January Born Girl Quotes

I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.

Their daughter was born just before sunrise. She had skin the color of cedarwood and eyes like wheat. They named her for an old, half-forgotten god from Ade's own world, whom Yule had studied once in an ancient text preserved in Nin's archives. He was a strange god, depicted in the faded manuscript with two faces staring both backward and forward. He presided not over once particular domain but over the places between- past and present, here and there, endings and beginnings- over doorways, in short. But Ade thought Janus sounded too much like Jane, and she'd be damned if any daughter of hers would be named Jane. They named her after the god's own month instead: January. Oh, my sweet daughter, my perfect January, I would beg for your forgiveness, but I lack the courage. All I can ask for is your belief. Believe in doors and worlds and the Written. Believe most of all in our love for you- even if the only evidence we've left you is contained in the book you now hold.

I was born a week after New Year’s, on January 8, 1960. In the waiting room, supplied only with pink-ribboned cigars, my father cried out, “Bingo!” I was a girl. Nineteen inches long. Seven pounds four ounces. That same January 8, my grandfather suffered the first of his thirteen strokes. Awakened by my parents rushing off to the hospital, he’d gotten out of bed and gone downstairs to make himself a cup of coffee. An hour later, Desdemona found him lying on the kitchen floor. Though his mental faculties remained intact, that morning, as I let out my first cry at Women’s Hospital, my papou lost the ability to speak. According to Desdemona, my grandfather collapsed right after overturning his coffee cup to read his fortune in the grounds.

Monday, January 26 Be Strong and Courageous “So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them! For the LORD your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.” DEUTERONOMY 31:6 NLT In The Horse and His Boy, one of the books in the Narnia series by C. S. Lewis, we see a beautiful picture of how the Lord gives us strength and courage to do His will. The boy, Shasta, runs away from home. Along the way he meets up with a talking horse from Narnia and a nobly born girl, Aravis, with her talking horse. They decide to take their horses to Narnia, but their plans fall apart when they have to go through the Calormene capitol city, Tashbaan. Several times as they travel, they are chased by lions, harassed by cats, and generally persecuted by various members of the cat family. Finally, on one particularly dark night, Shasta crosses over a mountain pass alone. In the dark and fog Shasta senses rather than sees a creature walking along beside him. And he’s terrified. Later, when he meets Aslan, Shasta learns that all the cats were Aslan, guiding them, pushing them, and yes, terrifying them into doing what they needed to do. Aslan was also his protector as he crossed the steep and dangerous mountain pass in the dark. Shasta is angry until he realizes that Aslan did everything out of love, even hurting Aravis when her pride was keeping them from the mission they’d been given. Father, thank You for the beautiful picture of Your protection and courage to those who are Yours.

with her son, looking beside herself with fear and worry. ‘Would you look after Friedrich, please?’ ‘Of course!’ Anna bent down to the boy and took his hand. ‘You remember Tante Anna, don’t you, darling?’ Martha said to him encouragingly. ‘You can play with Rita and Erich while your mama is busy,’ Anna said. The boy nodded and cautiously let go of his mother. Anna couldn’t believe how small and skinny he was. The loaf of bread! she suddenly remembered. She hadn’t given it to Martha yet and the woman was far too timid to ask. ‘Take the children,’ she said to Maria. ‘I’ll be back in a moment.’ Then she turned back to Martha. ‘Come with me,’ she said, pulling Friedrich along too. ‘Here.’ She opened the rucksack with their provisions and handed her the loaf of bread. ‘You’d already gone to sleep yesterday and we didn’t want to wake you.’ ‘Thank you.’ Carefully Martha broke off a piece. ‘Please give the rest to Friedrich, OK?’ ‘Don’t worry, we won’t let him starve,’ Anna interrupted her. She broke off another chunk of bread and put it in Martha’s bag. ‘You’ll need all the strength you can get.’ The woman nodded bravely and joined the nearly fully assembled work gang. The middle aisle was empty, everyone was where they were supposed to be, and Anna hurried to her children. With a sinking heart she watched the work gang set off. Apart from the men, there were two boys who could be no older than sixteen or seventeen, as well as four women and a young girl holding on to her mother’s hand. Most of them weren’t dressed appropriately and Anna hoped very much that they would be given coats and boots before they were forced to work in the woods. The door was slammed behind them then and the Commander turned towards the women and children. Their names were called and they were asked to state their abilities and say how old their children were. ‘Anna Scholz,’ she said by way of introduction when it was her turn, ‘and these are my children, Erich and Yvonne.’ ‘Date of birth?’ ‘The 17th of September 1902,’ she said. ‘Erich was born on the 10th of January 1922, Yvo on the 5th of October

Marita Lorenz, was born on August 18, 1939, in Bremen, Germany. In January of 1960 Marita, described as an attractive “curvy, black-haired young lady was named American’s “Mata Hari” by New York Daily News reporter Paul Meskil. Having had an affair with Fidel Castro that turned sour, she now returned to Havana where she attempted to take part in an assassination attempt, supposedly orchestrated by the Mafia and the CIA. Marita brought along poison pills in her cold cream jar, which predictably melted in the tropical heat. Besides, she later said that she really did not have the stomach for killing her former lover. Apparently Castro aware of why she returned to Cuba, handed her his pistol with a dare for her to use it. Even after knowing the truth regarding her visit, he allowed her to safely leave Cuba. Returning to Miami, Marita said that Frank Sturgis, presumably a CIA operative, was involved in this attempt, however it was his close associate, Alex Rorke, who was responsible for orchestrating the plan to poison Castro. Sturgis was extremely angry when she returned and rebuked her for putting the pills into the warm cold cream, calling her stupid, over and over again. For a few years after leaving the island, Marita was looked after and protected by a mobster named Ed Levi. It was his job to protect her from, what was considered, a likely attempt on her life by “Cuban Intelligence Operatives.” In 1961, Marita met Marcos Pérez Jiménez, the former President of Venezuela, in Miami. Marcos told her that he was anxious to meet her because he knew she was “Fidel's girl." He successfully pursued Marita, and when she gave in, they had an affair that resulted in the birth of a daughter.

I have said earlier that the typical attention span of a child is his age in minutes. If a parent or teacher expects that a ten-year-old should be able to focus uninterrupted for twenty or thirty minutes, those are unrealistic expectations. When the adult gets to the part of the questionnaire that says, “Often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities,” she has to check off one of the following modifiers: always, often, sometimes, rarely, or never. Because of her expectation that a ten-year-old boy should be able to focus for twenty or thirty minutes, she is likely to check off always or often. Is this realistic? Will these kinds of answers lead to a diagnosis of ADD in a boy whose behaviour is perfectly normal? Two other statements on the questionnaire are, “Often leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected,” and “Often has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly.” Let’s imagine a December-born boy in grade one sitting with a January-born girl on each side of him. How will he appear? Does he have ADD? I have heard it suggested, and I completely agree, that no child should be assessed for ADD before the age of seven, and even that is pretty young. The “clay” is still very soft. In our modern schools, where we are in the business of making kids “normal” and measuring normalcy, our yardsticks may be flawed. Our standards for normal have two aspects: the tools we use for measuring, and the attitudes and expectations we bring to interpreting the results. We should have great humility when it comes to diagnosing kids. Are our tools accurate and our expectations realistic?

was conceived during the honeymoon, and born in Hyesan in January 1980. My birth name was Kim Ji-hae. It would seem that my mother’s future, and mine, was sealed.