Get thee to a nunnery

St Theresa of Avila b.1515

Said of God: "If this is the way you treat your friends, it's no wonder you have so few!”  

St Theresa of Avila, b. 1515

Although work should have started over an hour ago, I'm not suffering guilt over lost time.

A woman has to rest, otherwise your skin goes to hell even faster: Rest, breath, drink decent coffee and expensive gin, eat breakfast whenever you feel like it ... and see how your skin improves.

The driver for this blog journey is camaraderie.

I have reached, and am living, the belief that single women of a certain age now have more potential, more freedom and more energy to individuate than most people of any age or gender at any other time in history.

Article: Women of a certain age, New York Times

This is an inversion of a very serious and almost universal social theme: That a woman who has no husband or children is, 'quite naturally', the least valuable member of a society.

Spitting in the face of the old hat
While history throws up a substantial cadre of women who spat in the face of those values, they have usually been carefully cagetorised as whores, witches, spinsters, childless crones or ... saints.
And I admit right now that some of these women are my heroes and I will come to them in greater length in the course of this blog, for their stories are remarkable and fascinating.

Oh, the shocked suprise of those who just discovered the sainted Emily Dickinson was in a torrid affair with her married publisher - who knew?

Or the insight that Elizabeth Ist stayed single so England's wealth could be "kept in the family". Had she followed through on any of her strategic engagements, some European cousin, probably still a Catholic, would end up ruling the roost that Henry had so carefully feathered. And of course a virgin she weren't.

Back in Cronesville

I won't bore you with facts or stats about how infrequently contemporary divorced women recover financial security. Or how many Indian women suicide on their husband's funeral pyre rather than become outcast, a servant in their in-laws' home, or be sent to a brothel. Or how in European history women who had no dowry finished up in nunneries, servants to the priests or the church.

The fact is some very interesting ideas have emerged from women in nunneries; St Theresa of Avila had some pretty astute things to say from her cloister.  And the history of women who have asserted their dignity, self-possession, values, ideas and deeds is deep and fascinating.

Thus and so, this blog wants to engage with people of all genders and persuasions who enjoy life as an individual who "picks and chooses the nature of their belonging". 

Women (and men) of A Certain Age have come of Age and the opportunity to live a self-actualised life has never been greater .

That said, I had better get some of the day's work done ...