30 Days Of Truth Challenge | Grow Where You're Planted | Day 3

Day 03 → As a child, how did religion or faith impact your life?



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My mother taught me my first scripture verse when I was only two years old ~ Psalm 1 ♥ Blessed is the man... I began to sing at a very young age, taught again by my mother from an old hymnal and her memory of praise songs from the 60's and 70's ~ As the deer panteth for the water, so my soul longeth after You...♪♫ I grew up in Sunday School, vacation Bible schools, and eventually Missionettes, learning tenants of the Christian faith, memorizing scripture verses, and singing singing singing... Every night, before bed, Mom tucked us in and read from my Bible story book and a daily devotional for children.



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When I was four years old, I asked Jesus to come into my life and heart. At such a tender age, all I really knew about God was that He had created everything that ever was, that because mankind chose to walk away from Him we were all lost in sin and bound for eternity in hell, and that because God sent his only Son, Jesus Christ, to live and die on earth as the ultimate sacrifice for sin, if I chose to live for Him instead of sinning and living for myself, when I died I would go to heaven forever, instead of hell, and that I would make Him very happy. I had a great deal of awe and respect for God, and it was an easy decision. Despite knowing about hell, fear of going there was never something I thought about - I knew that God loved me and because I loved Him, too, it just wasn't something I needed to worry about. I loved to sing songs to God, and when I ran out of words I knew, I made up new ones and new tunes, and I would sing for hours and hours about how much I loved God. I even remember telling my Teddy about Jesus!

My mother wasn't the only one who taught me about God and the Bible. My father spent more time on the subject than I think anyone realized. While my mother taught me about Noah's ark, my father told me that God expected a wife to submit so utterly to her husband that she never even thought something with which her husband disagreed, and as a daughter, my job was to practice godly womanhood with my father so that when I married one day I would be a good wife to my husband. While my mother taught me that God values honesty and personal integrity, my father told me that my mother was an unsubmissive wife and that I could not tell her about my role in his life because she wouldn't understand that we were only obeying God. Both of my parents taught me that it is wrong to do things that cause other people to "stumble" (to do something they know is wrong), but while that meant not back-talking in front of my younger siblings, to my mother, it meant something very different to my father - it meant hiding the truth from my mother, that her husband had declared me his second wife, and treated me accordingly.

By the time I was twelve years old, I had a very divided belief system. From my mother: God loves me and expects me, as His child, to respect and obey my parents, be kind to my sisters and brother, and share the Gospel with those who do not know Him. From my father: God loves and blesses men, and uses women and girls to make them happy and help them do His will. Even as a very young child, I instinctively knew that my father's belief system was flawed; even though there was a time when I believed that the flaw lay in my own evil heart (because I was never happy and hated what my father made me do and say), I still knew that the real God had not created me to be only a play thing for a man. I felt enormous guilt at the lies I had to tell my mother, to protect my father's secrets, and I hated the role I was forced to play to make him happy. I believed that it pleased God to tell the truth and to be nice to people, and my father's expectations - always enforced with violence and abandonment - forced me to do things I knew deep in my heart displeased God. I was, at times, afraid of divine retribution, but more than anything I grieved that I made God sad.

I was too young to understand that my father's sins where not my fault, and that my mother's animosity was the result of a shattered marriage and fear and isolation. I lost myself in learning new scriptures, new stories, new songs, and in doing what I could to please God, and make my family happy. I couldn't change anything about my life, so I chose without even realizing that I did so to ignore what made me sad, and embrace what made me happy. I wasn't a perfect daughter or sister or friend or Christian, but I did the best I could, and despite everything I was a happy child.

My father traveled a lot, and when he was gone I was able to let go a little of the "Alena" he wanted me to be, and instead be the Alena I was ~ a little girl who loved playing with other children and who loved to learn. When he was home, I put on the costume of "princess" and "lover" that he expected, and I did my best to always anticipate him so that he would be happy with me. I played a role for him, and I was the only one who knew it was a role... and despite my best efforts, I couldn't please everyone. I became despised by my siblings as "the lucky one", who always got to go with Daddy. No one saw what happened when we were alone; all they saw was a spoiled little girl who thought she was better than everyone else.



