March | 2013 | SWaNK Evolution

What Could Be Worse Than Nails Digging Into A Chalk Board?

Hundreds of screaming and screeching kids in a schoolyard, that’s what!

And you thought the title of this article was a joke with a punchline that would follow, didn’t you? Well, this is serious. I don’t even have PMS right now and all I could think of was, “SOMEBODY PLEASE SHUT THEM UP NOW! GET ME OUT OF HERE!” Don’t get me wrong, I actually like kids in general, but when there are hundreds of them in a fenced-in area on a warm, sunny day and they have been cooped up in classrooms all morning and have then been released into the schoolyard for their recess break and you’re about fifteen feet away from them with nowhere else to escape to and they are all screaming and yelling and screeching at one another at the top of their lungs, then that is an exception.

I was at the laundromat today doing three loads of laundry. I love this establishment because it is clean, modern, efficient, calming and lovely. They play classical music in the background to add to the calm and the sound of the machines humming is almost Zen-like. When I do my laundry there I bring my laptop, so I can work and be productive while my clothes are gently spinning away and being refreshed. It’s like a day at the spa for both me and my clothes.

But today, it was HELL DAY at the laundro-spa because recess for the kiddies started just after I loaded up my three loads and little did I know that there was even a school right next door hidden behind the bushes. I couldn’t think straight and the quivers running up and down my spine were on hyper-mode, worse than they would be if someone were digging their nails into a chalk board. It felt like millions of fire ants were crawling rampantly all over my body. And after about 10 minutes, I almost lost my marbles. But, I forged through the pain and eventually recess ended and so did my agitation. My emotional agitation, that is, not the spinning and churning of my clothes.

The moral of the story? I’m not really sure. I think I just needed to vent! Thanks for listening.

A Long Way From Being Dragged By The Hair Into The Cave.

Today’s modern woman, and in particular SWaNKs, tend to be more educated than they were ten, twenty and most certainly a hundred years ago. The culture around women has evolved in ways unimaginable by the burly caveman who dragged his female counterpart by the hair into the cave for some procreating.

Even “Women’s Lib” is a term that sounds almost archaic now and feminism has taken on many other layers that go much deeper than women just having a voice in the home, workplace and in politics.

Independent, educated, career-minded women are blending in more and more as part of mainstream society, yet we really are not part of the majority. At least not yet. We walk around unnoticed in a sea of people out there in the world. At first glance one would not know whether a woman is single or whether she has children or not, unless her children are with her. However, even if she is seen with children one would not know if they were her children or not. It requires a bit of conversation to determine whether or not a woman is actually single and without children of her own. So, in that sense, we are seamlessly blending in with the “crowd”. We slither around mainstream society until people find us out by asking us those telling questions that eventually bring the truth out about our singleness and childlessness. There is nothing external that gives us away. We are all shapes and a sizes. We are all of different races, cultures and religious backgrounds. Nobody will ever know unless they ask.

But what happens when people do find out that we are single and have no kids especially when we are “older” women? What is swirling around in the heads of the curious. And curious they are. There is no doubt in my mind that questions arise in the minds of those who have been trained to believe that in order to live a full life one must get married and have children.

But, I must say that living in an urban environment like the San Francisco Bay Area, that there seems to be a lot more understanding of career-women, many of whom have chosen to be single, childfree and focused on their careers. I, for one, have enjoyed giving “birth” to so many other things that don’t require diaper changing and constant worry about how well it is doing in school, like creating my artwork, creating entrepreneurial ventures and producing a new event and even creating this seedling of a social movement. The process around creating something and nurturing something doesn’t necessarily have to include a uterus.

I am thankful that women have forged their way in industrialized societies over the centuries and look forward to the day when we can all truly be proud to be SWaNKs and confident that when others learn that we are single and without children that we are not being judged or silently criticized. My hope is that one day all lifestyles can be celebrated.