Ten Dollar Thoughts

I am 32 years old.  A spry young thing in the greater landscape of the human experience, right?    I’m still younger than most of my coworkers.  I’ve only had to pluck one grey hair.  And on most days I have the energy to keep up with my one-and-a-half-year-old son.  Nevertheless, I don’t always feel so young.  Sometimes I feel downright old.

Some of my favorite examples:

• My brother-in-law (10 years my junior) didn’t know what a rotary phone was.
• In a meeting a few weeks ago we were somehow talking about how we learned of the Challenger shuttle explosion and an intern mentioned he hadn’t been born yet.
• During the opening credits of Marley and Me as REM’s “Shiny Happy People” began to play I leaned over to my brother-in-law (same BIL, he makes me feel old a lot…) and said, “I haven’t heard this song in years,” to which he responded, “I have no idea what it is.”

Moments like these make me grumble a little bit.  I remember asking my mother about “the olden days” of her childhood and naively thinking that my kids would never view my childhood era as “olden.”  We had microwaves, and Nintendo, and Swatches.  Really, how much more modern could things ever get?  Right?

Wrong.

My son will never look up a movie show time in the newspaper.  He will never have to search for a blank VHS tape.  He will never load a roll of film into a camera.  He will never mail a postcard from a vacation spot.  He will never carry an atlas in his car.  He will never wait for a friend or relative at the gate in the airport.    He will not buy new music on CDs.  He will never know a world without cell phones.  He will never even know the crackling sounds of dial-up internet service connecting.

And while it is a cathartic cliché to reflect on the ways in which the world has changed around us, these changes don’t create that large a cultural divide between us and those around us who are a generation older or younger.  My grandfather has learned how to e-mail and my mother has learned how to program her Tivo.  I have learned how to use Facebook.  And someday IEP will adopt something that hadn’t been conceived of during his childhood.  We all learn.

But in scanning headlines yesterday I came across this article which discusses how college mindsets are trending with time.  Beloit College has tracked these changes for the past 13 years in an effort to help college professors continue to relate to students whose cultural markers are vastly different from their own.  Some examples from the list:

For students starting college this year…

• Fergie is a pop star, not a princess
• Have never seen a carousel of Kodachrome slides
• Ruth Bader Ginsberg has always been on the Supreme Court
• Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than Dirty Harry

How fascinating and challenging it must be to spend your days trying to mold young minds using cultural reference points that draw blank stares.  How frustrating it must be not to speak their language.  The college years are at their best when book knowledge is augmented by personal experience; when someone who is older can hearken back to your own age and convey a sense of sameness based on shared experience.  Yet how do we convey the essence of a shared experience when the external trappings of that experience are so different?

Higher education is an imperfect institution on many levels.  But when it’s done right it’s a perfectly beautiful thing.  I admire Beloit College for taking these steps to bridge a generational gap.  Maybe some 19-year-old kid will walk out of a Modern American History class later this fall and feel like his professor isn’t so out of touch after all.

Last week I picked up a copy of Newsweek at the gym and read this article on marriage as I pedaled away on the elliptical machine.  With my wedding band firmly affixed to my sweating left hand I read two women’s assertions as to why today’s woman doesn’t need marriage as her mother and grandmother did.  Further, authors Jessica Bennett and Jesse Ellison argue that the institution is an utterly outmoded thing of the past. 

The statistics in their article collectively make a good case:

• We can support ourselves without a man’s salary.
• Americans have the highest divorce rate in the Western world.
• For every year that we delay marriage our chances of divorce go down.
• Due in large part to the efforts of same-sex couples, heterosexual couples now enjoy more rights as an unmarried couple than ever before.
• With 41% of 2008’s births coming from unwed mothers the stigma attached to having children out of wedlock has almost completely lost its stigma.

These and other points in the article did not surprise me.  I don’t have to look around for very long to see that the landscape of the American family isn’t today what it was for Ward and June Cleaver or for Cliff and Claire Huxtible.  What did surprise me was my own reaction to the premise that marriage isn’t necessary.  I didn’t disagree with it.

I am happily married.  Once GAP and I had been dating for several years and knew that our futures would be forged together, it never entered my mind not to get married.  It was, without question, what we wanted.  The wedding lived up to all of the romantic ideals of my girlhood.  And the marriage has seen better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, and health.  As I sit here today I cannot envision a life in which GAP and I are in a committed, monogamous relationship but not married.  Yet I cannot articulate why.