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In 1998, the story came out, and I was suddenly free of my father forever. No longer did I have to pretend to think I was perfect and better than everyone else; no longer did I have to pretend to hate my mother and my sisters and brother. At long last, I could play with my sister and not worry that my father would come in and change the game, and make me do things that hurt both her and me. Finally, I could throw my arms around my mother's waist and declare how much I loved her, without having to worry that my father would be angered and punish me for being a "traitor" for being nice to his "unsubmissive" wife. At long last, I was free!

But it didn't work out like that. Nine years of playing a role is not something you can shake off over night, and it is not something easily forgotten by those who suffered. My siblings didn't trust me, and they harbored great resentment for the apparent favor I enjoyed from our father. My mother, so hurt by the betrayal and years of abuse at the hands of her husband, could not easily shake off resentment towards the daughter who had somehow stolen the man she loved, and treated her with such disdain and disrespect. And I didn't know how to stop being that person; I didn't know how to convince them that it had all been a role, and not the truth. I couldn't fix what I had not broken of my own will.

Through all of this, I still believed that God was worthy of love and devotion. I still believed that when I died I would live with Him in heaven; there were days when I longed for death, just to escape what I could not change. And strangely, I never blamed Him for not protecting me from my father. If anything, I felt guilt that I was not able to prevent my father from sinning; I believed that there was something fundamentally wrong with me, that caused him to sin.

Later that fall, I went to a Christian youth convention, and my heart began to change and heal. Watching the kids around me that weekend, I realized that they had something I didn't recognize or understand - Joy. Their faces shone with joy and love as they sang along during the worship service, and it made my heart ache. ♪♫ Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing... ♫♪ I loved God, but I wasn't happy, and it went much deeper than even that - I had no joy. ♫♪ Power and majesty, praise to the King... ♪♫ I was so tired...tired of being miserable, tired of trying to win back the love and approval of my mom and siblings, tired of feeling like I was responsible for the destruction of my family. ♪♫ Mountains bow down and the seas will roar... ♫♪ And in that moment, I cried out to God. I fell down on my knees, tears blinding me, bruising my knuckles on the cold concrete auditorium riser. I cried out to God, and told Him that if He really wanted me - if He really loved me and wanted to do something with my life - He could have everything. ♫♪ ...at the sound of Your name! ♪♫

My life began to change. I didn't get my miracle; my sisters and brother continued to distrust me, and my mother struggled for a long time with appropriate blame placement. But my heart began to heal, and I learned that even when I couldn't find comfort or peace at home, I could find it in prayer and worship. It took time and a lot of un-learning to find and destroy the wrong beliefs seeded in me by my father, and I discovered along the way that not everyone embraces the reality that victims of childhood sexual abuse are not to blame for what happened to them. At fifteen, I spent a good six months refusing to read my Bible, go to church, or pray because I had been so hurt by a woman in my church that I felt abandoned by God. But eventually I realized that no one was going to rescue me - I had to do what I knew to be right because it was right, and not because it was easy.



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Faith was the framework of my childhood. My mother poured a solid foundation when I was barely old enough to talk, and she began to frame out the temple of my belief system through stories and memorization of scripture by the time I was two years old. My father put up walls of his own, weakening the structure with cheap imitations of truth. Eventually, I had to tear down a lot of the existing temple to find the flaws and damage he left, so that I could rebuild with quality in mind. In some rooms, the damage was so extensive that only a controlled burn was enough to rid my temple of rot and decay. My temple was dedicated to God when I was born, and by the time I was seventeen years old, I had made the decision to dedicate it again of my own free will.

Blessed is the man

who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stands in the way of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

but his delight is in the law of the LORD,

and on His law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree

planted by streams of water

which yeilds its fruit in its season,

and its leaf does not wither.

In all that he does, he prospers.

Not so the wicked!

They are like chaff that the wind blows away.

Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgement,

nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous;

for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked ill perish.

~Psalm 1

To see the full Challenge list, click here.

To see Day 1, click here.
To see Day 2, click here.

30 Days Of Truth Challenge | Grow Where You're Planted | Day 2

Day 02 → Would you say your childhood was happy? Why or why not?



