I wish I had written this

The only way for a woman, as for a man, to find herself, to know herself as a person, is by creative work of her own.  There is no other way.  

..But when women as well as men emerge from biological living to realize their human selves, those leftover halves of life may become their years of greatest fulfillment.

Then the split in the image will be healed, and daughters will not face that humping-off point and twenty-one or forty-one.  When their mothers' fulfillment makes girls sure they want to be women, they will not have to "beat themselves down" to be feminine; they can stretch and stretch until their own efforts tell them who they are.  They will not need the regard of boy or man to feel alive.  And when women do not need to live through their husbands and children, men will not fear the love and strength of women, nor need another's weakness to prove their own masculinity.  They can finally see each other as they are.  And this may be the next step in human evolution.

Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves?  Who knows what women's intelligence will contribute when it can be nourished without denying love?  Who knows of the possibilities of love when men and women share not only children, home, and garden, not only the fulfillment of their biological roles, but the responsibilities and passions of the work that creates the human future and full human knowledge of who they are?  It has barely begun, the search of women for themselves.  

Betty Friedan

Just before I got the message from Pavel announcing the discussion forum, I had been taking one of those weird mid-afternoon naps, you know, the kind where you have to wake up in the middle of your REM cycle, and feel all strange and groggy afterwards? I was so tired. I needed to do it. My alarm went off in the middle of a dream about Ira, the first one I have had in awhile. After some weird college-orientation kind of program in which I climbed up a wall covered in italian dressing (I wish I were kidding, that's got to be the weirdest thing ever), I found Ira and we walked down the street together. I had an arm around her shoulders the whole time and she held my hand. She didn't tell me to stop thinking, but to stop worrying. And I wish I knew what that meant.

Anyway, I thought about how this past January I was home from GW for winter break and spending time at Open Eye. Ira was sitting at a table behind me on her computer and, she said, trying to sort out her life! I turned around and perched on my knees while we talked about her possible transfer to UNC and then she asked me questions about my own transfer from Emerson that fall. She let me ramble on for probably six minutes straight! I had learned so much! There was so much to say! Then, there was a pause. I nodded my head, with some sort of filler like, "yeah, so... that's that!" And after another second or so of thoughtful processing, she said, "Laura, you have really come into yourself. You just.. you really have." And the smile.

And all I could think after that was how it always felt that Ira could see through us. In the best way possible. I always thought that even though she didn't know me very well, she could somehow see the potential within everyone to be a really, really wonderful human being. She was forgiving. Having someone like that is like being challenged to become that potential person. She gave each of us so much respect in that way and I don't think she ever judged us for being who we are or not having grown up. I feel like she always knew what we would start becoming and gave us room to do it.

I wanted to speak in front of everyone in May but I realized after sorting through most of my lovely Ira moments - there are so, so many - they all relied too much on the word "me." They were all things that Ira did for me, said for me, or about me, or what made me feel better, and I wish I knew how to quantify it. Give it back to her.

Once in tenth grade, Ira told me to smile, I looked like strawberry shortcake. She held my hand. I don't know how she knew I needed that gesture. I don't know if she would remember, but it is just the sort of little tiny thing she did for everyone, those very small, gentle things that meant so much with so little effort. When I find myself turning inward and focusing on myself too much, selfishly, I think of the one person I knew who seemed to give more to other people than to reserve to herself. Even her poetry, so beautiful and maybe therapeutic, isn't self-serving, but a gift to us. I know every facebook post or whatever mentions the minute things Ira would do or say or accidentally imply, but it's because these subtle motions are the ones that really embodied what I only hope we can all carry with us, emulate, and pay forward to the rest of the world.