It’s been so snowy lately. We’ve had a mild winter thus far, but just like that, it feels we could be back in 2015 with storm upon storm making parking a nightmare on the streets of Boston, closing work and schools (and now, importantly, daycare). David and I spent a snow day home together with Charlotte, then bundled up and went out to play.
Here’s what I’m eating and reading this week:
Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me
After reading the first essay in this book (the one that led to the development of the term “mansplaining”), I couldn’t believe I hadn’t read Solnit’s work before. But it seems like it was just a matter of time, as her writing is fabulous and her points are by turns electrifying, soothing, and stern. A friend had recommended I read this article just a few days after I picked up this book, so one way or another, Rebecca and I were bound to be introduced. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book:
From Men Explain Things to Me: “Every woman knows what I’m talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence… There’s a happy medium between these poles to which the genders have been pushed, a warm equatorial belt of give and take where we should all meet.”
“Credibility is a basic survival tool.”
From the essay The Longest War: “Women’s liberation has often been portrayed as a movement intent on encroaching upon or taking power and privilege away from men, as though in some dismal zero-sum game, only one gender at a time could be free and powerful. But we are free together or we are slaves together.”
From the essay Worlds Collide in a Luxury Suite: “His name was privilege, but hers was possibility. His was the same old story, but hers was a new one about the possibility of changing a story that remains unfinished, that includes all of us, that matters so much, that we will watch but also make and tell in the weeks, months, years, decades to come.”
From the essay Grandmother Spider: “Every woman who appears wrestles with the forces that would have her disappear. She struggles with the forces that would tell her story for her, or write her out of the story, the genealogy, the rights of man, the rule of law. The ability to tell your own story, in words or images, is already a victory, already a revolt.”
From the essay Cassandra Among the Creeps: “To tell a story and have it and the teller recognized and respected is still one of the best methods we have of overcoming trauma.”
Here’s what I made for dinner this week (in case you need inspiration):
Sunday: Korean-style pork & rice
Monday: Leftovers
Tuesday: Steak, mashed potatoes, and Brussels sprouts with an almond-flour raspberry cake for dessert (a homemade Valentine’s day celebration)
Wednesday: Pot roast, mashed potatoes, roasted carrots and parsnips
Thursday: Kale and sausage lasagna
Friday: Leftovers
