Like A Girl

 

Ten things that surfaced after watching this video recently released by Procter & Gamble.(The P&G survey found that out of 1,300 American females ages 16 to 24 years old, only 19 percent have a positive association toward the phrase, "like a girl.") 

 

1. I have used the phrase "I throw like a girl" to criticize my inept arm when I played intramural sports in high school and college.  I sadly saw my poor softball throw and volleyball serve as irreversible, and, apparently, my gender as the reason. 

 

2. I recently used that phrase when talking with college friends about my athleticism and I wasn't bragging. 

 

3. How thoughtless of me - right?  Wrong.  I used the gender crushing phrase with full thought to give myself a poor grade. It hurts to write that.  It's not the phrase that's bad; it's the negative intent. 

 

4. My husband recalled a female executive he worked for around 20 years ago whose harsh management 'skills' relied on figuratively stating (with hand gestures) her personal mantra, "I will squeeze balls until I get that person to do what I want."   Apparently, her female power needed male parts for fuel. 

 

5. What do you think when you hear/say someone is "a pussy?"  That they are a kitten?  Hardly.  Female parts, regardless which raw descriptor chosen, are again used to mean weakness.  As my friend Nicole, who posted the P&G video on her FB page, stated, "I've never understood it. There is nothing about a woman's anatomy that says weakness to me."

6. "Girly Man." Again, a put down made famous in an Saturday Night Live skit with buffoon body building characters Hans (Dana Carvey) and Franz (Kevin Nealon) describing a man's physique before their training: "That's right, and we have proof!  We've taken the world's most pathetic girly-man, and turned him into the embodiment of perfect pumptitude!" ('Pumptitude' cracks me up)

7. The door swings both ways.  I once heard a dad say to his pre-school son who was sobbing after being dropped off for his first library story time, "Stop crying - boys don't cry!"  Maybe if boys could cry without criticism (especially from males) they could relax about expressing sadness.  Tear ducts are universal.  So is their use.

8. In the video, ten year old Dakota's response to being asked to "run like a girl" captures
her intact self-esteem.  Offering an older female a second chance to "run like a girl" makes me tear up in gratitude because it reminds me we all have second chances. 

9. I wonder what messages my two daughters have internalized when they hear the "like a girl" phrase and it makes me consider what role I've played in sending them. 

10. The Hawaiian word "imua" (E-moo-ah) means "forward."  Today and beyond, I use imua energy, like a girl.

Link to P&G's 'Social Awareness' experiment and the methodology used:  http://news.pg.com/press-release/pg-corporate-announcements/new-social-experiment-always-reveals-harmful-impact-commonl

Link to the SNL skit transcript:  http://snltranscripts.jt.org/88/88thansfranz.phtml

The Signature of All Things

I am a barefaced Elizabeth Gilbert fan.

Her writing pleases me.  However, it is her articulate, endearing, and engaging manner that pulls me in close and keeps me interested.  She is an unvarnished connector.  When I recently explained to someone the basis for her appeal, I stated plainly, "I just really like her way."

She became wildly famous for her 2006 memoir, "Eat, Pray, Love."  That work was my introduction to this funny, searching, facile writer even though she had authored three novels and multiple magazine articles prior to EPL.  


Elizabeth Gilbert taking questions at St. Joseph's
College in Brooklyn, NY

Understandably, the non-fiction work provided a exhaustive dose of oversharing for some readers (followed by the film version starring Julia Roberts in August, 2010.) I nonetheless became an admirer as she unraveled her early adult life in humorous, metaphorical prose. 

Appropriately, her command of analogies was one of many questions tossed her way at a book signing event in Brooklyn this week. The author unblinkingly answered the query with a metaphor and then burst out laughing at her own unintended joke.  This undisguised manner placed us at her conversational table.  

For 90 minutes, Liz candidly answered questions from moderator/author Rebecca Mead of New Yorker Magazine as well as from the intimate audience.  She also read an excerpt from her latest novel, "The Signature of All Things," marking its paperback publication debut on that first night of a mini-book tour.  

When asked about a statement Liz has repeatedly made about how fiction writing reveals more about the author than non-fiction writing, her reply rustled with truth, and, of course, an analogy.  "Non-fiction writing is still very curated," she explained.  "There is nothing in "Eat, Pray, Love" that I didn't want revealed; it's like a crime scene with everything swabbed and wiped clean so you receive only what I want to send out."  In her current 19th century fiction, Liz said with hand motions, "my hair and fingerprints are all over it!"  

