The Maggie B
MaggieJeanne is a theater nerd history buff with red hair and a Labradoodle.
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in my generation, it was difficult to know that you could take control of your own life. you thought your husband and children were supposed to dictate your life. now i see young women who feel they have to be a total success by 30, which is very different. and both things are equally wrong.
gloria steinem (via clarajudgypants)
Preach.
I got to see Gloria Steinem speak several months ago at an event for the Texas Council on Family Violence. She is incredible, inspiring, and - not that it matters, but - supremely fucking gorgeous.
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I’m back! I’m super jet-lagged! We leave again on Friday!
It’s our second wedding anniversary!
I am bogged down in laundry, sleep depravation, and trying to get photos from the last four weeks uploaded, culled and edited. I’ll get pictures here soon, I swear.
As we didn’t exactly have steady wi-fi for the duration of our travels (other than the mi-fi David purchased from Vodaphone in Speyer) I attempted to keep a travel journal instead of posting here. I didn’t write daily, but wrote a hell of a lot more than I normally do. Hopefully I’ll type some entries up as I get corresponding pictures ready. In the meantime though, Maui.
6:44 am Monday, May 20, 2013Yesterday was the most perfect day. We woke up in our hotel, a former sugar plantation with high-ceilinged rooms and impeccably landscaped grounds, had breakfast - goat milk yogurt, house-made granola, fresh fruit, coffee - shopped around in the adorable beach town, Paia, one of the top 10 happiest seaside towns. On Anda’s recommendation, we went to Mama’s Fish House and Inn for lunch, located under tall palm trees on a small inlet on the north coast of Maui, open-air with a north breeze gently blowing. Our table was positioned with both seats facing the sea through an antique window frame - the bus boy referred to it as the window to paradise. We had a yellowfin poke appetizer, lobster-stuffed mahimahi with asparagus and a mango sauce, and curried fish.When we got to Maui, I was very disappointed to find out that EVERY SINGLE MOVIE OR TV SHOW I’VE EVER SEEN IS WRONG and they don’t just hand out leis at the airport when you arrive. Contrary to everything I thought I knew, leis are actually made from fresh flowers and aren’t exactly cheap - though they are far more beautiful, fragrant, and classy than I ever expected.So, after three days of complaining about my lack of lei, our awesome waitress at Mama’s gave me one since it was almost our anniversary - plumeria and tuberose, a fragrance combination that I would pay good money to recreate daily on my neck.After we ate, we asked the valet what we should do with our last two hours before we had to head to the airport. He told us about Twin Falls, a series of natural swimming pools that was a 20 minute drive away. We drove on the Road to Hana, watching the landscape change from beach to agriculture to valleys to rainforest, parked next to a fruit stand, and hiked our way in along with children squealing with delight, honeymooners, and mainland expats. Each pool got less crowded and more beautiful, the trees, the moss, the water, the light, the caves - magical.On our way out we stopped at the fruit stand and each got a banana, pineapple, and fresh-pressed cane juice smoothie, a bag of fresh-cut pineapple, and a bag of coconut candy that I’m saving for a rainy day.The landscape of Hawaii was almost exactly what one would imagine based on everything that’s been filmed there, but we were both worriedly expecting it to be packed with fanny-packed tourists and overly-Americanized establishments.Thankfully, we could not have been more wrong.
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I did a barre class this morning and a yoga class this evening and I didn’t die.
Now I just have to do laundry, pack, pay all the bills, clean the house, water the plants, get the photos from the weekend off my camera, pack, charge all my devices and download t.v. episodes for my iPad and I’ll be ready to go to Europe!
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Quote reblogged from Feeling FickleHere’s the thing. Men in our culture have been socialized to believe that their opinions on women’s appearance matter a lot. Not all men buy into this, of course, but many do. Some seem incapable of entertaining the notion that not everything women do with their appearance is for men to look at. This is why men’s response to women discussing stifling beauty norms is so often something like “But I actually like small boobs!” and “But I actually like my women on the heavier side, if you know what I mean!” They don’t realize that their individual opinion on women’s appearance doesn’t matter in this context, and that while it might be reassuring for some women to know that there are indeed men who find them fuckable, that’s not the point of the discussion.
