The Women

“Anger and resentment can stop you in your tracks. That’s what I know now. It needs nothing to burn but the air and the life that it swallows and smothers. It’s real, though – the fury, even when it isn’t. It can change you… turn you… mold you and shape you into something you’re not. The only upside to anger, then… is the person you become. Hopefully someone that wakes up one day and realizes they’re not afraid to take the journey, someone that knows that the truth is, at best, a partially told story. That anger, like growth, comes in spurts and fits, and in its wake, leaves a new chance at acceptance, and the promise of calm. Then again, what do I know? I’m only a child.”

I love the stories you read and the movies you see that remind you of your family. Although I’m an only child my mother was one of four daughters and with that came a plethora of cousins, as well as, my grandmother on my father’s side who is one of six sisters! On holidays and birthdays whoever is hosting has a packed house with the sounds of laughter and the smells of home cooking. The women in my family are the home and they are stubborn, proud, and strong.

The movies and books below call to mind some of my favorite family traits:

In the movie The Upside of Anger we meet Terry Wolfmeyer, played by Joan Allen, and her four daughters, Andy, Emily, Hadley, and Popeye. After realizing Terry’s husband has left the family to go off and live in Sweden with his secretary the-all-together-all-the-time suburban housewife is no more. She is angry and sad and lets everyone know it! As her daughters are not only dealing with this new side to their mother they are also at a loss at to why their father left them. One by one they go on about their lives making mistakes, finding out who they are, and all together trying to stay afloat. Terry soon finds camaraderie and comfort with her neighbor an ex-baseball player turned radio DJ, Denny, played by Kevin Costner, and as things begin to turn around the truth of why their father left is revealed and the question is: Is it to late to continue with the lives they had all been living and still hold on to each other? 

On her death bed, Ann Lord, calls out the name Harris; her two daughters, Constance and Nina, are perplexed by this name they have never heard before and wonder what role this man played in their mother’s life. Nina especially seeks answers to unknown questions as she is struggling to validate her own life, but as days melt into one another memory begins to wash over Ann taking her back fifty years to the wedding of her college friend, Lila Wittenborn. Ann is Lila’s foundation keeping her calm in a way that Lila’s mother can’t and offers companionship to Lila’s brother Buddy yet he desperately wants more, but it’s their family friend Harris Arden that steals her heart. Her love for him sets in motion the events that will define the rest of their lives. This book Evening by Susan Minot was also made into a movie starring Toni Collette, Claire Danes, Hugh Dancy, and real life mother and daughter, Vanessa Redgrave and Natasha Richardson.

The Birth House by Ami McKay is the story of Dora Rare. Growing up in Scots Bay, Nova Scotia Dora the first daughter of five generations of Rare families finds herself captivated by Miss Babineau, the town mid-wife whom has exceptional powers of healing and the understanding of childbirth. Dora soon becomes her apprentice for as Miss Babineau ages even more she knows one day she will no longer be able to help the women. When a doctor comes to town with promises of a new birthing center with modern medical advances it looks as though tradition and experience through midwifery might just disappear. Through infertility, difficult labors, breech births, unwanted pregnancies and even unfulfilling sex lives the town becomes divided by what is best for the women of Scots Bay. As Dora Rare struggles to figure out who she is and what she really wants she creates a stitched up family of women that reminds her of the old ways; the best parts of tradition and the struggles that unite women to have control over their own bodies.