I've already written about this once ("Not For Sale," April 2014). It would quite literally never have occurred to me that I'd be talking about it 4 years later.
A recap: My father passed away in 1988; my mom passed away in 2012. Their home is not particularly desirable by today's real estate standards - only one bathroom, gasp! - but it sits on over an acre of land.
Everything my mom owned was held in a family trust, with a successor trustee, that dictated passing of her assets to her children without probate. Family agreement, not on paper, was that the house would go to my brother. He's the oldest, and he rents his home. So, even though the trust owns the house, we all referred to it as belonging to my brother.
The thing is, he didn't particularly want it. He lives in another state, and has absolutely zero desire to move back to his childhood home. So, the trust rented the house to one of Mom's grandkids. The money went straight into the trust account, to be used for taxes, repairs, etc. on the house while my brother mulled over what to do.
OK. So you're caught up.
Over half of Mom's property - not to ignore my dad, but she lived alone for 25 years, and we got used to calling it "Mom's" - is vacant land that used to be a horse pasture. It's not visible from the street, but the neighbors certainly know that it's there. In all, there's 10 lots that touch the property boundaries. Mom's is actually valued at less than any of her neighbor's properties, except for one vacant lot; the extra land in a long, awkward shape, actually knocks down the valuation, as it's "difficult to use."
After Mom died, several of the neighbors inquired, with varying degrees of intent, whether the property was going up for sale. All were told "no." OK, well, the least emphatic statement was this: "He (my husband) said, 'Probably not.' (He has an almost pathological aversion to uttering definitive declarative statements.)" ("Not For Sale")
So, they should have all been well aware that we were NOT selling it. And yet, at least three of them kept asking - and KEPT ASKING. In person, in notes, in phone calls - "Are you sure?" YES, we are SURE!
Not to sound too much like The Godfather about things, but this is a family decision. My brother had the final word on keeping or selling the house, but all of us weighed in. When I say, "we," I mean my mom's children and grandchildren - and our spouses, who are all in agreement.
Any of the inheriting siblings could, in theory, have taken the house as their share of the inheritance; none wanted to. The trust could have sold it, and split the proceeds, but that's not really what Mom wanted. She always talked about dividing the land and giving her children - or grandchildren - a piece to build a home on. (And we were informed by accessors and surveyors that a buyer would likely tear down the house, put a road straight through where the living room and kitchen used to be, and construct an apartment complex.) So, we decided to see if it was feasible to split up the land, and if any of the children or grandchildren would want a piece.
We consulted the city, and learned that yes, indeed, it was very possible, and not very expensive, to re-zone and divide the land. There is enough square footage for 8 separate lots, but making it into any more than 4 constituted "building a new subdivision," with lots of restrictions, environmental impact studies, etc. So, four pieces it would be, with the existing house on one of them, and with a short street (the old driveway into the pasture) and a cul-de-sac for access to the pasture; the city requires that a fire engine be able to turn around.
We talked with all the children and grandchildren, and there was enough interest that a decision was made: subdivide.
The inspections and paperwork went without a hitch. All the neighbors in about a half mile radius were informed of the zoning changes. The road, cul-de-sac and new property lines have been approved by the city. Grandkids made plans to build houses.
Now we've hit our first snag. When the neighbors had subdivided their property in the past - remember those 10 lots around Mom's house? - they had simply graded and put in a gravel road. That's what we intended to do. The city no longer allows that - a gravel road "isn't permanent." (We live in the American West - tell that to the still visible wagon trails from the Gold Rush.)
So, we're stuck in a holding pattern. We have to have the money to put in a paved street, sewers, and gutters, and THEN we can place the houses. The road has to come first - it's the law. We can't do houses first, paved road last.
And now, as an aside to the conversation, the only reason it's not done is money. We have to raise the money in cash, because banks will not loan us money for this - it's considered "too risky." The banks don't want to end up reposessing a hunk of land that it can't sell at a profit, and that's what they see here. We can't get loans to put in the homes until the road is in. The one local bank that will even finance "unimproved land" loans - most won't - won't touch us. We even tried to get a home equity loan - no dice. (I get the feeling that they'd go for the tear down and new apartments scenario more easily.) So, the land sits and waits, and the grandkids hoping to live there rent elsewhere. We have to try to come up with a ridiculous amount of money in cash - and THEN get another loan (or loans) for the houses. It's frustrating.
But do you know what is MORE frustrating? That several of Mom's neighbors seem unwilling to part with their plans to own Mom's land themselves.
I understand asking, as either a matter of curiosity or as an offer to buy, once. Maybe twice, if you're pushy. Beyond that, it's just aggravating.
It's looking more and more as if people moved in next to my mother specifically because they wanted to buy her land. One informed us, in a bit of a huff, that he'd be moving if the land wasn't for sale. Well, dude, sorry, pack your bags. Others - at least three households have been insistent - have gone from asking to buy all of it to asking us to parcel it out. "You're not selling any of it? How about just a piece?" One wants the lip that extends to the street corner; one has taken to asking for "just a few feet" of the pasture. And they ask over and over and over, seeming astonished and disappointed every time someone says NO.
My son went by the house the other day to drop some things off, and in the amount of time he was there, one neighbor phoned three times, asking to buy part of the pasture. Three times! In one day! No, pardon me, in a few minutes.
Nobody has actually come out and said so to us, but it really looks as though they'd been counting on this for years. Mom was elderly, she lived alone, and with the last of the horses gone, the pasture isn't in use. So, they apparently reasoned, when she died, no one in the family would want the property - in fact, they'd be itching to get rid of it. I can picture them sitting around discussing it with their friends and family, and their friends and family agreeing - "Oh, I'm sure you're right. They'll jump at the chance to unload that." Now that they are actually speaking to the only people whose opinions matter, the people who own the property, they seem distressed and puzzled by our failure to follow their script. Apparently, we were supposed to be just giddy about greedy neighbors.
I can even understand a bit of what they're thinking. One house has a back yard that's all of five feet deep - they can practically stand in their doorway and touch the fence. One family has children, and a postage stamp yard that is meticulously landscaped. One is, unaccountably, terrified of the trees - Mom's property has more than a dozen mature trees - and keeps telling me how terrified they are that the trees will fall and squash them and their house; I think they want to own it just to cut the trees down. But my understanding only goes so far. The thing is - I did not buy any of those homes, and their owners shouldn't have bought them either, if the only reason they lived there was the hope that some day, they'd have our land, too. If you don't like your property, or if you hate being next to vacant land, or if you fear trees, don't buy homes with those conditions! I mean, that's pretty self explanatory, right?
What kind of self serving, opportunistic, vulture moves next door to an elderly person because they want the elderly person's land? And worse, what does it say about their character that they cannot take "NO" for an answer?
The fact that we're "not even doing anything" with the land seems to stoke the craziness. News flash: if we wanted to let it sit vacant for generations to come, that's our prerogative. And, as I noted, if we had bundles of cash, or a bank that would finance us, the road would be in now, and the houses going up or already lived in.
One neighbor who keeps asking us for "just a few feet" of the pasture is apparently ignoring the fact that they live in the bottleneck, so to speak, next to the narrowest part of the property, so giving them "just a few feet" would mean that we no longer had the required clearance for the road and cul-de-sac - selling those "few feet" would render almost an acre useless to us. Given a choice between making the neighboring yards bigger, or having our family use the land for their own residences, is it really any surprise that we chose family residences?
The current residents of Mom's home are tired of being badgered, and respond to all inquiries with, "We don't own it." That causes a near feeding frenzy - "Well, have you asked the owners? Can you just ask your landlord?" Yes and yes, and the answer is still "NO." But they seem just positive that the messages aren't getting through, because, well, why would anybody want to keep owning something when someone else wants to buy it?
I growled the other day, "I want to put up a big, two sided sign in the pasture that says, 'No, it's not for sale. No, not even part of it. No, not even a few feet. Back off, vultures.' I should print form letters that say the same thing, and hand them out every time someone asks."
My son replied, "Well, I think 'vultures' is going over the top a bit."
My reply: "My first choice was 'opportunistic jackals,' so 'vultures' is already toned down."
My sister says, "Tell them that if they continue this behavior, you'll file a harassment suit." That sounds better every time they ask the same questions again.
This really isn't tough, folks: if there's no "for sale" sign, it's not for sale. If you ask and are told no, it's not for sale. If it ever does go up for sale, it will be through an agent of the owner's choice, not negotiated through persistent notes and phone calls - and, at this point, even if it ever were to go up for sale, none of us want to reward bad behavior by selling to harassers, so we'd probably leave word for our grandchildren to avoid their grandchildren, and so on, indefinitely..
Once again, for those in the back: No "for sale" sign means it's not for sale.
We've had almost three thousand days to think about it. The answer is still no.
Yes, the family members are all on the same page here.
What kind of self serving, opportunistic, vulture moves next door to an elderly person because they want the elderly person's land? And worse, what does it say about their character that they cannot take "NO" for an answer?
Thursday, March 15, 2018
Friday, March 9, 2018
War Is Bad
I was scrolling through a social media site, and said out loud, "Oh, I'm not even gonna read that one."
"What?" my son asked.
"An article titled, '20 TV Character Deaths You Still Haven't Gotten Over.'"
My son knows me. "Henry?" he said.
"YES. Henry."
Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake was the first commanding officer on TV's "M*A*S*H." I loved Henry, in spite of himself. He wasn't really the kind of person I generally admired. He was bumbling, he was easily bulldozed over by those with stronger personalities, he cheated on his wife. But putting all that aside, he was well intentioned (one of my "musts" for people), he was a good surgeon, he was a loyal friend. The company clerk may have been the organizational brains of the outfit, but you couldn't really hold that against Henry; he may have been its heart. He cared about those under his command, and he cared about the wounded who came through their hospital. He could behave like a parent frequently, and like a commander when he had to, but he was always a good doctor.