One question about story ideas triggered Liz to take a quick breath and lean into her thoughts. She queried, "we're all friends here, right?"  before launching into firmly rooted belief.  Liz sees ideas as things that float around all of us all the time, somewhat like the innumerable stars in space. Ideas present themselves and challenge us to take them on. 

 If we don't take them on, they move on to other possible takers, always making themselves available to a willing receptor.  If we accept and begin to formulate too many ideas, we are left with may starts and few finishes.  Her choice is to take on one or two ideas, deeply attend to them, and let all others float away. 

This "magical thinking" (her words) theory is one she is pursuing for a future novel, along with another story idea about Broadway showgirls from the 1940s.

The mostly female, multi-generational audience well represented the author's readership demographic.  My twenty-something year old daughter (and transplanted Brooklyn-ite) joined me at the event making for a rich conversation afterward.  I loved hearing what did and did not resonate over the ages, but most especially appreciated how it triggered thoughtful connection. 

The same was true last Fall when the author kicked off her novel's hardcover publication at the Philadelphia Library.  My friend Rosalie and I attended that event, appreciating Liz's candor, love of language, and dedication to research. 

She is also a generous Facebook and Twitter participant with posts/tweets that entertain and challenge readers.  My favorite, so far, is about her love of bawdy language and a well chosen expletive.

In the ever changing game of musical chairs at my fantasy dinner table of past/present guests, there's a place card with Liz Gilbert's name on it. 

Here is the link to the NYTimes review of "The Signature of All Things" in September, 2013.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/books/elizabeth-gilberts-novel-the-signature-of-all-things.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%5B%22RI%3A5%22%2C%22RI%3A17%22%5D

Greenlight Bookstore (http://greenlightbookstore.com/) partnered with St. Joseph's College (http://www.sjcny.edu/Giving/Press-Release/520) to bring in authors as part of the school's Brooklyn Voices series.

Under My Dome

I close my eyes, exhale, and let the rushing water separate my thoughts from the chatter around me. 

In this room filled mostly with women in lively conversation, these blessed minutes happily lift me from the surrounding dissonance.  I could be at a yoga studio or a retreat but I find this blissful escape in a more pedestrian place.  I'm not in some deep meditation.  I am having my hair washed at the salon.

 It is a personal top ten moment of relaxation.  It's also guilt free.  Normally, hair is washed before it is cut, so it is a means to an end.  I find it the best step in the entire hair maintenance process.   Good grooming is its own reward, but having someone massage/clean my scalp to reach that reward trumps whatever comes before or follows it.

Unlike much of the time in a hair salon where news, gossip, and stories fill the space, the hair washing portion pushes off dialogue.  The holy trinity of shampoo, conditioner, and water spill over my head blocking all else.  It becomes a temporary, blessed submission.  There's a befitting sensual quality as I surrender to the shampooer's fingertips working my needy dome. 

The ultimate onscreen shampooing occurs when Robert Redford washes Meryl Streep's hair in the film "Out of Africa" as he recites two stanzas from the poem Rime of the Ancient Mariner to her.  It lifts a normally mundane moment to one that transcends connection.  Of course, he could have given a recitation from portions of the phone book in that scene and it would have had the same impact.  The implied intimacy resonates as he says:

Laughed loud and long, and all the while

His eyes went to and fro.

