Some of the states I have spent time in:

Graphic Designer

Photographer

Mother

Wife

UX Designer

Fiber Artist

Feminist

Doodler

Delicious cake maker

Dabbler in Poetry

Granddaughter - which is where the moniker Roxie Lune comes from

My Grandmother died when I was 16. Partly because that may be the peak time of the self-absorption of the teenage years or maybe because of all of the things I learned about her after her death, or maybe that it was the only time I have ever seen my father cry and he held my hand while he did it, the loss of her imprinted on me deeply. I spent much of my childhood with her (nearly every other weekend through elementary school) but I didn't have the opportunity to know her as an adult. I didn't have the opportunity to get to know her really. And she was unusual. She was a doctor in the 60's-80's specializing in children with cancer. She canoed through the Soo Locks in a snow storm. She traveled the world after she retired and studied genealogy giving back to others.  She left me money which allowed me to go to undergrad (if I was careful) with no debt, and once I was in college with people working their way through I saw how valuable that was and struggled to "honor her."

Her name was Roxie Tyler Mudgett. She was named after her grandmother Roxanna Cutting Tyler, who was called Roxie. Recently I started digging into the genealogy documents she left behind and which I had offered to store. Both of her parents wrote memoirs, and along with, being transported by smell back to her house, I learned that she was not the first woman in her family to go to college. Her mother also did, eventually completing a PhD in the emergent field of Social Work, and her Grandmother (Roxanna) had gone to college and made her husband promise before she died that her daughter would get as much education as their son. From all of this reading a quote emerged which stuck with me, it was from a letter Roxanna had sent after getting married while her husband was furthering his studies and she was being a wife, she would attend his classes with him when she could because she loved learning "I would rather learn Latin than do the dishes, although the dishes do get done."

Yes!
All of that to say, I come from a long line of women who would rather learn and follow their passions than do the dishes, but the dishes do eventually get done.

I have struggled with how to honor my grandmother and her mother, and her mother; women who pushed against what was common for women. They are not in the history books, they didn't lead any revolutions, they were not the FIRST, but they did something else. They pushed both at the constraints of what women could do while also embracing motherhood and family. More than 100 years later the same struggles exist, how can you follow both your passion and raise a family? Some of it is practical, planning to have a child while you are on sabbatical with your husband because you know you will not be allowed maternity leave and then to return to work (which my great-grandmother did). Finessing schedules and plans between both parents to take care of the needs of a family both financially and physically and each pursing their career goals. And some of it is more emotional, how do you stand up/demand/justify to even yourself or society at large that choice? In more than 100 years neither of those aspects have gotten THAT much easier. In someways it has, but not substantially. If we think of how technology and the way we live our lives have changed in that time the struggle to have a career/follow your passion and meaningfully raise a family have not gotten much easier.

Let me take a moment to acknowledge the privilege I and my ancestors had that we were even able to contemplate these things and go to college, that these options were open to us (with hard-work and sacrifice). My great-grandparents were not wealthy, they both had to work their way through college and write often in their memoirs about struggling and sacrificing to afford it, but that it was an OPTION and that their families supported them emotionally and when possible financially is not a privilege that everyone has.  And this for many years shamed me even more. With all the privilege I had why wasn't I a doctor/lawyer/congress woman/curing cancer? Why am I not doing MORE the honor them, to change the world?

But the real lesson I have learned to take from their lives is that quietly living the right life; pursing both your own passion and raising a family, giving back in the ways you can, acknowledging your own privilege and not using it as a platform that also keeps others down, is the way to live. It is in the quiet (and at times when needed not quiet) living a life following your heart and passion, raising children to do the same, and not allowing the bullshit of others or the current limitations of beliefs of what life can look like to limit you. To push and press and slowly demand more out of life, not just for yourself but also for others, while still being present in your own life and family.

So to Honor those women I chose the name Roxie for pursing my life passion and not limiting myself to only certain roles and titles and the limitations of others.

For the last part of the name Lune.....

Name: Roxie
Origin of Roxie: Diminutive of Roxanne
Meaning of Roxanne: Persian, "dawn"
(nameberry)

In geometry, a lune is either of two figures, both shaped roughly like a crescent Moon. The word "lune" derives from luna, the Latin word for Moon. (wikipedia)

I really enjoy the slightly contrary nature of that juxtaposition (I rather enjoy being contrary)