If anywhere in the vicinity, please spread the word!

ASU Women of the World lecture features authors and activists Oct. 13 (that’s TODAY)

“Changing the World: Feminism in Action Generation to Generation” with panelists Gloria Feldt, Maria Teresa Kumar, Courtney Martin and Brittany Collins

The WomenGirlsLadies intergenerational panel brings a fresh conversation among diverse feminist authors and activists to this annual event. Free and open to the public.

Where: Memorial Union, Arizona Ballroom, #221
Arizona State University, Tempe AZ
When: Tuesday, Oct. 13, 7:00 p.m.

(I miss you, WGLs!)

Just a quick shout out to a number of authors with FANTABULOUS feminist books out this fall.  Congrats, admiration, and heartfelt kudos to:

1. GWP’s very own Elline Lipkin, who penned Girls’ Studies, hot off the presses from Seal; it’s the latest in the Seal Studies series (which includes Shira Tarrant’s most excellent Men and Feminism of course too!) and gets the thumbs up from Peggy Orenstein who says “If I were to recommend one book to students of the field, Girls Studies would be it.”

2. Demos Distinguished Senior Fellow Linda Tarr-Whelan, whose book Women Lead the Way: Your Guide to Stepping Up to Leadership and Changing the World offers practical steps for women to bring their passions, brains, and background to the power tables and make life better for themselves, their companies/organizations, and the world.  We’ve still got a ways to go.

3. Clarie Mysko, formerly of Girls Inc, whose book Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat?: The Essential Guide to Loving Your Body Before and After Baby and whose body activism could not have come at a better time for this soon-to-be mama over here.

4. Jacquette Timmons, a compadre of mine from Woodhull, whose inaugural book Financial Intimacy: How to Create a Healthy Relationship with Your Money and Your Mate smartly addresses the financial issues that couples face, examining how family background, personal choices, and socioeconomic and cultural influences affect the way women merge love and money.

…and lastly, a book long-awaited, the publication of which is now poignantly bittersweet…

5. Nona Willis-Aronowitz and the late (and much missed) Emma Bee Bernstein, whose Girldrive: Criss-Crossing America, Redefining Feminism. It’s a road trip, a blog, a book, and, quite frankly, an inspiration. You can join the community by visiting: http://www.girl-drive.com/community/.  Watch the trailer here.

I hope you’ll join me in supporting these amazing writers by buying, reading, and spreading word about their new and important work!

One of the things I like most about blogging is that your subject can change as you do. This summer I’ve been blogging pregnancy, and now, with just a few weeks more to go, and to keep up with the changes going on here at GWP, I’m changing the theme to (drum roll) Mama w/Pen. From here on in, keep an eye out for monthly contributions from me on the topic of emergent motherhood, feminist and otherwise, on the first Monday of each month.

And speaking of becoming a mama, I just put an “away” message on my email, in preparation for The Big Event. In the meantime, you’ve not heard much from me this past month because I’ve been either in the hospital or on bedrest, spending much of my time lying on my side (best for babies’ circulation for some reason)—all of which makes it rather difficult to type on anything but an iPhone.

What started as a very cutting edge pregnancy—all those high-tech fertility interventions!—has ended up an anachronism. I now understand, in a very personal way, why pregnancy was once called “confinement,” or “lying in.” Hospitalized for early contractions at 30 weeks, I’ve spent the past 3.5 flat on my side, holed up with Marco, Tula (pictured here), my parents for a little while, and the occasional intrepid visitor from Manhattan and beyond. While Tula thinks bedrest is the cat’s meow, for me, it hasn’t been easy. Never in my life have I felt so limited by my body. I’m a a 21st century woman on a 19th century cure.

There are days when I think, “I can’t believe women, everyday, everywhere, go through this kind of thing, have gone through this, from the beginning of time.” Intelligent design? I think not. There are days when I’m in awe of my sisters who bear pregnancy gracefully, stoically, and without complication. Granted, some pregnancies are easier than others. For me, all attempts at grace and stoicism went out the window with those early contractions, which seem to only intensify as the weeks go by. My knees buckle from the weight of me. I have dark, dark circles under my eyes.