My age was in single digits when "M*A*S*H" premiered, and I was only 10 when Henry got his orders to head home.
Home; they all wanted to go home. He'd miss the men, we'd miss him, but Henry was excited to go.
Maybe the story lines were kind of heavy for a kid in elementary school. My parents kept me - all of their kids - from things they were afraid would traumatize us or be over our heads, but "M*A*S*H" didn't fall into that category. We only had one TV, so whatever was on, we watched together, and we discussed it. It was one of my favorite shows. I understood the horror of war, the great lengths they went to in order to keep the horror at bay, the humor.
I understood that Henry was going home because the actor, McLean Stevenson, hadn't renewed his contract; that made me a bit sad, but it was OK. I'd watched the cast be shuffled on shows before. We'd have all summer to get used to the idea before the show returned.
I watched Henry say his goodbyes, watched him call his wife back home. He had a child he'd never met, born while he served in Korea. "Let's not tell anyone," he said to his wife. "Let's just show up for dinner at the club." He was so excited to think about the surprise his friends would experience.
He took off his uniform - he took off his ubiquitous fishing hat - and he put on a suit. He saluted Radar, his clerk, and he climbed on to the helicopter.
That's where the script they'd all been given ended. During filming, the producers told the cast, "We have one more scene. Gary (Burghoff, who played Radar) is the only one with any lines. Just react to Gary." They set up a scene in the ER - then they handed Burghoff the script.
We, the viewers, found out through interviews that Burghoff gave afterward that he looked at the lines and felt punched in the stomach. "You sons of b*****s," he says that he told them. "You're going to win an Emmy for this."
The reaction you see when Radar walks into the ER - that's the actor's reaction to the lines he was given only seconds earlier. He walks through the door, and Wayne Rogers, taking to the direction to "react to Gary," says, "Radar, put a mask on!"
Burghoff reads the lines. I know them by heart. "Lt. Col. Henry Blake's plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors."
OH. Oh. Oh.
It was so painful. I cried then. I cry now. I cry every time I see the episode, every time I talk about that moment.
The reactions you see from the other actors - those are their actual reactions. Loretta Swit weeps.
I was not prepared for the reaction of some fans, though. The producers got nasty letters - "How could you? There was no reason for that!" "How can you treat your fans this way? We've been so loyal, and you hurt us!" "This is entertainment! We watch this show to laugh, not to cry!"
Even as a 10 year old, I understood what they were doing. This is why war is bad. This is why it is a thing to be avoided. Because people you love, people with everything to live for, people with wives and children and babies they'd never met, with friends and relatives and jobs waiting for them at home, die. Many of them are still too young to have wives and children, and they die anyway. War is indiscriminate; it takes everyone. And yes, TV is entertainment, and the show is a comedy, but it would be remiss if it didn't show that war takes lives, and not just the lives of soldiers, and not just people you don't know.
So, yeah, they ripped my heart out. Yeah, it still hurts. That's how I know they did their job. Because if there was a single sentence, with words of one syllable, that summed up "M*A*S*H," it would be, "War is bad." Because too many people die.
So, thanks, 20th Century Fox - even though it hurts.
And oh, yes - that episode won an Emmy.
"What?" my son asked.
"An article titled, '20 TV Character Deaths You Still Haven't Gotten Over.'"
My son knows me. "Henry?" he said.
"YES. Henry."
Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake was the first commanding officer on TV's "M*A*S*H." I loved Henry, in spite of himself. He wasn't really the kind of person I generally admired. He was bumbling, he was easily bulldozed over by those with stronger personalities, he cheated on his wife. But putting all that aside, he was well intentioned (one of my "musts" for people), he was a good surgeon, he was a loyal friend. The company clerk may have been the organizational brains of the outfit, but you couldn't really hold that against Henry; he may have been its heart. He cared about those under his command, and he cared about the wounded who came through their hospital. He could behave like a parent frequently, and like a commander when he had to, but he was always a good doctor.
My age was in single digits when "M*A*S*H" premiered, and I was only 10 when Henry got his orders to head home.
Home; they all wanted to go home. He'd miss the men, we'd miss him, but Henry was excited to go.
Maybe the story lines were kind of heavy for a kid in elementary school. My parents kept me - all of their kids - from things they were afraid would traumatize us or be over our heads, but "M*A*S*H" didn't fall into that category. We only had one TV, so whatever was on, we watched together, and we discussed it. It was one of my favorite shows. I understood the horror of war, the great lengths they went to in order to keep the horror at bay, the humor.
I understood that Henry was going home because the actor, McLean Stevenson, hadn't renewed his contract; that made me a bit sad, but it was OK. I'd watched the cast be shuffled on shows before. We'd have all summer to get used to the idea before the show returned.
I watched Henry say his goodbyes, watched him call his wife back home. He had a child he'd never met, born while he served in Korea. "Let's not tell anyone," he said to his wife. "Let's just show up for dinner at the club." He was so excited to think about the surprise his friends would experience.
He took off his uniform - he took off his ubiquitous fishing hat - and he put on a suit. He saluted Radar, his clerk, and he climbed on to the helicopter.
That's where the script they'd all been given ended. During filming, the producers told the cast, "We have one more scene. Gary (Burghoff, who played Radar) is the only one with any lines. Just react to Gary." They set up a scene in the ER - then they handed Burghoff the script.
We, the viewers, found out through interviews that Burghoff gave afterward that he looked at the lines and felt punched in the stomach. "You sons of b*****s," he says that he told them. "You're going to win an Emmy for this."
The reaction you see when Radar walks into the ER - that's the actor's reaction to the lines he was given only seconds earlier. He walks through the door, and Wayne Rogers, taking to the direction to "react to Gary," says, "Radar, put a mask on!"
Burghoff reads the lines. I know them by heart. "Lt. Col. Henry Blake's plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors."
OH. Oh. Oh.
It was so painful. I cried then. I cry now. I cry every time I see the episode, every time I talk about that moment.
The reactions you see from the other actors - those are their actual reactions. Loretta Swit weeps.
I was not prepared for the reaction of some fans, though. The producers got nasty letters - "How could you? There was no reason for that!" "How can you treat your fans this way? We've been so loyal, and you hurt us!" "This is entertainment! We watch this show to laugh, not to cry!"
Even as a 10 year old, I understood what they were doing. This is why war is bad. This is why it is a thing to be avoided. Because people you love, people with everything to live for, people with wives and children and babies they'd never met, with friends and relatives and jobs waiting for them at home, die. Many of them are still too young to have wives and children, and they die anyway. War is indiscriminate; it takes everyone. And yes, TV is entertainment, and the show is a comedy, but it would be remiss if it didn't show that war takes lives, and not just the lives of soldiers, and not just people you don't know.
So, yeah, they ripped my heart out. Yeah, it still hurts. That's how I know they did their job. Because if there was a single sentence, with words of one syllable, that summed up "M*A*S*H," it would be, "War is bad." Because too many people die.
So, thanks, 20th Century Fox - even though it hurts.
And oh, yes - that episode won an Emmy.
Monday, February 26, 2018
The Golden Rule
I believe sincerely in The Golden Rule - the idea that you should treat people the way that you want to be treated. I really do! It's so clear and common sense.
You know what the problem with it is? Other people do not want to be treated the way that I want to be treated.
For instance: a friend recently asked people who viewed her Facebook page to tell her about meaningful acts of service that they've received. Here's what I said: We were engaged for a year, which is ridiculous and stupid, and no one should ever do it. We also announced it immediately; also a mistake. We were being crushed under the weight of the (often loving, well intentioned) advice of our friends and family - "You MUST do this!" "You CAN'T do that!" "You WILL be getting those, WON'T you?" "You aren't going to wear THAT, are you?" We were told that I had to wear a loaner dress that I hated (I put my foot down and said NO), that we MUST get married in a church we'd never attended because their building was pretty and mine was plain, that a white dress would make my complexion look worse, that I shouldn't allow the brother in law with a catering business to do our food, that our color scheme was all wrong, and on and on and on. We seriously almost eloped.
My mom, knowing that I wanted nothing more than to make my own choices, said, "Just let me know what day to be there and what color to wear." It was the nicest thing anybody did for me all that year!!! Then, even though she can't stand crowds or entertaining, she let us get married in her back yard. She's the best.
I was really glad that my friend, and a couple of her family members, also my friends, "liked" the post. When I've told that story in the past, I haven't always gotten a positive response. I told one friend who was just aghast. "That's terrible! How could she do that to her own daughter?"
"No, no, it was fantastic! It was the best thing anyone did for me the whole year I was engaged!"
My friend was having none of it. "Well, it's nice that you've forgiven her, but she robbed you of all those mother/daughter moments you're supposed to have." I could not change her mind. She was convinced that it had been deeply painful, but that I was burying the hurt.
Had I wanted my mother to make endless shopping trips and compare colors and choose a menu, she would have done it. She did for my sister. But she wanted me to have what I wanted.
You know who I took shopping for my dress, the bridesmaid and flower girl dresses, the flowers? My husband. Do you know why? Because it was his wedding too, and because shopping with other people is deeply uncomfortable. I avoid it whenever I can. The last time I can remember shopping with a girlfriend (or sibling) was more than 25 years ago, when a buddy and I checked out the newest grocery store in town. She hated it, and I loved it.
My husband and I both saw the bridesmaid dresses at the same time. We were riding an escalator in a department store. I called his name to point them out at the exact moment he pointed and said, "Those are the ones!" We loved them. (We still do.)
Do you know what other people had to say about them? "Are you sure?" (We'd already bought 7 of them.) "Is the fabric appropriate for that time of year?" "Pink? Really?" "I'll bet the slender girls chose those, and the larger girls weren't too thrilled." "I had every attendant in a different color, so it would flatter their complexion.""So, you decided not to go with gowns?" "Did you ask the girls if they liked them before spending money on them?"
Even three decades later, it makes me want to scream. EVERY SINGLE WEDDING RELATED DECISION was accompanied by that kind of behavior. My mother came across as the island of sanity, in the midst of Meddlesome Mollies.
