I am a woman

I wrote this poem a few months ago. Scroll through the images below if you haven't read it yet. Like most of my poetry it just poured out of me. Until I started sharing my words through these blog posts, my poems were never really intended for an audience. However, as I cultivate this deeper understanding of myself as an artist and the purpose of my art, I'm realizing that all these different forms of art that I partake in play a role.

We are living in such a polarized world that it's often hard to voice your thoughts, feelings or experiences for fear of backlash. How do we come back to center? If we look at the hot topics that have our society so divided with an open mind, more often than not, we can find truth to both sides. Can two things be true at the same time? I believe so.

For example, we all have feminine and masculine energy within us to varying degrees expressed in a number of ways. Gender is a social construct - "meaning the characteristics associated with being male or female are primarily defined by social norms - learned behavior." AND There is an undebatable difference between being male or female.

Why all the confusion? Where do we draw the line? Who cares? I could keep my opinions to myself and go on with my life, most people would. It's safer that way. If I did that, who would speak up for this little girl? For all the little girls just like her growing up, not in the 90's, but in 2025. In a world of information and misinformation OVERLOAD. Aunt Suz can't be silent on this one, not anymore.

Before we unpack this amazing picture of me as a kid, let's be very clear. I own a painting business, I do construction and dabble in other trades. I trash gender norms and to some degree always have. Not because I have some deep feminist desire to prove I can. Simply because I love working with my hands AND because I grew up in the 90's in a family that for the most part let me be me without pushing gender norms.

Suz circa 1995 hated being a girl, mostly because she hated girly things - the color pink, anything lace and most definitely that rosette at the top of my shirt. She hung with the boys, she loved climbing trees, and basketball was her favorite sport. (Jokes on her 4' 11") She rocked the look of the flower child resurgence and could be caught doodling "girl power" in her trapper keeper, but she was a tomboy through and through. Such a great phase. That hair - 1996 it became more of a bowl cut!!

I can't imagine how my younger self would navigate the climate of today's world. Puberty is confusing for most children especially as our bodies change. That is normal. Yet, somehow it has also become normal to allow our children to believe they may have been born into the wrong body. I thank god that possibility wasn't presented to me as an option back then. It took me years to grow into my womanhood and as an adult I am still learning to fully love my body. Everyone should practice self love and honor the sanctity of our physical being.

This poem is for all the girls and women of the world who feel torn between two truths. I hope you find your center so you can help the world do the same.

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ONE more thing:

Fun fact: in 1987 (the year I was born) the U.S. designated March as Women's History Month. I had no idea this was a thing, until I started working on the "Women's in the Arts" luncheon at the Hammonton Art Center. As the gender lines get fuzzier and fuzzier who are we celebrating?