A woman and her hot water

Former American first lady, Eleanor Rossevelt
postulated an ageless fact when she said that "a woman
is like a teabag, you'll never know how strong she is
until she is inside hot water". Sometimes, the
hotwater is an odd, a nasty blow from nature. But it
can also be a consequence: of something she has done
or failed to do or something she said or didn't say,
an act of nemesis!
Amongst my people the yorubas, a woman's matrimonial
home is described as the institution where she learns
wisdom. A tertiary school of hard knocks,if you will.
An ideal environment for encounters with hot water.
Another former US first lady, Hillary Clinton
describes a surprise plunge into scalding hotwater in
the days following the August 1998 explosion of the
Monica Lewinsky scandal. Hillary will probabally never
forget that day when only as interrogation loomed, her
prseident husband owned up to the fact that contrary
to his earlier claims, there had in fact been an
improper relationship between him and the white house
intern, Monica lewinsky.
Hillary's options were many: She could have gone into
denial and pretended that it hadn't happened at all.Or
she could have receeded inmto a torrent of gloom
mouthing that whiner's favourite "why me?". She could
have blamed it all on Monica for being too buxom, too
keen, or pointed self righteous fingers at Bill,
blaming him for shaming his family.
The press went agog with the finest details of
Bill-Monica liasons, but many eyes wre really fixed on
Hillary, not on the rambuctuos duo. What would she do?
To the sneering right side opposition,, the dilema
presented a much desired chink in the formidable
Clinton family armour.Lets face it, a Bill without an
Hillary would have been easier fish to fry.
Wrestling with hurt, anger, shame, dissappointment and
God knows what else, Hillary got to the point when she
could have been excused for falling apart:At that
point when she could have been throwing expensive
porcelain and packing her louis Vuitton bags,that
woman found strenght.Out of a fog of prayer and
meditation, she asked the crucial question "what shall
I do?". When eventually, she chose to stay and mend
the leaks in their marriage which had caused the man
to cheat, many were astounded. According to Hillary,
She had only just come to realize how deeply she loved
Bill and the past that they had shared. Few women
observers could accept her opting to forgive her
husband, but Hillary stuck to that decision. He would
later overcome the impeachment charges brought against
him on account of 'monicagate'.
Many a woman in hot water, have discovered depths and
strengths that they never knew they had. Bouts in hot
water have prepared many to assume greater heights,
and lured them into self realisation. only a couple of
years after monicagate, Hillary dared to seek elective
office for the first time. She contested and won a
senatorial ticket representing the state of New York.
Today She eyes the seat of the president of the United
States.
But the African marriage is a different kettle of fish
altogether. For a woman to leave a marriage because of
infidelity, isolated or serial, would be construed as
sheer madness in most African societies. And even
after mastering the art of ignoring infidelty, the
African wife can still find herself doused in hotwater
generated by their husband's infidelity.As often
happens there are instances when the husband taks a
new wife,or those when at his grave side, a wife
watches as the dust to dust rites are performed by a
string of his children that she has never even heard
of.Ideally the African trophy goes to tthe wife(or
wives), who stick it out to the end, but somehow these
graveside encounters reduce her prize to ashes.
Working through hot water is never easy. It can feel
as though we are living dead, and our lives will never
be the same again. It can feel like being stuck in a
massive rut,or vicious sinking sand. One disaster can
spiral and lead to others of increasing magnitude. It
can drag on for days and months and even years.
Yet hotwater measures the strenght of a woman. It
reveals that like teabags, which come in varying
flavours and strenths, all women have strenghts in
varying degrees. In some strenght lies dormant like an
unworked muscle needing hot water to jostle it back to
life, others have been doused in hot water again and
again only to come out stronger and better.In trial
and tribulation many women know, lies the march onto
the peak. Hot water can be a cue to change direction,
and try new things. It can also highlight the
weaknesses of character and attitude that we need to
ditch.It can be a pointer to a vital life's lesson. It
can also test the depth of our relationships. When a
woman comes to see hot water as a stepping stone, a
medium for working her potential, that darkest hour
preceeding a glorious dawn, then she can smile even
when she is in hot water.
Surviving hot water is a journey that begins when we
wipe off those tears that confirm our feminity, and
declaring for all to hear"I will get up and go!".And
then just go!