When my kids got married, I let them tell me what kind of involvement they wanted from me. I didn't shop for their dresses with them. I didn't "help" choose their color scheme, flowers, or theme. I let the one with strong opinions about clothes choose the dress that I wore. I got some say in buying food only because we were footing the food bill. I happen to think that's what a supportive parent does - lets the bride and groom call the shots. Carmen Miranda fruit hats? You bet. Barefoot? Absolutely - no shoe cost, no painful dress shoes.
I'm sure that somebody somewhere tells them how awful it was that I didn't give them "mother/daughter moments," and is amazed that they have forgiven me. I think that I did the right thing.
Lately, too, I've been thinking about this incident.
"On a message board for mothers, I recently read a very angry letter about a gift from a child's dad. Dad had been out of the picture for years and had recently resumed contact. Daughter was 5; he hadn't seen her since she was 2. For her birthday (or maybe it was Christmas), he bought her a sweater. Mom was outraged. "A SWEATER! Nothing for 3 years, then a sweater! I'm so angry I'm thinking of telling him he can't come over when he calls next!"
I'm aware that, since this involves custody issues and hard feelings, it's probably not about the actual sweater. It's probably about unpaid child support and court hearings. Still, the reaction seemed over the top.
I wrote back: "Men are notoriously bad at figuring out gift giving issues, especially when the gift is for a female." That "female" thing isn't exclusive, though. My father in law once gave his 15 year old son a Daniel Boone style fake coonskin cap. It would have been a great gift for a kid half that age. We have photos of my son delightedly wearing his through Frontierland at Disney World when he was 7. For a 15 year old, though, it was worse than no gift.
I offered my opinion that Sweater Dad was probably patting himself on the back. He was probably thinking, "It's practical, it's in her favorite color, she'll wear it every day." Unless told, I said, he would be unaware that anyone would look at that gift and think, "What is wrong with him?"
The mom who wrote the question didn't take issue with my answer, but others did. One woman wrote back that I (names are available on the site, and yes, she called me by name) was " a b***h." "Just because your husband is a loser doesn't mean that the rest of us have to put up with that s**t," she said.
Wow. I thought we were talking about a little girl's sweater." (More Misunderstandings)
Sometimes my kids baffle salespeople who are urging them to buy certain things for me - jewelry, makeup, candles, purses - when they say, "My mom's not into those." The thing is, they're right; but, that perplexes people.
A few years ago, my youngest daughter, who has a very minimal need for personal space, was told by a friend, "You're really in my space right now." Her immediate reaction? To say, "Oh, I'm sorry" - and wrap her arms around the friend, go cheek to cheek, and give them an extended hug.
"Honey! When someone says you're in their space, you don't fix that by getting closer!" She was totally baffled. Who doesn't want a hug?
Plenty of people, really, but that makes no sense to her.
I kind of chalked it up to age, and hoped she'd listen to me even if she didn't understand.
Then, recently, my husband and I were standing at a restaurant host/ess desk, waiting to be seated. We were the only ones there, yet my husband was literally right in my personal space. "You are so close you are literally touching me," I grumbled. (I have a need for a rather large amount of personal space.)
What did he do? "Oh, I'm sorry," wrapping his arms around me and kissing my cheek. I grumbled and squirmed. "Why are you so grumpy?" he wanted to know.
"Because I told you that you were too close, and you got closer!"
"I'm comforting my wife."
"It's not comforting if the reason she's stressed is that you're too close!"
This does not compute.
Everybody is comforted by different things. When there was a death in my friend's family, she did not understand her husband's reaction. "It's private, it's time to be with family, and he's phoning everyone that we know!" Yeah, I'm like her - in times of stress or grief, I need my universe to shrink. My husband needs to gather people around him; he'd be the one phoning everyone that he knows, their condolences buoying him. I might not want to speak to anybody, him included.
I once really, deeply offended my nephew's wife. She had a miscarriage; I've had more than one, and I remember what it felt like. I didn't want to talk to anyone, about anything. I barely spoke to my family, and that was it. I didn't want to leave the house, to have people tell me it'd be alright, and that they were thinking of me. It was too much to manage their feelings, on top of my own. So, I made my husband Gatekeeper, to turn people away until I could face the world, which was no more than a month. So, when our niece miscarried, I gave her space. "She does not need to have to deal with me," I thought.
When I phoned, after two weeks, she was livid. To her, my silence meant that I didn't care, that I hadn't thought of them at all, that their loss meant nothing. Horrified, I explained my thinking, and she forgave me, which was so sweet. Still, I feel the sting of having my good intentions hurt another person.
You hear talk about how hard "adulting" is. Forget "adulting" - I apparently have trouble "humaning."
You know what the problem with it is? Other people do not want to be treated the way that I want to be treated.
For instance: a friend recently asked people who viewed her Facebook page to tell her about meaningful acts of service that they've received. Here's what I said: We were engaged for a year, which is ridiculous and stupid, and no one should ever do it. We also announced it immediately; also a mistake. We were being crushed under the weight of the (often loving, well intentioned) advice of our friends and family - "You MUST do this!" "You CAN'T do that!" "You WILL be getting those, WON'T you?" "You aren't going to wear THAT, are you?" We were told that I had to wear a loaner dress that I hated (I put my foot down and said NO), that we MUST get married in a church we'd never attended because their building was pretty and mine was plain, that a white dress would make my complexion look worse, that I shouldn't allow the brother in law with a catering business to do our food, that our color scheme was all wrong, and on and on and on. We seriously almost eloped.
My mom, knowing that I wanted nothing more than to make my own choices, said, "Just let me know what day to be there and what color to wear." It was the nicest thing anybody did for me all that year!!! Then, even though she can't stand crowds or entertaining, she let us get married in her back yard. She's the best.
I was really glad that my friend, and a couple of her family members, also my friends, "liked" the post. When I've told that story in the past, I haven't always gotten a positive response. I told one friend who was just aghast. "That's terrible! How could she do that to her own daughter?"
"No, no, it was fantastic! It was the best thing anyone did for me the whole year I was engaged!"
My friend was having none of it. "Well, it's nice that you've forgiven her, but she robbed you of all those mother/daughter moments you're supposed to have." I could not change her mind. She was convinced that it had been deeply painful, but that I was burying the hurt.
Had I wanted my mother to make endless shopping trips and compare colors and choose a menu, she would have done it. She did for my sister. But she wanted me to have what I wanted.
You know who I took shopping for my dress, the bridesmaid and flower girl dresses, the flowers? My husband. Do you know why? Because it was his wedding too, and because shopping with other people is deeply uncomfortable. I avoid it whenever I can. The last time I can remember shopping with a girlfriend (or sibling) was more than 25 years ago, when a buddy and I checked out the newest grocery store in town. She hated it, and I loved it.
My husband and I both saw the bridesmaid dresses at the same time. We were riding an escalator in a department store. I called his name to point them out at the exact moment he pointed and said, "Those are the ones!" We loved them. (We still do.)
Do you know what other people had to say about them? "Are you sure?" (We'd already bought 7 of them.) "Is the fabric appropriate for that time of year?" "Pink? Really?" "I'll bet the slender girls chose those, and the larger girls weren't too thrilled." "I had every attendant in a different color, so it would flatter their complexion.""So, you decided not to go with gowns?" "Did you ask the girls if they liked them before spending money on them?"
Even three decades later, it makes me want to scream. EVERY SINGLE WEDDING RELATED DECISION was accompanied by that kind of behavior. My mother came across as the island of sanity, in the midst of Meddlesome Mollies.
When my kids got married, I let them tell me what kind of involvement they wanted from me. I didn't shop for their dresses with them. I didn't "help" choose their color scheme, flowers, or theme. I let the one with strong opinions about clothes choose the dress that I wore. I got some say in buying food only because we were footing the food bill. I happen to think that's what a supportive parent does - lets the bride and groom call the shots. Carmen Miranda fruit hats? You bet. Barefoot? Absolutely - no shoe cost, no painful dress shoes.
I'm sure that somebody somewhere tells them how awful it was that I didn't give them "mother/daughter moments," and is amazed that they have forgiven me. I think that I did the right thing.
Lately, too, I've been thinking about this incident.
"On a message board for mothers, I recently read a very angry letter about a gift from a child's dad. Dad had been out of the picture for years and had recently resumed contact. Daughter was 5; he hadn't seen her since she was 2. For her birthday (or maybe it was Christmas), he bought her a sweater. Mom was outraged. "A SWEATER! Nothing for 3 years, then a sweater! I'm so angry I'm thinking of telling him he can't come over when he calls next!"
I'm aware that, since this involves custody issues and hard feelings, it's probably not about the actual sweater. It's probably about unpaid child support and court hearings. Still, the reaction seemed over the top.
I wrote back: "Men are notoriously bad at figuring out gift giving issues, especially when the gift is for a female." That "female" thing isn't exclusive, though. My father in law once gave his 15 year old son a Daniel Boone style fake coonskin cap. It would have been a great gift for a kid half that age. We have photos of my son delightedly wearing his through Frontierland at Disney World when he was 7. For a 15 year old, though, it was worse than no gift.
I offered my opinion that Sweater Dad was probably patting himself on the back. He was probably thinking, "It's practical, it's in her favorite color, she'll wear it every day." Unless told, I said, he would be unaware that anyone would look at that gift and think, "What is wrong with him?"
The mom who wrote the question didn't take issue with my answer, but others did. One woman wrote back that I (names are available on the site, and yes, she called me by name) was " a b***h." "Just because your husband is a loser doesn't mean that the rest of us have to put up with that s**t," she said.
Wow. I thought we were talking about a little girl's sweater." (More Misunderstandings)
Sometimes my kids baffle salespeople who are urging them to buy certain things for me - jewelry, makeup, candles, purses - when they say, "My mom's not into those." The thing is, they're right; but, that perplexes people.
