The Guided Life- Psychic and Energy Reveal

08/27/2026

Penny for MY Thoughts

-Garbage Day-

DaDumas

Garbage night is supposed to be Wednesday, though I don’t always remember. Tonight, I have two weeks’ worth of garbage: two large green containers issued by the city, a recycling bin filled with everything regardless of whether it is recyclable, a plastic storage bin, and two large, not-so-heavy-duty black outdoor garbage bags.

The last container is the hardest to carry down the long gravel driveway. Large oak trees form a canopy overhead, their Spanish moss dangling and tangling in my sneakers—or, more accurately, my old khaki-green deck shoes, one with a hole where my big toe has worn through the canvas. I am wearing a leopard-print velour hooded nightgown and a pair of khaki knee-length shorts, their strings hanging at the knees and waist so they can be adjusted as needed, though they keep slipping down as I walk.

I feel the sharp edges of the gravel through the thin soles and hear the stones shift beneath every step. Across the field, I can’t see the dog, but I think he sees me because he starts barking. The moon is out, lighting the path just enough to guide me toward the garbage cans.

Once the containers are in place, I turn around for the long walk back. The gravel is sharp, my shoes are thin, and the outfit is ridiculous, but no one is going to see me. Besides, I look cute enough, and my attitude matches what I’m wearing.

One week later, I remember garbage night again. I walk the same long gravel driveway beneath the oak canopy, Spanish moss brushing and tangling around my khaki deck shoes. I am wearing the leopard-print hooded velour nightgown, which falls to my knees, along with the long khaki shorts, their strings tied at the knees and waist.

The moon lights the pathway as I carry the last container to the curb. The two green city-issued bins are full, and the recycling bin is filled with whatever I happened to put in it, recyclable or not. On the way back, each step stirs the gravel, the sound echoing through the silent moonlit night.

This time, the dog doesn’t bark. He must not have seen me, just as I didn’t see him. Still, at least I remembered it was garbage night.

The following week, I forget. One week later and one day, Mauldi, my Whoodle, leaps off the bed and starts barking at six in the morning. In the background, I hear the garbage trucks. Too late. I forgot to take the garbage out the night before.

The next week, I remember too late again. It is already dark, and I can’t see what might be lurking outside near the dried-up canal or dangling from the oak trees. Maybe there is more out there than Spanish moss. I decide not to take the garbage out. Maybe the dog will see me; maybe I’ll see him. Either way, what’s the big deal? It can wait another week.

I lock the door, close the blinds, and get ready for bed. Besides, I’m out of garbage bags. The kitchen’s thirteen-gallon stainless-steel foot-controlled garbage can is overflowing, its lid unable to close because various items hang over the edge.

I am out of garbage bags. I know I already said that, but I am out of garbage bags.

Before bed, I consider washing up and finding pajamas. It is too hot for the leopard-print velour hooded nightgown anyway, and it is sitting in the white laundry basket in the laundry room with the rest of the clothes waiting to be washed.

It isn’t laundry night. There is a laundry day, but it has no fixed schedule. Laundry day arrives randomly, usually when I need something to wear and discover that everything I want is dirty in the laundry room. Then it becomes laundry day.

I may forget garbage night, but I never miss laundry day.

08/22/2026

At ten years old, she ruined her own marriage arrangement by chewing raw aubergine until her teeth turned black.

At six, women from her own family held her down and cut her.

At fifty, the Egyptian government placed her in prison.

And inside that prison, without even a pen, she found an eyebrow pencil and scraps of toilet paper and used them to write words that would help inspire a feminist movement across the Arab world.

Her name was Nawal El Saadawi.

She was born in 1931 in Kafr Tahla, a small village in Egypt, as the second of nine children.

From an early age, she understood what society expected from girls.

Her grandmother made the belief very clear.

A boy was worth at least fifteen girls.

Girls were considered a burden.

Girls were considered a misfortune.

Nawal heard those words as a child.

Something inside her rejected them.

She would spend the rest of her life doing exactly that.

When she was six years old, women in her family held her down and performed female ge***al mutilation on her.

The physical pain stayed with her.

So did something deeper.

The people who were supposed to protect her had participated in a system built around fear, obedience, and control.

But the experience did not break her.

At ten, her family arranged a marriage for her.

A husband had been chosen, and his family was coming to inspect her.

Nawal decided she would make sure they didn't want her.

She went into the kitchen, found a raw aubergine, and chewed it until its dark juice stained her teeth completely black.

When the visitors arrived, she smiled as widely as possible.

They looked at her teeth.

Then they left.

The marriage never happened.

A ten year old girl had found a way to protect her future with a vegetable and a small act of rebellion.

