For years my tagline has been "The wonderings and wanderings of a living oxymoron." This was very meaningful to me because I really wrestled with how to bring into cohesive wholeness this seeming dichotomy between my love of all things domestic--including cooking, organizing a household, and making things grow--with my passionate pursuit of intellectual understanding. It wasn't a combination that I saw modeled in my circle of acquaintance and it was questioned by many well-meaning people who continually tried to pigeon-hole me in an attempt to know and understand me. There were always folks who accepted this strange commingling in me, some who even celebrated it, declaring my Renaissance Woman status. But in the midst of that I felt the need to defend and explain, even in my blog header.
Recently (in the last few months) I realized that my tagline didn't resonate any more. I knew of, if not personally, multiple other women who loved the quotidian practice of homemaking while also pursuing a life of the mind. Whole communities of women existed online who were engineers who love canning, or artists who shared their cooking or cleaning practices, etc. and my own life was now peopled with men and women who celebrated and engaged with internal dichotomies of all sorts.
