The Wit, The Whim, And The Womb
To all smart women, who search for solid sequential reasoning in the matters of the under-skirt sector… I bow to your affliction.
I retreat from the easel and cozy up on the bed with a cup of thyme and chamomile tea. I am surprisingly weak and quiet these days. Five years ago I would scoff at myself for such a long recovery after a simple hysteroscopy and surgical IUD replacement. Now, I allow myself to mend my physical, mental and emotional states leisurely. Maybe, I am recovering from all the unhealed birthing processes that I have rushed in the past fifteen years.
I contemplate about the smart women and their challenges with the comprehension and embracing of the child-bearing aspects of femininity. Every woman has a sorrowful story connected to the mysteries of the womb. I mean, every one of us has a dose of trauma in the womb. But the smart ones have a more difficult time allowing the womb scars to heal. In search of logic and over-achievement, we glaze over the raw storms of this darkness and rush to bring life back to the normal course where emotions take a secondary seat and comparison to other experiences or a burning desire to control the situation prevail. However, this perspective is the biggest illusion of a smart woman. Life never comes back to a previous state after an abortion, a birth, a miscarriage, a painful set of menstrual cramps, loss of virginity, or even the first masturbation. And, there is no logic in the pain and sorrow which we feel from the slightest mishaps in the functioning of this part of our bodies.
It is believed that the uterus is the emotional seat of the woman, and the cervix is the gateway between the physical and spiritual worlds of the heart. But there is no proof of this theory, and the smart women get lost without the proof. So when smart women experience an increased uncontrollable flow of emotions of hormonal or existential background, we bring these incongruencies into the heads and question our sanity. For days. Sometimes, for years. Smart women process everything in the head first.
I look at the fragmentary traces of the painting on the easel, the valley of the blue flowers. I have met so many of these blue flowers, the goddesses with the strong analytical minds, competitive edge, and incapacity to embrace the eternity of the feminine vibration. I have cried with them in stillness.
Violet had a failing heart, but she went through the pregnancy working full-time despite the condition and the doctor’s precautions. After childbirth, she needed a heart replacement.
Hydrangea gets terrible migraines during every menstruation. She also fights with the boss over his insensitive management style.
Delphinium has two abortions, one miscarriage, and two children. She has been a star student of physics and mathematics in her college years but was not able to succeed in these fields on a career level. She suffers from hormonal imbalance her whole life.
Clematis had a forty-five-hour natural birth. She went straight from the woman’s ward to the psychiatric quarters for the following three weeks. She has a history of being a top performer in the global consulting company and achieving every goal she sets out to do.
Periwinkle, Brunnera, and Gentian are in their fifties. They are accomplished in the field of business, academia, therapy, and law. One of them had to give up a newborn daughter with down syndrome at birth due to the system of the time. None of them have raised children.
Hyacinth went through the removal of the multiple cysts on the ovaries at the age of twenty. She always played with the boys because she found their conversations more fascinating and knowledgeable.
Iris felt that she has faked her way into motherhood. During her first childbirth, she had an emergency C-section at an early stage of the delivery, because the baby’s heartbeat was dropping with every contraction. She barely had a chance to feel any pain from the birthing process. She also considered herself weak for opting out for a scheduled C-section for the second child after a dreadfull miscarriage. She is a polymath in the fields of business, art, academia, and coaching.
I was Iris many years ago. My son is in high school. I still have a hard time accepting on a physical level that I am his natural mother. It doesn’t help that he is now twice my size.
My tea is getting cold. I place it on the nightstand and reach out for the bowl of orange-colored fruits: peaches, tangerines, mangoes. I’ve learned that the orange color helps to heal the energy center, connected with the uterine functions. I no longer seek any logic. I take pleasure in the ability to cry over every little sentiment. I have accomplished everything that I have set out to do at the age of fifteen in search of a female role model that I would respect on all levels. However, I take more pride in being a woman, than being smart these days. At least, I am trying.
As I mature, I choose to let my womb reign over the wit and the whim. I find more power and fulfillment in this approach to my femininity. Therefore, wrapping myself with the blanket, I take time to let her heal entirely and eternally: my hysterical, crazy, irrational, mysterious valley of the blue flowers.
