Female Friendships – Red Tent Living

The Power of Presence

By: redtentwomen May 30, 2022May 25, 2022

Day to Day, Monthly Themes, relationshipsAging Parents, Being Present, Female Friendships, loneliness, processing grief, Susan Tucker3 Comments

For the past fourteen years, the heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been a constant in my life. With two boys coming of age as the 34 movies in this franchise were released, I spent many, if not most, of their birthdays from ages 8 to 18 sitting in a darkened theater watching the…

Sistering Is a Verb

By: redtentwomen January 31, 2022January 25, 2022

Femininity, Monthly Themes, relationshipsdeep friendship, Female Friendships, female relationships, Friendship, sisterhood, Sisters, Tracy Johnson4 Comments

Carrie lived seven doors down on the opposite side of our street. We met on the first day of school at Baywood Elementary, and we were six years old. The boy who sat between us, Bill, threw up into his desk. Carrie’s eyes met mine with shock and horror, followed by six-year-old giggling, which got…

What Is Saving Your Life Right Now?

By: redtentwomen May 15, 2020May 14, 2020

Day to Day, Femininity, relationshipsBarbara Brown Taylor, Encountering the Sacred: Feminist Reflections on Women's Lives, Female Friendships, For The Love Podcast, Haley Wiggers, Jen Hatmaker, Kim Ott, Why We Need Besties4 Comments

I’ve found myself repeating this question to the few people I interact with these days, from a safe distance of course (how odd that we now have to qualify that our interactions with actual humans are safe and socially distanced). This question was brought into my life a few years ago as I dove deeply…

To Agnes, the Patron Saint of Women’s Hair

By: redtentwomen July 9, 2019July 8, 2019

Day to Day, Femininitycancer, Chemotherapy, Female Friendships, Frienship, Poetry, Simona Chitescu Weik, Sisters3 Comments

When the Securitate would enter our house, my sister and I would hide in the bathroom, the one where the tile and commode and even the porcelain tub was pink, and tell each other stories. There was the story of the gypsies who kidnapped fair-headed children like ourselves, cut off a hand or foot, then…

The Romance of Friendship

By: redtentwomen January 24, 2019January 20, 2019

Day to Day, Femininity, relationshipsFemale Friendships, Lauren Sawyer, sexuality, Sexuality and the Church4 Comments

Long before I knew romance with a boyfriend, I learned how to love, and love intensely, from my friend Ashley. “You are my SPNQ (SPOH-neek),” we would say to each other. It was code for “I love you,” invented some silly night at a girls’ retreat when we were maybe 15, 16 years old. It…

The Tent.

By: redtentwomen October 30, 2018October 29, 2018

Faith, Femininity, Red Tent DinnerBrave On Austin, Change, Female Friendships, Jen Hatmaker, Joanna Wilder, Moving8 Comments

Brave On was a safe space for my heart to rest and to shift. Who knew there could be a place with (gasp) a bunch of Christian women that also carried the adjective “safe”?!

Life Lost, Love Gained

By: redtentwomen December 15, 2017December 15, 2017

Day to Day, relationshipsFemale Friendships, Pregnancy Loss, processing grief, recovery from childhood abuse, Redemption, Victory Suimara16 Comments

“You should never be a mom.” “You would be a horrible mother.” Not sure the number of times I heard these lines through my childhood, but it was often enough that these words took root in my life and grew deep.

Crossing the Bridge

By: redtentwomen June 30, 2017June 29, 2017

Day to Day, relationshipsAttunement, Building Friendship, Female Friendships, Neglect, Tracy Johnson23 Comments

I could barely understand her in between the heaving sobs and the words tumbling out quickly, but I did catch enough to know she was alone and feeling unseen and unwanted.