The Mettle of Women

Women.  We glide and slide and bump and birth.  We’re petals of pink easily torn apart, yet when torn, we turn strong as iron.  We fight to keep what little we have only to give it all away.  We drive like maniacs and love like crazy.  Once we love you, you’ll be loved forever — even when we make you go away — although we’ll hold you until our arms break from the weight of your nonsense.

These are truths, solid as the earth, rolling liquid like the sea.

My friend and I talked about the strange mettle of women this past week.  We’ve known each other for years and in spite of now and then lengthy absences, we never miss a beat.  We pick up our sentences in the very spot where we last left off.  This time I was visiting.  She was my gracious hostess.  We live now in separate states, but only an hour an a half away by plane … or a nanosecond apart by email or phone.

As always, our conversations over the four and a half days of my visit sparked like flint on stone, every word, each progressive thought, igniting a new and bright fire by which to light our way across this thing called womanhood.  We talked husbands and children and politics and religion — deeply exploring each subject and how we’ve been shaped by every topic that came to mind.  For the oddities of life that we so dearly share, we laughed until our hearts split open; we know so well the regions of each other’s lives.  For those things that baffle us, we simply shook our heads and clicked our tongues behind our teeth.  This is what women do.  We laugh and heave and click and dream.

When it was time for me to leave, it was like I was only running to the store.  I’ll be right back, my gesture of a wave said.  Maybe she’ll come here next.  Or perhaps we’ll only follow each other’s thoughts and movements on FaceBook … or by email or phone.  It makes no difference.

She is as much a part of me as is my arm.

We’ll find each other again … we’ll pick up our conversation where it last left off … not a beat will be missed. We’ll find each other again — for this is how women are.