A few years ago, my youngest daughter, who has a very minimal need for personal space, was told by a friend, "You're really in my space right now." Her immediate reaction? To say, "Oh, I'm sorry" - and wrap her arms around the friend, go cheek to cheek, and give them an extended hug.
"Honey! When someone says you're in their space, you don't fix that by getting closer!" She was totally baffled. Who doesn't want a hug?
Plenty of people, really, but that makes no sense to her.
I kind of chalked it up to age, and hoped she'd listen to me even if she didn't understand.
Then, recently, my husband and I were standing at a restaurant host/ess desk, waiting to be seated. We were the only ones there, yet my husband was literally right in my personal space. "You are so close you are literally touching me," I grumbled. (I have a need for a rather large amount of personal space.)
What did he do? "Oh, I'm sorry," wrapping his arms around me and kissing my cheek. I grumbled and squirmed. "Why are you so grumpy?" he wanted to know.
"Because I told you that you were too close, and you got closer!"
"I'm comforting my wife."
"It's not comforting if the reason she's stressed is that you're too close!"
This does not compute.
Everybody is comforted by different things. When there was a death in my friend's family, she did not understand her husband's reaction. "It's private, it's time to be with family, and he's phoning everyone that we know!" Yeah, I'm like her - in times of stress or grief, I need my universe to shrink. My husband needs to gather people around him; he'd be the one phoning everyone that he knows, their condolences buoying him. I might not want to speak to anybody, him included.
I once really, deeply offended my nephew's wife. She had a miscarriage; I've had more than one, and I remember what it felt like. I didn't want to talk to anyone, about anything. I barely spoke to my family, and that was it. I didn't want to leave the house, to have people tell me it'd be alright, and that they were thinking of me. It was too much to manage their feelings, on top of my own. So, I made my husband Gatekeeper, to turn people away until I could face the world, which was no more than a month. So, when our niece miscarried, I gave her space. "She does not need to have to deal with me," I thought.
When I phoned, after two weeks, she was livid. To her, my silence meant that I didn't care, that I hadn't thought of them at all, that their loss meant nothing. Horrified, I explained my thinking, and she forgave me, which was so sweet. Still, I feel the sting of having my good intentions hurt another person.
You hear talk about how hard "adulting" is. Forget "adulting" - I apparently have trouble "humaning."
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
My Parents' Anniversary
Today is my parents' 58th wedding anniversary. I'm thinking about them today.
I've previously written about the fact that my mom got married twice to her first husband. We recently discovered that she'd also married my dad twice.
("What is it with Mom and having two weddings?" my sister said.)
We've always known the date and place of my parents' wedding. We teased them about taking the wedding to the guests instead of the guests to the wedding, since they were married in the church my uncle and aunt attended. "That's not how you're supposed to do it," we'd say. "Yes, well, that's how we did it," Mom would say.
I figured that choice was a combination of not wanting a big fuss, but wanting a formal ceremony. Mom was very practical, and I can imagine Dad wanting a ceremony that rivaled the one with her first husband. Neither of my parents were members of any congregation, so they didn't have their own church to consider. So, the 90 minute drive each way made sense. (It still does.)
After my mom passed away (Dad's been gone for years), I found the certificate from their wedding. It is an ornate piece of parchment, with flowers and filigree and the writing hand done in calligraphy. It's tied by silk tassels, in a leather folder. Very showy, very fancy; it looks regal. It had all the information I was used to - date, place, my aunt and uncle as witnesses.
The problem was, on either my FamilySearch account or on my Ancestry.com account, the two geneological programs that I use, I could not find an online record of it. Neither could my sister. Oh, well, I thought. We know that it happened. New documents are being scanned or info uploaded every day; sooner or later, it'll be online. I don't need another record of it so badly that I needed to drive across four counties to get a copy.
But then, we came across another record online, a record showing that they got married more than a month after the first wedding, by a Justice of the Peace in another, closer, neighboring county. What was that about? Lots of people, myself and my husband included, have a civil ceremony first, and later, a religious ceremony. But why do it the other way round? And why so close together?
My parents are gone. My uncle and aunt are gone. I'm willing to bet that the minister (and Justice) are gone, even if he remembered them. Some of my cousins are gone; my oldest brother is nearing 70, and all of my children are grown. We're reaching the age at which we are the older generation. There's no one with first hand knowledge around to ask.
There are, however, stories and records from years gone by to help us extrapolate. There's the fact that many religions are very strict about how they will, and won't, perform ceremonies.
As nearly as we can figure, the minister from my uncle's church found out that my mother was divorced after he'd already performed the ceremony, and he then refused to file the paperwork with the state, so the marriage wasn't considered legal. "My mother couldn't have told the church that she'd been divorced when she married my dad. Otherwise, they wouldn't have let them get married in the church," one of my cousins told me. It used to be uncommon to find a church that would perform ceremonies for divorced folks.
So, my parents drove to the next town over in order to make it legal; but, they continued to celebrate the day they actually chose to be married, the day they first said vows. That's very typical of my parents. "This is my anniversary."
That makes sense. We celebrate the day of our first wedding. By the time of our second wedding, the religious ceremony, we'd been married for years, and had two children. That's a different day than the day we chose to get married.
I am a religious person; I stand behind the idea of religions acting in accordance with their beliefs. And yet this story tickles me. It amuses me. I stand behind my parents and their choice to celebrate their non-legal wedding day. Call it like you see it, Mom and Dad. Don't back down.
I come by my stubbornness honestly.
I've previously written about the fact that my mom got married twice to her first husband. We recently discovered that she'd also married my dad twice.
("What is it with Mom and having two weddings?" my sister said.)
We've always known the date and place of my parents' wedding. We teased them about taking the wedding to the guests instead of the guests to the wedding, since they were married in the church my uncle and aunt attended. "That's not how you're supposed to do it," we'd say. "Yes, well, that's how we did it," Mom would say.
I figured that choice was a combination of not wanting a big fuss, but wanting a formal ceremony. Mom was very practical, and I can imagine Dad wanting a ceremony that rivaled the one with her first husband. Neither of my parents were members of any congregation, so they didn't have their own church to consider. So, the 90 minute drive each way made sense. (It still does.)
After my mom passed away (Dad's been gone for years), I found the certificate from their wedding. It is an ornate piece of parchment, with flowers and filigree and the writing hand done in calligraphy. It's tied by silk tassels, in a leather folder. Very showy, very fancy; it looks regal. It had all the information I was used to - date, place, my aunt and uncle as witnesses.
The problem was, on either my FamilySearch account or on my Ancestry.com account, the two geneological programs that I use, I could not find an online record of it. Neither could my sister. Oh, well, I thought. We know that it happened. New documents are being scanned or info uploaded every day; sooner or later, it'll be online. I don't need another record of it so badly that I needed to drive across four counties to get a copy.
But then, we came across another record online, a record showing that they got married more than a month after the first wedding, by a Justice of the Peace in another, closer, neighboring county. What was that about? Lots of people, myself and my husband included, have a civil ceremony first, and later, a religious ceremony. But why do it the other way round? And why so close together?
My parents are gone. My uncle and aunt are gone. I'm willing to bet that the minister (and Justice) are gone, even if he remembered them. Some of my cousins are gone; my oldest brother is nearing 70, and all of my children are grown. We're reaching the age at which we are the older generation. There's no one with first hand knowledge around to ask.
There are, however, stories and records from years gone by to help us extrapolate. There's the fact that many religions are very strict about how they will, and won't, perform ceremonies.
As nearly as we can figure, the minister from my uncle's church found out that my mother was divorced after he'd already performed the ceremony, and he then refused to file the paperwork with the state, so the marriage wasn't considered legal. "My mother couldn't have told the church that she'd been divorced when she married my dad. Otherwise, they wouldn't have let them get married in the church," one of my cousins told me. It used to be uncommon to find a church that would perform ceremonies for divorced folks.
So, my parents drove to the next town over in order to make it legal; but, they continued to celebrate the day they actually chose to be married, the day they first said vows. That's very typical of my parents. "This is my anniversary."
That makes sense. We celebrate the day of our first wedding. By the time of our second wedding, the religious ceremony, we'd been married for years, and had two children. That's a different day than the day we chose to get married.
I am a religious person; I stand behind the idea of religions acting in accordance with their beliefs. And yet this story tickles me. It amuses me. I stand behind my parents and their choice to celebrate their non-legal wedding day. Call it like you see it, Mom and Dad. Don't back down.
I come by my stubbornness honestly.
Sunday, February 4, 2018
The Mouths of Babes
One of my dad's favorite stories from my childhood was not my favorite - not because it was embarrassing, but, well, because he got it wrong.
When I was 8, we took an epic road trip, including camping at Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. I loved pretty much everything about that trip - the places, the animals we saw, using the brand new camera that my brother gave me, the keychains that my mom let me buy in gift shops.
One day, we drove by the carcass of a roadkill coyote alongside the highway. "Oh, that's poor old Wile E." my dad said, referring to the Warner Brothers cartoon character.
"No, it's not!" I said, outraged. I was eight years old, after all, and I could not believe that my dad thought that I was too little to realize that a cartoon character was fictional. Did he really think that I couldn't tell the difference between a cartoon that walked on two legs and mail ordered ridiculous weapons and a real live, very familiar animal? Our dog was half coyote! As the youngest child, I was very sensitive to any reference to me being "too young" to understand something. I tried very hard to keep up with the big kids.
My dad misunderstood my outrage. "Oh, no, you're right. I'll bet Wile E. is too smart to get hit. He's just fine," my dad said, fairly bubbling with mirth. He went on to talk to my mom, as if I wasn't right there in the back seat, about how adorable it was that I worried about Wile E. being safe.
Even at 8 (and younger), I knew that it was useless to correct him. He wouldn't believe me, for one thing, and he'd be offended at being challenged. So I rolled my eyes and let him chuckle.
