Anger

[Note: this is another post moving from the other blog to this one. I am not, at present, particularly angry with anyone other than the inventor of the child safety cap.]

In my family of origin there were four people. Two “had tempers” and two were “martyr lip biters.” I fell into the latter category, and have spent much of my life genuinely astonished by displays of anger. I could not, did not, understand, for example, how people could say terrible, painful, accusatory and (frequently) inaccurate things and later say that they had not meant those things because they had “said them in anger.” As far as I was concerned, if you said a thing it was said and could not be un-said, unless one was actually clinically incapacitated at the time of speaking. (in which case it still can’t be un-said, but you have to forgive the person). It was also true when I was growing up that we had a fairly genteel household. There was no rough and tumble pummeling or screaming between siblings; it just wasn’t permitted. My brother could ignore this ban and pitch a fit if he was angry enough, but I couldn’t cross the line. I became a sulker, a stewer, a planner of elaborate plots in which I would die, and then everyone would be sorry that they hadn’t allowed to smack my little brother when he cheated at Battleship and then lied about it.

The flip side of being a lip-biting martyr is that, of course, you do get angry, you just don’t express it. I have long been a physical catalouge of unexpressed anger – tooth grinding, tension headaches, stress-related rashes, and the odd panic attack. Ironically, if you asked five people who know me well (excluding my husband, who really does know me well) they would tell you that I am very calm, that I “take things in stride” and “handle things well.” The truth of the matter is, that until recently, I was “handling”things by suppressing and internalizing them to the point where I was literally, physically falling apart.

I can get angry now, I’ve been working on it. I can almost express it, although I tend to get stuck in the realm of the passive-aggressive. Its tricky to go from St. Annie of Perpetual Calmness to a person who sometimes raises her voice, swears, or snipes. No one likes it much, it causes disruption, and its easier all around if I remain calm and smoothe things over. (Its really not terribly attractive behavior to yell and swear, but sometimes it is natural and human). I am now able to understand that I can argue back with someone who loves me, and that they still love me, even if I disagree with them. I can talk politics with my husband, who is a member of the Other Party, and we will still be married and agree on most other things most of the time. I can spar with my mother (a member of the Tribe of Temper) and then go out to lunch with her and adore cute babies as if nothing happened. It is a freeing thing, this ability to express anger when I feel it, and I am confident that my natural reserve and compassion will prevent me from becoming abusive or excessive in that expression. It still takes a great deal to make me angry, and I really can’t imagine devolving into a person who could commit acts of Road Rage, or hurl invectives at my child.

At this moment, I am angry at a friend, and working to sort it out in my head so that I can express my feelings without doing harm. It is one thing to raise my voice in the heat of an argument or to rise when I am baited, and quite another to be the sole angry party when one is feeling wronged and the other person is intentionally or negligently oblivious. If a tree falls in a forest and only I know that it was carelessly cut by someone and that it fell on my foot and broke it in two places, does it make a case for legitimate anger on my part when the guy with the axe walks around as if there was no problem?

I have to drive this train, if I want it to go anywhere, and I am not on ground as firm as that I travel with my family. (The ground, perhaps, being weakened by the staggering weight of that horrifying metaphor). I can feel my heart pound at the injustice I perceive, I can predict the itchy skin, the headache or the extraordinary fatigue that will result from tamping this down as if my feelings and reactions were ridiculous. But what if I’m wrong? What if I’m crazy, what if I’m over-dramatizing? What if this is a circumstance that nine out of ten other people would accept as “business as usual?” How does one ever know that she is justified in anger, short of a blatant injury like theft, dishonesty or unfaithfulness? When am I allowed to be angry? Who gives me permission?

I do not want to be one of those women who burns with righteous indignation because my child doesn’t get the lead in the school play, or writes to advice columnists when family members refuse to pay their share for an anniversary dinner. There is a line between projecting one’s own standards onto the world and being angry when those standards are not met, and being legitimately unhappy about being treated with disrespect or unkindness. I am so accustomed to believing that I am wrong all the time that I automatically question my anger and challenge myself to make a case, to prove that its acceptable for me to feel what I feel. I give myself tests: would Amy feel the same in this situation? Would Beth? If so, then its okay to be mad. If not, then I need to suck it up.

I guess I had always imagined that by the time I was somebody’s mother, I’d have all of this stuff down. Apparently there are growing pains into middle age, or wherever I am, and they are just as painful and confusing as they were when I was twelve and outgrowing my elementary school friends, or twenty two and pining for unavailable men. I’ll think, I’ll write, I’ll medidate, and I’ll talk to people who provide sound counsel. (Well, honestly, I’ll also eat chocolate and watch “House” re-runs,  and fantasize the horrific humiliation of my tormentor). Then I’ll either find a way to express the anger that is threatening my equilibrium and peace, or I’ll acknowledge that I just don’t have it in me to stand up for myself and the kind of treatment I deserve as a human being. I think maybe I’ll just go buy the chocolate now.

Photo Credit:

Jack: http://www.thunderwolf.org/what_i_am/anger.jpg

What I’ve Learned in 13 Years of Marriage

Today is our wedding anniversary. We are not big on cards, flowers, or big celebrations; my parents weren’t, and they have been married for 48 years. It seems likely that we will soldier on without dramatic flourishes. I have also observed that the important work in a marriage goes on every single day, and that it is far more significant, in the great scheme of things, than some artificially-heightened hearts and flowers kind of affair. Instead of a card, I give my husband my full attention when he needs it, cover him up with a blanket and bring him tissues when he’s sick, and I raised my stepdaughter when she needed a mother. In addition to the card he just gave me (along with a copy of “Bazaar,” because he knows how I roll) my husband gives me compassion and a good ear even when I am ridiculous and hysterical, a big warm body to defrost my ice-block feet, and the feeling that I am always beautiful and desirable, even when I know I’m not. These are not gifts to be sneezed at.

Along the way, I have learned some things. Here they are, for what it’s worth; I do not pretend to have any secrets, or that we have some sort of “uber marriage,” but it seems mete and fitting, on this day of quiet, mutual love and appreciation, to pass along the diamonds of understanding that we’ve polished from the pile of iffy rocks that every marriage begins with. Some are cliché, but I will tell you this: sometimes, clichés are clichés precisely because they resonate with the experience of many people.

1. Focus on the marriage, not the wedding. This may seem to be an obvious thing, but I can’t tell you how many people I know who spent money they didn’t have, and months of time planning and stressing over an elaborate wedding, only to become divorced people within a few short years. I don’t remember my wedding; I had a new baby, I had just been in the hospital for two months, and aside from my dress (pretty) and the flowers (pretty) I don’t remember a thing. There were no bridesmaids, no flower girls, no venue, no DJ, no fancy cake, no reception, no updos, no manicures, no rehearsal dinners, and no diamonds with monthly payments. Nevertheless, like my parents “justice of the peace” wedding decades earlier, it “took.” I love weddings, and all that comes with them, but it seems like it’s more important to spend time making sure that you are marrying someone you can live with for a lifetime, than to spend time making sure that you have one beautiful day.

2. Work hard. Under what other circumstances would you take two people from different backgrounds, and in many instances different cultures, with diverse dreams and interests, and set them up to live together for all eternity, sharing everything and having to work together through a long series of high-stakes, complex issues? (Well, other than a reality series). I have discussed with a friend the fact that both of us, married for many years, have had days when we entertained thoughts of packing up, getting out and savoring our respective husbands’ realization that He Was Wrong and Should Grovel. I suspect that this fantasy is not confined to wives. If you want to be free to do as you please, and triumph in every conflict, you should be single. If you want to be a married person, and to build a relationship that you can live in for the rest of your life, you have to put that ahead of your own desires most of the time. Not, of course, if someone is physically or emotionally abusive, but if you are outraged by the fact that your spouse does not want to spend another Thanksgiving with your parents, and you are willing to fight to the death rather than give in…maybe you don’t get it.

3. Bite your tongue.I like to express myself, and I like to win. Oddly enough, my husband enjoys both of these things, too. Over the years, I have learned that sometimes it’s my turn to “win, and sometimes it is my turn to stop talking, say I understand and that I’m sorry, and move on. Interestingly, it is almost always better to stop talking and move on. This is very hard work; I not only like to win, but I like to concede and then, maybe 30 minutes later, bring up the hot topic again under the guise of “explaining it calmly,” which really means one more try at victory. It never, ever works. Unless the stakes are so high that you would be endangering the health and safety of yourself or a family member by giving in, it is usually better to stop yourself before you say the ugly thing, the “one thing too far,” the button-pushing thing. You know what those things are. They are not the things that NEED to be said, like “I am overwhelmed by the housework, and I feel like you should help more” but zingers, like “all you care about is your job.” If it’s not helpful, or factual, or kind, and you actually want to stay married…bite your tongue.