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I am curls and laughter, music and clumsy, and I love my little sisters and brother. I love to make you smile ~ please let me help you! Washing dishes with Aunt Tanya, I cut open my finger on a suds-hidden knife; blood is scary, but these tears are from fear of disappointing you, more than from pain. I dance on the coffee table, singing my songs, laughing and mischievous. I am a mermaid princess with long black hair, swimming in my bathtub ocean. See my whale friends? They just look plastic and tiny; really, they are strong and mighty and swim with me all day! Now I am a mommy feeding my Big Doll ~ thank you, Mommy, for making her for me! Jessica's Big Doll has yellow hair, but mine has brown like me, and I think she is the best...

Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and Fourth of July at Grama's house, with all my cousins, every year after year after year. Grama makes potato salad, and I love the mustard and relish best. Heather, Timmy, Jessica and I wear black olive fingernails, or maybe we are aliens? Kim and Kelli sit with us at the kiddy table, but they prefer not to share their toys; little girls mess up Barbie hair and lose their clothes and shoes, you know. Silks and lace and beads from Grama's dress-up box make us pretty princesses and brides, or clowns and scallywags, all! Richy the cowboy has a faux fox tail, and nicks Grampa's boots from by the door; he is too small, and leaves them lonely on the front porch, running barefoot through the soft green grass in the front yard. Heather and I sit on the steps, shivering in big cozy towels fresh from Grama's dryer, wet from the sprinkler still spinning spinning spinning in the sunshine...

Icky green caterpillars crawling on thistles, crawling on my sister's arms, her smiling face ~ eeeewwww!! She laughs and throws them at me, icky green slimy caterpillars that bite, and I run screaming screaming screaming! I get her ~ dark red clay down her shirt, coats her skin, makes her look like the Indian children we see in town; dark damp red clay from the deep cut in the hills above our house, where we drive our Tonkas and Barbies make their Indian cave houses. Dark damp red clay that stains Barbie's long blond hair; I leave her there, in the cut, under stones and damp red clay ~ she fell so far, up up up at the top of the cut, so far, taller than me with Jess on my shoulders and Richy climbing, stepping on our shoulders! I leave her there, under dark red staining clay and stones...

At Grama's house, cutting trees with Daddy, stacking logs and branches, watching trees fall *crash bang boom* Arms scratched, heaving hurrying keeping up with Daddy, itchy wood chips and dust in my pants and tee shirt, carrying stacking moving logs with Daddy and Grampa. Watching Daddy under that tree, scared worried exhilarated guilty, watching Daddy struggle free. Hide behind the tractor, kids, he's in a foul mood! Heaving carrying stacking logs and branches, working hard, breathing hard, sweating itchy sticky wood chips and dust...



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A cute boy down the lane shows me baby birds on the ground, dead, falling from their nests high high high in the hay barn eaves. One baby bird squeaks, and I put him in my pocket, help Mommy and Jess and Richy carry jugs of clean water back to the junk yard house, try not to squish the baby birdy; I am strong, and cary two jugs in each hand ~ and I am only nine! Mommy helps me keep baby birdy warm in a little box, and tells me he eats squishy worms from his mommy's beak; worms taste terrible, but I chew them up and feed them to baby birdy, then he dies and I am sad. Mommy helps me dig a birdy grave in the dirt outside, and I say goodbye; my next birdy will live, and the next, but none of them do. I eat a Robin Red-Breast's breast ~ Jess tricks me! I cry a little, and decide she is mean. Cute boy with the hay barn is not impressed by my selfless chewing of worms for baby birds and laughs at me, stomps my dying baby birds flat. I kick him in his butt and call him a poophead...

I am four today, on a bus in Mexico! A nice man with a black mustache gives me a cupcake, but Mommy throws it away and tells me about strangers. There's a huge huge frog in the neighbor's toilet tank, sitting on the ball, sitting there croaking and looking at me with his huge huge wet eyes! I want to flush him, but the grown ups tell me to go outside. I almost step on a black snake ~ a viper! ~ but Daddy lifts me up and the snake misses my baby toes; Daddy is my hero! The ocean is big, and sand feels funny, but Jessica cries and screams ~ she is afraid of the ocean and its roaring because she is just a baby...

