Outnumbered

September 22, 2017

It’s never occurred before, but today a record was set. It won’t make Guiness’ record book, and won’t garnish any prizes, but it was a record, nonetheless. All it took was a glance around the table; it was obvious to all who opened their eyes, but I was the one who called our attention to it. I don’t know if there is any special honor attached to my perspicuity, but I’ll gladly accept any awards that happen to be lying around. 

Today, the men outnumbered the women at our writer’s group, eight to four! That’s almost as amazing as it would be to have more men than women show up for church. It just doesn’t happen! I think there is some obscure rule written down somewhere that forbids such deviation from the natural order of things, but we never got the notice, so here we were in all our masculine glory, eight old relics of another time and place. The testosterone was oozing from our very pores in all its virile glory, although no one grunted or scratched in unseemly places. There were women present, after all, and being as we are, card-carrying members of the Boomer generation, we do have a modicum of manners. 

These guys have stories! I’ve listened to a few of them, tales of adventure, youthful craziness, and reckless abandon that somehow eluded me when I was growing up in suburbia. There is a richness and rawness that are not usually present in the stories the women in our group write. Not to minimize or denigrate them, but their style and perspective is, well, different. The “guy” stories on the other hand, draw me in with their wit and edginess. Life seen through the eyes of these men reveals itself with a clarity that calls to the depths of my being. I am thankful tonight for these men who unintentionally yet unrelentingly have left their imprint deep on my soul. And I am glad that at least this once, we outnumbered the women.