The Comadrazgo of Queen Power
I’ve been playing on the Queen Power Forum, reading about other women and how they turn their attention to their own interests even in the bustle of families and jobs. There is Clarissa who has been an at-home mom for five children, and whose beloved volunteer assignment turned sour. She first applied at other agencies, then conceived a dream of a personal business that would use her skills and interests—and the Traveling Tea Lady was born. Lauralulu had one job her entire adult life. When her company announced it was closing, she searched her heart and turned down a sure bet doing the same thing, even though her husband was dealing with a serious illness. Within weeks she had a new job in a completely different field. All she has to do is decide if this is the job for her. Jaw Jaw worked and raised two children, and helped care for her father during his last illness. Then she wrote her first article, one about her father, and two years later she is still writing and on the cusp of a new career as America’s funniest humor writer. QueenMe, who made sensible decisions concerning her education and career, recognized the familiar, safe path was closing her heart. She chose instead to search for a new way, a better way, her way…and has invited us to join her. Woman after woman, queen after queen, has come forward to say, “This is how I honor my talents, my interests, my dreams.”
Judith Ortiz Cofer in her article “The Woman Who Slept with One Eye Open” speaks of her life honoring her choices: the traditional ones women make, and her own decision to be a writer as well. She talks of two women from her family’s folk stories who were germane to her development as a creative artist and as a free person. One was Maria Sabida. She outsmarted a murderous thief who sedated his brides with tainted figs and killed them; she first won his heart and then married him—though she always slept thereafter with one eye open. The other woman, Maria La Loca, was jilted at the altar. Driven crazy by unrequited love, she wandered her village, mourning and alone.
Cofer says from Maria Sabida she learned to claim macho—“the arrogance to assume that you belong where you choose to stand, that you are inferior to no one, and that you will defend your domain at whatever cost.” To be a woman and a mother and to realize one’s personal dreams requires a woman to have macho, or else, like Maria La Loca, to live as if you have been abandoned, mad with love lost.
John Dufresne in The Lie That Tells a Truth echoes Cofer’s evocation to stand up for your dreams; in his case, writing. “Well, the plain truth is that if you want to write, you can,” he says. “And if you want to write but you don’t write, you’re inviting madness...Wanting to write means, of course, that you’re not writing. And wanting to write but not writing will lead to frustration, guilt, and regret. And regret eats the soul. Writing, on the other hand, leads to discovery, insight, and accomplishment. The fact is, it’s easier to write than it is to want to write. Just pick up your pen, put down a word. Any word.”But Dufresne warns there is a price to be paid for your dream—“You have to pay for the privilege of writing with your time. But that’s not so hard. You only have to want to write as much as you want to watch TV or go to the movies. You manage to get those done. You can probably mange all three. You pay with your time, your patience, your persistence. And one more thing. You have to be willing to fail, to see you aren’t half so clever as you thought you were. (But then humility is the first step on the road to wisdom.)”
Dufresne goes on to warn that the people in your world might present as much resistance to the writing life as your critical self. If you’re writing (or trying to put any dream in place) you aren’t accomplishing all of the tasks necessary for a smooth and uncomplicated existence. If fact, it may appear you are not accomplishing anything at all. He says to tell your loved ones, “you are not going to be good, that you’re not going to do what you’re supposed to do…Tell them you’ll get the house painted, mop the dust bunnies under the bed, you’ll pay the gas bill but not right now. Tell them you love them, and you’ll see them again just as soon as you find the verb that will make this sentence sing.”
Cofer takes the discussion of resistance a step further. The murderous/thief/husband is a metaphor for “the destroyer of ambition, drive, and talent. It does not have to be a man. It is anything or anyone who keeps the artist from her work. To marry the killer means…that the artist has wedded the negative forces in her life that would keep her from fulfilling her mission and, furthermore, that she has made the negative forces work for her instead of against her.” Still, this artist must watch what she eats, avoid the dreamy fruit which will render her unconscious, and sleep with one eye open in order to protect her creative life, the dream which is hers alone.
In my own life, I have been the one who exhorts myself to be good…to leave the writing desk and look toward others to see if I’m worthy or not. I reach for the fruit which will put me to sleep, and even when my eyes are open, I fail to see what’s blocking my own path.
But I’ve listened to Cofer and Dufresne, the queens of the forum, and anyone who has a clue about the next step in any dream. This week I bought notebook paper, dividers, first a pad-sized appointment calendar, then a larger, notebook-sized one, sticky notes, and a timer—all designed to help me claim my life. I’ve gone through this drill before, only to be distracted by household projects, family members in need, and my own inattention to details.
As I set out on my journey one more time, Judith Ortiz Cofer has more advice for me. She says, “In Catholic cultures two women otherwise unrelated can enter in to a sacred bond, usually for the sake of a child, called the comadrazgo. One woman swears to stand in for the other as a surrogate mother if the need arises. It is a sacrament that joins them, more sacred than friendship, more binding than blood.” The women are comadres. The relationship, a shared parenting, is the comadrazgo.
Everywhere I seek my comadres to help me protect my dream this time, to mother my writing self, the self I’ve never quite learned to nourish alone. Professional writers such Cofer and Dufresne teach me about macho—the notion I have a right to the time to use my talents and to share them. I ask my friends to take their stand by my side, to remind me to take the next step and the next step. I ask my children and my husband, without whom I would have little worth writing about, for their love and support. And I turn to the Queens Forum. Here are my comadres. Here are the women with different goals, but the same dreams. It is your stories which give me stamina and resolve. It is your path which teaches me to make a map of my own. It is here we gather to give testament to a life made richer when we claim our talents and live our dreams.
© Donna Warner, March, 2005all rights reserved
John Dufresne, The Lie That Tells a Truth, A Guide to Writing Fiction, W. W. Norton and Company, 2003.