Grampa's arms around me, warm chest against my back, my little mittened hands in his feed the deer, watch the deer lick the big salt-lick, eat oats from the deer trough. Sneaking sneaking, Grampa's not looking, I taste the oats ~ yum! Sneaking sneaking, nobody's looking, I taste the salt-lick ~ yuck! Standing on Grama's blue couch, nose on the window pane, watching Grampa feed the deer, pet the deer on their long fuzzy ears, pet the baby deer covered in red fuzz and white spots...



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Home school field trips, with lots of other kids; I want to meet them all, but Jess is shy, and Richy is angry ~ they play Red Rover Red Rover, and Richy is angry, he is crying, he hides in the bushes, hits me and yells go away! Jess is It, and I we all hide, and she cries because she is just a little kid and she can't find us; I pretend-cough and she finds me and she punches me in the arm ~ "You're It!!" We go to Grant-Cours Ranch in Deerlodge ~ it's a museum, and I want to see inside the big big house and all the farm buildings; we play on the big farm wagon by the parking lot ~ Shane, Cheri and me. Daddy finds me ~ I am in trouble, I am not supposed to play with boys, I belong to Daddy. Everyone stays in tents outside the Schubert's house in Anaconda; Mommy and Daddy and the babies in the big tent, Jess and Richy and me in the pup tent, Cheri and other girls in the other pup tent and BJ and Shane sleep outside our pup tents in sleeping bags. No one is really sleeping ~ giggle giggle talk talk ~ but Daddy is angry and I am silent, I do not want to be in trouble for talking to boys, they are my friends! Embarrassed and scared, I snuggle Jessica who is asleep, and try not to kick Richy who is asleep by my feet at the bottom of the tent...

We build together, almost every day; Playmobile, Lincoln Logs, wooden building blocks. We build other worlds, escaping into make-believe, loving our lives through plastic and wood and metal toys. Reinventing ourselves ~ princess, cat, horsey, dog, soldier, Indian, explored, mermaid, bandit, knight, missionary; anything goes. Daddy plays with us sometimes, down on the floor like a great big kid, building castles and forts and laughing as red-headed Gila monster Rosie crashes through the cities of our imaginations, roaring giggling laughing! We love Daddy in those moments, piling on, a dog-pile of flailing limbs and flying hair, screaming laughing tickling abandon...

Sometimes I am afraid. Wish I knew Alice ~ she went down the rabbit hole, she could take me back with her, down the rabbit hole, down down down the rabbit hole. Misty likes to dress me up in big girl clothes, big girl clothes and make-up and hair, hairspray thick makes me choke and cough; her daddy likes it when Misty dresses me up in big girl clothes ~ I am afraid of her daddy, my Daddy's friend Kevin. Dark dark dark...run away, watch those kids on tv, stupid kids in school, stupid stupid...I didn't run away, Daddy, I swear! Confusing, conflicting, frightening ~ it didn't happen, what didn't happen, it didn't happen, singing laughing playing...



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I love summer, especially at Grama's house; bright sun, warm breeze, cold sprinkler, and most of all swinging. The swing tree, so big and strong, Richy climbed it once, high high high, even Uncle Robert couldn't reach him! Big boy smiles, striped shirt, dirty jeans, fuzzy crew cut hair. I love those swings ~ two rubber straps hung with ropes, one low one high, swing swing swing. Jessica winds the bench swing, chains wrapping tightly pinch little fingers ~ be careful! ~ twist tighter, let go, spin spin spin! Blue eyes sparkle, darky blond tresses flying behind her, spinning spinning spinning, around and around...

Dark days come, dark days go, Jess and Richy and Rosie and baby Hannah remain. I love being a big sister! Playing house, playing mommy and daddy and baby; I forget the hard days, to remember the happy ones...

To live.

To see the full Challenge list, click here.

To see Day 1, click here.

