out There

It’s International Women’s Day, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to launch this blog on a topic that has been in the forefront of my mind over the last several months – the amazing women in the world and specifically those in my life who have inspired, challenged, and nurtured me over the years. A perfect example is my mother, who is a nurse and nursing administrator by trade and who is the best person I know for advice, logic, and quick thinking in emergencies. I just want to say that I am proud of all the strong women out there, the mothers, pioneers, business owners, teachers, scientists, CEOs, leaders, students, volunteers, caregivers, soldiers, and so many more.

I Am a Woman
– after Anne Waldman

You want me predictable,
but I’m a woman who surprises,
who plays steel-drums,
loves like a warrior,
and dances with her belly.
You want me solid as earth,
but I’m a reflecting pool woman,
a challenger deep woman,
the girl with unquenchable thirst.
You want to master me,
but I’m a tempestuous woman
caught in the ocean between continents.
You don’t understand my dichotomy,
that I am innocence and experience,
mother and child,
made of blood and milk.
You crave my physicality –
a laughing-eye woman
a dancing-smile woman
a woman with pendulous-breasts.
You want to possess me,
but I am more than a ring or last name.
I am one woman in this great tribe.
I’m a shooting-star woman,
a tsunami woman,
a woman who drives too fast to catch,
and leaps out of reach like a gazelle.
I am not willing to be possessed.
Stand back.
I am riding the crest
of my own wave,
and I am a tidal wave.

~ Christine Crutchfield