Uppity Women Chronicles

Lady Uppity and the Excuses Express

The bus that goes absolutely nowhere Lady Uppity does not drive. Which, one might think, would make the bus an especially attractive option. It does not. Lady Uppity does not take the bus. There. She said it. This should not be particularly noteworthy except that, for quite some time, Lady Uppity could not simply say,… Continue reading Lady Uppity and the Excuses Express

People Plan, God Laughs

Lord Honey Bear had a favorite saying: People plan, God laughs. It took a field of very hungry deer to show me exactly what he meant. There was a time, many years ago, when growing marijuana wasn’t just frowned upon—it was illegal. Naturally, Lord Honey Bear, Lord Greenjeans, and I decided it sounded like a… Continue reading People Plan, God Laughs

Lady Uppity Throws a Pity Party

Lady Uppity woke up feeling spectacularly sorry for herself. She briefly considered resisting it. Then she remembered the rules. If you’re going to throw a pity party… throw an excellent one. With great determination, she flung herself across the sofa, placed the back of one hand dramatically against her forehead, and released a sigh worthy… Continue reading Lady Uppity Throws a Pity Party

The Day the Buick Ran Out of Gas

The Buick was the plan. The Porsche became the story.

Lady Uppity had imagined motherhood beginning with grace and dignity. Instead, she found herself attempting to fold a very pregnant body into a Porsche because someone had forgotten to put gas in the Buick. She weighed all of ninety-eight pounds when she became pregnant—a mere wisp of a woman, her doctor remarked rather condescendingly. He… Continue reading The Day the Buick Ran Out of Gas

Wobbling

Every step became a conversation.

Lady Uppity had become well acquainted with wobbling. It hadn’t always been that way. Once upon a time, she walked without giving a single thought to where her feet might land. Then, one February morning a few years ago, life insisted she pay attention. She woke in pain. Intense inflammation had settled into her body,… Continue reading Wobbling

Love Leaves Fingerprints That Often Don’t Appear Until Years Later

Some gardens bloom long after the flowers are gone.

Lord Honey Bear loved to grow things. Not just vegetables or wildflowers, though he grew those beautifully. He grew gardens wherever life gave him a little patch of earth. Even the barren top of Lost Mesa, stripped nearly bare after years of overgrazing, became, in his hands, a place where native grasses swayed, and wildflowers… Continue reading Love Leaves Fingerprints That Often Don’t Appear Until Years Later

The Unexpected Guest

Sometimes the answers we seek arrive not through effort, but through listening.

Lady Uppity Invites Fear to Coffee It was like finding a box that had been hidden in the dark, damp corner of the basement—a large, old, dust-covered box marked in bold red letters: DO NOT OPEN. But she did. Curiosity got the best of her. Lady Uppity simply had to open that box. That night,… Continue reading The Unexpected Guest

Lady Uppity Drops the Charges

The door had been unlocked for years. Lady Uppity simply had to realize she was free to walk through it.

Forgiving Herself for Past Mistakes The discovery that she had spent so much of her life abandoning herself in an effort to be loved and accepted took Lady Uppity’s breath away. As she sat in the early morning light, sipping her coffee and wondering what might come next, she felt an unexpected surge, like the… Continue reading Lady Uppity Drops the Charges

How Am I Not Myself

She was never not herself.

Refusing to Abandon Ourselves A few evenings ago, while watching a movie with Lady Birdsong, a single line caught Lady Uppity’s attention: How am I not myself? The question lingered. The longer she sat with it, the stranger it became, so much so that she set her wine glass down and jotted a note in… Continue reading How Am I Not Myself

Lady Uppity and the Open Door

Lady Uppity discovers that the door has been open all along. The key was never the problem.

Lady Uppity had spent years looking for the key. She searched for it in books, workshops, relationships, and the opinions of people she wasn’t even sure she liked. Surely, someone somewhere held the key to the life she longed for. No wonder she was exhausted. As a young girl, Lady Uppity struggled in school. Written… Continue reading Lady Uppity and the Open Door