As I read the Newsweek article I found myself with neither words to defend my decision to marry, nor a desire to defend it in the first place.  By the time I reached its conclusion my thoughts trended along the lines of, “Hmmm.  Well I guess it’s not for everyone.”  It was in the same vein as “Some people like vanilla and some people like chocolate.”  But shouldn’t a topic like this trigger a more vigorous response than a comparison of ice cream flavors?  Shouldn’t I want to passionately advocate for the decision that changed my life and has served me so well?  Is there a point at which our levels of tolerance and dismissal of social constructs become destructive to our culture?

The rub for me is that the social constructs that I value – family, community, education, support networks, and the like – do not suffer in the absence of marriage.  Bennett and Ellison write:

Research shows that the more education and financial independence a woman has—in other words, the more success she has outside the home—the more likely she is to stay married. (In states where fewer wives have paid jobs, for example, divorce rates tend to be higher.) But when these egalitarian, independent couples decide not to marry at all, they lose none of that stability. Just take a look at couples in Europe: they’re happier, less religious, and more likely to believe that marriage is an outdated institution, and their divorce rate is a fraction of our own. Not being married may make it slightly easier to walk away—at least legally—but if you’ve gone to the lengths to establish a life together, is it really all that different? Studies show that never-married couples with the intention of forever are just as likely to stay together as married ones. And for all the talk of marriage being good for families, a study of the Scandinavian countries—where a majority of children are born out of wedlock—found that kids actually spend more time with their parents than American children do. 

And so I am left in an odd place.  I have made a huge decision about my life.  It’s a decision that affects me, my family, and my community.  I believe it was the right decision for me.  But I have absolutely no interest in promoting it to other people.  Does this mean that I walked blindly into marriage as a result of cultural norms?  And if I did, is that a bad thing?

The family landscape is changing indeed.  But I struggle to understand my own neutrality on the topic.

The idea for this little duet of posts first came to my mind several months ago.  If I’d had my thinking cap on I would have posted them in conjunction with Mother’s Day.  Alas, I did not.  So here they are now, awkwardly located between Father’s Day and the 4^th of July.  Such is life.

I am among the fortunate.  I have two invaluable role models in my life; two women, whose imprint on me is indelible, and whose guidance and influence are among my most treasured possessions.  They are my mother and my mother-in-law.  Over the years the lessons they have imparted have become guideposts for my life, and I find it only fair that the rest of humanity should be equally blessed by their wisdom.  And so here, in two parts, I will share with you some of the most important things they’ve shared with me.

“Listen to your elders.”  I don’t know that she’s ever said it in those words exactly, but that is one of my mother’s marquis mantras.  During our teen years (and beyond) this lesson became a point of teasing and was (is) just as likely to be phrased as “Mom loves old people,” as opposed to the more quotable version above.  Nevertheless, both versions are true. 

The American culture (unlike say, Asian cultures) is not one that values age.  We spend gozillions of dollars trying to halt the aging process.  Hair color, Botox, sports cars, Viagra, face lifts, and the like serve the master of youth.  And in our quest for eternal youth we tend to forget that those who have traveled further down life’s path may have learned a thing or two along the way.  My mother, on the other hand, has never lost sight of that.

Because she likes tangible projects, and because she is a talented seamstress, my mother has participated for years in her church’s Project Day.  Lest its somewhat generic name confuse you, Project Day is a sewing circle of sorts, wherein women from the church gather to create clothes and blankets for needy people – usually babies.  They piece and tie quilts.  They sew little cotton shirts for African children.  They hem receiving blankets and burp cloths.  And the soundtrack to all of this stitching is the telling of their life stories. 

My mother (who was about my age when I was born – I’ll let you do the math) is by far the youngest member of the group.  Most of the women are well into their 70s, and some into their 80s.  Many are widows.  Some have lost children.  Collectively they’ve faced cancer, betrayal, divorce, and children moving away.  They’ve also been blessed by family, health, grandchildren, and community.  They’ve witnessed and experienced all of the good and all of the bad that life doles out.  As my mother aptly put it once, “There’s nothing these women haven’t been through.”

When Mom was in the throes of wedding planning for her daughters, they’d been there.  When a friend was diagnosed with brain tumors, they’d been there.  When her children moved away, they’d been there.  When her first grandchild was born, they’d been there.  And with each rite of passage they handed down their wisdom and perspective as my mother was christened into another of life’s little clubs.

In today’s world of “newer, faster, cheaper” we are inclined to believe that these things always add up to “better.”  But I’ve learned from my mother that this isn’t always the case.  What holds true for cell phones does not bear out when applied to people.  We are complex creatures.  Our elders may not know how to program a DVR.  They may not know how to record an outgoing voice mail message.  They may not understand the humor on 30 Rock.  But they know what to do when your child falls ill.  They know what to say when your cancer goes into remission.  They know what to do when your husband loses his job.  And they know what to do when your garden produces way too many zucchini.

