I'm back

I haven't written much on my blog this month. There are a few reasons for this.

1. Baby Z is not sleeping so much during the day. Not as much time to write.
2. AJ's parents were here for a week. We kept busy with them. And we went on vacation over Memorial Day weekend so we kept busy getting ready to go, and then traveling and vacationing.
3. Just not as inspired. This is probably the main one. There have been a few times where I've sat down to try and write something, but nothing good has come out. I have a few books I've read that I need to write about, but I just haven't wanted to. I've been thinking about this a little bit. I've been in a bit of a funk lately. Not much, just not feeling very mentally energized, kind of low mentally.

The month didn't start off very well. Although I've mentioned it a couple of times, I haven't written about this amazing book I read a month or so ago: Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. I'm going to get around to doing this. Because it was such a wonderful book. I loved it. I was inspired by it. I read Virginia Woolf because of her, and I ordered The City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan to read. I felt so empowered by the woman Ulrich describes. I identified with them. I felt lucky to connect with them. I embraced my gender more fully by reading about them.

Then, I went to book group to discuss it. The discussion was just so flat. When no one had much to say to the first question I asked--"Which stories about women did you really like?"--I should have foreseen the end from the beginning that night. No one liked it as much as I did. No one had much to say about it. (And no one there has ever wished they were a boy before--a theme that comes up with the three main women that Ulrich discusses. Once again, I feel like a freak!)

I suppose there are a few rational reasons for the discussion: who was there and who wasn't there, how much they had read, etc. But, I had given this book and this book discussion such high expectations that it was hard not to feel disappointed. The one person who did have quite a lot to say commented that the book was too academic for her taste, too many words she didn't know the meanings of. I didn't think it would be too academic. But, maybe everyone disagreed with that.

And another side comment by this same person that made me take pause. We were talking about telling and recording our stories, as women, and someone made the comment that in our ward the women there have a lot of stories. And I said something about how I haven't been privy much to women's retelling of their own stories. This person's explanation for that was that I am intimidating. That when women sit next to me, they are intimidated because I am "so smart, so intellectual" and that that hinders them from talking to me. Really? Is that how I am really perceived? My explanation of this phenomena had more to do with my personality, my personal reserve. But, her idea has been niggling at me all month and I wonder if she's right.

It reminds me of when I was in the MTC and were were having some kind of district relationship building exercise and we had to say what strengths other members of the district had. The ones that they came up with for me were things like: always know the background to the scripture references, knows the scriptures really well. I remember being somewhat upset. I didn't just want to be brainy and intellectual. Why not something about kindness? Or a listening ear? Or testimony? And it also reminded me of when we moved to Montana when I was in sixth grade and I refused to go to the gifted class because I just wanted to be smart, but I didn't want to be only known as that smart girl.

Anyway, I left that evening feeling a little blue. And wondering if I will ever really love my ward. To make it worse, AJ didn't ask me one question about the night. How it had gone, what we had discussed. Usually, I tell him all about it. But, it was a crazy week: a major restructuring at work and his parents here. And we just never had the conversation so I haven't been able to openly process the experience.

I feel fine now. My mind is popping with ideas about what I want to write about. But, I do miss having a regular forum with lots of really smart women to discuss crazy, practical, heretical, and all sorts of ideas.