Listen to my story, silence me no more...

“And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives. That we not hide behind the mockeries of separations that have been imposed upon us and which so often we accept as our own.” - Audre Lorde

I am in awe of the words of women.
I sit here alone, in a house on the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the voices of women who I spoke with so long ago. Women who I worked with, talked with, laughed and cried with - who trusted their stories, their words, their lives, to me, to my care, to my listening and witnessing. To take these stories of theirs - their herstories - and to share them, use them, analyse them, trust them, guard them, work with them, and to honour them.

To honour their herstories.

They were not mine to give, and yet here I hold them.

I am challlenged with how to tell their stories, to give them the adequate - no, not adequate - the necessary attention they so deserve. How to respond to them and ensure that they are received into the hands of others with the necessary care that they require. How to do justice to women's words.

We, women, live in silence. Our stories, not told. Not spoken. Not listened to. Not given respect.
How to them justice when they are told?
How to be an active, truly present listener and witness?

To ensure that women's voices are not lost in our re-telling of the story?

This is my challenge.
Not my stories to tell, yet here I am, entrusted in telling them.

To be continued.
-Artemis.