It is with time that we accumulate experiences, and with experiences that we accumulate wisdom.  And it is because of my mother that I both understand and appreciate the rounded edges of an old person’s wisdom every bit as much as the sharp corners of a young person’s wit.

On Friday morning I got a call from my mother.  I was on my way out the door and, after confirming that my Aunt B (who’s been feeling poorly) was okay, I hurriedly asked if I could call her back once I got in the car.  She assured me that Aunt B was fine and that I could call her back.  Then, more like ten minutes later when I was finally out the door, I pressed “M” on my BlackBerry and rang her cell. 

The reason for her call was not urgent, but was tragic.  A series of events had led her to phone a friend of hers that morning who informed her that she (the friend) would, later that day, be attending the funeral of a childhood classmate of mine.  It was shocking news, given that he had no known health problems and the cause of death, while known to be natural, is otherwise a mystery.  I was saddened to learn of his passing, as well as a bit shaken at being abruptly reminded of my own mortality. 

I wouldn’t say that I felt grief.  I hadn’t seen him since I transferred to private school after seventh grade.  But I felt sadness.  Sadness at a bright young life being snuffed out unexpectedly.  Sadness for his mother, of whom I have fond memories as a warm and vibrant presence in my childhood.  And sadness for his friends and colleagues who had much affection for him.

My memory of him is colored by the injustices of childhood and adolescence.  Our names were alphabetically adjacent, and so we were frequently seated next to each other in classes, line-ups, and other organized activities.  But beyond that, our paths didn’t intersect very often.  He was very cute, very athletic, and very popular, and I was (though I’m sure I didn’t understand it this way at the time) intimidated. 

And what do we do to people who intimidate us?  Sometimes, when we are young and insecure, we minimize them in the privacy of our minds in order to feel better about our own inadequacies.  To the extent that these things mattered to me at the time, I allowed myself to assume that he was uninteresting, not very nice, and not very smart, none of which, it turns out, was true.  And it is this fallacious perception that has been nagging at me since Friday. 

After our lives diverged for good at the age of 13 he was a part of my past in the most neutral sense.  I bore him no ill will, but didn’t miss him either, and in fact rarely thought of him at all.  Until I talked with my mother on Friday I hadn’t heard his name spoken in at least ten or 15 years.  But in the time since that phone call I’ve thought a lot about him.  I was particularly struck by these few sentences from his obituary which forced me to confront the long-forgotten assumptions I’d made about him as a child.

[He] loved his family first. Second was his fiery passion for sports, music and history that paired with a great smile and a better laugh made him an easy person to befriend and an easier person to love. He was not a musician but he had more knowledge, appreciation, and love for the art than many who perform. He was no longer a competitive athlete, but recognized, praised and admired those that were. He never fought in the Civil War but he knew the roads the soldiers took to battle and understood both sides’ reasons for combat.

After reading that description I couldn’t help but think, “This sounds like I guy I’d really have enjoyed!”  He clearly had a curious mind and an affecting spirit.  Then I got on Facebook (we have a number of FB friends in common) and found my homepage littered with condolences, memories, and tributes to a man whom I could tell was beloved.  And it was then that I realized how wrong I’d been, probably from the very beginning.  But my epiphany accomplishes nothing now; it is too little too late. 

I believe the assumptions we make about people are always colored by ourselves; by our biases, insecurities, defenses, and pride.  So often we see what we want to see.  When looking at people whom we love and admire we see strength of character, keenness of mind, and generosity of spirit.  When looking at people who threaten or intimidate us we see any number of qualities that vindicate us or make us feel superior.  But if we were to harness true objectivity, even for a moment, we would see that each portrait contains nuances we’d previously overlooked.  We would see that there is more to the story than we may care to admit. 

I was far from the most popular girl in school.  As a kid I lamented (usually privately) the fact that my insecurities and neediness masked the super-coolness I was sure lived just beneath my surface.  The cool kids just didn’t see me for what I truly was.  But I see now that – at least in this case (and probably many others) – I was guilty of the same offense.

I am participating in Momalom’s Five for Ten, but I’m slow on the uptake and forgot about their designated topics.  I will be back on the wagon with an extra post tomorrow, and another on Wednesday. 

