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Regular news and insight from our many poets, writers, educators and facilitators

12 October 2019

Posted by Charlotte Fodor

Freedom in Becoming Old?

Why do we turn down the carbs, the day drinking, and sunshine
yellow clothes?

Why do we stop our leg hair from growing lovely and long?

What is stopping us from singing noisily in the supermarket?

Is it because we are occupied by the constraints of everyday
life? Or are we just afraid of what others may think – especially if we were to
give them our honest opinion of their terrible manners?

Jenny Joseph’s Warning, (“When I am an old woman I shall wear purple / With a red hat that doesn’t
go…”), was a cathartic piece to read as a group of women who are all-too
familiar with being told what we are not allowed
to do; say; wear; eat or think.

If Jenny is telling us that growing old should be a defiant
process, then there was a lot of fun to be had at our So:Write Saturday
workshop in writing about all the things that we could do once we have aged. 

Whether it was sleeping in until the
afternoon, reading all day, or yelling at Tory politicians with a megaphone–
writing our own versions of Warning was
a releasing, inspiring exercise to try… 

And to hold ourselves to as the years
roll on!

But perhaps it is the final stanza of Warning – the question of why we aren’t doing some of these things
now – which stood out the most and
got us all thinking...

Maybe we should make a pact with ourselves to live bigger
and louder. To occupy more space.  To
embrace unfashionable forthrightness, at least occasionally. To spend more time
doing what we want to do, before it is too late.

It can be hard to be a flame glowing in an increasingly dark
world, but every time I attend a So:Write Women session, I leave feeling
ignited. There is most certainly a charge in the air to write our truths and to
speak out against the constraints imposed on women, where we can.

Would you like to join us? So:Write Women meet twice a month
on the first Thursday and third Saturday. Our next meeting is at Southampton
Central Library on Saturday 20th October (10.15- 12.15pm) and at The
Art House on Thursday 7th November (11.15-1.15pm).  

We hope to see you there!















































































A neat stack of clothes in different colours, warm reds and cold blues

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