It was just my luck that he was so tickled by this story that he told it over and over. Great, I thought. Now his friends and my relatives think that I'm a baby, with no grasp on reality. Fantastic. Prepare to be patronized. (I hated being patronized.) I did mention how it annoyed me to my mother, but she confirmed, "It's best to just let him enjoy the story, accurate or not." He died when I was 22, still telling the story. He loved that story, thought it was so cute. I never did try to set the record straight.
So, as a child, I knew that misunderstanding isn't always on one side, parent or child.
As a parent, I sometimes wondered what people were thinking when my kids said something that sounded ridiculous, but I knew was true. Sometimes, people would argue, even if the kids got it right. For instance, when my kids would say, "Santa doesn't come to our house," people assumed that we didn't celebrate Christmas, or that we'd had a severe financial hardship, or that my kids didn't think they'd been "good enough" to get any presents. What they actually meant was that Santa brought their presents to the family party, usually at my aunt's house.
Another time my kid got it right, but it sounded loopy, was after a theater company picnic. To celebrate the end of the summer season, the company always had a family picnic at a nearby lake. It's about an hour's drive away, but most of that hour is straight up into the Sierras.
One year, on the way to the picnic, we came across our friend's Volkswagen stopped on the side of the highway with its engine compartment open. We stopped and talked to Kahele, the bug's owner, and she said that the car was acting like it was out of gas, but it had half a tank.
"I'll bet it's vapor locking," my husband said, describing what happens when part of the engine is so hot that the gas evaporates before it can be utilized. The car was weighted down with passengers and several large, full ice chests. The combination of the climb and the load left the car struggling. My husband took the largest chest out and put it in our van, then scooped handfuls of ice onto the engine. "Try it now," he said.
The bug roared to life, and we followed it the rest of the way to the lake. It had no more problems.
A couple of weeks later, we went to a pool party for the same theater company. My sister's kids were visiting, so they got to come along. As we pulled up and parked behind the Volkswagen, my kindergartner announced to her cousins, "That's Kahele's ladybug. It had too much weight in it, and Daddy fixed it with an ice cube."
Well, pretty close! It still sounded like gibberish, but aside from the amount of ice, it was pretty spot on.
My son got lots of extra sympathy as an injured toddler, due to his linguistics. He rolled out of his toddler bed and broke his collarbone, at an age when he described everything that happened in the past as being "yesterday." Wearing his little sling with pictures of Snoopy on it, whenever anyone asked when he hurt himself, he'd say, "Yesterday," and they'd say, "OOOOHHH!" and fuss over him.
Of course, every person remembers and processes things differently, but occasionally, the way my child(ren) remembered something rendered the event unrecognizable.
When my sister got married for the second time, my 8 and 9 year old daughters hoped that they'd get to be flower girls. They were disappointed that even the bride's own daughters weren't getting to be in the wedding party, because they weren't having any attendants.
My sister and her fiance wanted a small wedding, and decided, after months of weighing options, to do a quick ceremony with a justice of the peace, and dinner at a hotel on the coast to celebrate. No invitations, no new clothes, no fuss. We all got phone calls - "I know you won't be able to make it, but we're getting married on Wednesday." As in, the coming Wednesday; as in, less than a week.
If we were to drive straight there (as our other sister did), it would take seven and a half hours. My husband was working 12 hour shifts, 3 am to 3 pm; he couldn't take time off on short notice unless it was an emergency. If we were to drive, it would mean three days - a drive day, the wedding day, a drive day home - and we didn't want to take the girls out of school for that long. Flying on short notice was expensive, but if only I went, it was doable. My eight month old could fly for free if he sat on my lap. So, my mother and I decided to fly; she rarely took any time off from work, but a single day off to see her daughter get married was worth it.
Since I was a stay at home parent, I'd have to figure out child care for the older children. If I could have flown straight there, it would be about 90 minutes each way, but the airport near my sister is a small, rural airport, and there were no direct flights from home. We'd have to fly for an hour plus to a large airport, have a layover, then fly for another hour plus to the small airport, which was still about 30 minutes from my sister's house, where we'd meet before driving to the courthouse. The flight I found that would get me (and my mother and son) there on time left at 6 am; we'd have to be at the airport by 5. With my husband at work at 3, that left my kids alone, which was unacceptable. I couldn't imagine asking someone to get to my house by 4 so that I could leave at 4:30.
My inlaws lived nearby, so I asked my mother in law if she could take the girls overnight, then get them to school in the morning. She had a spare room with twin beds, and was about 15 minutes away from their school. She agreed to take the girls, asking us to get them to her house by dinner time, so that by bedtime they'd be ready to settle in. Since they got out of school at the same time my husband left work 15 miles away, instead of having them walk home to an empty house, she'd pick them up from school, and my husband would come and get them from her house. "It's probably be easier if they just all have dinner here again, instead of Danny having to go home and throw something together on short notice," she said. After getting home, he'd then stay up past his own bedtime in order to tuck them in at their normal bedtime. We thanked her profusely for making the trip possible, and bought tickets.
It was a long day for us - up at 4, at the airport by 5, and we didn't arrive back home until almost midnight. Still, my mother and I got to be with my sister on her wedding day, I got to take photos, and my children were safe while I was gone.
A couple of weeks later, I was saying something about how stressful it was that the photo processor temporarily lost my sister's wedding photos - this was the days of film, and if the film was lost, they were gone forever. My daughter exclaimed, "You never told us that Aunt Lynne got married!"
"Of course I did. Remember wanting to be a flower girl?"
"No, you told us she was going to get married! You never said it already happened!"
"You knew when it happened. That was why you guys spent the night at Grandma Donna's - so I could go to the wedding."
"You WENT?"
"Yes. You knew that. That's why you stayed overnight at Grandma Donna's."
"We've never stayed overnight at Grandma Donna's!"
What? It had only been two weeks - how could she have forgotten? I assumed that her sister would set her straight. But one of the things that amazes and puzzles me to this day was the ability of these girls who bickered constantly to also think in lock step. One was convinced of her own infallibility, and one was anxiety ridden, so it was a fairly common thing for the force of one personality to overwhelm the other, but I'd never seen it to this extent before. Her sister took up the complaint - "You never told us! We never stayed at Grandma Donna's!"
That's weird, I thought, but I waited it out, knowing that one of them should eventually recall the event, if only to one-up her sister. We - the baby and I - had been gone for two nights worth of dinners and bedtimes. Grandma Donna had dropped them off AND picked them up from school. It just seemed impossible that they'd forget almost two entire days, even if they'd forgotten WHY I was gone.
Instead, as time went on, they embellished their tale of woe. They started telling people that I had dropped them at school, driven to the airport, flown to the wedding, attended the wedding - and, somehow, also dinner - but flown back in time to pick them up from school as if I'd never gone anywhere. They were convinced that I'd then tried to keep this a secret, and that they'd only found out by accident. Both of them were deeply convinced of this exact scenario. "And she won't even admit that it happened!"
At first, it was merely irritating, but then I started to panic. I know that people often repress traumatic memories - had something deeply horrible occurred at their grandparents' house, so terrible that neither girl wanted to remember it? And how could I ask my inlaws without being accusatory and offending them? I freaked out a little bit.
My husband brought it up in a roundabout way with his mother. "The girls don't even remember staying overnight at your house." She laughed, assured him that children's memories are notoriously unreliable, and remembered that they'd had a great time with her.
I still worried a bit, but I had to chalk it up to my kids just preferring the more dramatic story, and feeding off of each other.
I think they were teens when I finally insisted that they stop telling their version of this story. "It looked silly when you were little, but it looks sillier now." Not only could their dad, both of their grandmothers (who didn't agree on much), their grandfather, and both of my my sisters and their families confirm my version of events, and I had ticket stubs with times on them, the mere math was impossible. The time we spent in the air was close to three hours. The layover was an hour and a half. Add that to the hour, each way, that we had to be at the airports before the flights, and we were already at 6 1/2 hours, and their school day was 6 hours long. The flights alone were impossible to do in the length of a school day, to say nothing of drive time, wedding time and dinner time.
The kids were both incredibly puzzled by this fact, when I laid out the timeline, again. (When they were younger, they were sure that I was just misrepresenting how long things took.) "I was sure that (me being gone during school hours only) was how it happened." "I don't remember it that way." And each sister's absolute certainty had been bolstered by their sibling's absolute certainty.
"I know you don't. But that's how it happened." Sometimes, I think that they never did really realize that they'd gotten it wrong; they just stopped complaining about it around their parents.
I think of moments like this sometimes when I'm online reading. I was recently reading an online discussion/argument among friends of mine and flat Earth proponents. One of the flat Earth arguments was, "Why do astronauts' accounts of what it's like to be in space differ from each other? Why do they describe the sky using different adjectives?" Are they kidding?
Think about any event - that Thanksgiving when Uncle Joe passed out in the potatoes, the birth of your children, or even last year's garden or last night's dinner. Do the people who were there describe it the same way? Do they always even remember it? How many times does the average person say, "That's not how it happened"?
In actuality, everyone having identical stories is usually a sign that they've all rehearsed what to say.
Really, considering differing opinions or accounts to be the sign of a huge conspiracy is just outrageous.
"But people who say (X) are so sincere and convinced! And they should know!" people say to me. I'm sure they are. And yet, they could be wrong.
I never confused a live coyote with a cartoon one.
When I was 8, we took an epic road trip, including camping at Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. I loved pretty much everything about that trip - the places, the animals we saw, using the brand new camera that my brother gave me, the keychains that my mom let me buy in gift shops.
One day, we drove by the carcass of a roadkill coyote alongside the highway. "Oh, that's poor old Wile E." my dad said, referring to the Warner Brothers cartoon character.
"No, it's not!" I said, outraged. I was eight years old, after all, and I could not believe that my dad thought that I was too little to realize that a cartoon character was fictional. Did he really think that I couldn't tell the difference between a cartoon that walked on two legs and mail ordered ridiculous weapons and a real live, very familiar animal? Our dog was half coyote! As the youngest child, I was very sensitive to any reference to me being "too young" to understand something. I tried very hard to keep up with the big kids.