Let’s pretend you’re a friend of mine in the real world.  (Maybe you are.)  Let’s pretend that we know each other and used to keep in close contact, but due to the obligations of career and family we don’t check in as often as we used to.  And let’s pretend I wrote you the following letter (or e-mail, we should be a little realistic) last week.

Dear Friend,

Hi there.  How’ve you been?  It’s been a few weeks since we last talked and I just wanted to say hello and let you know what I’ve been up to.  Life is, for the most part, normal, and we are all doing well. 

I finally went through the stacks of journals and letters that my mom brought up last month.  It was pretty embarrassing to read so many of my thoughts from those years.  I suppose adolescence is a cross we all must bear, but after reliving it through the journal entries, I’m glad it’s behind me.  One by one I’m throwing them out, and I have to say, it feels good.

GAP’s sister and her husband came to visit recently.  We had a great time getting caught up with them.  They hadn’t seen IEP in a while and I think they had fun playing with him.  We had a fun outing to a park one afternoon.  And Saturday night we went out to dinner and had some really interesting conversation.  I really enjoy their visits.

IEP’s sign language is coming along and I’m so thankful that he picks up new signs so quickly, since his words are coming more slowly.  We’re working hard to get him to express his needs as specifically as possible, and he does pretty well.  His 18-month check-up is coming up and I’m excited to see how much he’s grown.

Not much else to report.  Please drop me a line when you can and fill me in on your most recent ongoings.  And let’s talk soon.

Love,
Gale

Okay, now let’s pretend that instead of the e-mail above, you saw the following updates to my Facebook status.

• Ugh.  Sorting through old journals and letters this weekend.  So glad not to be in adolescence anymore. 
• In-laws coming to visit this weekend.  It’s been ages since we’ve seen them and I can’t wait.
• Weekend with in-laws was a blast.  Fun with IEP and a terrific grown-up dinner too.  Thanks for coming, guys.
• IEP is learning new signs left and right these days.  I’m so proud of him.  Keeps us all sane until he starts learning more words. 

The same basic information was communicated in both formats.  But by comparison, the FB updates seem so terse and impersonal.  They are a scattershot out to a couple hundred people who may or may not be reading, and may or may not (likely not) say anything back.  On the other hand, my oh my, is FB efficient!  In less than 30 seconds I can update scores of people on my life.  I could never write all these people an individual e-mail.  I’d have carpal tunnel and sleep deprivation within a day.  I’d feel smothered by the obligation of so much correspondence.  And after a while I’d cease to enjoy the personal touch of one-on-one communication.

Nevertheless, these days I’m really struggling with the inundation of communication that never goes deeper than a text message.  Yes, my message gets to more people more quickly via FB updates or Twitter.  But to what end?  I’ve delivered a fact.  Some people will read it.  A few of them will smile and be happy to know that I’m doing well and what I’m up to.  But what does it really accomplish for me to put my life on a virtual (and password-protected) billboard if true back-and-forth interaction never occurs?  (Yes, I understand that you can comment back and forth on FB and Twitter updates, but I don’t count that as meaningful interaction.)  Just because I know that Friend A’s trip to Vegas was a success, and Friend B ate too much cheesecake for dessert, and Friend C is stuck at the office on a Saturday doesn’t mean that a relationship exists there.  They’re all just data points.

Isn’t data, though, when shared back and forth in a thoughtful and reciprocal way what constitutes a relationship in the first place?  Why should I discriminate against this type of exchange, especially if I concede that it facilitates communication with a much broader range of people than I could ever manage on my own?  And this is exactly where I start to bang my head against the wall:

Would I rather have a fewer number of friends (or “friends”) with whom I communicate regularly and in depth?  Or would I rather stay abreast of broad swaths of people from my past but never really communicate with them?  And perhaps most perplexing of all, if I choose the former, is there anyone out there who’s willing to travel the same path?  Or has everyone migrated so thoroughly over to the FB model that I no longer have a choice? 

Every time the electronic world takes a leap forward the media jumps up and down publishing stories about how technology moves more quickly than a culture’s ability to adapt to it.  I’m finding myself in one of those moments; struggling to understand in this new landscape of friendship not only what I want, but whether it’s even available to me anymore.

Every Friday Nanny takes IEP to a local bookstore for story hour.  They get ready to leave, IEP drags the diaper bag to the front door, waves “bye bye” to the house, and they load up in the car for their morning adventures.  At the bookstore all the kids are treated to animal cookies and a bit of a sing-along before the story-telling begins. 

On one such outing the story had just begun, and IEP perched in Nanny’s lap on the floor.  Per her retelling, just a few pages into the book IEP started signing “more” and “please” tirelessly in rotation.  After several pages of his silent antics the reader paused the story, looked at Nanny, and asked, “Does he know sign language?”

