Ugly On The Inside

France just started enforcing it's "burqa ban" which prohibits people from publicly wearing anything that covers their faces. Personally, I think that's just plain silly. If the goal is punishing those who would oppress other people, why would you penalize the people that you think are being oppressed? I'm an enlightened white middle class lady. I listen to NPR. There are women who choose to wear the burqa! I know because I heard them on the radio!  Some because it's a way to display their faithfulness, and some because it also makes them feel safe. I can't blame them for that. It's hard to know, as a woman, what attributes of ours are being judged, and it's hard to gauge, as a person, just how fair minded you are being in judging someone else.

I move that we all start to wear burqas. For most of my youth and adolescents I felt ugly, and awkward, and judged. I knew I was smart, I knew that I could accomplish things well, and I knew that none of that was appreciated by my peers. They saw the gangly girl with the feathered bangs and impressive overbite that only WAY too many years of thumb sucking can impart, and that was that. I'm sure my titanic inability to interact socially was also a factor, but still. I was miserable, and largely because of the way that I thought others perceived the way that I looked.

If we had all been covered up from head to foot maybe I would have been more confident and proud of what I could do, and would have correlated that sooner with who I was.

Now I've grown out of most of that, and have developed an outsized and self depreciating sense of humor that keeps those sort of barbs at bay. Now, other people find me to be not hideous, and sometimes pleasing to look at. Mostly though, I feel like an ugly girl, when I really think about it. I feel like I have to work extra hard to make sure that what I do well is noticed and appreciated. Then I wonder, do people who have always been appreciated for their looks feel the same way? Do they worry that because they are pretty, people don't expect them to be smart or successful? Do they worry that what they have achieved may not be entirely based on what they can do?
Probably.

Orchestras now hold blind auditions. Before they started having the musicians (each assigned a number so that the judges couldn't see the names) play behind a curtain for their audition women in professional orchestras were hard to find. After the audition process changed, and applicants were judged entirely on their abilities, and not on their appearance, the number of women in orchestras rose dramatically. I think we should all have the chance to play behind the curtain. Don't you want to know how your skills are valued on their own? That's what you've worked for, isn't it? To gain and refine those skills, whatever they are? Wouldn't it be nice to know that any achievements you have earned, or been passed over for, were entirely based on the merits of your skill set? I think so. Which means I reject Frances new law, and hereby request that we all, men, women, and children, start wearing the burqa.

Time and grief - a guest post

This was written by my best friend Lauren.  Her cultural commentary can be seen at Trivial Pursuits: Lauren's Blog of Pop Culture.  

I like to plan things. Always have, always will. I find it comforting to know when to look forward to things, when I have to be somewhere, and when I can have some down time to myself. Not everything can be planned for though. Over the past years, I have found that I try to schedule times to let myself be sad. Not just have a blue day, but really allow the grief to take up residence inside myself. The first year, I had no control over this at all, and would just start to weep when the smallest thing brought my loss back into sharp focus. I think I hated the feeling of losing control of my emotions more than the feelings themselves, so I started to try to plan for it. After all, I planned ways to get back some semblance of normal life; I went back to work, starting thinking of having more kids, allowed myself to have fun again. It stood to reason that I could schedule grief. I started thinking about what times would be hard for me, and when I could adequately “make time” to feel sad.

I wanted his birthday to be a day of remembrance and joy for the little time we had. No time for grief that day. I wanted the day before to be a day to not dwell, to think of my life before this tragedy, to block everything else out and focus on frivolities and fun. That was unequivocally the worst day of my life, and in my quiet moments, the pain on the faces of people that love me come back to me as sudden as lightning. If I give that day a moment's thought, the weight of it will consume me. So when would I allow myself to feel the sadness if not the days closest to the anniversary?

There lies the problem. Because I am going to get sad and mournful and distracted and emotional and weepy and nostalgic as his anniversary approaches. My heart doesn't know that I have to function, and do my job well, and support my friends through their own tough times, and listen when people talk to me. My head can look at a calendar and know that I have work, and bills and priorities and obligations. But my heart just knows there is someone missing in the world, and I don't need a calendar to tell me what an amazing six year old my son would have been. Cheerful and stubborn and verbose like his mother, helpful and gentle and restless like his father. Both my heart and my head know these things for sure. I can not plan a time to be sad, any more than I can plan for moments of great joy. I can just allow myself to feel them, and hopefully, after six years, learn how to embrace them when they come, feel them fully, and move on from them. Because I plan to be happy in my life, as best I can.

