Cherokee Sage Woman

Rainy Mondays & housework always get me down.. so it was breaktime by 11 am. Netflix had delivered a movie called 'What I Want My Words to Do to You'. I had forgotten even ordering it.. but I'm oh so glad that I did. This is a documentary produced by Eve whats-her-face, of 'The Vagina Monologue' fame. You know her, right? The Darla Jean haircut-lady from 'Little Rascals'? Right, that one.. Same haircut in this one too. In this film, Eve moderates/teaches/ & lends a philosophical ear to women prisoners in Bedford Hills Maximum Security Prison.
Inside prison, we meet close to a dozen women who are taking a writing course; answering searing questions about their crimes, their feelings, their families. Some look barely out of high school (which they are), some look borderline retarded, some look like they could be movie stars, & others looked whipped out, used up & spit out.
However, getting to know these ladies over the course of a couple of hrs, I began to have the increasing sense of 'there but for the grace of God, go I.' All of us are inbued w/ the passionate sense of anger, sadness, fear, joy, pride. We are all capable of doing great good or tremendous harm. Hopefully, we make the correct choices & end up on this side of the prison bars. But this particular group of women did not.
It shocked me to see what tough sentences some of them received for what seemingly (to me, anyway), were victimless crimes.. drug possession (20 to life!?) But other, babyfaced young girls were in for 25 to life for 2nd degree murder. One beautiful girl had been raped by her boyfriend.. went to confront him days later, to ask for an apology.. he came at her w/ a knife & said he'd do it again. She was in shock.. this had been her best friend & love of her life. Instead of walking away, she shot him.
Another lovely demure blonde.. had been hurt when her husband cheated on her. So she had an affair to pay him back. The new lover became angry when she wanted to break it off. He killed her husband, & she was arrested as an accomplice. She's now serving life w/o possibility of parole. Can you imagine the abject sense of 'knowing' that you are never going to be outside the walls of a prison..
Some of the women were older.. one a revolutionary of the 70's who was responsible for some bombings where people lost their life. She looked like a sweet little activist granny.
The film takes these women's stories, poems & essays & hands them to a group of actresses, Glenn Close, Rosie Perez, Mary Alice, & several others.. They perform the readings as live art.
It is phenomenal.. making you laugh, cry, celebrate life, & regret mistakes. Well worth watching!
Now back to the laundry..