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Friday, March 11, 2016

I found it!

So a little irony in this story.  Last month I was traveling to Tampa, Florida for a PNCB board meeting (PNCB is who certifies pediatric nurse practitioners and pediatric nurses).  During that travel I finished a great book "My Life on the Road" by Gloria Steinem.  It was such a great book that I took tons of notes (I do that when I read books and maybe one day I'll write a book with all the great quotes I've read throughout my reading life).  So when I went to write my post on February reads I looked and looked for my page of notes and couldn't find them, so I wrote my post without those added words of wisdom from Gloria and moved on.

This past Wednesday I was headed to Washington DC for another PNCB meeting and I'm getting my journal out to write down a few words while on plane, hit a little turbulence and my book dropped and low and behold a piece of paper falls out.  There were the notes I'd taken from "My Life on the Road".  YIPEE!

So here we go...

Intro: "I'm also now immune to politicians who say 'I've traveled the length and breadth of this great land, and I know...' I've traveled more than any of them, and I don't know". 

pg 12- "I never had the courage to say: But you would have been born instead."- this was Gloria's response to her mother's comment "If I'd left, you never would have been born".  Her parents had a strained marriage and Gloria noted that her mother could have had a better life if she hadn't had her, but her mother recognizes that her daughter would have not come without going through this strained relationship.  Amazing what some people endure for their children.

pg 37 "Gandhians... If you want people to listen to you, you have to listen to them. If you hope people will change how they live, you have to know how they live.  If you want people to see you, you have to sit down with them eye to eye".

pg 57 "I began to see that for some religion was just a form of politics you couldn't criticize".  This line really struck me.  It reminded me of people who try to tell others what the Bible means- the literal meaning with no room for someone else's view or interpretation. 

pg 127 "Always look at what people do, as my mother said, not at who they are".

pg 129 "I myself cried when I got angry, then became unable to explain why I was angry in the first place.  Later I would discover this was endemic among female human beings.  Anger is supposed to be 'unfeminine', so we suppress it- until it overflows."... "This was my first hint of the truism that depression is anger turned inward; thus women are twice as likely to be depressed."   I'm a crier and always have felt that my crying is a sign of weakness, but I guess it really could be a sign that I'm angry. I think I'll just cry away and not suppress the anger/feelings- sorry in advance to family/friends.

pg 170 Flo Kennedy (a co-speaker with Gloria) "The purpose of ass-kicking is not that your ass gets kicked at the right time or for the right reason... It's to keep your ass sensitive."

pg 171 "Voting isn't the most we can do, but it is the least." - AMEN!

pg 176 "The voting booth really is the one place on earth where the least powerful equal the mostly powerful."--- AMEN, AMEN!

pg 177 "But we have to behave as if everything we do matters.  Because it might." 

pg 181 "Laughter is an orgasm of the mind".  Loved this.

pg 191 98 year old former Ziegfield girl talking to Gloria, "You're always the person you were when you were born"..."You just keep finding new ways to express it."   Thought this was so beautiful.

So glad I found these notes.  Writing these lines down again reminded me of how well written this book was.  If the above lines spoke to you I'd highly suggest picking up this book. 

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