"If this isn't nice, I don't know what is." Kurt Vonnegut 11/11/22 - 04/11/07

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."

Even in the midst of sad and scary things there are little moments of beauty and joy.  Most of them happen when we are kind to each other,  I think.   Being kind isn't being weak, or untruthful.  Recognizing a nice moment isn't sentimental or silly. 

I try  to remember that every day.  Sometimes it's hard.  My brain starts buzzing with things I need to figure out, and lists of things I need to do (along with things I should have already done), and all of the other junk just floating around in the world that makes getting all of that done a challenge.  Once I get myself all twisted up about the responsibilities and hence people that I am on the verge of letting down that larger perspective gets harder and harder to find, and I'm closer and closer to the edge of unreasoning anger.  Any little thing that gets in my way seems like a personal affront, and a reminder that I'm just not good enough at the things I should be doing.  Not a good enough wife, or mother, or daughter, or sister, or friend, or employee. or boss.

Then I know that it's time to breathe.  It's time to be kind, and time to find something that makes me smile.  It's time to look around me, and notice what I have to be happy about, and think "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."

Grandpa

He sits alone most nights now. Conversations are held with himself, or newscasters, or the god that has always given him comfort. Settled into the creases of his recliner in the dim room with the news on, but turned down low, he works to understand the twists that life has thrown him. Vacillating between hope and resignation, between acceptance and grief, he falls back to that which has always gotten him through; clear factual comprehension, and a structured routine.
The facts are more upsetting than calming, with unkowns that are numerous and prickly. Doctors have said that she would die within days three times now. They have said that she is stable. They have said that her organs are slowly shutting down, that she will eventually slip into a coma and from there fade into death. No one can say when.
With this new reality, routines are hard to nail down. On Monday the house gets cleaned. How can he do that when he sits by her bed all day, feeding her, talking to her, or simply answering her when she wakes enough to call his name. She doesn't want to be alone, even in her sleep. Wednesday is grocery shopping day. What does he need to shop for? How many meals will be eaten at home in the coming week? It's impossible to say. What will happen as time continues to pass, and their children and grandchildren drift back to their home states, focusing more on their day to day lives than his? Is it selfish to ask for help? To have someone with her 24/7? It's been almost a month, and she hasn't been alone yet. Is it selfish to want her to stay here, even though it means discomfort for her? He's had 61 years with her. Is that enough? There are no good answers to any of the questions he wrestles with.
Sitting there with him on the few evenings I've had to give, we've gotten to talk like we never have before. He talks about politics with me because he likes to challenge my liberal beliefs. He talks about science, about the plutonium powered artificial heart he helped design, and what fields of science he would be involved with now if he could (protien based bio-chem, because that's how we'll cure cancer). I listen to his fears, and let him know that everything he is feeling is ok to feel. I listen to his stories and learn more and more about the people my grandparents are. I listen and wish desperately that I had started listening years ago. I listen to the words he has wound up inside as they unspool into the dim evening, and I'm listening
to love and heartbreak the whole time.

Stuck

My brain is stuck in a constant worry loop.
A sad ache is stuck in my heart, and behind my eyes where it shoves it's angry elbows into my soft places at unexpected moments.
My eyebrows are stuck closer together than they used to be.
There's an unhappy future stuck out there, just on the periphery of the present, and no one can know when it will get unstuck and come crashing through the gates of right here and now.

We're trying to live without moving. It's as if we're marching in place ostensibly trying to get through a desert all the while just waiting for rain. So what's to be done? I can give what is needed where it is needed. I can demonstrate my love and support. I can sit in the hospital or care home or living room and help my family laugh and remember all of the stories that make up our past. I cannot pause my own life to watch hers slip away. I cannot let my own sadness overcome me and drag me away from those who need me.

I love you Grandma.