4. Don’t Be Twins. I am delighted when Rob and I discover a common interest, a television show we both enjoy, a book that we both read and discuss. Last summer, we started walking every day, and the post-walk talks were a great bonding time. On the other hand, we have different tastes in many things from politics to whether or not “Married with Children” is viable viewing. That’s fine. It really, really is. Neither of us surrendered our personality when we picked up the marriage license, and it would be incredibly dull to hurtle through eternity with someone who had no interests of his or her own. It’s good for married persons to have other friends, to go to book clubs, “girls nights,” lectures on wooden boat building…whatever sends you back home happy, engaged and ready to share that energy with the person back home.

5. Pay attention. If your best friend, or your best client was telling you something that was important to them, something that they really wanted you to know, would you be mentally going through your “to-do” list while they spoke? Familiarity breeds, if not actual contempt, a kind of laxity about making certain kinds of effort. You can say to yourself “he should know I have a million things to do,” but would you think that if your college roommate had called to tell you about her impossible mother in law? Well, you might, after 30 minutes, but you would never be rude enough to let her know that your attention had wandered. If you really can’t listen to what your spouse has to say because you are preoccupied, say so, take care of business and return ready to listen. Paying attention is often the path to someone’s heart in the first place; studies show that most spouses stray because someone else “listens.” Show your spouse the same courtesy you would show most people, and if you really need a rain check, say so before you get that glazed look.

6. Be nice. There is no one we are prouder of, and for whom our heart puffs more than our children and our spouses when they are pleasing to us. Leaving aside the children, I will remind you of the times when your spouse is dressed to kill and charming, and you are watching from a small distance, feeling all mushy and glow-y, or when he helps the lady with a baby and a toddler get everything out of the overhead storage bin, or when she tells you she has nothing under her trench coat, and the pockets contain Pistons tickets and beer. That’s when it’s easy to be nice. There are other times, times after an argument at night when his or her eloquently turned back makes you want to claw and rage, or the times when the chewing, breathing or mere existence of your beloved makes you want to climb the walls. Those are the times when you have to get tough with yourself and make it right by being the one who reaches out, forgives, or takes a walk and returns less critical and impatient. I find it helpful, in these situations, to think of my husband as a little boy, cute, innocent and vulnerable. (You probably aren’t love’s young dream when you chew, either).

7. Be loyal. Before I got married, my mother told me not to discuss my husband with other people, even (especially) in those cozy all-girl settings where it seems so natural and everyone else is doing it. It’s okay, if not optimal, to go along with the crowd by saying that your husband doesn’t feed the kids healthy meals when you’re not home, or that your wife has a serious obsession with attending candle parties. My test is that if whatever you say about your spouse will make the listener(s) even a little bit uncomfortable the next time they see him, keep your mouth shut. You can’t make them forget that they heard it, they probably won’t forget it. If its truly terrible and a deal-breaker, talk to a therapist, clergy or an attorney. If not, the person you should be talking to is your spouse.

8. Want to be married. If you wanted to get a black belt, learn to knit, or speak Mandarin, you would understand that it would take time and work and energy. For some reason, marriage (which is infinitely harder) is sold to us as a thing that should unfold organically in a swathe of rose-strewn white organdy. If it was easy, well, you know…..

Dear Teacher,

Dear Teacher,

I am writing to you, “using my words,” as I have been taught from time immemorial, to plead my son’s case. So far, I have felt that our communications with you resembled some kind of game for which we were not given the rules. We are trying to get him through a tough time, a tough age, and to help him find his way in school after a series of mistakes on our part. He is not at his best right now, any more than I was in seventh grade; my own brother “checked out” for two years of middle school and grew up to be a doctor and hospital administrator. What you see right now is not his future, or all that he has to offer as a human being, and I guess that it’s our expectation that a teacher of your experience would know that. We are not teacher-bashers, either; I want to make that clear from the start. I was raised by teachers, and my husband works with math and science teachers. Perhaps it is our positive background with your profession that gives us hope that if we can clear things up, if you can see what we see, that you will choose to “teach” this kid, and not “school” him when you have the choice. His fortunes do not hang on a seventh grade science grade, but the erosion of self confidence and motivation that we see is a very high price for him to pay in order for you to be the victor in whatever game we’re playing.

My son tells me that he is having “problems” in your class. I want to tell you, right off the bat, that we don’t believe everything he tells us, and that we are open to hearing your side of things. In fact, we’d like to hear from you. That being said, no matter what he’s done, we are unwilling to concede that he is not worth your time and effort. Convicted and incarcerated felons are educated in prison (as they should be), and he has not possibly done anything worse than the average felon.

He says you will not give him copies of papers that he didn’t receive because he was absent. In one case, he admits that he maybe, probably lost the paper. He tells us that your response to that was to make him sit idle in class for three days while all of the other students engage in a lab project.  He also reports that you asked him if, since he was not doing the lab, he would help a classmate who is not learning to speak English as a second language to write her own lab report. He says that she didn’t understand that he was trying to help her, thought he was trying to copy her papers, and moved away and covered her notes. Finally, he says that after this occurred, you asked him, in front of the class, whether “since he was just sitting there, doing nothing” he would be willing to go to the office to retrieve some papers that you needed. The day before the lab write-ups were due, you finally gave him the necessary packet and told him that  he needed to “get one from somebody and copy it,” to hand in the next day. He asked three friends if he could use their lab reports to complete the lab-based blanks in his packet, and all three reluctantly told him that they couldn’t let him, because they needed to finish their own work before the following day’s due date.

Perhaps he has learned from this that he shouldn’t lose his papers, which is not a bad lesson, although I am not sure that he’s actually learned it. In order to learn this lesson, though, he has missed the opportunity to learn anything related to a major lab project, and will have no chance to recoup that loss. Who won what, here?

We are clear on the fact that teachers are overburdened, under stress, under appreciated. We know that you are faced with behavior problems, refugee students who do not speak English, looming budget cuts, constantly changing state and federal guidelines, pressure for success on standardized tests, absent parents and helicopter parents. We neither expect (or want) you to be the point person for teaching our child manners, English, organizational skills, social norms, or remedial substantive information. All that we ask is that you teach him the year’s content in your subject area, as well as you are able.

You have said yourself that he is a “polite and helpful” boy, which he is. He is also smarter than hell, and has the potential to go places we can’t even imagine. Unfortunately, his finer qualities are currently bundled in the mess that is an adolescent boy. He has made poor choices about friends, and we are making huge efforts to redirect him without falling into the pit of confirming every adolescent’s belief that his parents are clueless, disconnected idiots. This is a monumental job that requires constant reassessment and recalibration. It is kind of like trying to relocate a giant animal with teeth and claws in such a way that it believes it is moving voluntarily; one wrong move and you’re shredded. We also missed the memo when a kid who used to do all of his schoolwork with speed and ease became a kid with piles of homework, no motivation and no discipline. Clearly, we should have instilled the discipline much earlier, making him sit down every day and do something, even if he had already done his homework in school. We falsely trusted that his brains and his charisma would carry him through as they always had, and we are paying the price in arguments over homework undone, lost papers, disorganized binders, missed deadlines and a laissez-faire attitude about school. We admit this mistake, we humble ourselves, and again I ask – if you choose to judge and punish him (and, frankly, our family) rather than offering him a hand, who wins?

I apologize for rambling, but I keep thinking that if I say enough, if I say the right combination of things, my words will open your heart and you will say to yourself “what a great kid! What was I thinking?” Maybe that’s silly, but I wish you could see what we see, and, honestly, what many other adults (not related to him) have seen.

It is probably unnecessary to remind you that adolescence is a tough time, and that boys tend to be behind girls on the maturation curve. I have read several articles lately about how boys have replaced girls as the “underachieving gender,” and as the mother of one of them, that concerns me. I don’t expect bells and whistles in the classroom, and I see the frustration that might come from trying to teach kids who have been raised on video games, sound bytes and instant messages. They are easily bored (particularly boys) and tend to believe that if something is “boring” they are free to dismiss it from their universe. Boys like ours are also hitting adolescence at a time when schools are frantically pressed to prove their worth with tougher standards and more testing. I didn’t do a whole lot in seventh grade; I certainly didn’t have homework every night. The time and space to make some adjustments, to come into some kind of balance within oneself seems to have been sacrificed in the interests of escalating academic pressures. I was, honestly, blown away by the sign in front of the school advertising “Eighth Grade College Night.”

