Maria was out by herself putting storm windows on her studio yesterday, the wind was biting, it was nine degrees outside. I was in bed sick, and then thought of her outside struggling with these windows. I think of Maria as a kind of Superwoman in my life, she does so many thinks I could not do – repair broken barn windows, install storm windows, paint kitchens – and is also fiercely creative and gentle.

I got dressed and went outside, and I was shocked at the sight. She was standing in the yard with a giant window, holding the window in one hand, a wood shaver in the other, she looked absolutely furious, she was crying,  and cursing and shouting, “I’m so so fucking angry about what is happening to women…” She said it over and over again, sobbing and in a rage, shaving the window frame, which was too swollen to fit in her window.

I stopped, uncertain of how to respond. At first, I thought she might be angry at me, but I hadn’t even gotten up yet and I had never seen her that angry at me. I realized quickly what was happening – for days and weeks she had been listening to the wrenching testimonies of women who had been violated, abused, harassed, even raped and diminished in the most undignified and cruel of ways.

She had also been listening to the smarmy rationales and excuses and banalities of the abusers and their pals and defenders and enablers. i saw that this had taken a toll on her – she sometimes listens to the news in her studio while she works  – and she had finally exploded in rage and frustration out there in the freezing cold and wind.

I think she must have shaved off an inch of that window frame before she stopped cursing and crying. Maria wrote about her anger yesterday on her blog, a piercing shout from the heart, and she can speak for herself. Many people were moved by it, so was I.

Maria understands what it is like to be voiceless and diminished and abused and harassed. She relieves it all of the time in the brave and disturbing accounts of other victims. I am learning that almost everyone woman has experienced this in one way or another, and that few men yet grasp the dimensions of it, including me. I think these rationalizers and enablers are in for a great shock, this is the Year Of The Women, I believe something important is happening, I think they are rising up, I sense they have had enough.

We’ll know soon enough.

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Every Saturday, we wake up and scroll local movie websites for a movie we want to see. Maria shouted “Jane” and nearly jumped up out of the bed for joy. The much acclaimed National Geographic documentary “Jane,” the story of Jane Goodall, the primatologist, anthropologist the world’s foremost authority on chimpanzees was playing at a theater not to far from us.

I can’t imagine a better movie for Maria to see today, it was something of manna dropped from heaven. Her rage yesterday was deep and painful, the very thought of Goodall seemed to life the veil.

Maria was radiant, excited, we watched the trailer and heard Goodall talked about her fearlessness, commitment and devotion to her work. Nobody is ever going to stick their tongue in her mouth, I admit to thinking, unless she invited them to. She had created her own island, her owns special kingdom on the earth, and it was clear that no force on the planet would dislodge or bully or diminish her.

Sometimes we believe in fate in our lives, it was as if Goodall had appeared as an antidote to all the pain and suffering women have endured and are enduring, she was a symbol of strength and empowerment, just the person to appear out of nowhere and life Maria’s heart and give her some empowerment and inspiration.

Watching the news, it is a disheartening time to be a woman, or a good man, for that matter. Maria was overjoyed at just the thought of going to see Goodall, we scrambled out plans immediately, went out to an early breakfast and then to the dump, and then out to the barn to fix a broken window and then to the pasture to repair a broken gate.

We declared this a Jane Goodall day, an antidote to the daily stories of harassment and worse that feels like wallowing in manure. We’re going to see the first showing of the movie and then go out to dinner. We are going to celebrate the life and times of Jane Goodall, her incredible work with chimpanzees and her unstoppable commitment to her work and to the chimps.

In the documentary trailer, she says early on “I don’t care what anyone things,” she would spend her life in  Tanzania, walking into the hills every day to live with the chimpanzees, and to continue her 55-year study of the social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Tanzania.

I will review the movie when we get back tonight.