'Ha! ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see,

The Devil knows how to row.'

~~~

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell 

To thee, thou Wedding Guest!

He prayeth well, who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast

 

Sadly, no poems are shared during the shampoo portion of my hair salon visit, but the basic experience of closing my eyes and surrendering my scalp to another's capable hands creates a brief respite for any weary head.  I wonder if men and women experience the same pleasure in this simplest of services?  

 

One female friend has the opposite feeling when at the salon. She finds the time spent seems wasteful with the many fussy steps to a finished look. She'd prefer a speedier process.   I gasp in disbelief and beg her to just surrender to it.  While we can expedite many daily routines (online shopping and banking, drive-through dry cleaners, grocery delivery services, etc.) hair appointments thankfully keep the same precious pace. 

 

I average seven to eight visits a year to the salon, and from the moment I darken the doorway, I chat indiscriminately.  However, when I get the nod for shampoo time, it dissolves all the socializing into a precious few moments of real pampering - reclining by the salon sink and remembering that Simon and Garfunkel were right - silence is golden.
 

Robert Redford & Meryl Streep in"Out of Africa"

1985

Dear....

When is the last time you wrote a letter? 

I've written cards and notes on a dwindling scale, but an honest to goodness letter of more than one page? That question sadly stumps me (and I like to write!)

In an age when emails fall into the "long form" category of correspondence (as in more than 140 characters) letter writing languishes in the "old fashioned" category.  The mailbox has transformed into a receptacle for everything but letters. And the electronic mailbox has caught up to its more pedestrian relative with more junk mail than missives.
 

The value of letter writing reached a high water mark for me last night after watching People's Light and Theatre Company's latest production, "Dear Elizabeth" by Sarah Ruhl.  The show's dialogue is in the form of correspondence between two friends, poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert "Cal" Lowell. In her forward to an 800+ page book containing all of Bishop's and Lowell's correspondence,  Ruhl notes, "their letters are so hyper-articulate that one almost has the impression that no bits of life were lived without being written down." 

Instead of interpreting the poets' work, the play is a verbatim collection of their words to each other as well as a few of their poems interspersed.  It is a glorious, intimate celebration of the art of written expression.

I could not get past the notion that every word I heard from that stage was written by each of these poets.  Every single unexplained word. 

In an age where 'reality' TV's intention is to brutally smack us in the face, the poets' words are no less real but their intention is far better - they are lovingly, humorously, respectfully, constructively, and best of all, intentionally connecting as friends.  There are no 'gotcha' moments and yet each moment grabs us.

It is precious intimacy at arms length. 

After her partner of 16 years commits suicide, Elizabeth responds to Cal's letter of condolence by noting it is, "Like being handed a lantern."

That image sticks.  In the deliciously anticipatory moment when we open a letter, a light does come on.  It says, welcome, come on in.  And, in her time of tragedy,  Elizabeth describes it as is a pathway out of the darkness.

Letters postmarked Paris, 1976

I used to write to my brother Joe at college and he would reply including a couple of dollars in his letters.  It was such a sweet, older sibling thing to do. My mom was a reliable correspondent when I was away at college.  She and my grandmother would also write each other routinely when my grandparents lived in Atlantic City, NJ for extended summers when I was a child. 
 
"Dear Elizabeth" concludes with the two poets opening a cache overflowing with their letters  As they scoop up handfuls of them, they speak in joy-filled letter snippets.  It provides a tactile tenderness to a correspondence we sadly know will cease.

I've saved some letters.  When my friend Joyce studied for a semester in Paris in the mid-seventies, we corresponded on those tissue paper thin airmail posts that seemed so exotic.  And letters from my brother Vincent when he moved to Hawaii in the pre-computer, pre-cell phone age are also stashed away.

These verbal snapshots hold no profound revelations.  They do hold me, nonetheless, because they tell me, in cherished longhand, someone took the time to share their thoughts and their life with me.  They are dear in every way.
  

For information on the production of "Dear Elizabeth" http://peopleslight.org/production/dear-Elizabeth
 
North Haven by Elizabeth Bishop

written for Robert Lowell in Memoriam

I can make out the rigging of a schooner
a mile off; I can count
the new cones on the spruce. It is so still
the pale bay wears a milky skin; the sky
no clouds except for one long, carded horse¹s tail.

The islands haven't shifted since last summer,
even if I like to pretend they have--
drifting, in a dreamy sort of way,
a little north, a little south, or sidewise--
and that they¹re free within the blue frontiers of bay.

This month our favorite one is full of flowers:
buttercups, red clover, purple vetch,
hackweed still burning, daisies pied, eyebright,
the fragrant bedstraw's incandescent stars,
and more, returned, to paint the meadows with delight.

The goldfinches are back, or others like them,