So if we will admit that this child, our child, is currently a “slacker,” that he is probably losing papers and failing to fill out his log, and generally missing the mark in your classroom, will you admit that he is entitled to your care and compassion because you are his teacher? If we admit that he has had sketchy friends, and that he doesn’t yet understand the consequences of blowing off homework, will you meet us half way and acknowledge that we are trying to be good parents and to raise a resilient, kind, intelligent young man? If we admit that he is too easily bored, and needs to work on focus and discipline, can you concede that adolescent boys are no different than they ever were, and that the pressure of rapid-fire mindless entertainment on one side and quickening academic pace on the other could cause problems unrelated to moral turpitude?

Finally, finally, can you see that this is not a bad kid, that he has all the raw materials necessary to become the best kind of adult, and that getting him through this, and to that, will require every adult in his life to make a concerted effort? There is so little to be gained from winning this game; you can defeat him, you can defeat us, and in a year or two you won’t remember us. There is a great deal to be gained from becoming partners, rather than opponents, in the work of shaping a potentially amazing human being.

Best regards,

A Mom

Fung-Shwa

[Note: I am in the process of moving posts from another blog over to Forest Street, and this is such a post, originally published over a year ago. I apologize if you've already read it; I just want to have everything in one convenient, central location here in the Kitchen].

I will admit that I am not a big fan of  mystical/New Age/Woo-woo stuff. I have, at various times in my life, suspended my disbelief long enough to check out aromatherapy, I Ching, herbal medicine, Tarot cards, flower remedies and Deepak Chopra’s ideas about eating according to ones’ body type.  I did like yoga, and will probably stick with that one (and I have a holistic vet), but otherwise I remain a staunch and resolute believer in Deal With It, Take an Aspirin, and If Your Body Type is “Bigger Than You Want,” Eat Less and Walk More. I would love to believe that sniffing a sprig of lavender and putting a big mirror next to the front door would make me relaxed and wealthy, but sadly I see no evidence that this is true. These are projects best supported by Xanax and windfall inheritances.

Last night as I sat transfixed by the many widget choices available on iGoogle (an activity known to my family as “working”) my dear husband took down the Christmas tree and put the furniture back in it’s customary arrangement. (This was an incredibly selfless and kind act undertaken with no upfront promise of sexual favors, and you may think that I shirked my duty; it might make you feel better to know that I am also in charge of deploying and tearing down my parents’ Christmas tree and decorations, so I am still on that particular hook).  Since I was toiling away in another room, deciding whether to install daily quotes from The Simpson’s or Jack Handy,  Rob made the daring decision to leave the sofa and chairs in their new “With Tree” locations. Admittedly, there aren’t that many ways to arrange furniture in a room that only has two whole walls, and necessarily focuses on the Ark of the Covenant television set, permanently located in the only logical spot.

When I surfaced, he asked how I liked “the Fung Shwa.” Since I believed that Fung Shwa was a French casserole made with truffles and duck confit, it took me a minute. “Oh,” I said with a figurative smack to my forehead, “you mean Feng Shui!” After thanking me graciously, as he often does, for taking the time to correct him, he allowed as how that was what he had meant.

“Well,” I responded, playing for time, “what do you think?” He shrugged.

“I can still see the TV from my chair, and I don’t have to move the couch back where it was.”

That, my friends, is a kind of Feng Shui I can believe in.

Listening to The Enemy

He was one of the guys I knew least well, the pale, quiet one with a pretty girlfriend. I knew, because I had had the house full of undergraduate boys to dinner more than once, that he didn’t like vegetables, and that, although he said he didn’t tolerate lactose well, he loved my macaroni and cheese and requested the recipe as a wedding gift when he married the pretty girlfriend. I knew that he had moved from a sort of reflexive, birthright Christianity to a more dynamic evangelical path, inspired by a member of our university’s Campus Crusade for Christ. Although the organization appeared to be at odds with my own religious views, I was honored to be invited to one of the weekly student dinners when Jon hosted. (I am not sure whether it was me or the macaroni they were after). During his senior year, he decided to attend seminary and pursue training in Christian Counseling, and I was both touched and anxious to help when he asked me to look at his admissions essay. Two years later, I got a message in my Facebook inbox asking if I would look at his Master’s thesis. Buttered up by his (inaccurate but endearing) insistence that I had “gotten him into seminary” I agreed.

When the thesis arrived, the title took my breath away; he had written about “reparation therapy” as a tool for working with homosexuals. (I would tend to use the word “de-program” to describe this process, but Jon did not). I had a lot of time before he planned to meet with me, and I immediately called a liberal UCC pastor of my acquaintance to ask what I should do. Could I, an avowed “fag hag” and supporter of gay rights, read and edit such a document? Did I have a duty to disclose to him that I could not, possibly be objective? Would my own strong beliefs taint my utility as an editor? She advised me to start reading, and to decide along the way whether I could give him the kind of help he needed. Optimistically, she suggested that he might, after all, be taking the position that reparative therapies didn’t work. Hopeful, and wanting to help this kind, quiet boy, I started to read.

Never having written or read a thesis before, I wasn’t sure whether it was meant to have a personal point of view, or merely to lay out all of the relevant facts and point the reader to some unavoidable conclusion based solely on the objective. I read pages that outlined the two “sides” in the debate; the so-called “reparative” therapy that sought to help patients  see their homosexuality as a mental illness that can be cured, and the contrary position of the mainstream therapeutic community that homosexuality is not a mental illness but a part of one’s psychological makeup. Jon acknowledged, with reams of facts, that the reparative therapists could claim relatively little success, had conducted almost no scientifically acceptable research to back their assertions, and had made some patients feel so wretched about themselves and their inability to give up their “lifestyle” that they had left the church entirely. If it was going to be all about the facts, I thought he was necessarily headed towards the conclusion that reparative therapy is clearly not a practice rooted in the accepted psychological canon, but thinly disguised religious bigotry used to destroy the psyches of confused and vulnerable people.

And then, there it was, the sentence in which Jon stated that he believed that, although it needed improvement in terms of objective measures and scientific rigor, he believed that reparative therapy was a useful concept. I walked away for a while, thinking about my gay friends, the battles they had faced in school, and with their families, chewing over the old outrage at the notion that anybody would make a “lifestyle choice” that would lead to exclusion, depression and judgment at the hands of complete strangers. Plus, there was the religious component – I could not reconcile a loving Christ with a belief that “love one another” really meant “love the sinner, hate the sin.” I was well aware that homosexuality was viewed as a violation of the divine plan in most orthodoxies – certainly the “big three” of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, but I had always viewed that as a reflection of religion based on insularity and dogma rather than an attempt to put faith to work in the modern world. I could, maybe, understand homophobia among orthodox jews who also believe the notion that menstruating women are “unclean,” but how to explain such a belief in a young man living in the “real” world? Was it wrong to keep reading, to try to help him, believing with all my heart that if he actually became a counselor he would be inclined to participate in, or at least support a practice that I believed to be backwards and destructive?

I kept reading. I kept making suggestions for better ways to turn a phrase, attaching Post-its with re-constituted sentences, assiduously avoiding any commentary about substance. I was doing what i had promised to do.

Towards the end, Jon raised a question that I couldn’t easily dismiss: what about people who are genuinely miserable because they believe their homosexuality to be a sin? Not, he was careful to explain, young people who are propagandized by the adults in their lives, including church leaders, but people of age who rightly or wrongly believe that their faith is at odds with their sexuality. Should those people have no choice other than mainstream therapy aimed at helping them to accept themselves with no more than a brief nod to, and dismissal of the religious beliefs so critical in their lives? Shouldn’t there be a place where people in that kind of pain can talk about their troubles, explore alternatives and make decisions under the guidance of someone who understands and possibly shares their religious beliefs? I have been around the block enough times to know that religion of any kind is viewed with great suspicion and disdain by many highly intelligent and well-educated types (including most of my family of origin) and I think it might be fairly difficult to locate a traditional psychologist, psychiatrist or M.S.W. willing (and permitted) to include religion in a discussion of mental health. Chaplains can cross that line, but I have spoken to both psychiatrists and psychologists over the years who feel that, even if there is no clear, ethical prohibition against discussing spiritual matters with patients, it is simply “not done.”

Of course I don’t really believe that my gay friends or any gay person in the world should have to see a therapist at all, let alone for purposes of changing their inherent selves; I keep thinking about the spouses and children of “repaired” homosexuals, and what their lives must be like. I think that we are all precious and unique and not fungible widgets to be re-shaped into some objectively acceptable form. If we went down that path, how many other essential parts of ourselves might profitably be re-tooled based on some highly selective human interpretation of the Bible, or the Constitution or the DSM -IV (Revised)?

