I realized two things today. One, I am not a naturally cool person. And two, I am okay with that. Now it’s not that I’m self-deluded enough to have gotten all the way to age 33 thinking that I’m cool when I’m really not, but more that I always hoped I at least had the potential to be cool and was just missing it by a few degrees that could eventually be overcome. “Cool” is one of those terms that gets thrown around a lot but is difficult to pin down when it comes to a specific definition, but I’ll do my best. From my perspective, cool people are those who have that kind of effortless quality to them—effortless confidence, effortless hipness, effortless social interactions with others, and so on. During the Italian Renaissance, this seeming effortlessness and grace with regards to dress, conduct, and art (when in fact there was a tremendous amount of intention, effort, and work involved) was called sprezzatura. And cool people have this. They wear clothes that have come out of a thrift store and sport unwashed hair with panache. Cool men can wear hats and glasses that would make any other man look ridiculous. Cool women can wear ugly sweaters and/or dresses with haughty expressions that somehow transform them into high fashion. In cool women’s hair, plastic barrettes are chic. Cool people don’t approach other people—other people flock to them, fluttering about like so many moths anxious to set their wings on fire. Cool people do what they like and say what they like and even their aloofness or lack of consideration has a kind of charisma and charm. They are known and they are in the know, but all in a kind of careless, casual way. Like I said, sprezzatura.
Then there’s me. Every once in awhile, I will wear a cool outfit. I have cool taste in music and films. I read cool books. I’ve even been friends with a few of those naturally cool people over the years. But I am not a naturally cool person and I never will be. I often wear clothes that have more to do with comfort and practicality than style. Accessories tend to baffle me. I make to-do lists every day and systematically cross off each item once I’ve accomplished it (somehow I don’t think naturally cool people do this). I wear old lady slippers around the house. I get the same haircut every time I go to the salon. I get excited when a new Newsweek issue arrives in my mailbox. I’ll have earnest conversations with people about fruits and antioxidants. And most of all, I have none of that sprezzatura. Social situations (especially involving people I don’t know very well) usually require a fair amount of effort from me, and there is an awkwardness and reserve that I feel are often readily apparent to others. When I have a conversation with someone, it’s not just the two of us talking—there are also the voices in my head. These are not the schizophrenic voices of the insane (at least I hope not), but the overly-analytical voice of my self-conscious inner critic, who is processing and judging everything I say and do, and the voice of my fledgling self-confidence, which is attempting to restrain or at least balance the judgmental voice and allow me to just be myself, whatever that is. I lack that sprezzatura because I want everyone to like me but the critic keeps telling me they’re probably put off by my oh-so-obvious shortcomings. And then the critic berates me for wanting everyone to like me (I can’t win). A cool person says, “who the hell cares?” and is liked by everyone anyway. I can see this, but I care too much (and think too much) to ever be this.
Which brings me to number two. While I think I’ll always have a certain level of self-consciousness and shyness around cool people—it’s just who I am—realizing that I will never be a cool person myself is a tremendous relief. It means I can stop trying. It means I can let myself off the hook about the shoes I recently bought that one of my students described as “grandma chic.” It means I can embrace my uncoolness. I can like my gauche habits and dork traits. Most significantly, I can fully appreciate my relationships with fellow uncool people. While cool people have this strange power of attraction for me, I often find it difficult to connect with them and feel at home with them, and I seldom feel like they care anything about me. I wonder if that’s connected—the carelessness that allows them to be so cool is also what keeps them aloof. Or maybe it’s that cool people can only truly relate to and have deep relationships with other cool people. Or maybe that I am artificially creating these barriers on my end, which is quite possible. The few cool friends I’ve had over the years have been my most difficult relationships. There has always been a level of fakeness and self-consciousness there that I haven’t been able to get past, and I know that has as much to do with my own expectations for myself as with any they might have for me. But my fellow uncool friends, well, they are gems. Their quirks and uncool qualities make me feel free and unselfconscious about my own, and that’s when we can actually love each other truly. I know that cool people have flaws as well—they’re just better packaged. Maybe the rest of us are deceived by this packaging. Maybe in their cool hats and cool but ugly sweaters they’re lonely and insecure too. Maybe the Kingdom of God will be all the coolness and the desire for it stripped away so that a world full of dorks and uncool people can love each other awkwardly and honestly, no sprezzatura involved. Or at least that's my (un)cool thought.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Sunday, May 13, 2007
My Mother's Toes
My mother had a number of physical habits that I suppose could be called tics, but they were more subtle and more endearing than that term implies. She was always in motion in some small way even when she was completely at rest. Her nose would twitch, not unlike a rabbit’s, whenever she sat at the dining room table drinking her coffee and reading. Her eyes would blink in rapid patterns while she was listening to someone on the telephone, and her toes would bob and sway while she sat back in the recliner watching TV. Those toes had a life of their own to the degree that my mother regularly had to replace her tennis shoes because her big toes would gradually burrow holes through the tops of them. Same thing with her slippers. I still have a pair of them—fuzzy navy blue ones with a hole poked through right above the big toe.
When we last took my mother to her oncologist in January 2002, he assured us that the agonizing regimen of radiation treatment she had just completed would start to take effect soon, and the tumors pushing their way through her bones, where there was no space for them, would finally start to shrink. It was no cure, of course, but it offered some hope that the grip of pain not even morphine could free her from would finally let up. And then we could talk about the finality we hadn’t had a chance to address yet and do our best to enjoy the remaining three to four months of life the oncologist predicted my mother had left.
What the oncologist did not know, what none of us knew, was that the cancer had metastasized to her brain, and in the middle hours of the very next night my mother suffered a massive stroke. She managed to tell my father and brother (who was visiting with his family) that she did not want to go to the hospital. By the time I arrived from my apartment, she could not voluntarily move or speak or even control her eyes, which rolled back in her head as I greeted her and kissed her cheek. Hospice care arrived a few hours later and had a hospital bed, oxygen tank, and morphine pump set up by midday. At this point, my other two siblings were already on planes, making their way across the country from their homes on the east coast.
I don’t remember quite when or how we first noticed it, but very early on we discovered that my mother could move her feet a little. Her left toes, in particular, seemed especially mobile. We began asking her simple yes and no questions, instructing her to move her toes for yes answers. I don’t think I can begin to describe the joy and excitement that filled our hearts when we saw her move her foot very deliberately in response to one question, hold it quite still at another, and then move it again to another. Behind her slack mouth and rolled back eyes, my mother was still with us. She was still aware. She was still able to communicate with us.
In the next few days, we frequently gathered around her bed and sang hymns. My mother loved music. Growing up, I often found her in the kitchen warbling along to a favorite song and even doing a kind of soft-shuffle dance, her eyes half closed. When she’d see that I’d caught her at it, she’d wink and smile at me and then get back to it. And now, as we circled her bed and sang, her foot danced along. We knew it was deliberate because the motion would still when we paused and start up once we began singing again. When I told her how much we loved her and that we knew she would tell us she loved us if she could, the motion of her foot nearly kicked the sheet off the bed. On the fourth day, her motions became a bit more irregular. By the end of the fifth day, her foot no longer moved, and at the very end of the sixth, she died.
When you gather at the side of someone who is dying, someone whom you deeply love, time has a way of stretching out and small things have a way of being magnified. There are so many elements of those last six days—both excruciating and exhilarating, humorously mundane and divinely sacred—that I hold in my heart and my memory and have yet to fully process. But on this Mother’s Day, I think about her dancing toes and thank God for the sweetness of that blessing, for that tiny miracle of motion that connected us beyond the power of speech.