Judith Ortiz Cofer, "The Woman Who Slept with One Eye Open," Sleeping with One Eye Open, Women Writers and the Art of Survival, Edited by Marilyn Kallet and Judith Ortiz Cofer, The University of Georgia Press, 1999.
If you have stories to tell about your dreams…achieving them or those resistances which need to be examined, please share them with Queens Write about Writing. Your experience has messages for us all. Please send your observations to donna@queenpower.com
http://www.queenpower.com
disclaimer
Judith Ortiz Cofer in her article “The Woman Who Slept with One Eye Open” speaks of her life honoring her choices: the traditional ones women make, and her own decision to be a writer as well. She talks of two women from her family’s folk stories who were germane to her development as a creative artist and as a free person. One was Maria Sabida. She outsmarted a murderous thief who sedated his brides with tainted figs and killed them; she first won his heart and then married him—though she always slept thereafter with one eye open. The other woman, Maria La Loca, was jilted at the altar. Driven crazy by unrequited love, she wandered her village, mourning and alone.
Cofer says from Maria Sabida she learned to claim macho—“the arrogance to assume that you belong where you choose to stand, that you are inferior to no one, and that you will defend your domain at whatever cost.” To be a woman and a mother and to realize one’s personal dreams requires a woman to have macho, or else, like Maria La Loca, to live as if you have been abandoned, mad with love lost.
John Dufresne in The Lie That Tells a Truth echoes Cofer’s evocation to stand up for your dreams; in his case, writing. “Well, the plain truth is that if you want to write, you can,” he says. “And if you want to write but you don’t write, you’re inviting madness...Wanting to write means, of course, that you’re not writing. And wanting to write but not writing will lead to frustration, guilt, and regret. And regret eats the soul. Writing, on the other hand, leads to discovery, insight, and accomplishment. The fact is, it’s easier to write than it is to want to write. Just pick up your pen, put down a word. Any word.”But Dufresne warns there is a price to be paid for your dream—“You have to pay for the privilege of writing with your time. But that’s not so hard. You only have to want to write as much as you want to watch TV or go to the movies. You manage to get those done. You can probably mange all three. You pay with your time, your patience, your persistence. And one more thing. You have to be willing to fail, to see you aren’t half so clever as you thought you were. (But then humility is the first step on the road to wisdom.)”
Dufresne goes on to warn that the people in your world might present as much resistance to the writing life as your critical self. If you’re writing (or trying to put any dream in place) you aren’t accomplishing all of the tasks necessary for a smooth and uncomplicated existence. If fact, it may appear you are not accomplishing anything at all. He says to tell your loved ones, “you are not going to be good, that you’re not going to do what you’re supposed to do…Tell them you’ll get the house painted, mop the dust bunnies under the bed, you’ll pay the gas bill but not right now. Tell them you love them, and you’ll see them again just as soon as you find the verb that will make this sentence sing.”
Cofer takes the discussion of resistance a step further. The murderous/thief/husband is a metaphor for “the destroyer of ambition, drive, and talent. It does not have to be a man. It is anything or anyone who keeps the artist from her work. To marry the killer means…that the artist has wedded the negative forces in her life that would keep her from fulfilling her mission and, furthermore, that she has made the negative forces work for her instead of against her.” Still, this artist must watch what she eats, avoid the dreamy fruit which will render her unconscious, and sleep with one eye open in order to protect her creative life, the dream which is hers alone.
In my own life, I have been the one who exhorts myself to be good…to leave the writing desk and look toward others to see if I’m worthy or not. I reach for the fruit which will put me to sleep, and even when my eyes are open, I fail to see what’s blocking my own path.
But I’ve listened to Cofer and Dufresne, the queens of the forum, and anyone who has a clue about the next step in any dream. This week I bought notebook paper, dividers, first a pad-sized appointment calendar, then a larger, notebook-sized one, sticky notes, and a timer—all designed to help me claim my life. I’ve gone through this drill before, only to be distracted by household projects, family members in need, and my own inattention to details.
As I set out on my journey one more time, Judith Ortiz Cofer has more advice for me. She says, “In Catholic cultures two women otherwise unrelated can enter in to a sacred bond, usually for the sake of a child, called the comadrazgo. One woman swears to stand in for the other as a surrogate mother if the need arises. It is a sacrament that joins them, more sacred than friendship, more binding than blood.” The women are comadres. The relationship, a shared parenting, is the comadrazgo.
Everywhere I seek my comadres to help me protect my dream this time, to mother my writing self, the self I’ve never quite learned to nourish alone. Professional writers such Cofer and Dufresne teach me about macho—the notion I have a right to the time to use my talents and to share them. I ask my friends to take their stand by my side, to remind me to take the next step and the next step. I ask my children and my husband, without whom I would have little worth writing about, for their love and support. And I turn to the Queens Forum. Here are my comadres. Here are the women with different goals, but the same dreams. It is your stories which give me stamina and resolve. It is your path which teaches me to make a map of my own. It is here we gather to give testament to a life made richer when we claim our talents and live our dreams.
© Donna Warner, March, 2005all rights reserved
John Dufresne, The Lie That Tells a Truth, A Guide to Writing Fiction, W. W. Norton and Company, 2003.
Judith Ortiz Cofer, "The Woman Who Slept with One Eye Open," Sleeping with One Eye Open, Women Writers and the Art of Survival, Edited by Marilyn Kallet and Judith Ortiz Cofer, The University of Georgia Press, 1999.
If you have stories to tell about your dreams…achieving them or those resistances which need to be examined, please share them with Queens Write about Writing. Your experience has messages for us all. Please send your observations to donna@queenpower.com
http://www.queenpower.com
disclaimer
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