But if I am not in the judging business, if I believe what I say I believe about showing compassion and refraining from judgment, who am I to say that a person cannot be genuinely torn between a sustaining and meaningful faith, and an inherent  love for and attraction to  members of the same sex? Why is my bias against religious fundamentalism “better” or “righter” than her belief that it is the truth, even as she batters herself against it trying to fight her sexuality? How do I know, how can I even imagine what role religion has played in her life, what she has seen and felt?  How can I assume that because I am a left-leaning ecumenicist, that she is less intellectually able to make her own decisions and understand their consequences, even if she chooses for unfathomable reasons to sublimate her sexual feelings forever? I can think she’s making a mistake, I can bristle at the idea that anyone would ever ask my gay friends to be “repaired,” and I can dislike an institution that would make her feel like a walking sin, but since I haven’t walked so much as a millimeter in her shoes, I can’t judge.

So I read it all, and put it away, and the day came that Jon dropped by the house to Talk Thesis. We watched the DVDs of his recent wedding, oohing and aahing over the bride, laughing at the candids, asking questions about which brother went with which side. When it was time, Jon and I sat at the dining room table and I told him I had struggled, that I disagreed with his thesis, but that he had made me think.

“Yeah,” he said, “after I sent it to you I was thinking you might not agree with it.”

I couldn’t help but ask if he really believed homosexuality was a sin, and he said he really did, but that he struggled with it. He had a cousin who was gay, and when he thought about his cousin, who he loved, he wasn’t sure that it wasn’t okay if he found someone to love, and had a lasting relationship. He said his mom, and other relatives had asked him to write about something else because it might hurt his cousin to know that he had written such a thing. I told him about the gay couples we know, married for decades, and he allowed as how he’s “heard about things like that.” It was pleasant with the late afternoon sunlight slanting into the room, talking peacefully about such deeply held beliefs, the kinds of beliefs that break families apart and start wars. We were listening to each other intently, speaking honestly, abandoning everything knee-jerk and leaving only what was so much a part of us that we couldn’t separate ourselves.

I told him that, although I would probably never be able to like the idea of “reparative” therapy, or view it as a legitimate form of psychotherapy, I saw a place for it in supporting people of faith who had made an independent, adult decision that they could not reconcile religion and sexuality. I told him that I could only, ever see it as a Church-related service that might provide great love and care to a suffering soul, but that I would always hope that such a person could, some day, at least find a Church (and there are many) that could accept him and love him for who he truly was. Taking a deep breath, I told him that to me, that was what Jesus stood for, and that a religion or denomination that raised people to view anyone as a “sinner” based on an immutable characteristic had strayed so far into dogma and away from Christ’s teachings that I could not respect it. He nodded, and told me that he “got” that, but that in his church gay people were welcome, but had to understand that homosexuality was a sin. We had reached an impasse. A gentle, respectful impasse that left us both feeling that we had been thoroughly heard and understood, and (at least on my end) that a window had opened into a previously unseen universe. I didn’t want to live in that world, but I knew that I had done the right thing by remaining soft and open, rather than leaping atop my soapbox. I told him that, aside from my personal issues, the writing was strong, and that he had done a great job.

Jon got his Masters degree, and is now working as a counselor in a secular setting. He is very young, and I admit to hoping that as he grows older and sees a variety of clients, he will change his beliefs about homosexuality. He has a rare gift for listening and understanding, and approaches humanity with deep compassion; it is hard for me to imagine that he will not moderate eventually. If he doesn’t, though, if he remains firm in his beliefs, even if he personally sets out to create “reparation therapy” clinics across the world, I will be grateful for the time I spent reading his thesis, struggling over it, and talking religion and sexuality with him in my dining room. How can we hope to change anything in this world if we can’t spend an hour listening thoughtfully to ‘the enemy” explain ideas that are different from our own?

Photo Credits

Freedom from Homosexuality: http://www.stephenblack.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/freedom-1024×717.jpg

Franny and Zooey and J.D. and Me

Yesterday, my favorite author died. He was not exactly plucked in the flower of youth, being 91 and all. He also hadn’t published anything since shortly after my third birthday. Well, he didn’t ever publish a whole lot of anything, at least not anything I could easily get my hands on. He wrote three books, a collection of short stories, and a novella which appeared in “The New Yorker,” but which I have never found in buyable form. I have been trying really hard not to read anything being written about him right now, not blog posts, not opinion pieces, not even obituaries, because this is a private thing for me. I need a little time to think my own thoughts before I open myself up to a flood of writing about how Catcher in the Rye wasn’t really that great, how Salinger was not really very nice to his wives or his children, or how he was (pick one) overrated, underrated, wrong to become a recluse, right to become a recluse, etc. ad nauseum.

His is the voice I hear in my head when I write, and always has been. Mostly, that’s between him and me.

I started reading Salinger in middle school, stealing ancient copies of Franny and Zooey and Nine Short Stories that had belonged to my uncles. I stole them from my grandmother’s bookshelves, choosing them because they were old, and had funky vintage covers. I loved the short stories first, because they were more accessible; Seymour’s anguish and gentleness in “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” slayed me every time. Every frickin’ time. Whenever I had a “free choice” for reading a book and writing a paper in school, I wrote about one of the stories. They had everything: love, resentment, suicide, alienation, irony, total lack of irony…for an adolescent interested in reading and writing, or being alive, it was a goldmine. There is still a copy of the stories, the same copy I stole 34 years ago, next to my bed.

Franny and Zooey took longer; I read it over and over first because I loved the dialogue, and later, because in her confusion about life and love and faith, Franny seemed to me to be a soul mate. I didn’t trouble myself with What it All Meant, I just read it because I loved the language, and the characters. I could have been a member of the Glass Family. I knew my way around their New York apartment, I could have been on “It’s a Wise Child” with them, read the books my older brothers told me to read, thumbed through the scrapbooks affixed to the living room walls. Later, much later, I decided to read The Way of the Pilgrim, the book Franny carries around with her throughout Franny and Zooey. By that time I was twice as old as Franny, old enough to be her mother, and I understood the lure of the beautiful, simple expression of faith and salvation in the book she carried.

Later, my roommate found me a used copy of Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction, and my Glass Family collection was complete. I had a bound genealogy of a family I knew better than my own, and a ready source of reassurance that I was not the only tightly wrapped, angsty, alienated, person who was not quite what they seemed to be. I wanted to live in New York, ride trains, have a Chesterfield and a Chiffarobe, drink cocktails, smoke cigarettes, and have a background of fame as a quiz kid that I could choose to disregard. I wanted to be able to write like Salinger did, from the pitch-perfect  dialogue that rang true to me long after it was theoretically “dated,” to the incredible restraint that allowed the deepest feelings to be portrayed with not a faint whiff of the cliché or the maudlin. He was always the writer I wanted to be, and frankly, I didn’t care whether he was a nice guy, or that he was a recluse, or that he had maybe robbed the world of his gift. I wasn’t going to date him, or even meet him, and it just didn’t matter what he did in his private life.

I read Catcher in the Rye at some point before it was assigned in school, and then again when it was actually required reading; I remember that I liked the book, but that classroom discussion about Themes and Characters just about killed me. It was like a public autopsy for me, that mechanical dissection and  parsing of the words and thoughts of someone who was my own. It was too heavy, too regimented, I kept wanting to raise my hand and explain that Salinger, my friend Salinger, had never sat around thinking about Themes of Youth and Alienation. I wanted to tell everybody that it was ironic (!) to be as “phony” about reading his book as Holden Caulfield believed the world to be. I didn’t do it, but I will say that Catcher, the only Salinger I ever had to read, is my least favorite. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t have anything to do with the Glass family, but I suspect it has more to do with the classroom post-mortem.

Last fall, having discovered that I could check books out of the Michigan State University library as a “community member,” I decided to read some literary criticism of Salinger’s work. I had just read all of his books again, and (in that way I have of believing my thoughts are invalid unless confirmed by a better informed source) I wanted to see if he really was as great as I thought he was. I do see the problem with that line of thinking, but at the time I was heady with library access, and excited to learn What it All Meant, once and for all. So I started an essay about Freud in Salinger’s work, and within three sentences I felt as if I had bitten into a wormy apple. It was wrong, not what I expected, another example of taking apart everything mystical and beautiful in order to expose…what some other guy thought. I sampled other essays in several books, learned that Salinger wasn’t a really nice guy, learned that he had a long relationship with a young writer who wrote a terrifically unflattering book about it, and learned that he was erratic about religions and diets and philosophies. I took the books back to the library.