But I’m trying not to complain. Or rather, at least not in public, not out loud. I still can’t believe the technology worked. I’m still in awe that at ages 40 and 48, we’re lucky enough to become first time parents, and that we’re having not just one but two.

So rather than kvetch, which I confess is indeed my inclination right now, I’m trying instead to embrace the absurdity of it all while I bide my time and courageously hope not to give birth for a few weeks more—even though I’m more than ready to be done. Though it’s become increasingly hard to breath, there have been moments of buckling laughter. Like the night Marco wheeled me in a wheelchair with no leg support to the church down the block where Kol Nidre services were being held. Like the other day, when Marco walked me over to stand in front of the full-length mirror. “See? You’re still hot,” he said. “In a funhouse mirror kind of way.”

Funhouse aside, I feel like a character from a Margaret Atwood novel—an incubator and not much else. “Having children is sacrifice,” says Shari, one of the kind nurses I see regularly when I go to the hospital for my twice weekly monitoring appointments to check on the status of my contractions and the babies’ heart rates. “It starts right here, right now.” But what about the incubator? I want to ask, incredulous that becoming a mother has to involve such prolonged discomfort and pain. Instead, I hold my tongue, think of my roommate during my stay at the hospital, who gave birth to twin boys at 26 weeks, and feel immensely grateful to be here, with babies still inside me, at week 34.

Writers these days–especially those of us writing for progressive outlets for little pay–need multiple revenue streams. Here’s a little plug for a 1-hour webinar being offered through SheWrites by the very woman who taught me everything I know about being a writing coach/consultant myself, the one and only Shari Cohen:

Become a Writing Coach/Consultant

The first in a series on recession-proofing your career as a writer, this webinar will help you navigate the future as a writer in these economically uncertain times. Perhaps you are already trying to make the transition from staff writer or freelancer to something that offers you more financial security, and wondering how you can expand your impact and your financial security at the same time. How can you continue to do the work you love in a new environment, one in which so many of the rules have changed? In this workshop you’ll begin to learn tools and tricks for developing yourself as a writing coach and consultant. This webinar will include some self-assessment to discover your niche, and reframing and expanding your own thinking and professional identity as you serve more and different clients. Subsequent webinars in this series will focus on the business side, market testing to discover the needs of your prospective clients, and practical tools for working as a writing coach.

To register, click here

What exactly is writing coaching you ask?  For a Q&A with Shari, click here.

Blogger and career guru (and newly married friend!) Marci Alboher just posted about my Recessionwire column, Love in the Time of Layoff, over at Yahoo’s Shine.  Her piece is titled “When Your Man or Woman Gets Laid Off.” Writes Marci (and oh how I heart her for so many reasons):

The column is so readable because it talks stuff few people are talking about. Like what happens to a heterosexual relationship when a woman suddenly becomes the sole breadwinner, what happens when someone who’s used to office culture suddenly gets used to the rhythms of home life, how two people (one of whom is pregnant with twins) can avoid driving each other batty when suddenly confined to a 650 square foot apartment.

Like any good serial narrative, Love in the Time of Layoffs had a major plot twist this month: Marco is back to work, albeit in a freelance gig. Questions abound for interested readers. Will he keep the job? Will the couple inch back into their former patterns again? What will happen once the babies arrive …..?

Good question.  Time (like, gulp, hopefully 4 more weeks) shall tell….!

A quick note about why it’s been so quiet over here this past week: We’ve been under construction…and I’ve been, um, on bedrest with early contractions but so far doing ok.  Please bear with us!  A host of new columns and new bloggers are coming SOON.  Here’s a sneak peak at just some of the brand new monthly columns coming down the pike:

Gender Specs (Leslie Heywood, Editor): the latest on gender analysis in evolutionary psychology and other sciences

Bedside Manners (Adina Nack, Editor): applying the sociological imagination to medical topics, with a special focus on sexual and reproductive health

Body Language (Alison Piepmeier, Editor): Because control of our bodies is central to feminism. (“It is very little to me to have the right to vote, to own property, etc., if I may not keep my body, and its uses, in my absolute right.” –Lucy Stone, 1855)

Global Mama (Heather Hewett, Editor: myths and realities of motherhood and family life in a globalized world

Mama w/Pen (Deborah Siegel, Editor): reflections on emergent motherhood, feminist and otherwise

Stay tuned!!

