“More womens lib”

“More womens lib”

Monday October 8 2007 8:17 am
Communicated from my Higher Self

Annie had sent her story about getting a facial from Maria to Jan and Margot and to 5 friends from NYC. She sent it to all 5 friends from NYC at once so that none of them would feel obligated to read it. It was her way to take the pressure off them by addressing all 5 of them at same time.

She always sent her stories to Helen, Pat, and Joan but during the summer she has been adding Marilyn and Peggy, because she reconnected with them on email during the summer. They were both in women’s liberation with her back then.

Peggy was at the first meeting she went to, and then at some of the others. And then she lost sight of Peggy. She was surprised to find email from Peggy. Somehow she had gotten Annie’s email addy and added it to her email list of who she was sending stuff off to. They corresponded on email for a while. This was actually last year. And then the correspondence stopped.

When she got another email from Peggy this summer, because of being on that list, she sent Peggy the story she had just written, it was about her July 4th at the golf club, and to her surprise Peggy loved the story, and so they began to correspond a little again and Annie added Peggy to her list of 5 girls to send her stories to.

So you can imagine her huge surprise yesterday when she got Peggy’s response to her “facial with Maria” story. Peggy loved the story, but told Annie she had no idea she was Anne from women‘s liberation, until she got the forwarded email Annie had sent to Jackie giving all their emails and maiden names, so they could receive her Veteran Feminists newsletter.

Peggy said “I had no idea you were Anne, I thought you were annelove” (that is the name on Annie’s email) “I thought you were some admirer of what we had all done as WITCH and that is why you had contacted me.” WITCH was the name of the women’s liberation group Peggy had formed when she left the group Annie was in. And then she said how she remembered Anne as some “sharp-edged sharp-teeth, the way a ferret has sharp teeth.” I guess this lovey-dovey space cadet, which is how Peggy had been perceiving the annelove writing to her now is very different from the Anne she remembered.

Peggy not only sent her email to Annie, but she managed to figure out the email addys of the other 5 girls on her list and sent it to them too. Annie thought “they will have no idea who this is from. Peggy doesn’t use her name on her email, but instead pdg 5. And even if she used her name, only Helen knows her.” It seemed very odd to Annie that Peggy did not just write back to her, instead of sending her email to Annie and her 5 friends.

She had done this once before. I guess that was back when Peggy had no idea who Annie even was, she still thought Annie was a WITCH groupie. And I told Annie “next time send the story to Peggy separately.” But Annie forgot.

To make the email even more baffling, Peggy had gotten all the names mixed up of the people in her stories. She confused Teresa, Annie’s best friend back in New York City, with Ricky, the girl who drives her up the wall in the pool.

But the email was so warm and friendly and enthusiastic and kind, I told Annie there is nothing she can do, her friends will just have to accept getting totally mysterious email in their inbox. And she is not to say one word to Peggy about it. Just to remember next time to send stories to Peggy separately.

In fact Peggy had used very poor discretion at the beginning of their email correspondence this summer before she had sent Peggy stories. The email Annie had received from Peggy because she is on her list was where Peggy said she is so excited Kathie is coming to her house to meet with her. And how there had been a split way back when, and Kathie and Carol told Peggy “you are not allowed back in the group.”

That was the email Annie responded to. She said “Kathie and Carol were not the bosses of women’s liberation, they had no right to kick you out, and I for one would have opposed it, I had no idea it had taken place.”

And to Annie’s surprise, Peggy in her careless way had blithely forwarded that email to Kathie along with everyone on her list. “O great, now Kathie will hate my guts,” Annie thought.

She actually thought, where is Peggy’s mind, that she would forward an email where she said “Kathie had no right to do it, and she is on Peggy’s side not Kathie’s side on this issue,” to Kathie herself, and not even be aware that Kathie would perceive this as incendiary from Annie. Kathie and Annie are not on good terms anyway. This is just a nail in the coffin, it means they won’t be able to make it up.

But I told Annie, Peggy is a good lassie, and if she is aware that Peggy has problems in judgment, she just has to use her head much more carefully to work around it, but not to say one word to Peggy, because Peggy would feel bad.

Obviously for Peggy to tell Annie she remembers her as sharp-toothed person, is not a nice thing to say, and especially since it’s not true. They had no personal interaction of their own whatsoever. They were just in the same group together. And Annie thought Peggy was totally wonderful. It’s impossible that any contribution Annie made in the group back then would give that impression. So she must have heard it as gossip, someone reported things she said, which were not nice, and Peggy believed the reports.

I had Annie write back to Peggy that she was never a sharp-teethed ferret, she was just as sweet a kid then as she is now. Just that she was completely confused back then. She also wrote she guesses she wasn’t the only one so confused back then, because at half the meetings she was at, everyone (but her) voted to kick Shulie out of the group. And since Shulie was the great brilliant leader of women’s liberation, this was certainly a silly thing to want to do. And she always opposed it and succeeded in keeping Shulie in the group.

But after Shulie’s book came out, she got invited to very elite groups, groups which never invited Annie to be a member, and those groups did kick her out. And after it happened the last time, Shulie arrived back in Annie’s apt, said “they voted to kick me out.” And said “fine! if they think they can manage to have women’s liberation without me, be my guest! I will have nothing to do with women’s liberation ever again!” Which is exactly what she did. And Annie knew then, as she had known all along, that without Shulie the women’s liberation movement would fall apart. Which it promptly did. No one else had the talent for leadership Shulie did. Because they did not have her mind and understanding about how to create a movement for liberation.

As Annie correctly told Peggy in her email, Annie’s greatest contribution to women’s liberation was having the good sense to realize Shulie as a leader was crucial. Even if she had no good sense in any other area, and she certainly did not exercise good sense in her personal friendship with Shulie.

Shulie had a great deal to offer Annie in the friendship, as an example of a woman clearly determined to accomplish what she wanted to accomplish. At that time Shulie was a painter. And Annie had not had an artist friend before. She had no idea of an artist’s dedication, or to dedication to creativity, or expressing creativity.

But unfortunately back then, Annie was led by the nose by her ego. And of course, the ego cannot tolerate, or even understand, someone of Shulie’s dedication and passion. Shulie was a true friend. She said “your problem Anne is you don’t have a thing, you need a thing.” By which she meant some expression for her creativity, some purpose in life. And Annie was able to sidestep her ego and realize Shulie was saying something important and critical and new, that she needed to hear, and wanted to hear. But most of the time her ego got into the act and ruined the entire friendship for Annie.

She lost the friendship because of this. But all of the seeds of Shulie’s example and helpful hints took root. She sure gained a lot from that girl. Women’s liberation liberated her, and because of Shulie, she became an artist too, she became a writer.

Then Annie and Bill began living together, and her life moved in different direction, she and Shulie rarely saw each other. And she had no idea that Shulie had started to take heroin until Shulie wrote a book of short stories when Annie was in Tucson, and sent her a copy of the book, where Shulie wrote one of the stories about her heroin dealer friend.

And Annie realizes now that when she would show up at the Paradox, the summer she met Bill, and Shulie would be sitting there with a bowl of brown rice, reading a book, and not even talk when Annie sat down, it was cause Shulie was waiting for her connection. It turned out the people who worked in the kitchen in the Paradox were taking heroin.

Heroin is actually a very interesting underworld that Annie knows nothing about. She has never been able to discern it, and I don’t think she ever will. Everything about it is completely under her radar.