My avatar has always been Wonder Woman because she was created as a “distinctly feminist role model whose mission was to bring the Amazon ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality to a world torn by the hatred of men.” I mean what’s not to love? <\/p>\n
But I’ve been a long admirer of Secretariat, a once in a lifetime horse. There is a passage from William Nack’s book, Secretariat<\/em> that reads:<\/p>\n Secretariat moved to the field with a rush, accelerating outside as they made the bend, without urging from Turcotte, bounding along as if independent of whatever momentum the race possessed, independent of its pace and tempo, independent of the shifting, slow-motion struggles unfolding within it, the small battles for position and advantage. But Secretariat was not responding to any force the race was generating, but rather moving as though he’d evolved his own kinetic field beyond it, and Turcotte would later recall sitting quietly and feeling awed. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Secretariat was a force of nature who inhabited an inner world and spirit that was unflappable and undeniable. A once in a lifetime horse he was called. And he didn’t always win, but when he failed, he came back even stronger. Reminds me of Jane Hirshfield’s poem, For What Binds Us:<\/p>\n For What Binds Us And see how the flesh grows back as all flesh, And when two people have loved each other So today on the day of Atonement, as I fast and contemplate the year that has brought me here, a year of transition, I am warmed by the feeling that the fire inside me is growing stronger. I have spent a year so focused on losing, I have lost sight of winning and that is what has me out of balance. <\/p>\n For this year, for alopecia, for Hashimoto’s Disease, for failure, for going down, for getting back up, I’m most grateful for the hero in me (and all my loved ones who held my cape). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My avatar has always been Wonder Woman because she was created as a “distinctly feminist role model whose mission was to bring the Amazon ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality to a world torn by the hatred of men.” I mean what’s not to love? But I’ve been a long admirer of Secretariat, a once in a lifetime horse. There is a passage from William Nack’s book, Secretariat that reads: Secretariat moved to the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1kHSD-4mO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16790"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16798,"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16790\/revisions\/16798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nBY JANE HIRSHFIELD
\nThere are names for what binds us:
\nstrong forces, weak forces.
\nLook around, you can see them:
\nthe skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
\nnails rusting into the places they join,
\njoints dovetailed on their own weight.
\nThe way things stay so solidly
\nwherever they’ve been set down\u2014
\nand gravity, scientists say, is weak.<\/p>\n
\nacross a wound, with a great vehemence,
\nmore strong
\nthan the simple, untested surface before.
\nThere’s a name for it on horses,
\nwhen it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,<\/p>\n
\nis proud of its wounds, wears them
\nas honors given out after battle,
\nsmall triumphs pinned to the chest\u2014<\/p>\n
\nsee how it is like a
\nscar between their bodies,
\nstronger, darker, and proud;
\nhow the black cord makes of them a single fabric
\nthat nothing can tear or mend.<\/p>\n