Blessed. Ugh. I have had issues with that word since before I can remember. Blessed. It makes me feel so, I don’t know, cringy. To me, it signifies that I, as the “blessed”, am in a better position than someone else. More elevated. More healthy. More rich. More children. More talented. Whatever IT is – I have more of IT – because you see, I. Am. Blessed. Because when you think about it, for someone to qualify as “blessed”, someone else has to be lower, beneath them, “unblessed” you could say. Because if we were ALL blessed, then we would be equal, and then that sort of defeats the purposed of blessed , right? I dislike the term so much that once my sister gave me a tacky hot pad from the Dollar Tree that said “blessed”. Only, because she knew my opinion of the word, she used a black Sharpie to cross that out with a circle and a slash, signifying “unblessed” I guess. I liked it. I think it is still in our dishtowel drawer. So, “H
When I was a kid, I wanted to be Nancy Duncan when I grew up. I didn’t want to be LIKE HER, I wanted to BE her. She was my hero. And it is because of her that I know to call her a hero (and not a heroine). You see, Nancy Duncan was the first feminist I ever met. Of course, I didn’t know it at the time. It was around 1976, which would make me 10 years old, and I was smack dab in the middle of the Midwest in Omaha, Nebraska. Nancy Duncan was my theatre teacher, my director, and (like I mentioned), my hero . Everything about her was perfect in my eyes. Her wavy, messy hair. Her loud laugh. Her funky, multi-layered clothing. Her smile. Her genuine way of caring for those around her. Her wit. And her kindness. I was just one of hundreds (thousands?) of kids she taught and directed. I am sure nothing stood out about me that made me special in her eyes. But in my eyes, oh in my eyes , Nancy Duncan was who I wanted to be when I grew up.