Think8 Women

Héléne’s intense brown eyes searched each face of the women sitting in my living room, now themselves wrestling with her question, “… Tell me– where are the mothers and fathers, and the nations, who are able to recognize and encourage the child who is a visionary?”

No one spoke, each grappling with this startling question in silence.

I turned to another friend — what was her question of the night? It was, “What is the one thing you learned about yourself this year?”

She laughed because almost everyone had given her the same answer—“I am stronger than I thought I was and I need to trust myself.”

Ahhh… women. Aren’t they wonderful?

And when you bring eighteen women together you get absolutely wonderful!

This was my first ‘Friend’s of Nancy’ evening… inviting women I have done Think8 with and other friends.

One by one the women arrived.

One flew in from Toronto. One came by bike. Each braving torrents of rain then hurdling the construction site that is now our front walk before shaking off wet raincoats to a warm welcome.

It was a magical.  Eighteen women (most of whom had never met each other) didn’t stop talking and laughing. Everyone fully engaged.

So rich was this smorgasbord of conversations that each could have made a full meal.

And then there were the gifts the women brought and freely shared:  the gift of laughter; the gift of listening; one capturing these moments with her camera.

One awed us with music – my daughter Kath from LA  sang for us — her voice so lush and rich that you didn’t know where this incredible sound was coming from, vibrating your cells, your sternum, your heart.

When we finally gathered in the living room to sample the evening’s gleanings, they were provocative, funny, and insightful.

As I watched and listened to the women, I was struck again and again with how wonderful it is to be a woman, and to be with women.

I love how women willingly rip down facades so they can be seen. Vulnerability. Spiced with large shakes of self-deprecating humor.

I love how women choose to be wholly present. Eager intensity. No passive half-listening.

I love how women talk.

I describe women’s conversations as spirals.  Each turn containing six or seven different topics– as it curls down, we jump from topic to topic, complete with asides.

But we never get lost. We follow each other in perfectly sync in smart, weighty conversations.

I love that our conversations are less about what we do professionally and more about who we are personally.

I love the courage of women.

That evening, fragile elements that women juggle with strength and grace were freely acknowledged…  losing a job, a mother in hospital, a brother dying of cancer, separation, project rejection letters… yet not one woman was swathed in ‘poor me’ robes.

Courage is an essential food group that women cultivate in bumper crops to share with anyone in need.

If asked the one thing I have learned this year… I too would answer that I am stronger than I think, and that I too need to trust myself– completely.

And I have learned this year, as I learn every year, that I have wonderful, wonderful friends.

 

Nancy