So yesterday, when Salinger died, it didn’t really change anything between us; our relationship was carried out entirely between his books and my brain. It seemed like everyone had an awful lot to say about his life, his writing, what they liked, what they didn’t; I think I saw 10 essays in different forums about why various people didn’t really like Catcher in the Rye. All I could think of was Holden, or Franny, observing the commotion and finding it to be a perfect example of what’s wrong with the world: phonies lining up to get a piece of the Big Thing of the Day. Some great writing and thinking, but mostly navel-gazing, snark, and/or intrusive and salacious glimpses into a personal world that Salinger worked very hard to keep personal. He wasn’t Brad Pitt, for God’s sakes.

So it didn’t change anything. I’m sorry that the man who could speak to me across generations isn’t in the world with me any longer, but everything that he gave me is still around, from the four books that are always with me, to the standards in my head about what counts as “good writing.” If there’s a heaven, I’m not sure he’s there. I’m not sure it matters.

Photo Credits:

Salinger: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8c/JD_Salinger.jpg

Andrew’s Apartment II: Come As Your Favorite Whore

[Note: this is the second part of "Andrew's Apartment" and can be read separately, but they work better together].

My roommate in East Hall was a “townie” who had graduated at the top of her class from Oberlin High School, headed to a prestigious womens’ college on the East coast, and transferred to Oberlin for reasons never entirely clear to me. Her family was conservative politically and socially, and reminded me of characters from a 1950s sitcom; her father with a flat top haircut and large glasses with black plastic frames, her mother in a dress or what could only be called “slacks,” reading glasses on a chain around her neck, sensible shoes and no makeup. In the early 1980s her parents were a trope; going to their house for dinner was like turning a corner and finding oneself at the home of Aunt Bee’s dowdy, bookish neighbors.

Betsy, their daughter, my roommate, was smart, and funny, and earnest. A good friend, a hard worker, a runner, she washed her face every night with Noxema and a washcloth, and returned to her half of the room smelling of eucalyptus and virtue. I knew she was a better person than I would ever be, and while part of me slipped easily into our domestic routine of breakfast together, dinner together, mutual respect for quiet study and Saturday nights eating blueberry whole wheat doughnuts from Gibson’s and maybe drinking a little “near beer” at the Rathskeller, I sometimes longed for something darker. I often longed for something darker. I smoked, I pined for gay men, I bought every black, vintage garment I could afford, and still I knew that beneath it all I was really the same kind of nice girl in jeans and a Fair Isle sweater that Betsy was. I loved her, I really did, but I also had the need to make myself separate, as if she were my surrogate parent there in the cornfields of Ohio. Every good thing she did made me want, just a little, to drink straight gin until I threw up, and have sex with strangers, and smoke unfiltered Camels. Unfortunately, no one was offering me any of those options.

When Andrew invited me to the “Come As Your Favorite Whore” party at his apartment over the Taproom, I was ecstatic. Then terrified. We were in Modern American Novels, Andrew and I, and on my other side was Max,  the guy who lived across the hall from me, a tall, lanky English Major type who would eventually become an artist of some reknown. Professor Gammon rustled papers at the podium, and I asked Andrew what one wore to such a party.

“Oh,” he answered vaguely, “I don’t really dress for it…lots of drag, the girls dress up in fishnets and heels…you know.” I had no idea. Honestly, I did not have a favorite whore; I wasn’t sure I had ever actually seen one, even when I lived in Boston. Sweetheart that he was, Andrew saw the panic in my face. “It’s okay, doll; you’ll figure it out. Borrow. Borrow from your roommate, and look at all your stuff. You’ll find things.” On my other side, Max snorted.

“Her roommate is, like, the dullest person in the entire world.” He said as Gammon cleared his throat. Half of my brain was on the lecture, he was talking about A Modern Instance by William Dean Howells, I was thinking about my clothes, what I owned that could be worn by a whore, what did whores wear, was Betsy really that boring, if she was really that boring, did people like Max think I was just like her, but no, because if he thought that he wouldn’t have said she was boring in front of me, so clearly, CLEARLY he was saying that she was dull but I was not, and that felt so good that I warmed, and then so bad and disloyal that I felt a stone grow in my stomach. I loved her, I loved the cozy, safe warmth and predictability of having a best friend living in the other half of my room. Couldn’t I also have fishnets, and gin?

The night of the Come As Your Favorite Whore party was cold and windy. I had cobbled together an outfit which included a black skirt rolled at the top to make it short, a black cardigan unbuttoned low enough to show cleavage, and black tights with a couple of holes in them. I didn’t have high heels, and could not have walked across the cobbled Quad in them anyway, so I wore black flats. I had dangly earrings, teased hair and what I believed to be a whorish jangle of makeup bought cheap at the Ben Franklin – red lips, blue eyelids, glittery pink cheeks. Betsy, about to be abandoned by me on a Saturday night, helped me get ready. I noticed that she looked bemused as she cut a little hole in my stocking, and tried to hide the giant bulge at my waist caused by rolling the top of the skirt. Maybe I was my favorite pregnant whore. I was mostly terrified; I had not been back to Andrew’s apartment since the day in the fall when I had met Amy and found her mouton jacket. He said she had specifically told him to invite me. I could not imagine what this party would entail, and if I would know what to do. I chain smoked which, oddly, Betsy didn’t mind; her father was a smoker and she said it reminded her of home.

With my vintage tweed overcoat over my whore ensemble, I left the safe plastic lounge chairs and carpeted halls of East, and headed across the Quad into town, to the Taproom. I could hear it from the street, and I could see silhouetted in the second floor windows, bodies moving. Walking, dancing, bottles in hands. I had very little experience with parties; I had avoided them in high school, there hadn’t been any during my brief tenure at the Conservatory. At Oberlin I had hung out with groups in dorm rooms or lounges, but I had never been to a party off campus, and certainly not with the Persons in Black, who wielded all psychic power in my 20-year-old universe. I pushed the buzzer, and was allowed in. I smelled smoke, beer, perfume, sweat, wet wool, burnt coffee, and old books; as I climbed the stairs, I heard music I didn’t know, loud, percussive, a singer with a flat, nasal voice. At the top of the stairs there were people everywhere, seemingly impenetrable, and I could not see a face that I knew. No Andrew, no Amy, not even any of the roommates. I started to push my way in between a tall, beautiful man in drag, and a small, pale girl wearing what seemed to be a bikini and white vinyl boots. I stepped on her foot.

“Ouch!” she said, both of them looking at me as if I had only recently been removed from the bottom of a shoe. “Fucking look where you’re going.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. This was not a good start, not a good start, not a good start. To my right I saw a guy I knew from the radio station, not a friend, exactly, he being a spinner of Social Distortion and Circle Jerks, and I being a spinner of Mozart, but he knew who I was. He sat in a large armchair with a Sherlock Holmes pipe in his hand, not in costume as far as I could tell; on his lap was a famous Person in Black, granddaughter of a prominent art gallery owner in Manhattan. She had a flapper bob with straight bangs and a fluff of black curls breaking out at the end of a smooth curve of hair, her skin was bloodless pale, her eyes heavily rimmed with black and her lips filled in with matte burgundy. She wore fishnets and impossibly high heels, and a small, tight black dress with no sleeves and a neck that plunged down and was gathered around a metal ring between her breasts. She was staring into space, and did not look at me, still wearing my coat, as I approached. “Nick,” I said, “have you seen Andrew?” He looked at me and squinted, as if focusing.

“Andrew….?”

“Andrew who lives here. He invited me, I can’t find him, I don’t know anybody here, and-”

“Haven’t seen him.” He took a puff from his pipe and buried his face in the black curls. Dismissed, I looked around, wishing desperately that I could move away from Nick and his lady friend after having been completely and totally snubbed, but unwilling to give up my inch of floor space until I had a clear plan. Finally, finally I saw Andrew at the kitchen table, talking to Amy. I maneuvered across the room, bumping into arms and bodies when I looked down to avoid stepping on feet. When I got close enough, Andrew could see me, and beckoned me over.

“Annie!” he was genuinely delighted. “Let’s put your coat in my room.” I followed him; the sea of black, patchouli-scented cigarette puffers parted for him as it had not done for me. An arch of irony formed. In his room, I took off my coat and modeled my attempt at whoreishness. He smiled, benevolent as always. “You look absolutely cheap” he pronounced. “Let’s get you a drink.” I followed him back out into the party, silently pleading with him not to leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me. The kitchen table was set up as a bar, covered with bottles of vodka, gin, mostly clear things, littered with plastic cups, and featuring a large, clear glass bowl filled half way with a variety of pills. They were quite beautiful, actually, like candy. in the corner was a keg, and sitting in a chair at the table was Amy, resplendent in a too-tight, bright blue dress with sequins and matching eyeshadow. “Amy, you remember Annie, right?” Andrew asked, gesturing to indicate that I should pick something to drink.

