I Am An Emotional Creature

I Am An Emotional Creature

YA/adult nonfiction
"Dear Emotional Creature
You know who you are. I wrote this book because I believe in
you. I believe in your authenticity, your uniqueness, your intensity,
your wildness...I love your restlessness and your hunger. You are one
of our greatest natural resources. You possess a necessary agency and
energy that if unleashed could transform, inspire, and heal the world."
These days emotions have a bad press. People tend to ascribe
the emotional nature of children and teens to immaturity or those all
consuming hormones. A major part of adulting is learning to distrust
emotion and intuition and abandon agency to fit better into a plastic
world. In my opinion this is one of the reasons our world is so
screwed up.
[You may have noticed that I am a very emotional reviewer.]
I really enjoyed reading and am joyously engaged in reviewing
Eve Ensler's I Am An Emotional Creature. Ensler, quoted above,
totally gets it. She sees and celebrates the passion and authenticity
of girls. She went around the world, to remote villages as well as
suburbs, talking to them singly and in groups. She included the
destitute and enslaved. She used her findings to create the poetry
and prose pieces that, along with girl fact sidebars describing perils
facing girls today, make up this fine book.
*Things I Heard About Sex reveals a great deal of ambiguity and
confusion;
*hunger blog contains the intimate thoughts of body obsession taken to
the extreme. [A girl fact speaks of the mortality rate associated
with anorexia];
*A letter to popular singer Rihanna is concerned with intimate
violence. [The girl fact states the number of high school students
who experience abusive relationships].
My only caveat for an adult thinking of recommending I Am An
Emotional Creature is read it first. Not all kids in the target
demographics are ready for the lived experiences of trafficking
victims, child soldiers, and kids who are sold to the highest bidder
so the rest of the family can survive.
Actually read the book for yourself even if your only children
are fur babies. Don't be one of the people who disdain or dismiss
younger folks because:
"You scare us. You remind us of what we have been forced to
shut down or abandon in ourselves in order to fit in. You ask us by
your being to question, to wake up, to reperceive. Sometimes I think
we are telling you we are protecting you when really we are protecting
ourselves from our own feelings of self betrayal and loss."
There is good news. This self betrayal and loss facet of
adulting is not irreversible. Yes, question!!! Wake the Hell Up!!!
Definitely reperceive!!! If people try to stop you, exercise your
agency, passion, and power fearlessly.
Like me.
On a purrrsonal note, with Eugene going to camp and no cat companion I
found this weekend to be long and lonesome. I was a very emotional
creature. I should have an easy week coming up. Wednesday I'll get
to donate blood and then chill volunteering and eating pizza and
snacks at the canteen. Anna has had the wisdom to give me the night
off. She has also given me Saturday off so I can go to my family's
early Halloween party. I'll get to see all my kids!!! I am so
excited for that!!!
I will say I'm nervous about donating blood. I'm afraid I won't have
enough iron even though I've been iron packing so much I feel queasy
if I see Cheerios, spinach, or anything concocted from dead cows.
Great big shout outs go out to Anna and to the best little cat in the
world without whom I am a very emotional creature.
jules hathaway


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