Renaissance Woman?

When I told my neighbor that I am self-publishing a book, she called me a Renaissance Woman.

After we moved in next-door nine years ago, the same neighbor called me Pioneer Woman. She knows me from the activities she sees going on in our back yard. I hang out my clothes to dry six months of the year. My husband and I grow vegetables, pick them, cook with them, eat them, and put them up for the winter when there is extra. We gather the unwanted apples from their trees and make applesauce, and use the leaves they rake up in the fall in building our compost pile.

In casual conversations with my neighbor, she has found out some of the things I do otherwise: I play the piano and the lyre and taught lessons in my home for several years. I work as a hospice bereavement coordinator. I sent my son to a private grade school – the Minnesota Waldorf School. I travel to points in New England, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Colorado to visit relatives.

That is not the half of it. What she doesn’t see or hear about are the bulging files on various projects I work on, piles of journals from organizations I am involved or interested in, shelves full of music for various venues I provide music for, drawers of half-finished knitting or other craft projects, incoming emails that require daily organization, and a schedule of meetings and workshops that I am either attending or giving.

Is this what makes me a Renaissance Woman? Does this mean I am different from the average American middle-aged woman? That I have broader interests, skills, and activities than most? That I am the product of a true liberal arts education?

Or does it mean that my plate is too full?

Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier not to be a Renaissance Woman. To not have great expectations for my life. To not pursue my many interests.

But here I am, learning to let go of what I can’t accomplish and lovingly accept what I am able to offer for what it is. This is my life. I feel awfully brave to be sharing it with the world in publishing a personal memoir.

If you read Laughing in a Waterfall, maybe something in your life will resonate with mine, Renaissance Women and Men that I know many of us are.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 25th, 2010 at 6:26 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.