“Yes.  He wants another cookie,” Nanny responded.  The story teller didn’t know quite what to make of such a blatant request, and went on with her reading. 

Similarly, about 400 times each day IEP says, “Mama? Mama?”  I typically respond by saying “Yes?” or “What?”  But lately I’ve added a new reply to the rotation.  I ask, “What do you need?”  Bothering over semantics with an 18-month-old may seem silly.  And I concede that it’s a subtle distinction, but it’s one that I believe matters.  My rationale is that as of recently, it’s a question he can answer. 

You see, IEP has added a new sign to his repertoire.  Words are coming slowly, but he picks up new signs quite readily.  His latest addition is “help.”  His little fists move up and down in his own modified version of the gesture, usually preceded by vigorous pointing at something.  He uses it when he wants a cup of milk or juice, but can’t open the ice box.  When he wants to ride his little toy car, but can’t pull it out from behind another toy.  When he wants to stand in our bay window and watch the street below, but can’t get up to it on his own.  His context is actually surprisingly good.

I tell you these stories not to brag about how brilliant my son is.  (He is brilliant, though.  Just like your kids…)  I tell you these stories because they illustrate something that we value in children, but yet eschew from our own lives as adults:  he makes his needs known. 

We spend so much time and energy trying to coax this kind of communication out of little kids.  We gesture.  We repeat.  We sign.  We point.  We offer this or that.  We implore them with every ounce of our patience to communicate their wants and needs with something more sophisticated than a tantrum.   At this tender age of toddler-hood we want nothing more than to hear the words, “Mommy, I want more pasta,” or “Mommy, I want to go up the stairs by myself.”  We don’t even care about please and thank you at this point (although we make IEP sign both).  Just to hear the words spoken in plain English would be music. 

Yet as adults we become reluctant to make our needs known.  Not the banal, logistical, everyday needs.  Not the “I need to get up early tomorrow” or “I need to run to the store” or “I need a drink” needs.  I’m talking about the things we need that make us feel vulnerable.  I’m talking about the things we need that we don’t like to admit.  I’m talking about the things we should not be ashamed to need, but sometimes are. 

I need a hug.  I need to talk this out.  I need some alone time.  I need to feel more appreciated. I need to laugh.  I need be able to say that I’m proud of myself.

These things – these needs – are so real to each of us.  They make the difference between connection and distance.  Speaking them aloud draws the line between confidence and fear.  Knowing that they are universal, no matter how little they are confessed, buoys us against tides that feel overwhelming much of the time. 

So why is it, then, that the behavior we encourage in our children we so often fail to exemplify ourselves?  We say we are fine when we are not.  We say we are fine when we are hurt, or bone tired, or lonely, or regretful, or ashamed.  We say we are fine because we don’t want to admit that we aren’t. 

We have needs.  So why on earth don’t we say so? 

Perhaps for many of us, it is the judgment of others that worries us.  But I suspect that it’s our own self-judgment that we fear even more.  There is something about our culture that values self-sufficiency to a fault.  We feel obligated to handle everything on our own.  We are reluctant to admit that we need help in any way.  And I can’t help but think that if we just fessed up, leaned on someone, and then returned the favor that we’d all be happier, less stressed, and more resilient in the face of our own needs, knowing that we are flanked by helpers.

The thing is, I imagine many of us are already flanked by helpers.  We just don’t realize it because we’ve never asked.

I love going out to dinner.  More than that, I love going out to dinner and eating delicious food.  More than that, I love going out to dinner, eating delicious food, and sharing equally delicious conversation with interesting people.  On Saturday night I did all those things.

Last weekend the Family P was treated to a visit from GAP’s sister and her husband.  It was a visit that had been on the books for a couple of months and I was eagerly looking forward to it.  Nothing about the weekend disappointed, least of all the dinner conversation.

As we sat at one of my favorite French joints we covered all manner of topics, from reading, to writing, to careers, to travel, to… loneliness.  Loneliness?  Well, aloneness is probably more accurate.  We talked about the experience of being alone.  Whether at home, in your office, while traveling, or any other place, being alone with yourself is an experience that everyone handles differently. 

What surprised me most about this conversation was learning that my brother-in-law, who is probably the single most extroverted person I’ve ever known, cherishes being alone.  For someone who takes to people – new or familiar – as easily as he does, I never figured him for a guy who’d want anything other than being surrounded by people.  But as I thought about it more, it began to make sense.  Someone whose natural charisma is so strong that people gravitate to him unconsciously might have a hard time finding opportunities to be alone.  Those quiet moments might be few and far between.  I don’t know this – it is merely my conjecture.  But it makes sense to me.