PEACE.
It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.

In spite of myself (or maybe because of myself, as Marco might say) I’ve somehow made it to the cusp: the third trimester. The home stretch. Music to my ears. I can’t imagine how it’s possible that my body itself will stretch further to make room for these growing babes—2.10 lbs each as this trimester begins, as good as singletons at this stage, huzzah! But I have confidence my body will still expand, even if it continues to choke me out along the way.

Just as I believe my body will continue do its bizarre miraculous thing in spite of what I think or say or do (pu pu pu), I’m slowly starting to have confidence that my intractable mind will stretch to incorporate motherhood, too. I still need some convincing on this front, but things are looking up.

As usual, it’s friends, parents, and spouse who are helping me believe. The other weekend, Daphne, her mother-in-law, my mom, and Marco helped shovel out boxes from the storage room—I mean, babies’ room—to clear space for two new beings. Once I could see the floor in there, I immediately started fantasizing about a rug. A sickeningly sweet baby-style area rug with clouds and moons and stars. “Of all things the babies will need, you’re fixated on a rug?” asks my wonderfully practical friend Rebecca from California. Indeed, I am. It’s the first bit of gear I’ve been able to get excited about, now that I believe these babies are going to be real. This weekend, I picked one out. I ordered it. No small victory here.

The rug makes it real. The fact that at 7.5 months with twins I look ready to pop makes it real. During trimesters 1 and 2, I grew reluctantly accustomed to a sense of the surreal, the unreal, the insane. It’s not a comfortable state of being; I’ve resisted it every step of the way. The reality—two babies growing limbs and organs and fingernails inside me—has been too much to fathom, leaving me barfing with vertigo, body and soul. Working at a start-up this whole time has been a terrific distraction, and while frenetic, in many ways its timing couldn’t have been better. It’s given my mind something all-encompassing to do.

But now it’s time to start putting my feet on the ground, feel the rug beneath me, find a way to steady my head long enough to find a pediatrician and buy a crib.

The rug. The crib. The changing table. The trappings of two babyhoods that have not yet arrived are symbolic, and yet they are more. They are signs of my belief, material affirmations of the unbelievable coming true. Today, Daphne gave me two pairs of booties (pictured above). The babies have hiccups. I believe they are going to make it to reality. And I believe their mother just might too.

(Gratitude to Sarah Saffian for sending me the epigraph to this post.)

Catblogging, because I couldn’t resist: Here’s Tula, settling into her favorite nook in our new home… (And props to Virginia for the coining of Tula’s new nickname.)

This here post comes straight from dear friend of GWP and mine, and fellow writer, Daphne Uviller — who I’ve been writing about of late, here and here! –Deborah

I visited Debbie the other day to try to help her nest a bit, and she gave me two books, one of which was Ayelet Waldman’s Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace, which she said was a little too much for her (meaning Debbie) at this point.  I agree — it’s not a book that should be read while pregnant, but later, while struggling with what it means to be a good mother or even, as I often do, how to get back to even wanting to be a good mother.

I read the whole book in one sitting and while I disliked a few parts, I admire Waldman for her honesty — I consider myself a very honest writer, but she goes where I hadn’t dared — and her talent and her insight.

Here’s what I took away from it:

1) Men MUST be equal partners, not just pay lip service. Okay, that’s old news, but never bad to be reminded.
2) Men do not worry about being good or bad fathers, they just are what they are. We should follow their example. This is wrapped up in the whole idea of observing, of living in the moment rather than judging and worrying. More old news, but still, good to hear.
3) I’m glad I don’t live in Berkeley.
4) I kind of wished I lived in Berkeley.
5) Part-time work that you love is the answer to the work/life balance conundrum. (She doesn’t state this explicitly, but confirms what I already figured out.  We writers, money permitting, have it made.)
6) I think I’d like to try going on Celexa.