When we last took my mother to her oncologist in January 2002, he assured us that the agonizing regimen of radiation treatment she had just completed would start to take effect soon, and the tumors pushing their way through her bones, where there was no space for them, would finally start to shrink. It was no cure, of course, but it offered some hope that the grip of pain not even morphine could free her from would finally let up. And then we could talk about the finality we hadn’t had a chance to address yet and do our best to enjoy the remaining three to four months of life the oncologist predicted my mother had left.
What the oncologist did not know, what none of us knew, was that the cancer had metastasized to her brain, and in the middle hours of the very next night my mother suffered a massive stroke. She managed to tell my father and brother (who was visiting with his family) that she did not want to go to the hospital. By the time I arrived from my apartment, she could not voluntarily move or speak or even control her eyes, which rolled back in her head as I greeted her and kissed her cheek. Hospice care arrived a few hours later and had a hospital bed, oxygen tank, and morphine pump set up by midday. At this point, my other two siblings were already on planes, making their way across the country from their homes on the east coast.
I don’t remember quite when or how we first noticed it, but very early on we discovered that my mother could move her feet a little. Her left toes, in particular, seemed especially mobile. We began asking her simple yes and no questions, instructing her to move her toes for yes answers. I don’t think I can begin to describe the joy and excitement that filled our hearts when we saw her move her foot very deliberately in response to one question, hold it quite still at another, and then move it again to another. Behind her slack mouth and rolled back eyes, my mother was still with us. She was still aware. She was still able to communicate with us.
In the next few days, we frequently gathered around her bed and sang hymns. My mother loved music. Growing up, I often found her in the kitchen warbling along to a favorite song and even doing a kind of soft-shuffle dance, her eyes half closed. When she’d see that I’d caught her at it, she’d wink and smile at me and then get back to it. And now, as we circled her bed and sang, her foot danced along. We knew it was deliberate because the motion would still when we paused and start up once we began singing again. When I told her how much we loved her and that we knew she would tell us she loved us if she could, the motion of her foot nearly kicked the sheet off the bed. On the fourth day, her motions became a bit more irregular. By the end of the fifth day, her foot no longer moved, and at the very end of the sixth, she died.
When you gather at the side of someone who is dying, someone whom you deeply love, time has a way of stretching out and small things have a way of being magnified. There are so many elements of those last six days—both excruciating and exhilarating, humorously mundane and divinely sacred—that I hold in my heart and my memory and have yet to fully process. But on this Mother’s Day, I think about her dancing toes and thank God for the sweetness of that blessing, for that tiny miracle of motion that connected us beyond the power of speech.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Guest Post by Eric Balmer
"Love Roger"
It is pretty natural for people to look to particular moments in their lives that define them. That whole “existence precedes essence” thing has gotten pretty out of hand. But there are moments that leave indelible marks upon the wet wear upstairs. I guess it must have been the millennium. Just imagine the probability of actually living when the calendars change not just from one year to the next, or even from one century to the next, but actually from one millennium to next (I’m aware that is it merely a convention, but nonetheless an exciting one especially considering that world civilization was about to be undermined by a computer bug - “Quick, get the guns and the gold”). The force of history actually moved my dad to put a card in an envelope and send it across the Atlantic. It arrived on the steps of the fourplex that I live in and made it to my desk. Not only did I receive a card, but a box of Swiss chocolates. They had designs on them of local villages in the surrounding areas where my dad resides. I’ve been to these villages. Sure they are pretty, but they’re in Switzerland so they’re neutral. I haven’t met very many exciting neutral people in my life. “Mom, I am so excited for you to meet my new girlfriend. She has all of the characteristics that I look for in a girl. She is so neutral. I think that we’ll get married some day!”
I am actually a believer in the written word (some things are obvious) and two words in the card left me deflated. I was actually so filled with excitement upon receiving the card that I actually missed the severity of the two words the first time that I read them - “Love Roger.” In the first fourteen years of my life, when I lived with my dad, I never once came home and said, “Hi Roger.” Did I have to be taught that? I don’t recall, but it seems safe to say that this goes against the way of the earth. Dads aren’t Rogers, but Rogers are Dads. The relationship is not symmetrical, but I’m not the one who violated it. He did. If only the card had ended with the words – “Love Dad.”
As I write, I am less than two months away from my twenty-eighth birthday. Add fourteen and fourteen together and you get the sum total of years that I’ve been given so far. The first half is the “Love Dad” half and the second half is the “Love Roger” half. The saddest day of my life was the day that found the Archimedian point that divided these two halves when his plane was called and the earth moved. Airports. What is sadder than an airport? On that day, I was fourteen. My Mom, Dad, two sisters and I drove to LAX to see him off. Little did I know that it would be such a fateful day; my life was now divided and my Dad would become a man called “Roger.”
The thing that makes the divide both confusing and painful is…. the willfulness. There was a choice involved and it was not made in my favor. Had my Dad died of natural causes back in December 1989, I would have been devastated. However, the death that he died was a willful one, a neglect of his only son. I was not the one who let go. He did. The fact is, I love my Dad and remember him with the kind of love that only a son can have for his father. I had strange hobbies as a kid. He embraced them. I was a magic geek. In fact, I was President of the Fountain Valley High School Magic Club. We had two members. When I longed for hair to grow under my arms, my Dad did as well. Its uncanny how caught up a prepubescent fourteen year old can get over any area of the body aptly labeled “Buckwheat in a headlock.” 1989. The fixed point and the leverage needed to move the earth was found and someone pulled the lever. The world was rejoicing over the fall of the “evil empire” and I was wondering why my Mom was hanging out with another man. I think that it should be illegal (or a least a highly frowned upon social convention) for adults to ever use the words ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend’ after the age of … let’s keep it fairly uncontroversial and just say …forty, the BIG 4 0. Not only does it not make any sense, it just sounds so weird when spoken by adults with kids, no hair, and a love for the breadsticks served at the Olive Garden. After the age forty I suggest that adults up the ante on the clever function. When around that confused little bastard just spell out the words, rather than say them. “C-A-N I S-T-A-Y T-H-E N-I-G-H-T?” “Y-E-S A-F-T-E-R (add the appropriate name) G-O-E-S T-O S-L-E-E-P.” I forgot, that trick has been used. Learn a different language and try it in that dialect. Please, just spare the sons and daughters the world over from having to hear their parents use the word ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend’ about a new and improved significant other. I really don’t think that this is too much to ask and it will alleviate a lot of unnecessary awkwardness from an already awkward situation.
I’m not complaining. This is not my treatise against the stacked deck that is my life. Everyone’s deck is stacked. I’m 6’5”. I can comfortably see over the heads of ninety-nine percent of the world’s population. I might have some pretty stiff competition from residents of Africa, but China, Mexico, Yemen, Italy, Indonesia, Qatar and the globe over offer me a bird’s eye view of their brown, black, bald, and blonde heads. It all depends on the way in which we read the cards. I have a great view at concerts, but a sore back when I go home at the end of the night. The fact is no one wants to admit that the playing field is inherently and brutally unequal. If they did then the grounds for complaint might actually be justified and hugging lawyers with an office the size of my apartment furnished with matted posters that say such things as “Leadership” or “Endurance” would be ok. If that kind of situation is not a paradigm shift, then I don’t know what is.