“Uhm, vodka and orange juice would be good” I said, smiling at Amy. We did, after all, have a bond; I was her “favorite friend of Andrew’s.”

“Why’d he come to my fucking party if he was bringing her, piece of shit fucker” she mumbled into her hand. I looked at Andrew, alarmed.

“The guy she likes came with his girlfriend” he explained. “Amy, baby, come with us and see who’s here” he tried, touching her bare, pink arm. Tears started to run down her cheeks, carrying with them a black trail of mascara.

“You’re always so nice to me, always so nice.” She stood, wobbling on pointy-toed black heels, and stepped towards Andrew. “You too,” she said, finally looking at me, “you’re so nice too. You’re Andrew’s friend. and you are soooooo nice to me. Why did he bring her, mother fucking sonofabitch?” There really wasn’t an answer to this; I stood by Andrew, he held Amy, Persons in Black, in drag, in fishnets, in clouds of smoke, broke around us like waves as they moved in for another drink, or to fish a pill out of the bowl. No one spoke to us, even the roommates, who appeared to pull another bottle out of a cupboard or pitch a few discarded cups into the trash; they smiled at Andrew, he smiled back, he kept patting Amy’s sequined back like he was burping a baby. I wasn’t really sure this was fun, I was pretty sure it wasn’t, I was under-dressed, anonymous, sad for Amy, thinking I would like either to get out and go back to my room or be drunk enough that it all seemed normal. I took a long drink of my vodka and made a second cup full.

“Can we do something for her?” I whispered to Andrew. He shook his head. He reconsidered.

“Her sister’s here, somewhere – if you can find her, maybe we can get her into bed.”

“How will I know which one is her sister?”

“She’s wearing a fur coat, a long one, with a black dress under it and black boots. Her name is Patty.” I noticed the black smudges on the front of his white button down shirt. Andrew was not dressed as his favorite whore; he was dressed as a tax accountant on a Saturday.

Back in the throng, I looked for a fur coat; it seemed that every time I was in that apartment I was looking for fur. I saw more men in drag than I had ever seen, noticing, absently that many of the men were far prettier than the women. It occurred to me that all of these people seemed to have, at their disposal, complete and upscale wardrobes of hooker-wear. I did not know a single person who owned fishnet stockings, a sequined dress or white vinyl boots. I was pretty sure I didn’t know a man who owned womens’ clothes, much less a whore outfit, but I didn’t know for sure. It was too much, too fast; wasn’t there middle ground between Betsy’s Noxema and these arch, privileged aliens?

I saw a flash of brown fur and pursued it, pivoting sideways when I need to get though a tiny opening in the crowd. I was getting better at it. The wearer of the coat fit Andrew’s description, and resembled Amy on a smaller, more slender scale. She was standing with her back to the wall, with a tall, nice looking guy in checkered slide-on shoes leaning down towards her. “Patty?” I said. She looked over, clearly annoyed.

“Yeah?”

“Um, I’m a friend of Andrew’s, and he said to find you because Amy’s having kind of a bad time.” She rolled her eyes.

“And Amy is not having a bad time exactly when….?” She took the cardigan-ed arm of the tall guy. “I’ll be back.” She turned towards me, turned back to him, grabbed the front of his sweater with both hands and pulled him down for a kiss. I willed myself invisible. “Okay,” she sighed, stepping away from him as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, “where is she?” I led her into the kitchen, where Amy was back in a chair, a cup in her hand. “What’s the problem?” Patty asked Andrew.

“Paul’s here. He brought his girlfriend.” She rolled her eyes again.

“Jesus fucking Christ. He doesn’t even really like her, either; he’s in love with Michael Porter.” She squatted in front of Amy until their eyes were level. “Amy, babes, you’ve got to stop drinking. You know you can’t drink with the meds. I don’t want to have to tell Daddy again.” Amy looked away like a baby avoiding a spoon full of Gerber squash. “You don’t want to have to go home, do you?” Amy turned her face back.

“No, but I’m so fucking sad, he brought that girl.”

“I know, babes, I know…what’s in that cup?”

“Water” answered Andrew. “We made a deal that she could have a real drink in a bit if she just had water for now.” He winked at Patty, barely perceptible.

“K. Let’s get her into bed.” Patty rose and walked to one side of Amy, Andrew to the other. Amy smiled at me as they took her arms, licking a gray tear from the corner of her lip.

“Where’r my manners. You want something?” She nodded towards the bowl of pills, “I like the blue ones. Have a blue one.” They were raising her, gently, and she turned back to me as they led her from the room. “You found my mouton!” I smiled at her, feeling wet heat stinging the back of my eyeballs.

“I’ll be right back,” Andrew told me, as they walked her, slowly, down the hall towards her room. I was an island as they swirled around me, all of the cool people, only briefly deterred by my inexplicable presence between their lithe, ironic selves and the bottles and pills on the table. I wondered, briefly, what a blue one would do for me. Andrew came back, looking tired. “I’m so, so sorry” he said, “she just takes things really hard.”

“Is she okay now?” He smiled at me, his eyes so blue, with crinkles at the corners, like everything good in the world. I loved him so much, I was so terribly sad that he was gay, I felt terrible about Amy, I wanted to go home.

“She’ll be all right. We’ve done this before. Patty put a fan on in her room so the noise isn’t as bad, and she’s sitting in there for a little while.” I nodded.

“Andrew, thanks so much for inviting me, but I think I’ve got to go back to the dorm.” He made a funny, crumple-lipped face that conveyed regret, but no surprise.

“I’ll get your coat. Hang on.” Alone in the room, waiting, I stepped towards the bowl of pills and put my hand in, enjoying the feeling of the tablets and capsules under my sweaty palm, between my spread fingers. Between my thumb and forefinger I grasped a blue pill, and held it as Andrew came out with my coat, helped me into it, and kissed me on the cheek. I slipped the pill into my pocket and threaded my way out of the kitchen, down the stairs, and out into the dark, cold and empty street.

Photo Credit

Blue Pill: http://www.flyingsnail.com/Dahbud/images/bluepill.jpg

You’re Going to Need Some Poster Board….

Yesterday I wrote about one family’s failure to produce an adequate Animal Cell Made of Food for a seventh grade science class. (That would be my family; I just find a little comfort in distancing myself from it all). In the comments on that post, a wise man, the parent of children who are not yet of school project age, raised an interesting question. Why do teachers assign projects? He suggested that it might, perhaps, be for purposes of generating greater parental involvement.

My reflexive answer to the question is that they assign projects because they are inadequately medicated psychopaths who hate parental figures, and unconsciously seek to kill them over a period of years by forcing them to run out and buy poster board, markers, glue dots, candies, string, sugar cubes, beads, binders, foam letters, yarn, wiggly eyes, ball bearings, Pilgrim hats, plaster of Paris and papier-mache, or the ingredients to make An Ethnic Food, A Healthy Food or Something the Indians Ate. I have also considered the possibility that teachers are receiving some kind of kick-back from Michael’s, Joanne Fabric, and/or Office Max. I know that I am not alone in my dark thoughts; other parents (mostly mothers) have been commiserating with me on this topic since first grade, and a recent episode of “The Middle” focused partly on the efforts of an exhausted, working mom to help her youngest child complete elaborate school projects that he had failed to tell her about until the night before they were due. All over America. mothers nodded their aching heads in recognition.

I am not a teacher hater, by the way; both of my parents were teachers. My father, a college professor, had little occasion to demand the creation of “projects,” and my mother taught English in an urban district where she was well aware that many parents had neither the cash nor the time to supervise tri-fold posters about Flowers for Algernon at the end of a long day. Both of my parents were aghast when, in the ninth grade, I informed them that I had to make a diorama about The Old Man and the Sea for English class. Their suggestion, based on their collective years in the classroom, was that I ask the teacher if I could just write a paper instead. I asked, and was refused; the teacher informed me that “there had to be a way for the students who had trouble writing papers to get a strong grade during the semester.” At the time, I grumbled and threw something together involving a shoe box, a doll and a gummi shark. In retrospect, I see that part of the answer about why teachers assign projects may lie in that experience.

