This morning, I heard someone say “women hold up half the sky”, and I thought, “I would be happy if most people just held up their half of the conversation.”  I’m hosting an event this evening where I will spend a lot of time chatting and being charming.

It may not look like it but there is an art to introducing people, remembering and providing the right details to get them talking, so they can get to know each other, so they can have a good time.

Sometimes its a lot of work, sometimes its a lot of fun.

My mental RSVP list for every event I throw has two columns: 1) attending, and 2) “totally cool and fun”. The translation of “totally cool and fun”, in adult speak, is “interesting conversationalist.”

I am unfortunately stuck with “totally cool” being automatically the highest praise that comes out of my mouth, but I am able to translate it if I pause for a second.

Conversation is important to me. Not just for work events (mine or my husbands), but because it really centers and connects me in the world. I need to talk and listen and hear stories and new ideas. I am not now and never will be a solitary, introverted person.

I once had the privilege of attending a storyweaving workshop with Spiderwoman Theater. The sisters were powerful and funny and that day with them years ago gave me a way to see how the threads of my experience come together and are part of a larger design.

That weaving of connections, of people, of patterns is never far from my mind, especially when I am listening to clients tell me their stories.

I often tell my female clients to avoid describing their work as “weaving together” or “creating a tapestry” because these tasks are associated with “women’s work” and are generally devalued in mainstream US culture.

But that is what I do. And what I love to do. Help my coaching clients find their threads, stitch them together, see the value, the connection to humanity.

Women’s work.

Its a rambly post today, but in honor of the topic I’m not going to edit or try to fix it. Or even find the spelling and punctuation errors that I invariably make.

One last thing: If you have never visited the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC I highly recommend it. It was humbling to understand the vastness of what I didn’t know (and still don’t) about Native American cultures.