But time is short. I’m approaching twenty-eight and my dad is now sixty years old. Four years away from the question raised by Sir Paul, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?” I never really liked that song. Strangely, I’m more drawn to songs like “Don’t Let Me Down.” However, if the sentiment expressed in “When I’m Sixty-Four” were uttered by “Roger” within the next four years, I might change my mind, embrace the quirkiness of Sir Paul and fly to Switzerland with a Super sized Big Mac in hand. That’s right, four years away from that arbitrary milestone sung about by the baby-faced Beatle. According to recent statistics, life expectancy for American males is seventy-four years old. That gives me another fourteen year block to see how things will fare between my Dad and I. Will he remain “Roger” or will the prodigal father return from his Swiss holiday and embrace his children? We’ve been waiting, holding on to ribbons and bows. We’ve been waiting, dressed up in your favorite clothes.
It is pretty natural for people to look to particular moments in their lives that define them. That whole “existence precedes essence” thing has gotten pretty out of hand. But there are moments that leave indelible marks upon the wet wear upstairs. I guess it must have been the millennium. Just imagine the probability of actually living when the calendars change not just from one year to the next, or even from one century to the next, but actually from one millennium to next (I’m aware that is it merely a convention, but nonetheless an exciting one especially considering that world civilization was about to be undermined by a computer bug - “Quick, get the guns and the gold”). The force of history actually moved my dad to put a card in an envelope and send it across the Atlantic. It arrived on the steps of the fourplex that I live in and made it to my desk. Not only did I receive a card, but a box of Swiss chocolates. They had designs on them of local villages in the surrounding areas where my dad resides. I’ve been to these villages. Sure they are pretty, but they’re in Switzerland so they’re neutral. I haven’t met very many exciting neutral people in my life. “Mom, I am so excited for you to meet my new girlfriend. She has all of the characteristics that I look for in a girl. She is so neutral. I think that we’ll get married some day!”
I am actually a believer in the written word (some things are obvious) and two words in the card left me deflated. I was actually so filled with excitement upon receiving the card that I actually missed the severity of the two words the first time that I read them - “Love Roger.” In the first fourteen years of my life, when I lived with my dad, I never once came home and said, “Hi Roger.” Did I have to be taught that? I don’t recall, but it seems safe to say that this goes against the way of the earth. Dads aren’t Rogers, but Rogers are Dads. The relationship is not symmetrical, but I’m not the one who violated it. He did. If only the card had ended with the words – “Love Dad.”
As I write, I am less than two months away from my twenty-eighth birthday. Add fourteen and fourteen together and you get the sum total of years that I’ve been given so far. The first half is the “Love Dad” half and the second half is the “Love Roger” half. The saddest day of my life was the day that found the Archimedian point that divided these two halves when his plane was called and the earth moved. Airports. What is sadder than an airport? On that day, I was fourteen. My Mom, Dad, two sisters and I drove to LAX to see him off. Little did I know that it would be such a fateful day; my life was now divided and my Dad would become a man called “Roger.”
The thing that makes the divide both confusing and painful is…. the willfulness. There was a choice involved and it was not made in my favor. Had my Dad died of natural causes back in December 1989, I would have been devastated. However, the death that he died was a willful one, a neglect of his only son. I was not the one who let go. He did. The fact is, I love my Dad and remember him with the kind of love that only a son can have for his father. I had strange hobbies as a kid. He embraced them. I was a magic geek. In fact, I was President of the Fountain Valley High School Magic Club. We had two members. When I longed for hair to grow under my arms, my Dad did as well. Its uncanny how caught up a prepubescent fourteen year old can get over any area of the body aptly labeled “Buckwheat in a headlock.” 1989. The fixed point and the leverage needed to move the earth was found and someone pulled the lever. The world was rejoicing over the fall of the “evil empire” and I was wondering why my Mom was hanging out with another man. I think that it should be illegal (or a least a highly frowned upon social convention) for adults to ever use the words ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend’ after the age of … let’s keep it fairly uncontroversial and just say …forty, the BIG 4 0. Not only does it not make any sense, it just sounds so weird when spoken by adults with kids, no hair, and a love for the breadsticks served at the Olive Garden. After the age forty I suggest that adults up the ante on the clever function. When around that confused little bastard just spell out the words, rather than say them. “C-A-N I S-T-A-Y T-H-E N-I-G-H-T?” “Y-E-S A-F-T-E-R (add the appropriate name) G-O-E-S T-O S-L-E-E-P.” I forgot, that trick has been used. Learn a different language and try it in that dialect. Please, just spare the sons and daughters the world over from having to hear their parents use the word ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend’ about a new and improved significant other. I really don’t think that this is too much to ask and it will alleviate a lot of unnecessary awkwardness from an already awkward situation.
I’m not complaining. This is not my treatise against the stacked deck that is my life. Everyone’s deck is stacked. I’m 6’5”. I can comfortably see over the heads of ninety-nine percent of the world’s population. I might have some pretty stiff competition from residents of Africa, but China, Mexico, Yemen, Italy, Indonesia, Qatar and the globe over offer me a bird’s eye view of their brown, black, bald, and blonde heads. It all depends on the way in which we read the cards. I have a great view at concerts, but a sore back when I go home at the end of the night. The fact is no one wants to admit that the playing field is inherently and brutally unequal. If they did then the grounds for complaint might actually be justified and hugging lawyers with an office the size of my apartment furnished with matted posters that say such things as “Leadership” or “Endurance” would be ok. If that kind of situation is not a paradigm shift, then I don’t know what is.
But time is short. I’m approaching twenty-eight and my dad is now sixty years old. Four years away from the question raised by Sir Paul, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?” I never really liked that song. Strangely, I’m more drawn to songs like “Don’t Let Me Down.” However, if the sentiment expressed in “When I’m Sixty-Four” were uttered by “Roger” within the next four years, I might change my mind, embrace the quirkiness of Sir Paul and fly to Switzerland with a Super sized Big Mac in hand. That’s right, four years away from that arbitrary milestone sung about by the baby-faced Beatle. According to recent statistics, life expectancy for American males is seventy-four years old. That gives me another fourteen year block to see how things will fare between my Dad and I. Will he remain “Roger” or will the prodigal father return from his Swiss holiday and embrace his children? We’ve been waiting, holding on to ribbons and bows. We’ve been waiting, dressed up in your favorite clothes.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Decisions
The wind is howling outside, buffeting the trees and the window panes as it blows. My wooden chimes are being flung maniacally to and fro, battered but still hanging on by their thread. It all feels a bit like a metaphor for what I am feeling internally. I too am feeling blown this way and that, buffeted and battered and just wanting a little peace and quiet and the chance to get the dirt out of my eyes. And the cause of this internal disorder? I have to make a decision about something, one of my least favorite things to do in life. I would rather clean my bathroom, wash dishes, or even go to a doctor’s appointment than have to make a decision. It sits on me like a heavy stone gargoyle, hunched and grinning.
As I’ve often said to friends, it’s easy to decide between good things and bad things, or even good things and just okay things. But deciding between two options with a seemingly equal amount of good and bad elements is pure agony for me, because then it becomes a situation of having to figure out which good and bad things should carry more weight and which should be squelched or ignored. Which are going to cause more pain and regret in the future, and which are going to offer more benefits. Though I have always regarded them with a certain amount of skepticism, I have also always been a bit envious of people who say things like, “God told me to…” or “The Lord put it on my heart to…” I have never gotten those types of communications. Apparently, they have a phone line that I never got connected to. It’s like when I first wanted to sign up for DSL and was informed by my phone company that the cable didn’t reach my area of the city. I am outside the loop.