We have also seen many good and useful projects over the years, and I do not believe that any good teacher assigns such things without care and consideration about the purpose of the work, and accommodations for children whose parents are not likely to be willing or able to assist. Sam’s third grade teacher, a model of energy and organization, assigned several projects, but each one came with a clear set of instructions and a rubric so that we knew whether we had done everything that was asked of us. Most involved nothing more than a large piece of paper (generally provided), a set of colored pencils, and some focus. These were projects that an eight-year-old could complete entirely on his own, and while there was more parental intervention at our house because I had the time, and Sam doesn’t like to draw or color, that was my choice. He could easily have done his own, unaided “best” and gotten an acceptable grade. My older nephew showed me a project that involved creating an image of water in various forms; he was working on a beautiful illustration involving an airplane on a runway, precipitation and de-icing. He was working on his own, he was deepening his understanding of the substantive material, and he was (I think) enjoying the process.

I also know that the Animal Cell project that bedeviled us is assigned elsewhere, and used far better as a teaching tool. My niece was assigned the same project in a neighboring district, and apparently understood and completed it without a hitch. A friend (herself a teacher) has told me that her children have all done the project in their district, but that it was done in the science lab during class time; this format relieves parents, reduces drama and inequality, and neatly preserves the point of the project, which is to help students understand the composition of an animal cell.

That is, I think, the main goal of a school “project.” Parental involvement may be a collateral benefit (and I would love to know from any teacher-readers whether that is even a consideration), but it seems that the Big Idea is to give students an opportunity to deepen their understanding of a book, an historical event or a scientific process in ways that take more time or materials than a classroom teacher can allow, to assure that a student has a grasp of material that allows her to present it in a different context, and to create something that can be shared with other students through display or presentation. Also, based on my Old Man and the Sea experience, I can allow that projects of a more artistic and/or mechanical nature are a boon to students who are perfectly capable of understanding the material, but struggle with tests and papers. Although I hated it at the time, I now think that there is more than one valid way to communicate ideas, and that it doesn’t hurt anyone to think outside the box.

So, I’ll give you that there are reasons for projects, that they can be great experiences, and that in the hands of a skilled educator they have enough purpose and value to outweigh the aggravation of driving around looking for macaroni that is the right shape for the minarets on a 3-D model of a palace. I will also admit that, if I am too involved in my kid’s projects because I am concerned about the fact that he cannot draw anything, procrastinates and is generally work-avoidant, that is not the teacher’s problem, but my own. In general, over the years, there have been few projects that were not assigned far enough in advance to allow adequate preparation and materials-gathering, and that could not, really, have been done by an unassisted kid. Loveable? No. Doable? Absolutely.

There are still some issues, though. For a project to have any usefulness beyond busy work and parental aggravation, there should be a crystal clear rubric. I learned yesterday that one of the students in Sam’s science class, who had designed and decorated a beautiful animal cell in cake form had lost 10 points because, in the absence of an actual, written assignment rubric, she had made tiny flags to mark the parts of the cell represented by her cake. The same fate befell at least two other (good) students who believed they were enhancing their finished products by marking the cell parts, but were marked down by the teacher on the basis that such labeling was essentially a “cheat” when it came time to present their project to the class. There should always be a clear outline of expectations, of what one has to do to receive an “A,” and (in this day and age) if the school uses an online grading and assignment system, the assignment and the rubric should be readily available during the time between the giving of the assignment and the due date.

There should also be the possibility of allowances and special dispensations based on family situation. I am pretty darned sure that Sam’s third grade teacher knew exactly whose parents were unwilling and or unable to buy extra things or spend hours planning and assembling a model of the Pentagon made out of bottle caps. Although the much-hated Animal Cell Project was issued with a directive to use “only food that you already have in the house,” who are we kidding? Do you have, right now, in your refrigerator and cupboards, suitable ingredients to construct a decent model of an animal cell that could be transported and hold up for three hours in a school locker? I did not, unless one could be constructed using raw meat, crudites and exotic spices.

There are good reasons, maybe even great reasons for a teacher to assign a project that requires completion outside of school. The fact that the project is part of the curriculum, included in a textbook, or “has always been done that way” is probably not a good enough reason. I will throw my heart and soul into any project that is explained thoroughly, administered fairly and based on a palpable desire to connect students and subject matter. Otherwise, I’m back to gluing gummi sharks to a shoe box and rolling my eyes.

The Human Cell Project

[Note: if you have landed here because you are searching the internet for pages actually related to "humans," "cells" or actual science, you have made a terrible mistake. Hit the "back" arrow, and Godspeed].

It started as such things often do, with a casual remark. As I made change for sweaty, hormonally-scented tweens at the Middle School Activity Night, my friend Patty asked “what we were doing for the cell project.” This meant that there was a project, that her daughter had told her about the project a week ago, that my son was never going to tell me about the project, that it was a big deal, that we were not prepared, and that I would never get the whole story no matter what I did. I had been down this road before.

“I guess I don’t know about it, yet” I answered, hoping that Patty would save me as she had before. She, after all, has a child who is tidy of handwriting, aware of assignments, aware that she has a school-issued planner…she has a child who is a daughter.

“They have to make a human cell out of food. That’s really all I know.” This didn’t help. As I dispensed slices of pizza and unfurled dollars fished from tight jeans pockets, I imagined sending in a pepperoni pizza. The crust could be the cell wall, the sauce the endoplasmic reticulum, the cheese and pepperoni could be all that other stuff. All I could remember was mitochondria, “the power house of the cell.” The pizza could be delivered to his third hour science class, and it would be just like “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” I could have my own Spicoli.

Mr. Hand: Am I hallucinating here? Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?

Jeff Spicoli: Learning about Cuba, and having some food.

On Facebook, a lively conversation began among the mothers of the putative cell makers. Many had not received the assignment in written form, many found it ridiculous, no one was sure how the finished product was meant to get to school and stay safe until Science class, it was a problem that the teacher (not widely loved) had failed to post it online with other assignments. I sighed in relief. Everyone was in the same boat, and I could just do my best, or, rather Sam could do his best, and we could relax. In the course of the Facebook conversation my sister-in-law posted a link to instructions for making a human cell out of Jell-O. It looked perfect; candies suspended in the gelatin to give a 3-D picture of all of those Golgi Bodies and something-somes. I abandoned Spicoli and the pizza, and told Sam The Plan. We would go out and purchase all of the ingredients on the lengthy list, and then make the thing the night before it was due. For good measure, I made him recite the parts of a human cell, which he was able to do. I was smugly pleased.

The day before the assignment was due, I was a perfect storm of righteous indignation. Sam had told me that this teacher cared more about how things looked than anything else; his “Science Rap” had been down-graded because, although the group knew the relevant material, the music was not properly synced. I muttered to myself about how real learning was the important thing, and what about all of the parents who were living on Food Stamps and couldn’t afford extra food to make a human cell project? What about the parents who couldn’t drive their kids to school so that their projects didn’t get destroyed? How noble was I, going out after work to spend quite a lot of money on Jell-O and an assortment of candy just to please some out-of-touch teacher? I was on fire.

When we got home from the store, I made the Jell-O. The directions didn’t say how much Jell-O, only that it should be “light colored” so that the candy cell parts would show up. We made the pineapple gelatin we had bought, and it didn’t look like nearly enough to hold all of the requisite candy in suspension. We added the box of raspberry gelatin we had cadged from my sister-in-law, and it got very dark. While we let it set for an hour, I looked at my computer. The tide had turned. The children whose mothers had complained were making elaborate, thoughtful concoctions, decorating cakes, working alone or with their parents, making masterpieces. Sam was playing X-box while our too-dark bag of Jell-O failed to thicken in an hour, in an hour and a half, in two hours. I put it in the freezer.

At two hours, after it was already pretty much bed time, we began to follow the instructions about inserting various candies into the Jell-O to simulate the parts of the cell. In order to do this, we had to punch a hole in the Ziploc holding the Jell-O and suspend it from the knob of a kitchen cabinet. We figured that once everything was assembled, we would refrigerate it over night and then move the solid mass into a fresh, un-punctured bag for travel and display purposes. Sam read off the candies and handed them to me so that I could push them down into the mushy, red Jell-O. Immediately, anything with a candy coating began to run; the M & M’s became a smear of opaque darkness, the Skittles blanched white and left a trail of dirty-looking Jell-O. The Airhead Extreme Golgi Body uncoiled immediately after being pushed into the depths, and my fingers left tunnels that did not seem to fill back in. The death blow was administered when I tried to insert the “nucleus,” which was a peach cut in half to reveal the pit. The directions called for a “plum or other stone fruit,” but there are no plums in Michigan in January, and I was damned lucky to have found a peach. It was, however, far too large, it displaced everything else and I had to pull it out, leaving a worse mess. “We could use an olive,” I suggested, rummaging in the refrigerator.

