Well, I woke up to it this morning. Roe v. Wade is overturned. I’ve never said this on a substack newsletter before, but I’ll say it now. The fact that I don’t curse in this email does not mean I do not Want to, nor that I do not find it worthy of it. This situation is worthy of weeping and gnashing of teeth, then sitting down to write some red-letter letters.
The first time I heard the term “red-letter letter” was when I was about six years old. My grandmother who, like most single women of her era, lived on a very limited income used to purchase Jiffy mix cake mixes and cornbread mixes. She couldn’t afford a full-sized cake mix and didn’t need one anyway. She had purchased two of them from a local grocer and found cobwebs in the boxes. My mother was incensed and wrote the owner of Jiffy. She wrote a red-letter letter. My mother had not gone beyond high school at that time, but she was a very smart woman and apparently got her point across well. In a very short time, my grandmother received a full box of Jiffy mixes of many varieties. I learned my activism young. Now I’m sure my mother didn’t use a single curse word in her letter, but the words she used were powerful.
The words I want to use today are full of rage and pain and fear. Fear for my girls, my nieces and cousins and sisters. I am beyond menopause so while I cannot get pregnant anymore, I can still worry for the women in my family…my bigger family, my human family, who can. I can also worry about other rights of mine that seem to be at risk given the current climate. I will use those words today, privately and not here, because I need to express them. But tomorrow, I will get together with other women and men who care and begin to make a plan. I can begin writing the red-letter letters on this subject again. I can encourage people to vote their conscience. I can encourage them to vote every chance we get, with our dollars, our ballots, and our voices.
This is not one of my more well-written substacks. I’m short of thoughts to include or points to make. But I didn’t write last week and I didn’t just want to miss again without notice. I’ll do better next week. For now, hug every woman you see, please? Tomorrow, we start planning and writing.
Just awoke to the news. Still processing. Don’t have words just yet.