Thursday, April 03, 2008

Poem: Recess

Recess

"Go play."
Girls, giggly and rude, pink and mean.
I stand in the corner and watch.
I am dressed wrong.
They are in jeans and tennis shoes (spotless white)
and pretty ironed blouses.
I wear a dress and brown loafers.
And on the days they wear dresses, I am wearing jeans.
My eyes follow their giggling, roving circles.
They play jacks, jump rope, tether ball,
sometimes they just whisper to each other
pointing to the boys, or to me.
I stand on the edge of the playground, watching.
My mind floats away, and I dream
of fairies and witches,
super heroes and maidens saved by strong
blond men on white horses.


*****
This is one of the poems in which I mention 'pink'. Before my girls got to be 2-ish I had VERY strong negative feelings towards the color pink. Pink seemed to represent all these negative things about being girly- giggly, manipulative, snobby.
The girls both love pink and their love has slowly changed my feelings and opinion. But I also think being married has changed some of my negative feelings about femininity. It wasn't that I didn't want to be a girl. I wanted to be a woman- and not a girly one.

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