I look for signs and search my heart for leanings, but there is only vagary and confusion. One moment I will be certain I feel an inclination in one direction only to feel an inclination in the opposite direction minutes or hours later. I am often deeply suspicious of my feelings anyway. What’s really driving them? They come upon me disguised so much of the time, and I can get caught in an endless progression of unmaskings. I pull off one façade and recognize that a feeling of desire for something is really a feeling of duty, or I discover that something I think that I want for myself is really a fear of disappointing someone else. But just when I think I’ve caught a glimpse of the true face of something, it morphs into something else and another layer must be peeled away. Pretty soon I just get tired and want to pack a duffel bag and run away like I did when I was six.
Part of my problem, as evidenced by the previous paragraphs, is that I just think too damn much. All those analytical skills I developed in college and graduate school are great when it comes to deconstructing a work of literature, but when they turn inwards, they can process and chew things over until all that’s left is a pile of mush. Paralysis by analysis, as the saying goes. But I think another part of the problem is the way I view decisions. I have a tendency to see them as tests, God’s benchmarks for my spiritual and life progress, so to speak. In my mind, there really is always a right choice and a wrong choice even though they’re both cleverly designed to look like equally reasonable and morally ambiguous options. Even when others that I consult support or see a justification for one or both options, I feel like I’ve fooled them somehow—suppressed some aspect or presented the options in a manipulative way that is simply steering them to say what I want them to say. But God isn’t fooled, I think to myself. He knows my true motivations and intentions (even when I don’t) and is going to either be nodding approvingly or shaking his head. And most often my assumption is that he’ll be shaking his head. I am doomed to failure. I am too selfish, too foolish, too blinded by XYZ to choose the correct option.
But this makes God a big meanie—one of those horrible, bitter, desiccated teachers of old who delight in tormenting their students. And this is where part of my exhaustion, my internal battering, comes from—having to beat down that image of the mean old man and remember that God is a good teacher. He has already taken all the tests for me, and he has already passed them all. My only task is to learn. Easier said than done. I keep creating new tests for myself, imagining trick questions where there are none, weighing myself down with anxiety and the anticipation of failure and regret. The stereotypical sins that first jump to people’s minds when they hear the word “sin” are things like drinking or sex or violence. But it’s the more insidious ones like perfectionism, fear, and the delusion that I have the power to move myself up or down in God’s favor, that I can cause him to speak to me or to sit in silence based on the things I do or don’t do, that get me every time. I disconnect the phone line myself in a kind of reversed arrogance.
I am nearing the end of this essay and I still have to make a decision. It’s still going to be hard. There will still be consequences I will have to live with no matter what I choose. But what I must remember, what I must cling to in the rush of winds upon me, is that my decision—good or bad, right or wrong—will not change God’s love for me. It will not make him think any better or worse of me. It will not stop him from completing the good work he has begun in me and in my life. He will not be shaking his head or throwing up his hands at me. Maybe when I can finally know that and truly believe it in my heart is when I’ll be able to hear that still, small voice—the one that comes after the buffeting winds.
As I’ve often said to friends, it’s easy to decide between good things and bad things, or even good things and just okay things. But deciding between two options with a seemingly equal amount of good and bad elements is pure agony for me, because then it becomes a situation of having to figure out which good and bad things should carry more weight and which should be squelched or ignored. Which are going to cause more pain and regret in the future, and which are going to offer more benefits. Though I have always regarded them with a certain amount of skepticism, I have also always been a bit envious of people who say things like, “God told me to…” or “The Lord put it on my heart to…” I have never gotten those types of communications. Apparently, they have a phone line that I never got connected to. It’s like when I first wanted to sign up for DSL and was informed by my phone company that the cable didn’t reach my area of the city. I am outside the loop.
I look for signs and search my heart for leanings, but there is only vagary and confusion. One moment I will be certain I feel an inclination in one direction only to feel an inclination in the opposite direction minutes or hours later. I am often deeply suspicious of my feelings anyway. What’s really driving them? They come upon me disguised so much of the time, and I can get caught in an endless progression of unmaskings. I pull off one façade and recognize that a feeling of desire for something is really a feeling of duty, or I discover that something I think that I want for myself is really a fear of disappointing someone else. But just when I think I’ve caught a glimpse of the true face of something, it morphs into something else and another layer must be peeled away. Pretty soon I just get tired and want to pack a duffel bag and run away like I did when I was six.
Part of my problem, as evidenced by the previous paragraphs, is that I just think too damn much. All those analytical skills I developed in college and graduate school are great when it comes to deconstructing a work of literature, but when they turn inwards, they can process and chew things over until all that’s left is a pile of mush. Paralysis by analysis, as the saying goes. But I think another part of the problem is the way I view decisions. I have a tendency to see them as tests, God’s benchmarks for my spiritual and life progress, so to speak. In my mind, there really is always a right choice and a wrong choice even though they’re both cleverly designed to look like equally reasonable and morally ambiguous options. Even when others that I consult support or see a justification for one or both options, I feel like I’ve fooled them somehow—suppressed some aspect or presented the options in a manipulative way that is simply steering them to say what I want them to say. But God isn’t fooled, I think to myself. He knows my true motivations and intentions (even when I don’t) and is going to either be nodding approvingly or shaking his head. And most often my assumption is that he’ll be shaking his head. I am doomed to failure. I am too selfish, too foolish, too blinded by XYZ to choose the correct option.
But this makes God a big meanie—one of those horrible, bitter, desiccated teachers of old who delight in tormenting their students. And this is where part of my exhaustion, my internal battering, comes from—having to beat down that image of the mean old man and remember that God is a good teacher. He has already taken all the tests for me, and he has already passed them all. My only task is to learn. Easier said than done. I keep creating new tests for myself, imagining trick questions where there are none, weighing myself down with anxiety and the anticipation of failure and regret. The stereotypical sins that first jump to people’s minds when they hear the word “sin” are things like drinking or sex or violence. But it’s the more insidious ones like perfectionism, fear, and the delusion that I have the power to move myself up or down in God’s favor, that I can cause him to speak to me or to sit in silence based on the things I do or don’t do, that get me every time. I disconnect the phone line myself in a kind of reversed arrogance.
I am nearing the end of this essay and I still have to make a decision. It’s still going to be hard. There will still be consequences I will have to live with no matter what I choose. But what I must remember, what I must cling to in the rush of winds upon me, is that my decision—good or bad, right or wrong—will not change God’s love for me. It will not make him think any better or worse of me. It will not stop him from completing the good work he has begun in me and in my life. He will not be shaking his head or throwing up his hands at me. Maybe when I can finally know that and truly believe it in my heart is when I’ll be able to hear that still, small voice—the one that comes after the buffeting winds.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Confessions of a Jiffy Rube
At the risk of sounding inordinately pompous and vain, I generally tend to think of myself as a fairly intelligent person. Not a genius, mind you, but with enough higher education, training in critical thinking, and exposure to NPR and The New Yorker to walk around with the inner confidence that I’m No Dummy! So while it might not be a surprise to anyone around me when I run smack into the limits of my brain, it usually comes as a bit of a shock to me and makes me feel stupid on two accounts—1) that I’m stupid in whatever area I’m being stupid in, and 2) that I’m stupid not to have known this about myself.
