strength

whew!

Day three! My shoulders are aching; hands are chapped. Still living the good life, but starting to fully feel the rigors of growing organic. To that end, I re-read last night one of my all-time favorite chapters from a female biology treatise "Woman: An Intimate Geography," written by Natalie Angier.

This passage inspire me to hoist many, many shovels of trout-gut compost this afternoon:

"We need muscle for practical reasons, and we need it for the mind's I, the uncertain self, and in both cases we need it now more than ever. We may not have large quantities of testosterone, and building muscle and strength does not come as easily to us as it does to men. But we have an extraordinary capacity for strength, the more impressive given our comparatively low levels of testosterone, as women throughout the world and history have always shown us...if the world's women went on strike, the world of work would effectively stop and you cannot say that with certainty for the enterprises of men."

Angier, Natalie. Woman: An Intimate Geography. Anchor Books, New York: 1999.