My dad misunderstood my outrage. "Oh, no, you're right. I'll bet Wile E. is too smart to get hit. He's just fine," my dad said, fairly bubbling with mirth. He went on to talk to my mom, as if I wasn't right there in the back seat, about how adorable it was that I worried about Wile E. being safe.
Even at 8 (and younger), I knew that it was useless to correct him. He wouldn't believe me, for one thing, and he'd be offended at being challenged. So I rolled my eyes and let him chuckle.
It was just my luck that he was so tickled by this story that he told it over and over. Great, I thought. Now his friends and my relatives think that I'm a baby, with no grasp on reality. Fantastic. Prepare to be patronized. (I hated being patronized.) I did mention how it annoyed me to my mother, but she confirmed, "It's best to just let him enjoy the story, accurate or not." He died when I was 22, still telling the story. He loved that story, thought it was so cute. I never did try to set the record straight.
So, as a child, I knew that misunderstanding isn't always on one side, parent or child.
As a parent, I sometimes wondered what people were thinking when my kids said something that sounded ridiculous, but I knew was true. Sometimes, people would argue, even if the kids got it right. For instance, when my kids would say, "Santa doesn't come to our house," people assumed that we didn't celebrate Christmas, or that we'd had a severe financial hardship, or that my kids didn't think they'd been "good enough" to get any presents. What they actually meant was that Santa brought their presents to the family party, usually at my aunt's house.
Another time my kid got it right, but it sounded loopy, was after a theater company picnic. To celebrate the end of the summer season, the company always had a family picnic at a nearby lake. It's about an hour's drive away, but most of that hour is straight up into the Sierras.
One year, on the way to the picnic, we came across our friend's Volkswagen stopped on the side of the highway with its engine compartment open. We stopped and talked to Kahele, the bug's owner, and she said that the car was acting like it was out of gas, but it had half a tank.
"I'll bet it's vapor locking," my husband said, describing what happens when part of the engine is so hot that the gas evaporates before it can be utilized. The car was weighted down with passengers and several large, full ice chests. The combination of the climb and the load left the car struggling. My husband took the largest chest out and put it in our van, then scooped handfuls of ice onto the engine. "Try it now," he said.
The bug roared to life, and we followed it the rest of the way to the lake. It had no more problems.
A couple of weeks later, we went to a pool party for the same theater company. My sister's kids were visiting, so they got to come along. As we pulled up and parked behind the Volkswagen, my kindergartner announced to her cousins, "That's Kahele's ladybug. It had too much weight in it, and Daddy fixed it with an ice cube."
Well, pretty close! It still sounded like gibberish, but aside from the amount of ice, it was pretty spot on.
My son got lots of extra sympathy as an injured toddler, due to his linguistics. He rolled out of his toddler bed and broke his collarbone, at an age when he described everything that happened in the past as being "yesterday." Wearing his little sling with pictures of Snoopy on it, whenever anyone asked when he hurt himself, he'd say, "Yesterday," and they'd say, "OOOOHHH!" and fuss over him.
Of course, every person remembers and processes things differently, but occasionally, the way my child(ren) remembered something rendered the event unrecognizable.
When my sister got married for the second time, my 8 and 9 year old daughters hoped that they'd get to be flower girls. They were disappointed that even the bride's own daughters weren't getting to be in the wedding party, because they weren't having any attendants.
My sister and her fiance wanted a small wedding, and decided, after months of weighing options, to do a quick ceremony with a justice of the peace, and dinner at a hotel on the coast to celebrate. No invitations, no new clothes, no fuss. We all got phone calls - "I know you won't be able to make it, but we're getting married on Wednesday." As in, the coming Wednesday; as in, less than a week.
If we were to drive straight there (as our other sister did), it would take seven and a half hours. My husband was working 12 hour shifts, 3 am to 3 pm; he couldn't take time off on short notice unless it was an emergency. If we were to drive, it would mean three days - a drive day, the wedding day, a drive day home - and we didn't want to take the girls out of school for that long. Flying on short notice was expensive, but if only I went, it was doable. My eight month old could fly for free if he sat on my lap. So, my mother and I decided to fly; she rarely took any time off from work, but a single day off to see her daughter get married was worth it.
Since I was a stay at home parent, I'd have to figure out child care for the older children. If I could have flown straight there, it would be about 90 minutes each way, but the airport near my sister is a small, rural airport, and there were no direct flights from home. We'd have to fly for an hour plus to a large airport, have a layover, then fly for another hour plus to the small airport, which was still about 30 minutes from my sister's house, where we'd meet before driving to the courthouse. The flight I found that would get me (and my mother and son) there on time left at 6 am; we'd have to be at the airport by 5. With my husband at work at 3, that left my kids alone, which was unacceptable. I couldn't imagine asking someone to get to my house by 4 so that I could leave at 4:30.
My inlaws lived nearby, so I asked my mother in law if she could take the girls overnight, then get them to school in the morning. She had a spare room with twin beds, and was about 15 minutes away from their school. She agreed to take the girls, asking us to get them to her house by dinner time, so that by bedtime they'd be ready to settle in. Since they got out of school at the same time my husband left work 15 miles away, instead of having them walk home to an empty house, she'd pick them up from school, and my husband would come and get them from her house. "It's probably be easier if they just all have dinner here again, instead of Danny having to go home and throw something together on short notice," she said. After getting home, he'd then stay up past his own bedtime in order to tuck them in at their normal bedtime. We thanked her profusely for making the trip possible, and bought tickets.
It was a long day for us - up at 4, at the airport by 5, and we didn't arrive back home until almost midnight. Still, my mother and I got to be with my sister on her wedding day, I got to take photos, and my children were safe while I was gone.
A couple of weeks later, I was saying something about how stressful it was that the photo processor temporarily lost my sister's wedding photos - this was the days of film, and if the film was lost, they were gone forever. My daughter exclaimed, "You never told us that Aunt Lynne got married!"
"Of course I did. Remember wanting to be a flower girl?"
"No, you told us she was going to get married! You never said it already happened!"
"You knew when it happened. That was why you guys spent the night at Grandma Donna's - so I could go to the wedding."
"You WENT?"
"Yes. You knew that. That's why you stayed overnight at Grandma Donna's."
"We've never stayed overnight at Grandma Donna's!"
What? It had only been two weeks - how could she have forgotten? I assumed that her sister would set her straight. But one of the things that amazes and puzzles me to this day was the ability of these girls who bickered constantly to also think in lock step. One was convinced of her own infallibility, and one was anxiety ridden, so it was a fairly common thing for the force of one personality to overwhelm the other, but I'd never seen it to this extent before. Her sister took up the complaint - "You never told us! We never stayed at Grandma Donna's!"
That's weird, I thought, but I waited it out, knowing that one of them should eventually recall the event, if only to one-up her sister. We - the baby and I - had been gone for two nights worth of dinners and bedtimes. Grandma Donna had dropped them off AND picked them up from school. It just seemed impossible that they'd forget almost two entire days, even if they'd forgotten WHY I was gone.
Instead, as time went on, they embellished their tale of woe. They started telling people that I had dropped them at school, driven to the airport, flown to the wedding, attended the wedding - and, somehow, also dinner - but flown back in time to pick them up from school as if I'd never gone anywhere. They were convinced that I'd then tried to keep this a secret, and that they'd only found out by accident. Both of them were deeply convinced of this exact scenario. "And she won't even admit that it happened!"
At first, it was merely irritating, but then I started to panic. I know that people often repress traumatic memories - had something deeply horrible occurred at their grandparents' house, so terrible that neither girl wanted to remember it? And how could I ask my inlaws without being accusatory and offending them? I freaked out a little bit.
My husband brought it up in a roundabout way with his mother. "The girls don't even remember staying overnight at your house." She laughed, assured him that children's memories are notoriously unreliable, and remembered that they'd had a great time with her.
I still worried a bit, but I had to chalk it up to my kids just preferring the more dramatic story, and feeding off of each other.
I think they were teens when I finally insisted that they stop telling their version of this story. "It looked silly when you were little, but it looks sillier now." Not only could their dad, both of their grandmothers (who didn't agree on much), their grandfather, and both of my my sisters and their families confirm my version of events, and I had ticket stubs with times on them, the mere math was impossible. The time we spent in the air was close to three hours. The layover was an hour and a half. Add that to the hour, each way, that we had to be at the airports before the flights, and we were already at 6 1/2 hours, and their school day was 6 hours long. The flights alone were impossible to do in the length of a school day, to say nothing of drive time, wedding time and dinner time.
The kids were both incredibly puzzled by this fact, when I laid out the timeline, again. (When they were younger, they were sure that I was just misrepresenting how long things took.) "I was sure that (me being gone during school hours only) was how it happened." "I don't remember it that way." And each sister's absolute certainty had been bolstered by their sibling's absolute certainty.
"I know you don't. But that's how it happened." Sometimes, I think that they never did really realize that they'd gotten it wrong; they just stopped complaining about it around their parents.
I think of moments like this sometimes when I'm online reading. I was recently reading an online discussion/argument among friends of mine and flat Earth proponents. One of the flat Earth arguments was, "Why do astronauts' accounts of what it's like to be in space differ from each other? Why do they describe the sky using different adjectives?" Are they kidding?
Think about any event - that Thanksgiving when Uncle Joe passed out in the potatoes, the birth of your children, or even last year's garden or last night's dinner. Do the people who were there describe it the same way? Do they always even remember it? How many times does the average person say, "That's not how it happened"?
In actuality, everyone having identical stories is usually a sign that they've all rehearsed what to say.
Really, considering differing opinions or accounts to be the sign of a huge conspiracy is just outrageous.
"But people who say (X) are so sincere and convinced! And they should know!" people say to me. I'm sure they are. And yet, they could be wrong.
