Monday International Women's Day ( I started this yesterday and life intruded)

 Monday morning and I have nothing in my head. Pandemic nightmares continue to wake me and going back to sleep, I fall right back into them.   I try getting up for a bit, reading something- I am currently reading the Lydia Crow series and am enjoying it.  Nada.    I am hopeful for a future where I do not have these dreams.  Maybe when we can go places and do things, albeit masked and socially distanced, I will feel more like myself.  Maybe it's my vintage catching up with me.  We shall see.

It's International Women's Day and all around the world, achievements of women are being celebrated and highlighted.  Like Black History, Women's history is our nation's history and we have one day, or one month to celebrate it, then it reverts to old white men and their fairy tale achievements?  Winners write the history books, that's a facet and I often feel like this day is a patronizing pat on the head.  

I did not watch the Harry and Meghan interview last night, but if anyone is surprised at the attitude toward Meghan's ethnicity in the Royal Family, they have not been paying attention.  I am sure it will take a long time, maybe in William's reign, before race is not a prime factor- virginity was when Diana was chosen to be Charles' bride, as if purity in a woman was a primary factor in her bearing children who would be part of  The Firm.  I read somewhere that men want women tobe virgins so they have nothing to compare them to.  Probably so.  

As we celebrate Women's History Month, I think of the history of women in my own family, celebrate their struggle, their triumphs over grief.  While we look to those who lead, who achieved great things, we cannot forget those whose small contributions to the lives of those around them are as great in many ways that they themselves could never understand.   I think  of my great-grandmother, a nurse-midwife who raised her children mostly alone after her husband died.   I think of my grandmother, losing all three of her sons in a three month period, and raising her daughters, again mostly alone after my grandfather was killed in an accident.  Those women remain my role models, the strength of their resolve is my strength.  It is fine to tell stories of famous women of courage, but we must also share our stories of small acts of courage in the everyday.  We might not make a difference to the whole world, but we can change someone's whole world.