One

For a month or so now, I have been teaching a local “Girls' Group” course on leadership, service, teamwork and healthy attitudes to middle school girls on Cape Cod. Every week as I prepare my curriculum, purchase supplies, review and research touch points, my mind (well, my heart, really) wanders to thinking about the girls I met in India. Surprised?  Well, to me, this seems only natural since majority of them are the very same age and I find working with this age group - regardless of location on the planet - catapults me directly into my “element”. I come alive. I can't squeeze enough out of our time together. I would stand on my head to hear them laugh out loud. I fight tears when they share their insight or truths. It takes my breath when I see a leader evolve, someone reach out, a wallflower bloom.

Sometimes finding similarities makes me smile. The girls from my community, stop by my class after piles of homework, before private dance lessons and in between art shows, author meet and greets, soccer games, swim class, and cheerleading. All of them have kayaked, own a bicycle, been on vacation. They know and use the words latte, narrative non-fiction, organic. They are much less physically affectionate, perhaps because they are not starved of it. They wouldn't dream of holding my hand, sitting on my lap, playing with my hair. I know they don't speak of brothels, sex workers, or AIDS regularly. I often wonder if they've ever heard the word slavery, outside of their history books, and if they know girls just like them – all over the world – live it.

But with all I see that separates these girls, I am still so overwhelmed by their sameness. And by the feelings they all evoke in me. I want them to know their potential. I want them to be self-sufficient. I want them to be proud of themselves. I want them to ask for help without shame. I want them to have powerful minds and bodies. I want them to give and receive safe, reciprocal love. I want them to know each other. To know about obstacles and opportunities, about trust and boundaries, about how, in time, they will be the women of the world, together.

With all of the variables they inevitably face on the journey from girlhood to womanhood, I cherish the hour, the day, the weeks I spend with them. Swirled together in my heart, I am always there, or here with them. This is the way, I carry our children.  This is the way, I make us one.