Our conversation made its way around the table as we each confessed our comfort level with the solitary state.  It was interesting listening to everyone’s perspective on the topic and it’s been stuck in my head ever since. 

In thinking about our lives there is an ebb and flow to the amount of alone time we have.  Childhood rarely leaves us alone – we are supervised, accompanied, and chaperoned.  Early adulthood provides the opportunity for quite a bit of time alone, should we choose to avail ourselves of it.  Marriage and parenthood see it diminish.  But twenty-some-odd years later when the nest empties, time to ourselves comes rushing back.  Nevertheless, despite the cyclical nature of aloneness in our lives, our need for it is constant.    

I think.

The need for aloneness seems like the sort of thing that would be universal.  I assume that we all need time without the input of other people.  Time to be uninfluenced.  Time to be silent.  Time to spend as we choose, wholly independent of the preferences of others.  Yet I know that there are people who find it uncomfortable to be alone.  There are people who fear being in public alone – dining or move-going without a companion.  There are people who go out in public alone in order to find other people and prevent themselves from being alone.  And there are people who feel the most alone in the midst of a crowd. 

I wonder what our attitudes about aloneness say about us.  Is there a perfect amount of aloneness - some magic place on the continuum that gives us the most peace and space while still allowing us to be connected to other people?  And I wonder what influence our habits about solitude have on our relationships.  If we spend too much time alone does our ability to bond and relate atrophy?  Conversely, without enough time alone do we lose our grasp on our true self, being constantly shaped and molded by the people around us?

In this, as in all things human, I know that we are different.  We come to these questions via disparate paths.  We bring our stories and experiences to the table.  And we (maybe) share them in order to explain why we are as we are.  Or maybe we don’t.  Maybe we let people wonder what made us this way; why we love being alone, or why we don’t.

Who is the best person to raise your children?  You, right?  And what if something happens to you?  Your spouse, right?  Most people can answer these questions without hesitation.  Our involvement in the lives of our children is instinctual and our inalienable right, right?  But those questions have become murky ones for Abbie Dorn, her ex-husband, and her parents/caretakers.

In a tragic and Terri Schiavo-esque case, legal teams for both sides are trying to answer that very question.  It is one of those cases that have no right decision and no happy ending. 

In 2002 Abbie Cohen and Daniel Dorn whipped their way through a whirlwind romance and were married after six months.  After becoming pregnant with triplets via IVF in the fall of 2005 Abbie delivered their babies via C-section in the summer of 2006.  The first two babies were delivered without incident.  But while delivering the third the OB nicked Abbie’s uterine wall with a scalpel causing Abbie to bleed severely and go into cardiac arrest.  She was revived after 20 minutes, but the duration of time that her brain went without oxygen left her severely brain damaged. 

On the triplets’ first birthday Daniel Dorn submitted divorce papers to his wife (now in her parents’ care, funded by the proceeds of a malpractice lawsuit).  The divorce was granted, but now the question on the table is whether or not Abbie should be granted visitation rights with her children. 

There are conflicting reports regarding Abbie’s mental capacity and progress.  Neurologists have described her condition as permanent.  Yet her parents and nurses tell of great strides in her brain function and communication. 

But I am not here to tell the story.  I am here to ask the questions.  (The story is available here and here in much greater detail.)  I’ll tell you right now that I don’t have the answers, that is above my pay grade.  But it is not above my pay grade to weigh them out with thoughtful consideration.  And so…

What, in the name of all that is holy, is the right way out of this mess?  The damage is done.  Abbie Dorn will never parent her children in the way that she dreamed.  That is a given.  But is there a way to make this right?  Or at least more right?  Will exposure to their mother bring anything good into the lives of her children?  Will exposure to her children help the health and well-being of the mother?  And whose best interest matters more? 

For Visitation.  Abbie Dorn is not asking for any portion of physical or legal custody, only visitation.  She carried and bore these children, and lost her life as she knew it in the process.  It is her right to see her children periodically; to watch them grow, hear their voices, and see their smiles; and to understand – at whatever level she is capable – that her loss was not in vain.  There is little, if any, risk of harm to the children through time with Abbie.  And the children themselves have a right to know their mother, even if she is but a shell of her former self.  Arguably, with proper coaching and understanding, their lives could be greatly enriched by the addition of their mother’s presence.  Additionally, Abbie herself could improve significantly if inspired by the presence of her children.

