Women Rowing North

 By Mary Pipher

Bloomsbury     2019

262 pages     Self-Help

Sometimes a book comes into your life at just the right moment. My spiritual growth book group read Women Rowing North this month. I had come home from a winter vacation with a really bad case of shingles and was feeling old and in a lot of pain as I began the book. Mary Pipher helped me focus on the good of my life experience, including the early spring, the birds that had returned to the feeder, and the care my family took of me when I was hurting badly.

More than anything, Pipher is encouraging women to accept who they are, where their life experience has brought them, and the will, strength, and grace to face the future. She encourages us to show mercy to ourselves and to others. This is a hard concept for me, because I generally tend to think of others first—such as what my husband would like for dinner, rather than what I might want. I am an accommodator, but the book showed me several ways to take care of myself. 

Pipher had a realization upon looking at a cactus in full bloom. It caused one of my favorite quotes from the book: “I realized that this cactus with its withered arms symbolized what my life would be. It would consist of thorns and fruit, pain and beauty. My body would age; my soul would expand.”

One of my friends really connected with the chapter about women who are caregivers. She is the caregiver for her husband whose health is deteriorating rapidly. She said that she really needed to hear what Pipher had to say on the topic. She is also experiencing a lot of loneliness because her husband is in a care facility. Pipher speaks to that as well in a chapter on loneliness and solitude.

My favorite chapter was about building a good day. Until very recently, I have been working most of my days at my computer editing graduate student work. When I stopped doing that work, I felt such a loss of purpose. Pipher spoke to me when she says, “There is no magical future. Today is our future.” Especially meaningful was this comment: “Life becomes so much simpler when we find we are in no hurry.” A friend’s husband died a week ago after a long illness. He was at home under hospice care. The children and grandchildren  came home to spend time with their parents in the days before his death, and now they are spending the weeks following his death celebrating his life in their childhood home. I appreciated this statement so much when thinking about my friends: “When times are tough, think short-term. Long-term we are all going to die. But short-term, we can plan for happiness, one day at a time. If life is particularly rough, think in terms of the next ten minutes.”

The Washington Post reviewer felt the book was trivial with several words overused such as “bliss”, “transcendence”, and “awe.” Another reviewer was kinder and felt that Pipher upended the myths of female aging. The reviewer felt that Pipher’s primary goal was to instill in women the concept of self-acceptance. The Library Journal reviewer said that “This is bound to become the bible of baby boomer women.” NPR named it one of the best books of the year.

It is my hope, as is Pipher’s, that my friends and I will be able to rise above the inescapable pain that we will inevitably suffer and “experience bliss.”