She would use that future fiercely.

Her father believed his daughters should receive an education, and Nawal took full advantage of it.

She read everything she could find.

She began writing at a young age and completed her first novel when she was only thirteen.

She wanted to become a doctor.

In 1955, at 24, she graduated from Cairo University's medical school.

She then returned to rural Egypt and began treating women whose suffering was often hidden behind the walls of their homes and the customs of society.

She saw the consequences of female ge***al mutilation.

She saw women die during childbirth.

She saw wives trapped in violent marriages with no safe place to go.

She saw how political power, religion, poverty, and patriarchy could all come together in the lives and bodies of women.

And she couldn't stay silent.

In 1969, she published *Women and S*x*, openly challenging female ge***al mutilation and the control of women's bodies and s*xuality.

The authorities reacted quickly.

She was removed from her position as Director of Public Health.

The magazine she edited was shut down.

Her books were banned.

Her opponents believed punishment would make her careful.

Instead, it made her louder.

In 1975, she published *Woman at Point Zero*, inspired by a woman she had met while working as a psychiatrist in prison.

The woman was a s*x worker awaiting ex*****on after killing her pimp.

Nawal listened to her story and turned it into a novel about exploitation, violence, and the terrible price women could pay for refusing to submit.

The book became one of the defining works of Arab feminist literature.

By 1981, the Egyptian government had decided that Nawal's voice had become too dangerous.

President Anwar Sadat publicly claimed that Egypt welcomed criticism.

But in September of that year, Nawal was arrested and accused of conspiring with Bulgaria to overthrow the government.

The accusation was almost absurd.

Her real offense was speaking without permission.

At 50 years old, she was taken to Qanatir Women's Prison.

The authorities took away her pen and paper.

They believed that without writing materials, they could silence a writer.

They were wrong.

A fellow prisoner managed to find her an eyebrow pencil.

Nawal began writing on pieces of toilet paper.

She recorded what she saw inside the prison.

She wrote about political repression, fear, women's lives, and the ways those in power tried to make people feel powerless.

Those hidden pages would later become Memoirs from the Women's Prison.

But Nawal wasn't only writing.

From inside the prison, she helped establish the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association, an independent feminist organization that challenged the systems restricting women's freedom.

The government had put her behind bars.

She helped build a movement from inside her cell.

After Sadat was assassinated in October 1981, Nawal was released.

She had spent two months in prison.

But once she walked free, she immediately returned to the work that had put her there.

The threats only became more serious.

In the early 1990s, religious extremists placed her name on a death list.

Government officials offered her armed protection.

She refused.

In 1993, she left Egypt and went into exile in the United States.

She taught and lectured at universities including Duke, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Berkeley.

Her books traveled far beyond the reach of the authorities who had once banned them.

She eventually wrote more than 50 works, which were translated into more than 20 languages.

In 1996, she returned to Egypt.

She was older, but she had lost none of her defiance.

Then, in 2005, at the age of 74, she announced that she would run for president against Hosni Mubarak.

She knew the electoral system was unlikely to allow her to win.

But winning was never the real point.

She wanted every girl watching to understand that no position of power was too great for a woman to challenge.

Throughout her life, Nawal faced censorship, imprisonment, exile, death threats, accusations of apostasy, and attempts to destroy her marriage through the courts.

Her organizations were shut down.

Her books were banned.

Her opponents repeatedly tried to silence her.

She survived them.

Nawal El Saadawi died in Cairo on March 21, 2021, at the age of 89.

By then, she had become one of the most important feminist voices in the Arab world.

But her fight had never been only about herself.

It was for the six year old girl being held down.

The ten year old girl being promised to a stranger.

The woman trapped inside a violent home.

The prisoner who was denied a pen.

For nearly nine decades, Nawal El Saadawi kept saying the same word in countless different ways.

No.

It began with raw aubergine, blackened teeth, and a child deciding that the life chosen for her would not be the life she lived.

She would choose her own.

“No. I will choose my own life.”

06/20/2026

😂 sounds like a plan! LOL

04/20/2026

I've been creating, sharing, and finding my voice across different spaces. I am bringing all into one place.
One voice. One path. One space to connect.

You can now find me here my page: Dadumas; The Guided Life.
This is where I'll be sharing my writing, my life, and the work I'm building.
Hope to see you there!

04/20/2026

I've been creating, sharing, and finding my voice across different spaces...
I am bringing all it all to one place.
One voice. One path. One space to connect.
You can now find me her : The Guided Life
This is where I'll be sharing my writing my life, and the work I'm building.
Hope to see you there!

04/20/2026

04/20/2026

04/17/2026

04/12/2026

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