Inspiration: Who Does She Think She Is?

About a year ago, I first saw this preview. It still brings tears to my eyes. I immediately signed up for the movie's mailing list, offered to host a viewing party at my house and couldn't wait to see it. A couple of weeks ago, I was so very excited to found out there was a Friday night screening in Toronto and a panel discussion afterwards featuring the director, Pamela Tanner Boll and Janis Wunderlich, one of the artists in the film. Of course, Shannon, the Movie Moxie, and I immediately decided to go.

When I watched the preview, what I saw was the challenges faced by women when answering the call of their inner artist. My heart stirred. My soul answered. I recognized these women. I recognized that experience in myself. I thought, this is a movie about my tribe! Yes!

But what the movie is really about is the challenges faced by mothers when answering the call of their inner artist. Now, that's a powerful issue. That's a story that needs to be told. And it's not mine.

So in watching this movie, I appreciated deeply the artists and their struggles but each moment I felt sad to be on the outside looking in, not included in something I had been looking forward to for so long. And as a feminist watching a feminist film, I was surprised to experience what felt like an underlying tone that it was not only possible but appropriate to collapse the distinction of woman/mother, as if by nature they are one and the same. That not only left me out, it pushed me out.

There is power in this movie and in the way it takes a stand for each of us being able to fully commit to our dreams and express our gifts in this world. As someone who believes in this with all of my heart, I just wish I'd been seen as one of 'us.'