Today’s beat down occurred at my local Jiffy Lube (whose commercial tag line is, “Jiffy Lube—every 3,000 miles!”). The stupid begins with my not remembering that the same rip-off occurs every single time I go there. I don’t know where this blind spot comes from, but somehow it manages to block out any memory of my getting ripped off at said location until it happens again. As in, my credit card has already been swiped and I am walking to my car looking over a bewildering list of services and wondering to myself how the $30 oil change I went there for turned into $125 worth of work.
This is what happened today, which is just a variation of what happens every time:
I pull into the lane marked by the yellow lines and get out of my car. “Hi,” I say to the man in navy blue overalls walking towards me with a clipboard. “I’m here for an oil change.”
He ignores this declaration and says, “Car keys?” I pry them off my key chain and hand them over obligingly. After scribbling down a few pieces of information from my car, he motions me to follow him over to a small stand with a computer on it. He inputs some information and a screen pops up. “This you?” Obviously this man means to take my money with as few words as possible. I can barely see the screen because the sun is shining almost directly in my eyes, but I make out a fragment of my address and nod. “Yeah, that’s me.”
“Okay.” The mechanic begins clicking and scrolling through a rapid succession of screen images that appear to be long lists of services with accompanying picture diagrams. They flash by at a speed comparable to the images in one of those films meant to brainwash you (á la Clockwork Orange), and they are narrated by an equally blurred mumble from the mechanic that goes something like this: “Okay, last check 3,100 miles ago, you have 50,000 miles, time for radiator flush, transmission flush, air filter, ignition valve replacement, brake pad replacement, windshield wipers, and combustion crank adjustment.” Of course, he didn’t actually say most of that. I’ve made the terms up because the sad fact of the matter is that I had no idea what he was talking about (and how do you remember words you don’t know?), which is the whole problem. I have no idea what goes on inside my car’s engine or what the parts are called, and it is precisely this great ignorant void within me that shines forth like a beacon, beckoning mechanics everywhere to take advantage of me.
When the long list of services my car is supposedly in dire need of finally subsides, this is my response: “Huh.” I stand for several seconds scrambling around internally for contact with at least a modicum of common sense and/or a backbone. “Well, I just had my brakes replaced this summer, so I know I don’t need that,” I finally venture, “and my windshield wipers work fine.” The mechanic sniffs and swipes his nose with the back of his hand, his contempt for my assessment obvious. “And do I really need a transmission flush?” I ask meekly, futilely. His eyebrows lift and he taps the computer screen with his pen. “50,000 miles!” he exclaims.
An indisputable fact. I have 50,000 miles. I cave. “And how much is all of this?” The flashing screen thing starts up again and numbers fly by.
“Seventeenninetyninetwentysevenfiftyeighteenninetyninethirtyfiveninetynine,” the mechanic rattles off, auctioneer style.
“Huh.” Now I am the inarticulate one. We stand staring at the screen for several more seconds. This is mainly the result of my being preoccupied with the myriad of thoughts racing through my head. He’s ripping me off! I hate getting ripped off! But maybe I really do need these services. My car has been shaking some when I start it lately. And it has been 50,000 miles. But didn’t I have something done in September at the dealer? I know I had a coupon for something. Or was that September of last year? Why didn’t I check my records? I need to keep records. Actually, what I really need is to take an automotive class or something. Do they offer those through the city? I wonder how much they cost? But when would I have time to take a class? Maybe they have one of those one-day deals where you just go for a Saturday and learn the basics. But do I really want to give up a Saturday for that?
The mechanic seems to interpret my silence as a bargaining technique, and he scratches his head and says, “Okay, ten percent off.” As I have been so absorbed by my thoughts, this offer comes as a complete surprise and I am ridiculously happy about and humbled by it. He’s giving me ten percent off!
“That would be great, thanks,” I say cheerfully, “but I don’t need the new windshield wipers.” There, that’ll show him. I am taking charge and not just being a stupid female getting ripped off by the mechanic. I am getting a ten percent discount and drawing the line at replacing the windshield wipers—hooray for me!
“Okay,” says the mechanic. “You go wait over there, okay?” and I am ushered off to a tiny waiting room strewn with the entrails of old newspapers and a coffee pot that looks welded to its base. I sit gingerly on the only chair that doesn’t have a mystery stain on it and take out a stack of essays that I need to grade. Given all the repairs he just listed, I figure I’ll be able to grade quite a bit.
I am only on the third essay when he shows up in the doorway. “Okay,” he says, jerking his head towards the payment window. Apparently, “okay” is his go-to word. “You’re already finished?” I ask, but he’s disappeared around the corner. His head pops out from the window.
“Yeah, it’s done. How you wanna pay?”
It takes me a few seconds to put the essays and my grading pen back into my bag. He taps his pen against the counter in a staccato of impatience. I open my wallet and hand him my credit card. He takes it and slides it through the machine. And then, all of a sudden, he’ relaxed and chatty. As we wait for the credit card confirmation, he asks me, “You like boxing?” I am thrown off by this question and stutter a bit. “Um, well, no not really.”
“No?” he sounds incredulous. What’s not to like? He reaches under the counter and pulls out a flyer. “Here,” he says, sliding it towards me, “you should enter this.” The flyer is advertising a contest to win tickets to a fight. I don’t notice the names of the fighters (not that it would matter to me anyway) because my eyes are caught by the grainy photo of some man’s face distorted by the blow he’s just been delivered to the side of his head by his opponent. Sweat and agony spray out in a shower. I look up doubtfully and the mechanic smiles. “It’s good. You should enter,” he repeats, shoving the flyer towards me again. I nod weakly and he rips off the receipt for me to sign. After deftly separating my copy and stapling it to the printout of what’s just been done to my car, he is positively beaming. I end up taking both papers and say “thanks” automatically. He taps the counter and waves. “Sure. Have a good day.”
What’s up with him turning into Mr. Friendly like that? I ask myself walking out to my car. I look down at the papers in my hand and at my watch. Total cost: $87. Total time spent: 21 minutes. And the icing on the cake is that he got me—prim-looking, prissy me in my crisp white shirt and pearls—to thank him for it and go home with a boxing flyer in my hand. No wonder he’s smiling. I get in my car and it’s all I can do to keep myself from banging my head against the steering wheel. I am the college educated, NPR listening, New Yorker reading Jiffy Rube—not just once but every 3,000 miles.
Today’s beat down occurred at my local Jiffy Lube (whose commercial tag line is, “Jiffy Lube—every 3,000 miles!”). The stupid begins with my not remembering that the same rip-off occurs every single time I go there. I don’t know where this blind spot comes from, but somehow it manages to block out any memory of my getting ripped off at said location until it happens again. As in, my credit card has already been swiped and I am walking to my car looking over a bewildering list of services and wondering to myself how the $30 oil change I went there for turned into $125 worth of work.
This is what happened today, which is just a variation of what happens every time:
I pull into the lane marked by the yellow lines and get out of my car. “Hi,” I say to the man in navy blue overalls walking towards me with a clipboard. “I’m here for an oil change.”
He ignores this declaration and says, “Car keys?” I pry them off my key chain and hand them over obligingly. After scribbling down a few pieces of information from my car, he motions me to follow him over to a small stand with a computer on it. He inputs some information and a screen pops up. “This you?” Obviously this man means to take my money with as few words as possible. I can barely see the screen because the sun is shining almost directly in my eyes, but I make out a fragment of my address and nod. “Yeah, that’s me.”
