Random thoughts from a nasty woman facing a long winter …

One of my favorite political memes is “Nevertheless, she persisted,” said by Mitch McConnell to Elizabeth Warren back in February of 2017. She refused to be silenced while reading a letter into the Senate record written by Coretta Scott King opposing Jeff Sessions for a federal judgeship in back in 1986. McConnell made this infamous remark and Warren was then gaveled down by Senator Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and told to take her seat.

McConnell actually said, “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” He may have momentarily silenced Warren, but many women saw this effort by a powerful man to keep a woman from speaking her mind as emblematic of the larger problem in our country. Women’s voices have not been not heard.

As a girl growing up in the fifties and early sixties, I got this message loud and clear. Don’t raise your hand too much in school. Boys don’t like smart girls. Keep your ideas to yourself. You’re just a girl. Be a good girl. Follow your parents’ rules and obey them. The ultimate painful label was “You’re a real Sarah Bernhardt.” My parents believed emotional outbursts were unacceptable for a girl.  I was to keep the drama to a minimum and comply with whatever was expected of me. Any strong opinion that contradicted my parents would result in the dreaded label.

During my childhood and adolescence, I didn’t see many female role models in positions of leadership. In 1951, there were eleven women in Congress, including the first senator, Margaret Chase Smith. Even as a college student in the sixties, leaders of protests and teach-ins were almost exclusively male. By 1966, the number of women in Congress was up to thirteen, with two female senators.

Because I chose a career in teaching, a predominately female profession, I started to hear female voices come forward. And yet, for too many women, the experience of Kamala Harris in the vice-presidential debate was typical. Pence felt that, as man confronted by a female opponent and female moderator, he could just interrupt Harris and talk over Susan Page’s reminders that his time was up and he should stop talking. When Harris said,

“I’m speaking. Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking,” every woman in America knew exactly what she meant.

Thus, as I culled through my pin collection for this prompt “Badges, Buttons, and Pins,” the one from the 2018 Women’s March stood out from the rest. “No, We Won’t be Quiet.” Women voters have found their voice. We have power that I didn’t experience growing up. We can speak up, persist, and even tell men to be quiet because we are speaking. In 2018, women made up 53% of the electorate. Yes, there are more of us. And if the 2018 midterms were a preview of coming attractions (117 women were elected to Congress), we will elect even more of us to represent us, to persist, and to speak our truth.

When Trump refused to denounce QAnon during his NBC town hall on October 15, and also claimed no responsibility for retweeting a crazy conspiracy theory about former president Barack Obama, Biden and Navy SEALs by saying,

“I know nothing about it. That was a retweet. That was an opinion from somebody. I’ll put it out there — people can decide,”

Host Savannah Guthrie responded,

“I don’t get that. You’re the president. You’re not like someone’s crazy uncle.”

You go girl. You didn’t let Trump shout you down. The pandemic prevented him from hulking over you the way he did with Hillary Clinton during the 2016 debates. The best way to handle this bully is to say loudly and clearly, “No, we won’t be quiet.” This suburban woman is speaking … and voting.

I invite you to read my book Terribly Strange and Wonderfully Real and join my Facebook community.

Judy’s Last Gift 

It’s not hyperbole to say my friend Judy was the most thoughtful and giving person I’ve ever known.  Rather than randomly kind,  Judy was always kind.

I met her a few months after I started dating my husband Danny.   He and I had driven from New York to Boston to spend New Year’s Eve 1967 with Danny’s  college roommate Kenny and his wife Judy.   I liked them both immediately,  but over the following many years geography kept us apart.   Although Kenny and Danny spoke often and had their college friendship to build on,   Judy and I saw each other too seldom to form a really close bond.

But Judy’s thoughtfulness was evident every time we were together.   I remember once when we were visiting she had baked a batch of delicious chocolate chip cookies.   Speaking to her on the phone a short time later I asked for the recipe.  “I’ll send it to you.”  she said.

A few days later a package arrived with a copy of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and a note from Judy that read,   “See page 711 for the cookie recipe.” 

Then in 2009 something wonderful happened –  Judy and Kenny called to tell us they’d just bid on an apartment near Lincoln Center,  and planned to spend many weeks a year in New York.   And they asked us to write a character reference for the coop board.

We wrote a glowing letter of course,  although in the name of friendship we perjured ourselves by an act of omission.   We didn’t tell that Manhattan coop board that Kenny was an insufferable Red Sox fan.

They got the apartment,  surely thanks to our great letter,  and during those Manhattan years we saw them whenever they were in town.   Judy and I finally had the chance to really become friends and over a private joke we shared we started calling each other Ducky.

Then after a few more years they decided to spend more time in San Francisco where Judy had family.  They had to work up the nerve over dinner to tell us they were selling the New York apartment afraid we’d be upset … and we were!

But thinking about Judy and her special grace,   I remember something that happened many years ago when Danny and I were in Boston for the Bar Mitzvah of our friend Joel’s son Jonah.   We were staying with Judy and Kenny for the weekend,   and in fact that may have been the time we got into bed to find their dog had hidden his scratchy rawhide bone between the sheets!

On Saturday morning we went to the synagogue and I sat next to Judy.   I was watching Jonah on the bimah,  and as the service grew to a close I heard the familiar words of Kaddish,  the Jewish prayer for the dead.   My mother had died a few months before,  and hearing Kaddish I started to cry.   I closed my eyes trying to hold back my tears and muffle my sobs when I felt Judy’s arms around me.

”I’ll hold you,“ she whispered,  “let yourself cry.”  That was Judy.

Then one day we got the devastating news that Judy’d been diagnosed with cancer and would undergo chemo in Boston.   We started sending her New York treats every time she had an infusion – cheese cakes,  lox and bagels,  once even a salami.  And I also started sending her pictures of ducks,  giving them funny names to make her laugh.   She especially liked the one with the little bandanas I called the Willie Nelson Ducks.

Sadly,  Judy died three years after her diagnosis, and I still think of her often.   And among her many charms I remember her wonderful artistic sensibility,  and the unusual gifts she always chose.   In fact the last gift Judy gave me was a beautiful hand-painted wind chime crafted from a wine bottle.   A cooper disk hung inside designed to hit the glass when it swayed in the breeze.

But it was so lovely and looked so fragile that I decided to keep it indoors instead.   I put it on our bookshelf,  and as I realize now,  without looking at it very closely.

Recently on an impulse I decided to hang it out-of-doors where it really belonged.   I took it off the shelf,  and holding it in my hand my heart stopped.

I noticed something I hadn’t seen before.   Painted on one side of the bottle – the side that had faced the wall all those months – was the image of a black cat.   Judy knew how much we had loved our beautiful black pussycat Smokey.

Ah Ducky,  my kind and generous friend,  you never stop giving,  do you?

– Dana Susan Lehrman