Blackboard (nga.gov)
(In Public Domain)
Oldest Granddaughter –06/30/14
…and, yes, she knew facts, she knew figures, she knew a circle from a square and how to figure the area of both. And some said this was a great accomplishment for a girl, but she wasn’t any longer a girl, for now her father introduced her as a young lady and a young lady was a girl becoming a woman, yes, and becoming a woman seemed distant and mysterious but she knew even now that becoming a woman was more, much more, than just a matter of time and much more than knowing facts and that πr2 would give you the area of a circle – that roundy thingy – but then, if this was true what was it then that added up, that if squared, gave you the area of being a woman? That’s what she wanted to know much more that degrees of a right angle or that parallel lines never meet. For is there a wrong angle? Do lives, parallel lives meet at some point and if yes, what is it that brings them together? And being able to point to a circle, and a square and parallel lines might be the start of being a mathematician, but, yes, the start of being a woman is not rooted in geometry, but perhaps the start of being a woman is knowing and understanding that it is not. And so, she takes her eyes from the board and her mind dismisses the teacher and her classmates as she begins to know that the start of a woman is knowing and understanding what the eyes behold and the heart perceives, of knowing the good from the useless, and knowing what is of oneself.
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