Against Visitation.  Daniel Dorn is a single father doing the best that he can in an impossible situation.  The conditions his wife now suffers are tragic, but they should not interrupt his ability to parent his children in as normal a way as he can, given the circumstances.  Cross-country travel to visit a woman who cannot sit, stand, speak, or eat will be disruptive to their upbringing and will never result in a meaningful relationship.  Furthermore, it is not the responsibility of these young children to inspire progress in their mother.

Again, I do not have the answers.  I feel sympathy for Daniel Dorn who lost his spirited wife and is left to parent his children alone.  And yet I feel anger toward him for approaching this decision with so little compassion for his wife and the woman who nearly lost her life to give him his kids.  I feel incredible sympathy for Abbie Dorn, and for her parents who have become full-time caretakers in their retirement years.  And yet I wonder if they have put themselves in Daniel’s shoes and considered the difficulty of single parenting on its own, much less after introducing the complicated topic of a severely disabled parent.

There is no right answer.  There is no happy ending.  And despite the recognition that there are no good answers, I cannot stop myself from asking the questions.

Raise your hand if you’ve never primped for a date. 

Did you raise your hand?  Then you’re a liar.  We’ve all done it.  From the extensive prom night hair and makeup fiascos of our youth to the quick dab of concealer and mascara (or spritz of cologne, menfolk) prior to a casual lunch with your spouse, we’ve all spruced ourselves up for the opposite sex at some point.

I bring this up because recently I’ve been mulling over something paradoxical about primping.  When it came out a couple of years ago GAP and I got hooked on the Planet Earth nature series produced by the Discovery Channel and the BBC.  Its follow-up, Life, is currently airing. 

In watching these shows I’ve seen some incredible animals doing incredible things.  As Is the case with nature, some of the more amazing scenes are of mating rituals.  A pair of water birds in Oregon essentially performs a courtship dance prior to mating.  Male species fight to the death (when necessary) over potential mates and mating territory.  And then there are the wooing techniques, which are what really stuck with me.

In nature, it is the male of each species whose physical characteristics are most striking.  Thinking of the common animals I see routinely, male cardinals are bright red and male mallards have striking green heads.  Their female counterparts are both plain brown.  Getting a bit more exotic, male lions have thick manes, and male peacocks have brilliantly colored feathers.  And in my recollection from the televised series it is the males of nearly any other species whose appearance changes most significantly during mating season to impress available female mates.

This all seems quite normal in the context of a televised nature show.  But what struck me about it is that in the human species we have evolved in quite the other direction.  Barring the metrosexual male for a moment, when have you ever known a man to routinely spend an hour getting ready for an event?  When has the man in your life (or you yourself if you’re a man) spent time blow drying, curling, or straightening your hair; or using half a dozen brushes of various sizes and shapes to apply makeup with just the right shading and blending; or routinely gone for facials, manicures, or pedicures; or gotten waxed?  These elaborate (and sometimes painful and invasive) rituals are, for the most part, exclusive to women. 

Sure, some of these things we do for ourselves (a mani/pedi – especially when I don’t smudge the polish – is one of my favorite pampering treats), but largely these beauty contortions are done for someone else.  And said contortions tend to get the most elaborate when that someone else is a romantic interest of some kind.     

So jumping back to the animal kingdom, how did our mating rituals get so mixed up?  Assuming that we humans are smarter than any other species, perhaps the animals have it all wrong.  But understanding that we are vastly outnumbered by species in which the male animal goes to great lengths to attract a mate, then perhaps we have it all wrong.  Perhaps I should have spent my college years showing up to parties in jeans, old rugby shirts, and tattered baseball caps.  And perhaps I should have expected the frat guys to spend an hour or more primping and plucking in order to woo me away from my spot against the wall so that I could invite them up to my room to “listen to this cool new CD I just got.”  Somehow, though, I suspect that such a tack might have rendered me single for the duration of my college years.

It’s not that I’m really interested in playing the part of the effortless guy in these scenarios.  Mostly I’m curious about how it is that within human populations the burden was transferred so wholly to the woman’s shoulders.  Men are eager mates.  That will never change.  Given this, when and why did women start working so hard to garner their attention?

Certainly things balance out during a courtship, wherein the man traditionally bears more of the responsibility for planning dates, impressing the woman he’s pursuing, and ultimately proving himself a worthy partner.  But when it comes to first impressions, it is the women who sport teased manes and colorful faces. 