“But I’m supposed to be able to eat this after! I’m not eating Jell-O with candy and a green olive in it. Gross.”

I reminded myself that it was the learning that mattered, not the beauty of the project. I renewed my righteous indignation at having to do this ridiculous thing. I took a deep breath.”Okay,” I said evenly, “get me a Sharpie.” I drew a large black dot in the center of the biggest jawbreaker I could find, and pushed it into the middle of the “cell.” “Don’t eat that one” I told him.

It looked as if someone had eaten a great deal of candy and then vomited it, along with a pint of blood, into a Ziploc. It was unspeakable.

It did not ever “set,” really, and the next morning I sent Sam off to school on the bus with his disaster, secure in the knowledge that we had done our best, that he knew his stuff, and that no one could expect anybody to spend a lot of time, money and psychic energy on something so utterly ridiculous. On Facebook, the conversation continued; everyone else had driven their project to school. I sent the teacher a crisp but polite e-mail informing her that Sam had done his best, that I had done my best, that we had planned well and executed timely, but that I certainly hoped that she recognized that the content was much more important than the perfection of the finished product.

Around 11:30, we received a text from Sam. “Well that was a fale.” He came home that afternoon and told us that everyone else had come in with a better project, and that he was so thrown by the fact that his was so terrible that he was unable to remember all the parts of a cell. He had tried to make a joke out of it to save face; the teacher had told him to “sit down.” I received an equally crisp reply from the teacher telling me that the appearance of the completed project was not part of the grade rubric, but that because Sam had not correctly listed all parts of the cell, his grade was…bad.

Sam’s semester grade did not change; it was okay to start with, and it still is. I am a bad mother, and I understand that, going forward, I need to be more on top of these projects and to keep up with the Joneses, a group that apparently includes everybody but us. I would not, however, trade for anything in the world the fun I had with Sam making that disastrous bag of garbage, or how hard we laughed when we decided that it looked like nothing so much as a Ziploc full of vomit. Lessons learned.

Photo Credits:

Fast Times pizza delivery: http://www3.whig.com/whig/blogs/ihavealottoshare/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/123046__fast_times_l.jpg

Animal Cell: http://homepage.smc.edu/wissmann_paul/cell/animalcell.jpg

Jell-O: http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00032DOXA.01-A3CDPEGSIQM61V._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Dead at 47?

About a month ago, I wrote a post about the fact that the lead singer of the band “Kings of Leon” had been quoted as saying: “[t]hat woman in mom jeans who’d never let me date her daughter likes my music? That’s f–king not cool.” My post was a letter addressed to the singer, Caleb Followill, explaining my belief that a real artist is trying to express something, and that the success of that gesture, not the relative “coolness” of the audience is the significant benchmark. I neither expected, nor received a reply from Mr. Followill.

I did, however, get numerous comments from devotees of the band, haranguing and pleading with me, in their dogged and semi-literate way, to understand context, coolness and youth, all of which had clearly escaped my gnarled clutches.  After a few rounds of this, I found myself sitting at my computer, listening to Vampire Weekend and wearing Chuck Taylors, feeling that I was a complete and total fraud. It seemed that if someone came into the house and started peeling a little bit at the top of my head, the entire facade of “hip middle age” would unzip and fall away, revealing…what? A toothless crone with a cane and an AARP card tucked into her largely vacated brassiere? A retro mom with roller “set” hair and a nice tweed skirt listening to Lawrence Welk?  When did I stop being as young as I feel, and start being “older,” if not actually “old?”

As a sensitive type, I am keenly aware of the perils of mutton dressed as lamb. I do some things to avoid appearing dowdy – I color my gray hair, I avoid wearing orthopedic footwear and shapeless pastel sweatsuits emblazoned with screen prints of adorable kitties – but I promise that I am not poring over Teen Vogue trying to figure out whether I would look cuter in the peasant mini or the schoolgirl kilt with my new Uggs. I do not run to iTunes to download Brittney’s latest, mostly because I don’t particularly like her music, but I do keep an eye out for new music* from several indie bands that I enjoy. I read all of the Twilight books, and I have been known to watch “Gossip Girl,” but I also read and watch far more complex offerings. I want to know about Skype, Twitter, Tumblr, sexting, and Limewire. None of this means that I secretly believe myself to be sixteen again. It means I like to know stuff, like I always did.

I also remember the need to separate from my parents (particularly my mother), and the importance of asserting that I was Young and Free and understood Gary Neuman and The Tubeway Army. I do not try to be a peer to my son or his friends; mostly I find 13-year-olds to be as repulsive as I found them when I was one of them. My interest in cutting edge culture is not about being young, it is about being alive. I am even capable of groaning audibly in a car filled with boys when that idiotic song about “Fireflies” comes on the radio, affirming to them, to my son, and to myself that I am not glomming on to their music in some desperate attempt to have a second youth, that I still have my responsible mom credentials and am not afraid to use them.

None of my choices come from some inchoate desire to be young and cool; it has been my belief, as I aged, that I was developing a good sense of who I am and what I really like, and that I was free to pick and choose from everything the world offered. Part of the “good sense” meant that I knew that I didn’t look good in clothes designed and cut for teenagers, and that it would be unattractive for me to insist on shopping at Abercrombie. (Aside from the fact that the clothes are apparently designed to fit exhibitionists who eschew solid food). I am aware that “getting down” while I am chaperoning a middle school dance would have mortifying consequences, and I limit myself to the most discreet tapping of my foot behind the concession window. I know that my Chucks make me happy, but also do nothing to lengthen my legs in boot cut jeans; I rarely wear them outside the house. I have felt free, for many years, to create playlists that include Van Morrison, Beatles and Muse, to work something trendy into an outfit, to work with a cross-generational palette when creating my daily life.

Aside from the odd creaky knee or the shock of an impending 20th high school reunion, I don’t feel old, and other people my age don’t seem old. People older than I am, from Meryl Street to Helen Mirren seem to me to be beautiful, and without a discernible season that has passed. Why do I have to slip quietly into that good night of old age, to be seen and not heard, to stop looking for anything new, and to admit that I don’t understand these newfangled songs, or the allure of a nicely looped scarf?

Yesterday, another commenter vented his spleen on my “Kings of Leon” post. His alphabetical summation of my failings concluded with this one: “[a]nd finally, ‘d)’: you’re only young once. Clearly you miss spent your spell in the younger years.” Overlooking my young critic’s inability to spell, I felt sad, and tired and old. I felt like I had only just come in from standing on the porch and yelling “hey you kids, get off of my lawn!” I felt judged, and categorized and pathetic about my most recent iTunes downloads, my long hair, and my secret desire to have a tattoo. We are “only young once,” and I, a very serious and somewhat stodgy young person, had wasted that time which I would never get back. I was now consigned to some middle-aged hell in which I ranted about hip-hop “not being music,” and had trouble programming my cell phone. It seemed that the only appropriate role for me at 47 was “seen and not heard,” accepting of cruel and short-sighted opinions if they came from a Rock Star, and essentially, culturally, dead. I might as well put on my sweater set and pearls and  complain about that Elvis and his nasty dancing. (And, by the way, why did any of these people think I had bought a copy of Spin in the first place, given my total inability to understand…anything? Did they think that I was planning to request legislation mandating separate “Rock Star Bathrooms,” and required a good, current list of those prospectively banned from sharing my commode?)

Here’s the thing, though, and I think it’s a real and important thing. What bothered me most about the “mom jeans” comment was not that it was age-ist (although it was). What bothered me, and what was missed by all of Mr. Followill’s ardent supporters,  was that his comment was viciously unkind in a way that I dislike in any context. Although less dramatic, it is the kind of flip, judge-y dismissal that I associate with racism, sexism, religious conflict, and anything else that divides groups of people into “us” and “them” and permits free-flowing potshots at “bad them.” I can allow youth to engage in the necessary and painful process of individuation and separation; every generation needs, in some way, to have their own revolution and to re-create the world that they will inhabit (until their own children make them redundant and take over). I cannot accept that it has to be accomplished with cheap shots and cruelty. Vitriol might more appropriately be directed at the government, at large banks, or at a troubled educational system than at middle-aged moms who seek a little happiness by listening to “new” music instead of Billy Joel.

I will not disappear. I will not apologize for my age, or my taste, or my need to speak up when I feel wronged. I am not ready to lower my standards and accept glib cruelty as “the way things are, now,” or to become an inadvertent proxy for the Repressive Older Generation. I am not ready to be old, much less dead at the age of 47.

Photo Credit:

Old Lady: http://www.sequenza21.com/s21%20Little%20Old%20lady.jpg