Some Women Wait

This poem said a lot to me, the poet begins by inferring or better yet stating that "some women love to wait" (3375). Lorde then starts to list the things women "love" to wait for, some things that shouldn't be waited for like someone else to make them whole again, somethings that you're expected to wait for like a marriage proposal. She talks about waiting, or not living isn't always worth it. That "the opposite of living is only not living and the stars do not care" (3376). What you chose to make up your life is your decision. To wait for change or to change yourselves as in the ending of the poem (3376). But the poet doesn't say whether this decision for changing oneself is for the good or the bad. And I don't think these stations of waiting are necessarily bad, they seem to be. It seems to be that these women she describes are putting their lives on hold or holding back from something. Women wait for such tremendous things, things that just take time. Waiting isn't an awful thing, waiting for a husbands return is an empowering and independent time in my life, waiting for the birth of a child is huge for a mother. The growth, development, all the stages for becoming a mother. This waiting is important to the process. I think Lorde lightly touches these times but I don't know it just didn't feel right to me. The beginning of the poem reflects the rest of the poem for me in that she believes some of these women love the waiting, that's certainly not true. Depsite the waiting being a necessity these women don't love it. I thought the desciption of Audre Lorde as being a black lesbian feminist warrior poet empowering, I'm not one for lables. And this was riddled with them because I feel like it can give you a negative impression of somebody. Just like this poem felt like a label, the patient women, always waiting for a life that doesn't come. Waiting for love, waiting for a baby, waiting for acceptance, equality, waiting for all these things and her patience is her down fall because she will wait until eventually she gives up her waiting and accepts defeat, changing herself in the end. Maybe I missed the point of this poem, I don't know. But I see strenght in waiting, I see perseverance, I see some wonderful things and I'd hate such a negative lable to be placed on diligent women waiting for something important to them.