“Okay.” The mechanic begins clicking and scrolling through a rapid succession of screen images that appear to be long lists of services with accompanying picture diagrams. They flash by at a speed comparable to the images in one of those films meant to brainwash you (á la Clockwork Orange), and they are narrated by an equally blurred mumble from the mechanic that goes something like this: “Okay, last check 3,100 miles ago, you have 50,000 miles, time for radiator flush, transmission flush, air filter, ignition valve replacement, brake pad replacement, windshield wipers, and combustion crank adjustment.” Of course, he didn’t actually say most of that. I’ve made the terms up because the sad fact of the matter is that I had no idea what he was talking about (and how do you remember words you don’t know?), which is the whole problem. I have no idea what goes on inside my car’s engine or what the parts are called, and it is precisely this great ignorant void within me that shines forth like a beacon, beckoning mechanics everywhere to take advantage of me.
When the long list of services my car is supposedly in dire need of finally subsides, this is my response: “Huh.” I stand for several seconds scrambling around internally for contact with at least a modicum of common sense and/or a backbone. “Well, I just had my brakes replaced this summer, so I know I don’t need that,” I finally venture, “and my windshield wipers work fine.” The mechanic sniffs and swipes his nose with the back of his hand, his contempt for my assessment obvious. “And do I really need a transmission flush?” I ask meekly, futilely. His eyebrows lift and he taps the computer screen with his pen. “50,000 miles!” he exclaims.
An indisputable fact. I have 50,000 miles. I cave. “And how much is all of this?” The flashing screen thing starts up again and numbers fly by.
“Seventeenninetyninetwentysevenfiftyeighteenninetyninethirtyfiveninetynine,” the mechanic rattles off, auctioneer style.
“Huh.” Now I am the inarticulate one. We stand staring at the screen for several more seconds. This is mainly the result of my being preoccupied with the myriad of thoughts racing through my head. He’s ripping me off! I hate getting ripped off! But maybe I really do need these services. My car has been shaking some when I start it lately. And it has been 50,000 miles. But didn’t I have something done in September at the dealer? I know I had a coupon for something. Or was that September of last year? Why didn’t I check my records? I need to keep records. Actually, what I really need is to take an automotive class or something. Do they offer those through the city? I wonder how much they cost? But when would I have time to take a class? Maybe they have one of those one-day deals where you just go for a Saturday and learn the basics. But do I really want to give up a Saturday for that?
The mechanic seems to interpret my silence as a bargaining technique, and he scratches his head and says, “Okay, ten percent off.” As I have been so absorbed by my thoughts, this offer comes as a complete surprise and I am ridiculously happy about and humbled by it. He’s giving me ten percent off!
“That would be great, thanks,” I say cheerfully, “but I don’t need the new windshield wipers.” There, that’ll show him. I am taking charge and not just being a stupid female getting ripped off by the mechanic. I am getting a ten percent discount and drawing the line at replacing the windshield wipers—hooray for me!
“Okay,” says the mechanic. “You go wait over there, okay?” and I am ushered off to a tiny waiting room strewn with the entrails of old newspapers and a coffee pot that looks welded to its base. I sit gingerly on the only chair that doesn’t have a mystery stain on it and take out a stack of essays that I need to grade. Given all the repairs he just listed, I figure I’ll be able to grade quite a bit.
I am only on the third essay when he shows up in the doorway. “Okay,” he says, jerking his head towards the payment window. Apparently, “okay” is his go-to word. “You’re already finished?” I ask, but he’s disappeared around the corner. His head pops out from the window.
“Yeah, it’s done. How you wanna pay?”
It takes me a few seconds to put the essays and my grading pen back into my bag. He taps his pen against the counter in a staccato of impatience. I open my wallet and hand him my credit card. He takes it and slides it through the machine. And then, all of a sudden, he’ relaxed and chatty. As we wait for the credit card confirmation, he asks me, “You like boxing?” I am thrown off by this question and stutter a bit. “Um, well, no not really.”
“No?” he sounds incredulous. What’s not to like? He reaches under the counter and pulls out a flyer. “Here,” he says, sliding it towards me, “you should enter this.” The flyer is advertising a contest to win tickets to a fight. I don’t notice the names of the fighters (not that it would matter to me anyway) because my eyes are caught by the grainy photo of some man’s face distorted by the blow he’s just been delivered to the side of his head by his opponent. Sweat and agony spray out in a shower. I look up doubtfully and the mechanic smiles. “It’s good. You should enter,” he repeats, shoving the flyer towards me again. I nod weakly and he rips off the receipt for me to sign. After deftly separating my copy and stapling it to the printout of what’s just been done to my car, he is positively beaming. I end up taking both papers and say “thanks” automatically. He taps the counter and waves. “Sure. Have a good day.”
What’s up with him turning into Mr. Friendly like that? I ask myself walking out to my car. I look down at the papers in my hand and at my watch. Total cost: $87. Total time spent: 21 minutes. And the icing on the cake is that he got me—prim-looking, prissy me in my crisp white shirt and pearls—to thank him for it and go home with a boxing flyer in my hand. No wonder he’s smiling. I get in my car and it’s all I can do to keep myself from banging my head against the steering wheel. I am the college educated, NPR listening, New Yorker reading Jiffy Rube—not just once but every 3,000 miles.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Meditation on Jesus and Death
Recently, I read the passage in the book of Matthew where John is beheaded and Jesus hears of it. I have never before paid much attention to the verses about Jesus receiving the news, probably because the story of feeding five thousand comes almost immediately afterwards. Book-ended as they are by two such dramatic events—John’s execution and a miracle—I suppose it’s not surprising that I should have overlooked them. But my own experience of loss and sorrow, my recent reading of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, and the approach of Easter have somewhat sensitized me to verses about Jesus dealing with death.
In Matthew, it states that after the disciples came and took away John’s body and buried it, they went and told Jesus. When Jesus heard the news, “He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities. And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude, and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.” I love how simultaneously spare and rich biblical text is. Jesus went out to a deserted place by himself. Of course he would. He had just learned that his cousin and friend—the man who had recognized him in utero, the man who had baptized him—had been killed by the whimsy of cruel vanity and carelessness. Cruel vanity on the part of Herod’s sister-in-law, and carelessness on the part of Herod. And so Jesus went off to be alone. I imagine him weeping, I imagine him bowed before God in sorrow, not just at the loss of someone whom he deeply loved, but also at the terrible senselessness of it all—a drunken party that ended with a great man’s head on a platter. The depravity and darkness of men’s hearts. And yet he could barely even have a moment to grieve. The people, driven by their own need, followed him, heedless of the distance and the lack of resources. They did not think about food and water. They just walked and walked and walked to follow and be near him. And when they found him, he did not resent or rebuke them for intruding on his sorrow. Instead, in the midst of his own deep grief, he was moved with compassion and met their need. He healed their sick and fed their hunger. In the shadow of his own friend and kinsman’s death, he staved off death for others.
Jesus was always battling death and restoring life during his ministry, telling the bereaved, “do not weep” just before raising the dead one to life. But for all of those he helped and healed (and there were many), there were probably a great many he did not—those at the back of the crowd, those at the next town over who heard about him but could not get to him. Jesus is described as a man of sorrows, and I wonder if part of that sorrow was from carrying all those he did not heal in his heart. Even those he did bring to life would die again, and the same grief of those suffering the loss would be unleashed once more, just at a later date. And he knew that. I think about the story of Mary and Martha weeping for their brother and chiding Jesus for not being there in time to heal him. And the book of John goes on to describe how Jesus “groaned in the spirit and was troubled,” and how when he stood before Lazarus’s tomb, he wept.