I never confused a live coyote with a cartoon one.
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Dangerous and Disruptive
It was very amusing to me that, as a senior in high school, I got a reputation among the adults at school (teachers, administrators, security personnel) of being an anarchist and agitator. It amused me because I am the most rule following person that I know. Remember how in "Back to the Future," all you had to do in order to manipulate Marty was to call him "a chicken"? When I was growing up, all you had to do to manipulate me was to say, "It's the rule."
I've never understood people who are born rebels. I mean, I can tell you, on a factual and intellectual level, why they behave that way, but it's not in my default reactions, at all. I like order and predictability and safety, and rules provide that.
Of course, it is this very admiration for rules and order that elicits outrage when the rules are misguided or just bad, or when those charged with implementing or interpreting them do so badly. In short - there are few things worse than a dirty cop.
So, in high school, I occasionally butted heads with those who were capricious in their enforcement of rules. Like the teacher who'd raise your F to a passing grade if you helped clean the classroom; like the principal who explained his behavior by saying, "You just chose the wrong friends, Sharon." Or, like the teacher who went the other direction, and changed a passing grade to a failing one over personality issues. It was not OK with me to blur academic distinctions with decidedly non-academic ones.
This is not to say that I never broke any rules. It just meant that I was not going to try to hide that fact, but was likely to respond to questioning with, "You bet I did. Let me tell you why."
But, I was a kid, and kids are notoriously without perspective, and few adults wanted to hear my gripes. It was always very important to me that others understand me. I don't care if you agree (or if you like me), but I want your disagreement (or dislike) to be fact based instead of perception based. I am, by nature, an over-explainer. So, it was infuriating when someone didn't even bother to hear me (or anyone else).
For most of my life, I loved school - the teachers and the actual learning. I'd never had a citation, detention, suspension, any disciplinary action at all (aside from having grades docked points for tardiness). At that point in my life (high school), I regularly dropped in on the principal to air a grievance, and his secretary would wave me through, calling, "Sharon's here." (He never said, "I'm too busy." He also rarely intervened, but he listened.) So, when I was summoned to the office of the guidance counselor in January of my senior year, I expected some kind of canned speech about college or other post high school plans. I'd never met the man before, but I hadn't taken the SAT or applied for scholarships or any number of other things related to leaving high school, and I supposed it was his job to see what my plans were.
I was wrong.
He didn't spend any time on pleasantries. He informed me, rather blandly, that I was now banned from taking any theater classes "or being in the theater classroom during any class." I was also now banned from setting foot in the actual theater itself. "The teacher informs me that you are dangerous and disruptive, and she can't teach when you're in the room."
It was not news that the teacher and I didn't get along, or that I was critical of her methods. I'm positive that at that point I actually said out loud, "Yeah, well, she doesn't do that great a job of it when I'm not in the room, either." His eyebrows raised.
The only other thing I could think of to say was, "I'm in the current play. We open soon. There isn't any time for someone else to learn the part. How am I supposed to perform if I'm not allowed in the room? Or are you cancelling the play, too?"
He looked a bit taken aback, as though this was information that he didn't have, and he was now forced to wing it. For just a second, he appeared to contemplate the wrath of many sets of parents if the show was cancelled. "Yes. Well. You'll be allowed to be in the theater during the times you're actually onstage. Otherwise, you'll have to wait in the hall."
I'm pretty quiet and mild mannered, most times. When I'm angry (or depressed, really), it's a different ball game. To mix my sports metaphors, the gloves come off.
"Oh, that'll be really convenient. Every time I have an entrance, the show will grind to a halt while someone comes to get me. That'll be great. And what about performances? Are the actual performances going to have to suspend time while someone comes to hunt me down? Is everyone just going to freeze onstage until I get there?"
The counselor looked annoyed. "You can be in the room during the entire rehearsal or performance as long as you behave properly and aren't disruptive."
"What, exactly, would that entail? Exactly which behaviors are forbidden? Do you have a list?"
"No, I don't have a list. Just don't do anything that would be against the rules."
"Well, since my mere presence is apparently a problem, I'd just like to clarify which behaviors are and aren't allowed. Did she tell you what it is that I do that's a problem?"
More annoyance. "No. She did not. I didn't ask."
"That doesn't seem to be a really great plan. You'd think that she'd have to describe what I did that's a problem."
He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands. "No, she does not. I take her word for issues involving her classroom management."
"Well, that's a mistake." His eyebrows raised again, and it occurred to me that I might not want to antagonize this man who'd never set eyes on me before, but was willing to believe that I was dangerous.
"Will there be anything else?"
He looked a bit blank. I rephrased. "Is that it?"
Brisk, administrative behavior; he stood up, indicating that the meeting was over, and said, "That'll be it. You can go back to class now." As he held the door open, I reflexively said, "Thank you," and then mentally kicked myself for it. Oh, sure, thanks a lot. Thanks a whole lot for dropping that bombshell on me; I appreciate it so, Guidance Counselor Who I've Never Met Before. Thanks for the "guidance."
I did not go back to class.
I can't remember what class I'd left to go to the office. I think it was after lunch, but I'm not entirely sure. At any rate, my afternoon had just opened up wide, because all I had after lunch were theater classes and after school rehearsal. The whole thing took maybe two minutes; now I was a wreck. I was distraught and weepy.
I began wandering the halls, crying and talking to myself. It was exactly two weeks before my 18th birthday; I remember because I kept saying, "I have another month. I'm supposed to have another month."
It was January 15. The year before, when my best friend was a senior, he'd been suspended on February 15, and finally, expelled. If I was going to be kicked out, it just seemed to me that it should happen on the same day. Like I said, I like predictability.
Classes let out and the halls were suddenly full, so I went outside. I could not handle being around other people.
I kept trying to figure out what had precipitated this, what I had done that had caused backlash. I couldn't think of anything in particular. (I still don't know.)
The irony was that I couldn't imagine offending the teacher, because we barely spoke. The only incident that I thought might be what had her goat had taken place weeks before.
I was a yearbook photographer. I loved the job. A few weeks earlier, we'd taken the drama guild group photo. It was either at lunch or after school, the way most clubs were photographed, so that all the members could be there. The schedule was dictated by yearbook deadlines; we had to turn in a certain number of pages at each deadline during the year. Time specific events - homecoming, sports, etc. - had to be photographed during their time frame, obviously, and things like club photos were spread out over the year.
Another senior was, at that point, barred from the theater. (Yeah, my expelled friend the previous year, Tony, had been the first, but now there were a handful of us not allowed in the theater.) We'd made the teacher angry during set construction by hauling sawhorses and lumber outside the theater to the sidewalk, and having this particular member, Tim Lange, cut the lumber there, so that we could list him in the program under "set construction crew." We also made a big deal about labeling the back of a board he cut - "TIM LANGE CUT THIS BOARD!" - and using it center stage as the fireplace mantle.
(Hence the principal's jibe about my friends; over three decades later, we're still friends.)
I mean, gasp, right? What subversives.
On picture day, Tim was going to wait in the hall - I'd insisted that he be in the photo. He hadn't wanted to, had argued with me, but I really insisted. We set up, placed the camera, had him come in just long enough to take the shot, and he went back into the hall. "Rule" breaking, sure, but I'd do it again.
No, that's not what I think bothered the teacher the most that day.
She was just out of college when she got her job at our school. She was nervous, insecure, not too much older than we were, and eager to be liked. All understandable; all fine. But things deteriorated as she faced strong willed students who knew more about theater than she did; she'd never seen a live production when they gave her the theater classes. It was not a great staffing choice. For a year, everything ran decently, if not smoothly, but that train soon derailed.
It used to be very important to me that people understand, that they hear our side. I left that behind ages ago.
Anyway, as things became more tense, she clamped down with unreasonable rules. We spent an entire set building day being told that we were not allowed to speak, at all, which was then amended to, "You can only ask for tools or give directions;" it was pretty clear that mute, angry kids with power tools miming were an accident waiting to happen.
One of the latest rules was that students could not touch the light switches. It was, in my eyes, a pure power play - I mean, light switches? That's the hill from which you cannot retreat?
In a theater, the "work lights" are standard fluorescent or incandescent lights turned on during set building, early rehearsals, classes, cleaning, and the like. "House" lights are those over the seats, and "stage" lights are the ones directed to the stage, the ones used during performances. We (the students) weren't allowed, at this point, to touch any of them, especially the house or stage lights, unless it was during a performance. Those ran on dimmers on the light board. Back in the days before computers, each light had its own slider on a board full of them. Changing them during a performance meant balancing a bunch of sliders. During class, or any other non-performance time, it just meant running the house slider up to full so that the room was illuminated. It's a one finger operation.
On photo day, I walked into the room, flicked on the work lights (they were a standard light switch just inside the door), and ran up the house lights. The teacher left the room without a word, which I took to be a sign that I could work in peace. We - the drama guild president and I, with a lot of input - were deciding where to take the group photo when the Dean of Men, who was also in charge of most school discipline, came in, with the teacher trailing him.
"I'm told that someone touched the lighting board," he said, with that big, loud, authoritative voice. I found this rather silly.
"Yeah, I did. I turned on the lights."
"Why?"
Seriously? Why did we need light?
"Because I'm taking photos for the yearbook, and I can't do that in the dark."
At that point, I almost wanted him to make a big deal out of it, so that we had to involve the yearbook adviser, and explain that I hadn't been allowed to take photos because I turned on the lights.
This was the only time I saw any staff member behave as though the teacher's complaints were, if not outright silly, at least overblown. He sighed, then turned to her and said, in that voice used when a quarreling parent says, "Tell your father..." even though Father is standing two feet away, but Junior is complying, "She says she's taking pictures for the yearbook. She says she can't take pictures in the dark."
The teacher said, "Oh. OK." The Dean left. The teacher went out without another word and sat in the audience seats until we were done. (I'm pretty sure that I turned the lights back off when we left, but maybe I left them for her.)