Nevertheless, I am a product of my culture.  I like getting dolled up.  I love it when I manage to get my eye shadow to blend just so, and when my hair bounces with silky shine against my shoulders.  I love putting on a new outfit for the first time.  And I love the way small drop earrings catch the light against my neck.  Apparently my skills in this arena are respectably well-honed, because more than ten years ago I caught the attention of GAP.  But I wonder what his response to me would have been without the made-up face, painstakingly chosen outfits, and gallons of freesia-scented body spray?

I won’t ever know.  And I don’t foresee this established cultural norm changing anytime soon.  So I will continue wonder about this with the understanding that it will likely continue to perplex me for quite some time.

PS – If my title today threw you for a loop, it’s the title of a movie from the late 90’s that GAP and I once regretably rented during a snowed-in weekend in the upper midwest.  The title was the best thing about it.

Home can be a slippery concept. 

The city that I now call home is not the city where I grew up.  My hometown, however, hasn’t been “home” since I graduated college ten years ago. 

This comes up because I spent last weekend visiting my parents.  My sister was also in town, but neither of our husbands joined us.  So, with the exception of one IEP (whose abilities to change the dynamics of a weekend should not be underestimated), for a couple of days we were the same family of four of my childhood.

Visiting my parents is an odd mish-mash of emotions as it relates to the concept of “home.”  They still live in the house where I spent my adolescent years.  And for several years after I moved out, going back there still felt like going home.  It felt familiar, comfortable, and still in some way mine.  It still feels comfortable and familiar, but no longer mine.  Throughout the course of the past ten years I have moved to a different place along the continuum of “home.”  It’s a strange experience to realize that home no longer feels like home.  And I’ve puzzled quite a bit over when and why this happened. 

There is the physical.  One by one, every room in my parents’ house (except the kitchen) has been redecorated since I lived there.  The coffee table in the living room that I once stabbed with a letter opener as a toddler is now in my sister’s house out West.  The lilies-of-the-valley wallpaper that I picked out for my bathroom (and which was installed upside down…) has been removed and replaced with textured green paint.  The leather couch where I did my best napping was donated to charity.  The dark mahogany pool table in the den that occupied me and my friends on many weekend evenings throughout high school has been taken down and replaced with an exquisitely arranged seating area.  The dining room, whose walls used to be covered in bold stripes, now displays a more muted floral pattern.  And so on, and so on, and so on. 

There is the temporal.  The city itself has changed since I left.  Like any city, my hometown is not a snapshot of itself.  Naturally some things are the same, but many things are different.  Restaurants open and close.  People move to new homes.  Land is developed and re-developed.  Family members move back.  Friends move away.  And so on, and so on, and so on.  A city is an organism with a pulse that beats according to the people in it.  As those people grow and change, so does the city around them.  So even if I were to move back tomorrow, I could never return to precisely the city I left, because it doesn’t exist anymore. 

There is the emotional.  I have never lived in my hometown as an adult.  When I finished school I had a strike-out-on-my-own mentality.  “I can move back there any time” I thought.  “This is the time to go explore new places.”  And so I did.  But once GAP and I had settled into our current city and built our networks of friends and colleagues, it became clear to me that my logic had been backwards.  For numerous reasons, I have understood for several years now that I will never move back to my hometown.  This was a strange realization to face.  Even stranger?  I’m okay with it. 

And most importantly, there is the issue of family.  There are many maxims about home.  (It’s where the heart is.  It’s where you hang your hat.  It’s where your dirty laundry is.)  For me, home is where my family lives.  Of course my parents and sister are my family and I love them dearly.  But they are no longer the sun around which I orbit.  My hometown no longer feels like home for a few important reasons:  GAP has never lived there.  IEP has never lived there.  My giant, ever-shedding dogs have never lived there.  For me, home is where IEP’s toys clutter the floor of our sunroom.  It is the place with the telephone table in the kitchen whose corners were once chewed by Bernese Mountain Dog puppies.  It is the place where GAP’s and my bookshelves stand opposite each other because even now we refuse to co-mingle our books.  And it is the place where nearly ten years of academic, professional, and social roots have descended into the ground.

Over time I have grown to love this city and the life we have built here.  It may not always be home, but right now it is.  I doubt I will ever feel as bonded to it as I once did to my hometown.  But ten years ago I also would have doubted that never again living there would become a perfectly comfortable path for me. 

Like cities we too, quite literally, are organisms.  We change over time; not only in our looks, tastes, and interests, but also in the way we interface with the world around us.  In many ways I am vastly different from what I was at 22.  In other ways I am exactly the same.  And I suppose that the same is true of home.  Home is now “here” instead of “there.”  But it is still the place where I live my life on good days and bad.  And it is the place where my husband and son are at my side.