stories

women's work

women's work

Wednesday morning, mere hours after the presidential election was decided, in the calm, quiet of my baby’s room, as I nursed him back to sleep, I wept silently. I wept for the loss of a dream, I wept for the nation, and I wept for my daughters. I faced for perhaps the first time in my life, the fact that for some, women’s rights are not human rights. I started to think about “women’s work.”

indelible

indelible

The teacup drops from my hand unprovoked. It simply falls to the tearoom’s wooden floor and wobble-rolls under my chair.  The cup is empty; there’s no splash or mess, only the noise of the cup’s landing that may have been a firework for the look the woman across the room gives me. Cocooned on the couch, the woman pulls the plush white robe she must have brought from home closer around her neck and returns to her journal.