After my mother died, I was so comforted by the thought that Jesus truly understood human grief and loss—that even knowing he was about to raise his friend back to life, he was still so troubled and grieved by his friend’s death. But now that I look at it again and really think about the fact that he told Martha that he could and would raise Lazarus from the dead before he wept, I see another possible implication. What if Jesus was weeping not only for the death of Lazarus in that present moment, but also for the death of Lazarus in the future? For all the deaths he had merely postponed? We all want more time with the ones we love. When they die, we think, if only I’d had another week, month, year. We long for them back and think of how much more prepared we would be for their death in the future as long as it were far off. But really, no amount of time would be enough. The end comes, and then we want another extension. Even when someone is old and incapacitated and it is really something of a relief when they die, there is still a sense of longing for them as they were in their prime, a longing for them to be restored to us, and a sorrow that they are no longer a part of this world.
Which brings me to the words Jesus utters before he dies—“It is finished”—also in the book of John. There are many interpretations for what Jesus meant by “it”—his task, his suffering, his work on earth. But maybe “it” refers to death. Even though Jesus healed and raised people from the dead, death was never finished. It was always still lurking in the background, waiting to emerge and reclaim its victims. But with Jesus’ death, death was finished. It is still playing out its course on this earth and in this reality, and its effects are still terrible, still devastating—it is still the enemy. But there is now an endpoint. Death has become finite. For Jesus, the power of death lasted three days. For the rest of us, it is much longer. A thousand years are as a day in the sight of the Lord. But death will not last forever. Its days are numbered. And when Jesus comes again to raise the dead, it’s not going to be temporary—it’s going to be for all eternity.
In Matthew, it states that after the disciples came and took away John’s body and buried it, they went and told Jesus. When Jesus heard the news, “He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities. And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude, and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.” I love how simultaneously spare and rich biblical text is. Jesus went out to a deserted place by himself. Of course he would. He had just learned that his cousin and friend—the man who had recognized him in utero, the man who had baptized him—had been killed by the whimsy of cruel vanity and carelessness. Cruel vanity on the part of Herod’s sister-in-law, and carelessness on the part of Herod. And so Jesus went off to be alone. I imagine him weeping, I imagine him bowed before God in sorrow, not just at the loss of someone whom he deeply loved, but also at the terrible senselessness of it all—a drunken party that ended with a great man’s head on a platter. The depravity and darkness of men’s hearts. And yet he could barely even have a moment to grieve. The people, driven by their own need, followed him, heedless of the distance and the lack of resources. They did not think about food and water. They just walked and walked and walked to follow and be near him. And when they found him, he did not resent or rebuke them for intruding on his sorrow. Instead, in the midst of his own deep grief, he was moved with compassion and met their need. He healed their sick and fed their hunger. In the shadow of his own friend and kinsman’s death, he staved off death for others.
Jesus was always battling death and restoring life during his ministry, telling the bereaved, “do not weep” just before raising the dead one to life. But for all of those he helped and healed (and there were many), there were probably a great many he did not—those at the back of the crowd, those at the next town over who heard about him but could not get to him. Jesus is described as a man of sorrows, and I wonder if part of that sorrow was from carrying all those he did not heal in his heart. Even those he did bring to life would die again, and the same grief of those suffering the loss would be unleashed once more, just at a later date. And he knew that. I think about the story of Mary and Martha weeping for their brother and chiding Jesus for not being there in time to heal him. And the book of John goes on to describe how Jesus “groaned in the spirit and was troubled,” and how when he stood before Lazarus’s tomb, he wept.
After my mother died, I was so comforted by the thought that Jesus truly understood human grief and loss—that even knowing he was about to raise his friend back to life, he was still so troubled and grieved by his friend’s death. But now that I look at it again and really think about the fact that he told Martha that he could and would raise Lazarus from the dead before he wept, I see another possible implication. What if Jesus was weeping not only for the death of Lazarus in that present moment, but also for the death of Lazarus in the future? For all the deaths he had merely postponed? We all want more time with the ones we love. When they die, we think, if only I’d had another week, month, year. We long for them back and think of how much more prepared we would be for their death in the future as long as it were far off. But really, no amount of time would be enough. The end comes, and then we want another extension. Even when someone is old and incapacitated and it is really something of a relief when they die, there is still a sense of longing for them as they were in their prime, a longing for them to be restored to us, and a sorrow that they are no longer a part of this world.
Which brings me to the words Jesus utters before he dies—“It is finished”—also in the book of John. There are many interpretations for what Jesus meant by “it”—his task, his suffering, his work on earth. But maybe “it” refers to death. Even though Jesus healed and raised people from the dead, death was never finished. It was always still lurking in the background, waiting to emerge and reclaim its victims. But with Jesus’ death, death was finished. It is still playing out its course on this earth and in this reality, and its effects are still terrible, still devastating—it is still the enemy. But there is now an endpoint. Death has become finite. For Jesus, the power of death lasted three days. For the rest of us, it is much longer. A thousand years are as a day in the sight of the Lord. But death will not last forever. Its days are numbered. And when Jesus comes again to raise the dead, it’s not going to be temporary—it’s going to be for all eternity.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Shopping Moms
There’s a common ritual that takes place in department stores and shopping malls across America. It involves millions of women and girls and (collectively) millions of dollars. It is the practice of mother-daughter shopping expeditions. For years, I was part of this tradition, dutifully accompanying my mother to stores as a child because I had no other option, and then, in my teenage years, begging my mother to take me to stores, convinced that they held the key to my being prettier or more popular at school. And my mother was always there to shop with me, to hang discarded clothes back on the hanger, to go back out to the floor to get me a different size, to be honest about how the color looked on me, and to notice the outfit that suited me but that I never would have noticed myself. Her services were just a given to me growing up, and as I got older, I began to reciprocate, giving her my input and trying, here and there, to update her just a little on the current trends.
In college and after, when I was no longer as dependent on my mother for transportation and funding, our shopping expeditions together lessened. We both had busy schedules, and the newly adult me flaunted my independence like a shiny new badge. But the reality is that whenever there was a special occasion I was shopping for, I still took my mother along, and even all those other times that I didn’t, I often found myself waiting to show her certain items before snipping off any tags or throwing away any receipts. We didn’t always agree, but she provided a point of reference for me, a solid opinion in which I could find assurance or from which I could depart.
When my mother died of cancer, it was several months before I could even set foot in a department store, and I only did so because I desperately needed some new clothes for work. Mothers shopping with their daughters seemed to be everywhere, all coupled up and of all different ages. I could see a version of myself shopping with my mother as a child, as a teenager, and as an adult. I drifted from rack to rack, dazed by what seemed to me to be an assault of mother and daughter pairs until I finally ran into a dressing room to take refuge and cry. Mothers and daughters together had never bothered me before when I was shopping by myself, but that was because my own mother had always been just a phone call away. Shopping alone had been a choice on my part, and I imagine in those days that there had probably been some daughters with critical mothers who envied my solo state. But now I had no choice, and without my mother, I felt like I had been kicked out of a club. I no longer had membership in the universal sisterhood of shopping mothers and daughters.