Women, too, have been socialized to believe that the ultimate arbiters of their appearance are men, that anything they do with their appearance is or should be “for men.” That’s why women’s magazines trip over themselves to offer up advice on “what he wants to see you wearing” and “what men think of these current fashion trends” and “wow him with these new hairstyles.” While women can and do judge each other’s appearance harshly, many of us grew up being told by mothers, sisters, and female strangers that we’ll never “get a man” or “keep a man” unless we do X or lose some fat from Y, unless we moisturize/ trim/ shave/ push up/ hide/ show/ ”flatter”/ paint/ dye/ exfoliate/ pierce/ surgically alter this or that.
That’s also why when a woman wears revealing clothes, it’s okay, in our society, to assume that she’s “looking for attention” or that she’s a slut and wants to sleep with a bunch of guys. Because why else would a woman wear revealing clothes if not for the benefit of men and to communicate her sexual availability to them, right? It can’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that it’s hot out or it’s more comfortable or she likes how she looks in it or everything else is in the laundry or she wants to get a tan or maybe she likes women and wants attention from them, not from men?
The result of all this is that many men, even kind and well-meaning men, believe, however subconsciously, that women’s bodies are for them. They are for them to look at, for them to pass judgment on, for them to bless with a compliment if they deign to do so. They are not for women to enjoy, take pride in, love, accept, explore, show off, or hide as they please. They are for men and their pleasure. -
On Tuesday night, a crazy thing happened.
I did hot yoga. And I loved it.
I never would have imagined I would do hot yoga. I don’t do well in heat. I get angry. Like, mean angry. David told me after the class that he was sure I was going to snap at the instructor and storm out halfway through. But I didn’t.
I started the class terrified. We walked in and it was hot - duh. Everyone was laying dry mats on their yoga mats and lying down and looking like they knew what they were doing, making me feel very out of place. Fortunately David had rented us towels, but the fact that they had towels for rent scared me. As the instuctor came into the class and started trying to get us into the mindset, my phone rang. I had forgotten to put it on vibrate. I became my own most-hated person. But then. I forced myself to calm down. I laughed it off. The most mortifying thing that was going to happen was already out of the way! The rest of the class was incredible.
She started the class with a quote from Buddha, “What you are is a product of your thoughts.” Exactly the mantra I needed that day (and most days).
It was hot. In the beginning, it was uncomfortable. But as we began to move, the heat became less of a nuisance and more of a gentle distraction, keeping me from focusing on the pain, or my shortcomings, or all I had yet to accomplish, or how I measured up to everyone around me. I was absolutely drenched in sweat. It was pouring off my face in comical amounts. In down dog, it went up my nose. In warrior, I could see lakes of it on my arms. Instead of feeling disgusting, though, I felt clean. And strong.
And then. Then I did crow pose. I mean, actually did crow pose. I lifted my feet up to test it out, then lifted them higher, then brought my heels together, and stayed there until she gently brought us out of it. David said when he looked over he almost shit his pants. I almost did, too. I haven’t been able to do arm balances since I was probably 10 years old and in gymnastics. Part of it is because it’s a lot harder to support the weight of an adult woman than it is a girl, part of it is lack of upper body strength I’ve always struggled with, but I think a bigger part of it had been lack of confidence. I have tried doing crow pose in the past, but every time I don’t feel grounded enough, don’t feel strong enough. But this time, with sweat forming a puddle beneath my face, I didn’t even think about all of the qualities I lack. I just did it.
“What you are is a product of your thoughts.” Almost more important than focusing on good ones is banishing bad ones. Hot yoga helped me do that.
So I’m going back tonight.