30 Days of Truth Challenge | Grow Where You're Planted | Introduction

In the spirit of all things spring, and in line with the NaBloPoMo theme for April 2011 ~ "Sprout!" ~ this 30 Days of Truth Challenge centers on the theme "Grow Where You're Planted". Exploring themes of renewal, second chances, self-improvement, new life, restoration, and many others, this challenge is all about learning from our experiences, recognizing areas in need of change, and celebrating our strengths!

"Even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning." Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity."Joel 2:12-13 (NIV)

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature:
old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)

Why my husband is super cool...

Nick: "All our movies are in alphabetical order..."

Me: "Yup. I'm amazing!"

Nick: "I want to move one and see if you notice. Does that make me a bad person?"

Me: It makes you a person who likes to live on the edge." *stink eye*

Nick, hands up and backing away from the shelf: "I just said I want to move one - I didn't touch anything!"



My First Guest Blog



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Check out my first every guest blog post over at Literary Legs today. Thank you, Laura, for being my first, and allowing me the privelage of writing for your wonderful blog! Be sure and check out the rest of her blog ~ well worth the time!

"...then He is honored."

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You know, so many Christians are spouting health, wealth, and safety nowdays. It's crap. God isn't glorified by what we have, He's glorified by who we are. When we can go through struggles and loss proclaiming that God is enough, that God is our gift and our giver, that God will satisfy when nothing else does, then He is honored.

~Brin @ My Messy, Thrilling Life

One Shot Wednesday | An Introduction



The creative team over at One Stop Poetry - A place where poets, writers and artists meet... started a project some seven or eight months ago - a weekly posting of original poetry, to bring together writers from all over the blogosphere into a new, poetic community. Today, over two thousand poems have been posted and shared all over the world, and this inspired team of individuals is producing their first anthology of poetry. “Best of One Shot – the first six months” will be published by Limited Editions Press in their "Poetry Is Life" series. My good friend, Laura Page, who blogs over at Literary Legs, began participating in One Shot Wednesday a few weeks ago, and I am thrilled to join her, beginning today!

Down Through The Ages

an original poem by Alena Belleque

The years come, and the years go

Leaving behind them tracks in the snow

Oral tradition, like panning for gold

Come sit by the fire, come out of the cold

***   ***   ***   ***   ***

I’ll tell you a story, please listen tonight

To the web I will spin in the golden fire light

Woven history from the corners of my mind

A fragrant mystery, a child’s delight

To learn how to participate in One Shot Wednesday, click on the the link to be taken to the instructions page on their site. I hope to see you around!

{In}Fertile Soul | An Excellent Article on Infertility Etiquette

I'd give anything to be you...
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I found an excellent article on the RESOLVE website today, regarding interacting with infertile men and women. RELSOLVE is the website for The National Infertility Association. I hope that you will read it, and take it to heart. Being infertile is extremely painful, and far too few people really appreciate that.

Here are a few passages from the article that were especially poignant for me...

One of the cruelest things anyone ever said to me is, "Maybe God doesn't intend for you to be a mother." How incredibly insensitive to imply that I would be such a bad mother that God felt the need to divinely sterilize me. If God were in the business of divinely sterilizing women, don't you think he would prevent the pregnancies that end in abortions? Or wouldn't he sterilize the women who wind up neglecting and abusing their children? Even if you aren't religious, the "maybe it's not meant to be" comments are not comforting. Infertility is a medical condition, not a punishment from God or Mother Nature.

Yes, these comments really are as incredibly insensitive as the author states. I am a Christian, and yes, I do believe that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. And yes, I do believe that He can and will resolve this desire in my heart to become a mother. But telling me that perhaps motherhood isn't in His plan for me, when He has laid this desire and passion on my heart for as long as I can remember, is extremely insensitive and frankly, I'd rather not hear a friend or family member give me this cheap platitude. Ever.

The best thing you can do is let your infertile friends know that you care. Send them cards. Let them cry on your shoulder. If they are religious, let them know you are praying for them. Offer the same support you would offer a friend who has lost a loved one. Just knowing they can count on you to be there for them lightens the load and lets them know that they aren't going through this alone.

