related lyrics

related lyrics

As you may know, I am passionate about work. I got my first outside-the-house job* when I was 13 and work is very much still how I define myself. Rob and I are both workaholics and our marriage is structured accordingly. Not only do I enjoy my (professional) work, but when I write fiction it turns out to be about work...what it is now, and what it can be.

I don't ever want to stop working, but as I hit 40 I've realized it might also be good to define myself as a person who is active and healthy, who keeps up her end of a friendship, who feels creative more often, and who directs just a tiny bit more of her energy towards changing the world. Well, here's one of the songs that comes to mind when I think about balancing work with "art and love and beauty."

Bread and Roses

As we go marching marching in the beauty of the day
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses
For the people hear us singing: bread and roses, bread and roses!

As we go marching marching, we battle too for men
For they are women's children and we mother them again
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes
Hearts starve as well as bodies: give us bread but give us roses.

As we go marching marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient call for bread
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew
Yes it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.

As we go marching marching, we bring the greater days
The rising of the women means the rising of the race
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes
But a sharing of life's glories - bread and roses, bread and roses!

James Oppenheim

Written as an organizing song for mill workers in 1912, Bread & Roses conjures up images of (among others) the woman-led medieval bread riots. And those images in turn remind me of my hope and trust that now and in the future women and our friends will be able to face even more gruesome situations and roll up our sleeves and do what needs to be done. There are a lot of garbled versions on the web, and I am still trying to make sure I have the words exactly correct: let me know if you have a better version, and who holds the copyright now.

When I was at college, my mom sent "Bread and Roses" for my 21st birthday (red silk roses, real bread from my then favorite bakery in Santa Ysabel, CA). I lifted out the roses first, and oohed at them, and then found the bread...and basically didn't get it right away. Later I was telling some friends, "My mom sent this odd package, just a loaf of bread and...oh, my god!" Mom and my sister Jill are not only extremely loving and creative themselves and supportive of others' creativity, but they seem to instinctively understand this balance thing. I take more after Dad - not that there's anything wrong with that!

*My first job involved bringing order out of chaos, while doing a lot of variegated tasks...and I made $120 (in '71 dollars) for an entire summer's work...and I put $90 in the bank (yes I am a child of privilege, 'cause I didn't have to contribute it towards feeding my family), and spent the other $30 on a black wool cloak, partly lined with silk (marked down from $150), my first grown-up piece of costuming. So I guess not much has changed...