The Monthly Theme Essays are a collection of essays written each month on a predetermined theme. These essays are always published during the last week of the month. To submit a Monthly Theme Essay check out our upcoming themes.
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It took me awhile growing up in the turbulent 1960’s and 70’s to claim my feminist inheritance. In fact, the sexual revolution might have passed me up all together had it not been for fate. Beyond any conscious choice, fate shifted some of my inherited puritan ethos to a more playful appreciation of my body. It was my friend Lara, the one who is part-woman, part-mermaid, who played the critical role of ushering in this small but momentous shift.
Read MoreThe cycle of days spent in a one-bedroom, largely rectangular rental at the triangular corner of Commonwealth and Beacon, conveniently positioned in the middle of Kenmore Square, were Happy Days (on re-run). Full of Seinfeld-inspired laughs and nights with Friends (in thirty-minute segments). Simple times woven of simple fare.
Read MoreAugust 1973. I had graduated from high school two months earlier and was in Potamia, my hometown in Cyprus, for the summer. Life in Potamia was hard and uncomfortable, and I had never really liked being there. My father was a farmer, and my parents had to work long hours every day on our farm to make ends meet. When we were in Potamia, my brothers and sisters worked at the farm as well. For most of the year, we, the eldest three of the five siblings, attended secondary school in Nicosia (the capital of Cyprus), where we lived with our grandparents.
Read MoreA summer camp in the Allegheny Mountains is where I lost the plan for my future. Given the early 1960s, one would have thought a loss of virginity the big event of the season, but that dropped away as casually as dandelion fluff in the wind. My lost plan was a casualty of my lost religion. I had planned a career in the church, in one of the limited options then offered to women. I entered camp as a Presbyterian and emerged as an unbeliever.
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