So many people think that pretending nothing is wrong with regards to their infertile friends, but honestly, it's not helpful. Sure, it's better to not say anything at all than to say something insensitive or hurtful, but why not find a middle ground? For me, being approached with questions about our fertility journey is painful; we've been on this road for over three years. But getting a card in the mail that says something sweet about how I will make a good mom, or that someone is thinking and/or praying about me, would be comforting.

So, what can you say to your infertile friends? Unless you say "I am giving you this baby," there is nothing you can say that will erase their pain. So, take that pressure off of yourself. It isn't your job to erase their pain, but there is a lot you can do to lesson the load.

Here are a few suggestions. Some of them are paraphrases from the article, some are my own ideas, but all of them are valid ways you can support the women (and their husbands) who are struggling to build their families...

• When you find out you're pregnant, don't hide it from your infertile friend. She loves you, and even though she may grieve for her own childlessness, she really will be happy for your good news. Finding out that you are pregnant from someone else, or far into your pregnancy by stumbling across something about it on facebook, is a really good way to hurt her. Infertility is already a very isolating thing; excluding your infertile friend from baby-related joy is not only unhelpful, but it makes her feel unwanted - less than worthy because she is "broken" and therefore unfit to be around those for whom conception is just a fun romp in the hay. She may not choose to come to your baby shower because she is afraid she might burst into tears over her own grief and ruin your day, but she should be allowed to make that judgement call for herself. And you never know - maybe sharing in the joy and celebration of new life with someone she loves is what she needs, in order to avoid falling into despair. You probably think that by not including her in baby news, you're helping; please, let her make those choices herself.
• If you want to know more about your infertile friend's health, or about infertility in general, it really is okay to ask. But instead of digging for details right off the bat, a simple "I am so sorry this is happening to you, and I really want to be more informed so I can be a good friend to you in this" goes a really long way. Perhaps she will discuss the matter opening, or maybe she will point you to a post like this one or a medical article, or a forum where you can connect with the loved ones of other infertiles. Honestly, the only reason I ever get upset when someone asks me about my infertility is when they approach it out of morbid curiosity, or say something like "oh, so-and-so and I were talking about you the other day and we're curious what treatments you've tried because so-and-so from work said that her best friend's boyfriends sister's dental hygienist said that, really, all you need to do is relax and you'll get pregnant." Seriously??
• On that note, you need to recognize the fact that infertility is not just two people not getting pregnant right off the bat when they go off the Pill and start having unprotected sex. It is not about "relaxing" or just waiting and "letting it happen naturally". Infertility is a medical diagnosis of a serious nature. A couple cannot be diagnosed infertile until they have tried unsuccessfully to conceive for a full year without success. Infertility is not about having to wait a few months to get pregnant - it is about a physical or chemical problem in either the male or female body that prevents conception. No amount of relaxation or positive thinking is going to magically fix this problem, and suggesting these things to a couple that has been trying to get pregnant for years is not just insensitive - it's plain absurd.
• Recognize that, even when your infertile friend is celebrating something, she is probably sad on some level that another marker has passed without a child. For example: I celebrated my twenty-fifth birthday two days ago, on February 10th. On the 9th, I had an emotional meltdown because it suddenly hit me that when my mother turned twenty-five, her oldest child (me) had just turned four, and she had two other children as well! This was truly one of the best birthdays I have ever had...but it wasn't until my Grama told me her first child wasn't born until she was twenty-seven that I was able to really let that pain go and enjoy my day. My anniversary (number four) will likely bring similar sadness, and Mother's Day is always a very difficult time for me (and pretty much every other infertile woman I know). I haven't gone to church on Mother's Day since 2008, because that Sunday, as I was trying to sneak past the women handing flowers to all of the mothers of the congregation as they left, I was given a flower by the pastor's wife; when I tried to give it back to her, she said, "But surely you are a mother!" even though I had been attending for almost a year, and had previously told her I am infertile. She wouldn't allow me to return the flower, and as I tried to duck out of the church, tears streaming down my cheeks against my will, five or six other women patted my arm as I passed, wishing me a happy Mother's Day. Why did this happen? I have no idea. But I have no wish whatsoever to submit to another sermon on how blessed mothers are among women, or to risk explaining that I am unable to conceive as I run the flower gauntlet out the door. Last year, I received a Mother's Day card from my husband puppy; it was the first time in three years that I didn't want to sleep straight through the day. As the friend of an infertile woman, it is important that you accept that even happy occurrences can and probably do bring up the grief of infertility in your friend and her husband. Father's Day is no picnic at our house, either.