As the years have passed, it’s gotten easier to shop on my own. I no longer cry in dressing rooms or surreptitiously watch mothers and daughters shopping together with all the longing of a child pressing her face against the window of a candy store. The anguish has quieted down and the pain has mellowed. But I still find myself wanting my mother there to tell me whether a skirt looks as good from the back as it does from the front or if I should think twice about the turquoise blouse. I miss someone really looking closely at me and caring as much as I do whether or not I’m buying the right dress.
Which is why I’ve begun resorting to soliciting stand-in mothers while in stores. The first time it happened was in a GAP store. There were two pairs of black pants I was trying to decide between. One pair was on clearance and was significantly cheaper than the other full-price pair. But of course the cheaper pair did not seem to fit as nicely, creasing in an unflattering manner across my hips. Still, I reasoned to myself, the pants were black, so maybe it wasn’t that noticeable and was worth overlooking given the price difference. I twisted and turned in the dressing room, craning my head to look over my shoulder at the back view in the mirror. Meanwhile, I heard a mother standing out in the hall giving her daughter feedback on the various sundresses her daughter was trying on. She sounded very decisive and had very specific reasons for why she liked or disliked what her daughter came out with each time. Sucking in a breath, I flung open my own dressing room door.
“Excuse me,” I said to her. “Do you mind giving me your opinion on these pants? I’m trying to make up my mind between these and another pair that’s more expensive.” The mother immediately rose to the challenge and took charge.
“Sure! Why don’t you come out here so I can see you walk in them,” she instructed. I dutifully sashayed down the hallway, and when I turned around to walk back towards her, she had a slight frown on her face. “I don’t know,” she said in a tone that said she did know and was about to tell me. “Those don’t seem to fit you very well around the hips.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said, relieved at this confirmation. “I think I’ll go ahead and get the other ones. It’s probably worth the extra money.”
“Well, why don’t you try those on for me too?” Her daughter had emerged from her dressing room, and the mother focused on her again. I changed pants and came back out. Now both mother and daughter watched me while I walked down the hallway.
“Oh those are much better,” the mother said with approval. “They might cost more, but I think it’s always better to buy the clothes that fit the best. Otherwise you end up not wearing them very much and it’s a waste of money.” This utterly practical and motherly piece of advice washed away any doubt and anxiety I had about the pants, and I felt a rush of gratitude well up in me.
“Thank you,” I said, and I went back into the dressing room wishing I could say more. Wishing I could tell her how long it had been since an older woman, a mother, had guided and directed me. Wishing I could tell her how even though I was a fully capable and independent adult, I still longed for that motherly reference point, that sure voice that stilled my own doubts and anxieties. But I just nodded and smiled at her and her daughter on my way out to the cashier, where I bought the more expensive but better fitting pants.
Nothing and no one can ever take the place of having my own mother, but I’ve come to realize that my situation is not quite as forlorn as I had thought it to be. I am still a part of the sisterhood. I still can and regularly do get feedback from older women about which sandals they think would be better for trekking across Europe or which sweater is a more flattering color for me. There are always women around who are willing to be a mother for a few minutes. One just has to look around and ask.
In college and after, when I was no longer as dependent on my mother for transportation and funding, our shopping expeditions together lessened. We both had busy schedules, and the newly adult me flaunted my independence like a shiny new badge. But the reality is that whenever there was a special occasion I was shopping for, I still took my mother along, and even all those other times that I didn’t, I often found myself waiting to show her certain items before snipping off any tags or throwing away any receipts. We didn’t always agree, but she provided a point of reference for me, a solid opinion in which I could find assurance or from which I could depart.
When my mother died of cancer, it was several months before I could even set foot in a department store, and I only did so because I desperately needed some new clothes for work. Mothers shopping with their daughters seemed to be everywhere, all coupled up and of all different ages. I could see a version of myself shopping with my mother as a child, as a teenager, and as an adult. I drifted from rack to rack, dazed by what seemed to me to be an assault of mother and daughter pairs until I finally ran into a dressing room to take refuge and cry. Mothers and daughters together had never bothered me before when I was shopping by myself, but that was because my own mother had always been just a phone call away. Shopping alone had been a choice on my part, and I imagine in those days that there had probably been some daughters with critical mothers who envied my solo state. But now I had no choice, and without my mother, I felt like I had been kicked out of a club. I no longer had membership in the universal sisterhood of shopping mothers and daughters.
As the years have passed, it’s gotten easier to shop on my own. I no longer cry in dressing rooms or surreptitiously watch mothers and daughters shopping together with all the longing of a child pressing her face against the window of a candy store. The anguish has quieted down and the pain has mellowed. But I still find myself wanting my mother there to tell me whether a skirt looks as good from the back as it does from the front or if I should think twice about the turquoise blouse. I miss someone really looking closely at me and caring as much as I do whether or not I’m buying the right dress.
Which is why I’ve begun resorting to soliciting stand-in mothers while in stores. The first time it happened was in a GAP store. There were two pairs of black pants I was trying to decide between. One pair was on clearance and was significantly cheaper than the other full-price pair. But of course the cheaper pair did not seem to fit as nicely, creasing in an unflattering manner across my hips. Still, I reasoned to myself, the pants were black, so maybe it wasn’t that noticeable and was worth overlooking given the price difference. I twisted and turned in the dressing room, craning my head to look over my shoulder at the back view in the mirror. Meanwhile, I heard a mother standing out in the hall giving her daughter feedback on the various sundresses her daughter was trying on. She sounded very decisive and had very specific reasons for why she liked or disliked what her daughter came out with each time. Sucking in a breath, I flung open my own dressing room door.
“Excuse me,” I said to her. “Do you mind giving me your opinion on these pants? I’m trying to make up my mind between these and another pair that’s more expensive.” The mother immediately rose to the challenge and took charge.
“Sure! Why don’t you come out here so I can see you walk in them,” she instructed. I dutifully sashayed down the hallway, and when I turned around to walk back towards her, she had a slight frown on her face. “I don’t know,” she said in a tone that said she did know and was about to tell me. “Those don’t seem to fit you very well around the hips.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said, relieved at this confirmation. “I think I’ll go ahead and get the other ones. It’s probably worth the extra money.”
“Well, why don’t you try those on for me too?” Her daughter had emerged from her dressing room, and the mother focused on her again. I changed pants and came back out. Now both mother and daughter watched me while I walked down the hallway.
“Oh those are much better,” the mother said with approval. “They might cost more, but I think it’s always better to buy the clothes that fit the best. Otherwise you end up not wearing them very much and it’s a waste of money.” This utterly practical and motherly piece of advice washed away any doubt and anxiety I had about the pants, and I felt a rush of gratitude well up in me.
“Thank you,” I said, and I went back into the dressing room wishing I could say more. Wishing I could tell her how long it had been since an older woman, a mother, had guided and directed me. Wishing I could tell her how even though I was a fully capable and independent adult, I still longed for that motherly reference point, that sure voice that stilled my own doubts and anxieties. But I just nodded and smiled at her and her daughter on my way out to the cashier, where I bought the more expensive but better fitting pants.
Nothing and no one can ever take the place of having my own mother, but I’ve come to realize that my situation is not quite as forlorn as I had thought it to be. I am still a part of the sisterhood. I still can and regularly do get feedback from older women about which sandals they think would be better for trekking across Europe or which sweater is a more flattering color for me. There are always women around who are willing to be a mother for a few minutes. One just has to look around and ask.
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