and the white-throated sparrow's five-note song,
pleading and pleading, brings tears to the eyes.
Nature repeats herself, or almost does:
repeat, repeat, repeat; revise, revise, revise.

Years ago, you told me it was here
(in 1932?) you first "discovered girls"
and learned to sail, and learned to kiss.
You had "such fun," you said, that classic summer.
("Fun"--it always seemed to leave you at a loss...)

You left North Haven, anchored in its rock,
afloat in mystic blue...And now--you've left
for good. You can't derange, or rearrange,
your poems again. (But the sparrows can their song.)
The words won't change again. Sad friend, you cannot change.

 EPILOGUE   by Robert “Cal” Lowell

Those blessèd structures, plot and rhyme—
why are they no help to me now
I want to make
something imagined, not recalled?
I hear the noise of my own voice:
The painter’s vision is not a lens,
it trembles to caress the light.
But sometimes everything I write   
with the threadbare art of my eye
seems a snapshot,
lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,
heightened from life,
yet paralyzed by fact.
All’s misalliance.
Yet why not say what happened?
Pray for the grace of accuracy
Vermeer gave to the sun’s illumination
stealing like the tide across a map
to his girl solid with yearning.
We are poor passing facts,
warned by that to give
each figure in the photograph
his living name

 

Things I Learned in 2013

Kids leave the nest.  I know as little as I did when they first entered, minus the anxiety.

Elementary schools are incredibly cheery places to work.

I taught my girls about living in the suburbs; they are teaching me about city living.

Looking down the barrel of 'way over fifty' feels odd and scary.

Shucking clams is a fine skill.

When kids visit the nest, familiar patterns sneak in as well.

Julian Barnes' writing gives me goose bumps.

Movie sing-alongs wash away worries and create a crazy sense of community.

Mediocre books get way too much undeserved attention (and book sales) when the pen name is unmasked: i.e. The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling

Moving your child three times in four months to varying walk-up apartments tests Love's practical side.

View Shmoo: first floor apartments = heaven.

Best thing about my job:  mandatory recess twice daily.

Second best thing: giving kids Tooth Fairy certificates and stickers after they lose a tooth.

The blog (and now book)  Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh is quirky perfection.  http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

Having a very vague clue re: the book I am seeking turns into a blissful treasure hunt with the dependably informed staff at the reopened Chester County Book Company  http://www.ccbmc.com/

Letting go of ego is super hard; succeeding at it is super satisfying; failing at it is super easy.

Saying "my college grad has a full time job with benefits" is really one word. Ditto for my college student's part time job, minus the benefits

Key and Peele's comedy lays me out!  Here is the link to one of my favorite skits so far -  Luther the Anger Translator- Obama Shutdown:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDpVg-UEGCI

 

Thanks for reading my blog and for your generous feedback.  May 2014 be kind to us all!

What's It Worth?

Looking at level upon level of shopping options last holiday weekend, I admit I was overwhelmed but impressed by the diversity. 
 
First there was the buzz noting which stores would be needling their way into the untouchable 24 Thanksgiving hours by opening for business that day. This tapped core beliefs of both shoppers and workers.  An unwritten moral line wriggled.  Facebook posts by folks boycotting the retail infringement appeared regularly during November. 
 
Invoking MC Hammer's famous refrain of "U Can't Touch This," the Thanksgiving purists let it be known their day was not up for sale.  I didn't post or demand my intentions be heard, but Thanksgiving remained an indoor home event (so much so that my Black Friday imperative became  "Get Outdoors Day" with a long walk at a local park with my daughters.)
 
Then the Shop Local Saturday followed, steering shoppers to buy gifts at local businesses.  I recall bragging in years past how most of my holiday shopping could be done by clicks on Amazon - oh the ease and savings just a touch away.  This year I am making the effort to find nearby answers to gift questions thanks to 'shop locally' reminders. 

 Cyber Monday exploded in my inbox with deals to stretch Black Friday further.  I'm not an economist, but how much does our consumerism benefit us in the long run?

What is it all worth?  What's the currency we're using to get the value we desire?  Are we trading some emotional currency for physical stuff?  What happens when worth and value clash?


The Bay Psalm Book, printed 1640.

The NYTimes recently reported on a record breaking Sotheby's auction of a 1640's religious item. The Bay Psalm Book sold for over $14 million, making it "the most expensive book ever sold at auction." 

The price tag, while steep, is just part of what makes this notable. The decision to sell the rare book addresses both worth and value.  And, as with all good stories, this one has intriguing points of view. 

Old South Church in Boston sold one of two books it owns. (It is believed that only 11 copies exist.)  Why sell it?  According to the Times article, "the congregation voted last year to sell one copy to pay for ministries and repairs to the church’s 1875 building." 

Senior Minister The Reverend Dr. Nancy S. Taylor noted following the book's sale, "We're not in the business of being a museum; we're not in the business of being a library...what is our business is mission in the city of Boston."  Selling the book has worth to the church and its community.

