Privilege and Appreciation

I had a little temper tantrum recently because I felt that I didn’t have enough time to do my creative work, I wasn’t being supported by husband, I was being consumed by mundane housework, and my life was shit, basically. Once I calmed down a bit, I actually listened to a little something my husband pointed out to me. Yes, my life is very different than it would be in the States, where I would probably actually have even less time because I’d be working a 9 to 5 job to pay the rent and send my kid to daycare. Here I have the luxury of working a very unconventional job that mostly allows me to be in my home, working on the internet while I have a load of laundry going, or a pot cooking on the stove. But without even going into the comparison of my life here and what my life would look like in the States, my husband compared my life to that of most of the other women here in the village.

The vast majority of women my age (40ish) have at most a 6th grade education. They have spent there lives raising on average 3 to 4 children, and many now take care of the their grandchildren. They have spent their lives washing laundry by hand, scrubbing houses daily, shopping and cooking on a very limited budget. Many have raised animals for food consumption, and generally contributed to a simpler home agriculture economy. Many have produced some simple thing to sell, jello cups or tlacoyos, or cut nopales in the fields, to sell door to door with small children in tow. Those who work outside the home, work for the equivalent of 5-10 dollars a day, up to 12 hours a day, in manual labor of some sort, at the shoe sole factory, as a seamstress, in a tortilleria or as a domestic servant. Many women have husbands who also work long hours 6 days a week, who maybe spend Sunday at the soccer field drinking beer and running around in the dust instead of with their families. Or their husbands are drunk most days of the week, unemployed, yelling at the women as if “wife” meant “servant” or “bondslave.” Or their husbands went to the United States 10 years ago and never came home. Their children don’t know their fathers and the mothers do the work of two.

So I got the big reality check. I am so privileged. I am so blessed. I am so grateful. I have an education. I read. I write. I paint. I speak several languages. I know how to use a computer. I have a computer. I have an income. I have one child. I send him to preschool. I go out walking for exercise. My child has clothes and toys. I go to the mall. I go to the movies. I travel. I have a car. I go to the doctor when necessary. I go to the dentist. I can buy meat when I want to. I have a solid roof on my house. I have solid floors. I have indoor plumbing. My husband is present as a father. My husband is present as a husband. I am not having more children. The list could go on and on. And they are all reasons why I am able to have a creative life. I have the luxury of being able to “make time” to be creative, to paint, to write. I can choose not to mop the floors today when my son goes to school, but rather to go to my studio and doodle around on a canvas.

I have been working hard on the discipline of appreciating my privilege, of making the most of it. I have been dropping my son off at preschool, then running home for a quick breakfast, then off to the studio to do something, anything, that will honor the liberty I have to be creative. I have been playing a beautiful recording of “Ave Maria” that a kind guest at the Dreaming House gave to me as a thank you gift for a tour I gave of the Basilica. It is such a divine uplifting work of song that I am daily reminded to give thanks for how truly blessed my life is, because like it or not, life is pretty tough for most folks … really. I can complain and gripe about all the little glitches in my personal life, but in the end, when I look around this village I live in and see other mothers dropping their kids off at school in old tattered sweatpants and plastic sandals, I have to sing the refrain of “Ave Maria” in my head and bless the floor of my humble studio for its very existence.

Image: Rowing the Night Boat, Soft pastel on amate bark paper, 2011.

Join Emily on her upcoming Shamanic Creativity journey to Teotihuacan July 22-27, 2011 with Iva Peele. We will be meditating, dreaming, creating, visiting the pyramids, playing with natural materials, and reconnecting to our source for all creative energy, the blessed Earth. See www.spiritrecovery.com for more details or contact thedreaminghouse@hotmail.com