Angela Kelsey

Nest-Making

This morning I saw a bird walking along the sidewalk holding a clump of small sticks in her mouth.

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Max and I came back inside and I picked up where I’d left off with my memoir revisions.

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Why do we write memoir anyway?

Probably there are nearly as many reasons as memoirists, but one of my reasons is to create a nest. A nest for myself and other people, a resting place made of pieces of life that, on their own, have little obvious value, pieces that, some days, seem to be debris.

It’s in the spirit of nest-making that I celebrate Women’t History Month.

Women who’ve gone before me, from Emma Hart Willard to Charlotte Forten Grimke to countless unnamed foremothers and sisters, both closer and farther away, have made nests for me, either by telling their stories or making it more possible for other women to tell theirs.

Starting tomorrow, and through the end of March, I’ll be welcoming some of my favorite bloggers to share their stories of women’s empowerment and women’s education and women’s history.

I hope you’ll stop back by to read, find refuge in the nests they’ve made, and gather bits for nest-making of your own.

Here are the links. To Jeanne’s story of Fran and Marcia. To Streetlights’ story of Empowerment. To D.’s story of Her.