And the chapter on her abortion between her second and third child (she has four) made me weep. It is powerful, powerful stuff.

-Daphne Uviller

For Grandma Marge (may her memory be for a blessing)

Ok, it’s time for me to admit it: I’m getting scared. In less than 10 weeks (knock wood, pu pu pu – sorry can’t help it), my body will somehow, with whatever degree of medical intervention, bear forth two new beings whose well-being will henceforth depend, in very large part, on me. I confess to my husband, my closest friends, and my mother than I’m getting nervous. They offer comfort, try to allay my fears:

“Of course you’re scared. It’s scary.” –Daphne (mother of two)

“You’re focused on the first few weeks. I was too. But three months in, everything changes, and you don’t even remember that blur.” – Rebecca (mother of two)

“Too late now!” – Mom (mother of me)

Gee thanks, Mom.

Again, I must qualify. I feel blessed beyond belief at the bounty of having conceived not just one but two babies, twenty-first century techno style. I marvel at the way things have gone so far. In spite of bouts of stress (a layoff, a move, the start of a new company), these babies have grown the requisite parts. They’ve passed all their tests, independent of the fact that their maternal host has sometimes felt like a chicken without a head. They are of me, but they are not me—a lifelong lesson I’m sure, something they are already teaching me, something I am not yet wholly convinced of but want and need to believe.

My father, a psychiatrist, gets wind that I’m having a minor, belated freak out. He calls from the road 700 miles away to remind me I’m not alone. “It takes a village, Deb, and a village you will have.”

And he’s right. When the babies arrive, my mother will come for a month, and my father will join her when he can. Rebecca will come for a week or so, all the way from California. The twins I grew up with, Molly and Busy, will each come from Chicago for a few days. Courtney will be across the park. Daphne will be nearby, as will myriad others. And then, of course, there’s Marco, my sweet attentive artistic Marco (author of the “2” on my belly in the above photo), who can’t wait to hang our twins’ art on the walls and take them to see Star Wars and play them Superman’s theme. We just don’t know yet, given his new position, the extent to which he will be able to be at home, in the beginning, with me.

But come what may, I will not be alone. It’s my new mantra, and I’m trying to buy it. It’s just that my experience of pregnancy, this experience of being so embodied, has been oddly isolating. I’m a social person who stops pregnant women on the street and cries “solidarity!”, and yet there have been many times when I’ve felt alone, as in existentially, in my discomfort and angst. Locked in, with no escape. I’ve tried hard not to crawl too far into that dark hole—I have a small history of depression—and I’ve been successful at keeping healthy and busy. But every so often, that feeling of aloneless (is it just a fear?) creeps in.

A village you will have.

And I will.  The last village elder, however, is gone, and I’ve been missing her a lot of late.  My Grandma Marge passed away a year ago today. Grandma was a certified nurse—head of the department in her day—and used to bring great comfort whenever I was sick. Pregnancy is not illness, and yet its symptoms have been physically challenging, reminiscent of times I’ve felt ill. Grandma Marge made it our wedding last year, but she died before the technology worked its magic. How she would kvelled and basked in our news, enabled by money that I, her only grandchild, inherited from her. And how I would have loved to have shared the blessing of these babies with her.

If I can write it, maybe I can will it: these are our babies. They are not mine alone. I will be their mommy. But they will have a daddy, and grandparents, and aunts and uncles and cousins and friends, and if I believed, departed great-grandparents watching over them from somewhere. (On top of it all, I recently joined the notorious Park Slope Parents listserv. Never again will I worry about anything child-related alone!)

I am not alone, I am not alone, and yet…I am. It’s my body that’s primarily responsible, and that seems both a miraculous blessing and a bit of a curse. In spite of my feminism, I’ve internalized wholesale the cultural mandate that the buck stops with Mom. Because let’s face it, in reality, so often it does. How desperately, already, I find myself wanting to rewrite that script. But is it feminism, or existentialism, that I’m grappling with here? I’d love your thoughts.