Read the article, please. I have trouble writing about this issue concisely; it is still too near the surface for me. The author has a lot of wisdom to share, and I hope that you will take the time to read through her article, and pass it along to anyone else who needs to hear this message.

The grief of infertility is not so cut and dry. Infertile people grieve the loss of the baby that they may never know. They grieve the loss of that baby who would have had mommy's nose and daddy's eyes. But, each month, there is the hope that maybe that baby will be conceived after all. No matter how hard they try to prepare themselves for bad news, they still hope that this month will be different. Then, the bad news comes again, and the grief washes over the infertile couple anew. This process happens month after month, year after year.

It is like having

a deep cut that keeps

getting opened right

when it starts

to heal.

Dear Monday...



Guest Blogger | Laura Page | Women. And Their Art

Please welcome my dear friend and fellow blogger, Laura Page! She is the author of the lit blog, Literary Legs. My very first guest blogger and I am so excited to introduce you to her! As you will see, she is a terrific writer. Be nice, now - I want her to come back!! *wink*

~.~.~.~.~

Hi! My name is Laura Page. I blog over at Literary Legs about the creative process and artistic expression in the lives of women, particularly, and will say a few thing about that platform here in this post. I have had the privilege of knowing Alena, here at “Little Bit of Wonderful,” for many years. Her friendship has meant a lot to me, and so I was thrilled when she offered me the opportunity to guest post here (my first guest post, ever!) in this cozy little corner of the ‘net!

Women. And their Art

By

Laura Page

In my career as an undergraduate, questions about women’s relationship to art have surfaced repeatedly. I’m a literary studies major, so the question “how are women treated in this text?” is one that comes up a lot, and the more I’ve tried to answer that question within the contexts of various literature, the more complex women’s studies become --the more fascinating, too. I find myself both bewildered and catalyzed by examining the culturally constructed spaces women occupy in our society. And there are no easy answers, I’ve discovered, when it comes interpreting how these spaces are dealt with in art, even when it’s women’s art.

Art comes into the whole feminist thing, for me, because art makes value statements. Some may not agree with me on that, but I say it because I think art is essentially communication. It can make statements. It can convey tolerance or deviance. Even ambivalence. When women do art, they are saying something about the constructs, the assumptions that are made about them and about their place in society. They’re saying stuff about social pecking orders--the traditional roles women have fulfilled and still do, and the sexual politics that have shaped our history.

Those are some of my observations. The above points might encapsulate feminist issues in a nutshell. However, I realize that stuff contained in nutshells can easily become abstractions. I write about women’s’ approach to art as a woman myself, and so the challenge for me, if I’m to be honest, must necessarily have less to do with identifying critical aspects of the women’s studies “discourse,” and more to do with getting outside the classroom to examine my own worldviews and assumptions, external to the theories as such. The challenge for me is to honestly assess my art. To find where I am located within the artistic statements I am making. I have to define the issues for myself. An author whom I love, Ngugi wa Thiongo, a West African writer and critic, sees this self-critical analysis as one step in the process of self-actualization. He calls it “decolonizing the mind.” As women and as artists, then, we must assess our place, not just within social constructs, but within the constructs of our own worldview, as a way to avoid internalizing stereotypes about us.

The impetus behind the discussion of Women’s art is the conflict and the tension that often exists for women who are only very recently emerging from anonymity as they begin to challenge the culture and themselves within that culture. We are told many things about who we are and how we should act. Women who engage in artistic expression are engaged in a conversation, so to speak, about these prescriptions. They either affirm or dismiss them, for themselves individually. The below quotation is from the novel, Mrs. Dalloway, by one of the most dynamic of women artists, Virginia Woolf. It just seems quite the fitting note on which to end this post.

"He thought her beautiful,

believed her impeccably wise;

dreamed of her, wrote poems to her,

which, ignoring the subject,

she corrected in red ink.”