But it's value - an intangible to some - was great enough for the church historian and longtime member to resign in protest of the sale. While the congregation voted 9-1 in favor of putting a book up for auction, dissent came from those who valued history first.
Old South's pedigree places it as Ben Franklin's baptismal church and includes Samuel Adams and Richard Dawes (who rode with Paul Revere) as former congregation members.  This is not your average bear.

The intersection of worth and value marked the place where the book became either a type of commodity or a treasure.  In the language of education, History was trumped by Economics. In some ways those on opposing sides of the debate held true to their view of what the book primarily represents: to the historian, it is a precious piece of history which is church property; to the church leaders it is a means to an end of serving the community.   I land on the side of Economics because the church still owns another copy of the rare book.  If #2 ever comes up for auction, perhaps the debate over its worth will have even greater intensity. 

The book's new owner,  David M. Rubenstein plans lend the book to libraries around the country, eventually naming one to house it.   He has no interest in keeping the famed item at home. In biblical terms, there's no light left under a bushel here.   

While preciously rare books of psalms have no place on my holiday shopping list, the value of what I am giving this season is shaded by more thought about my intention.  Wrestling with worth and value makes me uncomfortable.  I think this is an invaluable thing.

Link to the NYTimes article on Sotheby's auction:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/27/nyregion/book-published-in-1640-makes-record-sale-at-auction.html?_r=0

Birthday Boy

Today is my brother Vincent's birthday. He and I are the 3rd and 4th children of four, so we are naturally connected by birth order.  I was (am) the nudgey little sister who always wanted to be part of the action with he and my older brother Joe whether it was playing army men, navy men, wrestling, running, dodge ball - the activity didn't matter.  Like a horse at the starting gate, I just wanted to burst onto the track and get in on all that I saw in front of me. 

So, today I celebrate the sibling who is directly in front of me as he completes his six decades around the Sun because I have been a beneficiary of his big heart and passion for life all these years.  Vincent has always taken his role as big brother to heart.  Our grade school parking lot was the 'playground' at recess and the boys and girls were separated by a white line - woe to anyone who crossed it. (Can you guess it was a parochial school?)  Vincent would regularly stand on that line and send an emissary to get me and check if I had lunch money, snack or whatever.  Of course I would huff in exasperation as I was pulled from my friends to answer his queries but I loved that he cared so much. 
 
His best buddy in high school, Tom,  stood well over six feet tall so when I finally became eligible to attend the Saturday night mixers, I was shadowed by my brother and his posse which was easy to identify because of very tall Tom.  While my friends loved the attention of older boys, I was irritated by the glaring intrusion into my gaggle of girls.  One friend noted that her brother always ignored her at the dances, and, well, everywhere else.  The sting of her statement translated clearly for me.  Outwardly I would sometimes be annoyed by Vincent's attention, but inside it felt good to know he was watching out for me.
 
Ironically I attended the same university as Tom, so Vincent came a callin' on my college campus - same deal, different location.  By then I had accepted that this was the painless cost of being Vincent's younger sister.
 
When I picture Vincent in my mind he is always smiling.  His grin, while often a sign of joy, can also be a sign of nervousness and this became no more clearer than when he became an altar boy.  We all attended one of the first Masses he served alongside our brother, Joe.  Joe knew the ropes and had a somewhat serious nature, so pairing him with Vincent proved interesting.  As the brothers rounded the sacristy together Vincent's smile overtook his face for the entire Mass.  It still makes me giggle.  Joe kept telling him to stop smiling which of course had the opposite result.  Vincent caught the wrath of the nun in charge of altar boys and so emerged his relationship with authority.  The tale is a family favorite.
 
Just as I finished up my four years away at school, Vincent packed up his things and moved to Hawaii.  (Or as my mom describes it, referring to its distance from home, the Moon.) He heard the Siren's call and actually answered it.  I wonder how many of us really do that?  Thirty-five years later, he nurtures his family business on their organic sprout farm as he doggedly seeks better soil health as a small farmer/activist. He lives his passion with no stop button.  As he says repeatedly, "It's all about the food."

I love that his legacy, so far, is one of love, humor, and big-heartedness.  Vincent is a wide open door to Life.  I deeply admire these qualities especially because boys/men don't necessarily go first to these emotional places with such gusto.

Here is his TedxMaui Talk titled "Soil: Having a Sense of Humus" given on Maui in 2012.  It says everything about who he is.  Happy Birthday, dear Brother - Vincenzo no ka oi!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAbhN3SESpI