So, wandering the campus in tears and talking to myself after being banned, that was the only incident that I could imagine being over the top, in her eyes. It was embarrassing, in front of another faculty member. But why weeks after the fact? Did it matter?
"She's too early. It's too soon. I should have another month."
Now, here comes the crux of this story - what is, for me, the most important part.
I know that, when they're sad, a lot of people would need hugs, consoling, reassurance that they're a good person and the other person is wrong. Usually, that annoys me or makes it worse. It turns out that this time, I needed Joe Beard and Tim Groves.
They were more theater kids, way cooler than I was, and if I remember right, also not allowed in the theater at this point. I ran into them just outside the school as I was wandering and crying. Finding out what was wrong with me did not elicit sympathy and hugs, but loud congratulations and high fives. They acted as though I'd just won the lottery. "Good for you!" "That's great!" "She only does that to people who know what they're doing!"
It worked. The tears dried up. I don't know where they'd been headed to when they found me, but they stayed with me and walked the school grounds aimlessly, talking about nothing in particular, just being next to me. When we ran into Gwen, another theater kid, they told her the story with breathless delight, and large hand gestures, as though it was something to celebrate. Gwen hugged me, but by then I was OK.
When I was finally ready to re-join the world, Tim and Joe wanted to know, "Are you OK?" before they left.
"Yeah. I'm OK." And I meant it.
I finished the play, and the school year, without theater classes. I told my mom the story, but not my dad. And "dangerous and disruptive" became a phrase that made me, and my friends, laugh.
Years later, I told my husband. He, too, laughs at the phrase.
I'm thinking of this because someone recently informed me, again, that I was dangerous. This time, they didn't pair it with "disruptive;" they called me "evil." This is because we have religious and political differences; apparently, that merits a label of dangerous and evil.
They're certainly entitled to their opinion, which I told them. I did not tell them that, at a time in my life when I was vulnerable, someone in a position of power had already fired that particular cannon at me, so its effect is very much blunted now. It's not fun, but it's certainly no longer devastating.
I don't really know what effect the speaker hoped those words would have on me, but I don't think they expected to evoke what's now a warm and fuzzy memory. When I hear myself described that way, I no longer think first of the devastation I was feeling at 17 - I think about Joe and Tim, and high fives. I think about a time that two teenage boys had my back, even though I was a hysterical, weeping teenage girl. I think about them walking with me until I was alright. That's a happy memory.
I've never understood people who are born rebels. I mean, I can tell you, on a factual and intellectual level, why they behave that way, but it's not in my default reactions, at all. I like order and predictability and safety, and rules provide that.
Of course, it is this very admiration for rules and order that elicits outrage when the rules are misguided or just bad, or when those charged with implementing or interpreting them do so badly. In short - there are few things worse than a dirty cop.
So, in high school, I occasionally butted heads with those who were capricious in their enforcement of rules. Like the teacher who'd raise your F to a passing grade if you helped clean the classroom; like the principal who explained his behavior by saying, "You just chose the wrong friends, Sharon." Or, like the teacher who went the other direction, and changed a passing grade to a failing one over personality issues. It was not OK with me to blur academic distinctions with decidedly non-academic ones.
This is not to say that I never broke any rules. It just meant that I was not going to try to hide that fact, but was likely to respond to questioning with, "You bet I did. Let me tell you why."
But, I was a kid, and kids are notoriously without perspective, and few adults wanted to hear my gripes. It was always very important to me that others understand me. I don't care if you agree (or if you like me), but I want your disagreement (or dislike) to be fact based instead of perception based. I am, by nature, an over-explainer. So, it was infuriating when someone didn't even bother to hear me (or anyone else).
For most of my life, I loved school - the teachers and the actual learning. I'd never had a citation, detention, suspension, any disciplinary action at all (aside from having grades docked points for tardiness). At that point in my life (high school), I regularly dropped in on the principal to air a grievance, and his secretary would wave me through, calling, "Sharon's here." (He never said, "I'm too busy." He also rarely intervened, but he listened.) So, when I was summoned to the office of the guidance counselor in January of my senior year, I expected some kind of canned speech about college or other post high school plans. I'd never met the man before, but I hadn't taken the SAT or applied for scholarships or any number of other things related to leaving high school, and I supposed it was his job to see what my plans were.
I was wrong.
He didn't spend any time on pleasantries. He informed me, rather blandly, that I was now banned from taking any theater classes "or being in the theater classroom during any class." I was also now banned from setting foot in the actual theater itself. "The teacher informs me that you are dangerous and disruptive, and she can't teach when you're in the room."
It was not news that the teacher and I didn't get along, or that I was critical of her methods. I'm positive that at that point I actually said out loud, "Yeah, well, she doesn't do that great a job of it when I'm not in the room, either." His eyebrows raised.
The only other thing I could think of to say was, "I'm in the current play. We open soon. There isn't any time for someone else to learn the part. How am I supposed to perform if I'm not allowed in the room? Or are you cancelling the play, too?"
He looked a bit taken aback, as though this was information that he didn't have, and he was now forced to wing it. For just a second, he appeared to contemplate the wrath of many sets of parents if the show was cancelled. "Yes. Well. You'll be allowed to be in the theater during the times you're actually onstage. Otherwise, you'll have to wait in the hall."
I'm pretty quiet and mild mannered, most times. When I'm angry (or depressed, really), it's a different ball game. To mix my sports metaphors, the gloves come off.
"Oh, that'll be really convenient. Every time I have an entrance, the show will grind to a halt while someone comes to get me. That'll be great. And what about performances? Are the actual performances going to have to suspend time while someone comes to hunt me down? Is everyone just going to freeze onstage until I get there?"
The counselor looked annoyed. "You can be in the room during the entire rehearsal or performance as long as you behave properly and aren't disruptive."
"What, exactly, would that entail? Exactly which behaviors are forbidden? Do you have a list?"
"No, I don't have a list. Just don't do anything that would be against the rules."
"Well, since my mere presence is apparently a problem, I'd just like to clarify which behaviors are and aren't allowed. Did she tell you what it is that I do that's a problem?"
More annoyance. "No. She did not. I didn't ask."
"That doesn't seem to be a really great plan. You'd think that she'd have to describe what I did that's a problem."
He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands. "No, she does not. I take her word for issues involving her classroom management."
"Well, that's a mistake." His eyebrows raised again, and it occurred to me that I might not want to antagonize this man who'd never set eyes on me before, but was willing to believe that I was dangerous.
"Will there be anything else?"
He looked a bit blank. I rephrased. "Is that it?"
Brisk, administrative behavior; he stood up, indicating that the meeting was over, and said, "That'll be it. You can go back to class now." As he held the door open, I reflexively said, "Thank you," and then mentally kicked myself for it. Oh, sure, thanks a lot. Thanks a whole lot for dropping that bombshell on me; I appreciate it so, Guidance Counselor Who I've Never Met Before. Thanks for the "guidance."
I did not go back to class.
I can't remember what class I'd left to go to the office. I think it was after lunch, but I'm not entirely sure. At any rate, my afternoon had just opened up wide, because all I had after lunch were theater classes and after school rehearsal. The whole thing took maybe two minutes; now I was a wreck. I was distraught and weepy.
I began wandering the halls, crying and talking to myself. It was exactly two weeks before my 18th birthday; I remember because I kept saying, "I have another month. I'm supposed to have another month."
It was January 15. The year before, when my best friend was a senior, he'd been suspended on February 15, and finally, expelled. If I was going to be kicked out, it just seemed to me that it should happen on the same day. Like I said, I like predictability.
Classes let out and the halls were suddenly full, so I went outside. I could not handle being around other people.
I kept trying to figure out what had precipitated this, what I had done that had caused backlash. I couldn't think of anything in particular. (I still don't know.)
The irony was that I couldn't imagine offending the teacher, because we barely spoke. The only incident that I thought might be what had her goat had taken place weeks before.
I was a yearbook photographer. I loved the job. A few weeks earlier, we'd taken the drama guild group photo. It was either at lunch or after school, the way most clubs were photographed, so that all the members could be there. The schedule was dictated by yearbook deadlines; we had to turn in a certain number of pages at each deadline during the year. Time specific events - homecoming, sports, etc. - had to be photographed during their time frame, obviously, and things like club photos were spread out over the year.
Another senior was, at that point, barred from the theater. (Yeah, my expelled friend the previous year, Tony, had been the first, but now there were a handful of us not allowed in the theater.) We'd made the teacher angry during set construction by hauling sawhorses and lumber outside the theater to the sidewalk, and having this particular member, Tim Lange, cut the lumber there, so that we could list him in the program under "set construction crew." We also made a big deal about labeling the back of a board he cut - "TIM LANGE CUT THIS BOARD!" - and using it center stage as the fireplace mantle.
(Hence the principal's jibe about my friends; over three decades later, we're still friends.)
I mean, gasp, right? What subversives.
On picture day, Tim was going to wait in the hall - I'd insisted that he be in the photo. He hadn't wanted to, had argued with me, but I really insisted. We set up, placed the camera, had him come in just long enough to take the shot, and he went back into the hall. "Rule" breaking, sure, but I'd do it again.
No, that's not what I think bothered the teacher the most that day.
She was just out of college when she got her job at our school. She was nervous, insecure, not too much older than we were, and eager to be liked. All understandable; all fine. But things deteriorated as she faced strong willed students who knew more about theater than she did; she'd never seen a live production when they gave her the theater classes. It was not a great staffing choice. For a year, everything ran decently, if not smoothly, but that train soon derailed.
It used to be very important to me that people understand, that they hear our side. I left that behind ages ago.
Anyway, as things became more tense, she clamped down with unreasonable rules. We spent an entire set building day being told that we were not allowed to speak, at all, which was then amended to, "You can only ask for tools or give directions;" it was pretty clear that mute, angry kids with power tools miming were an accident waiting to happen.
One of the latest rules was that students could not touch the light switches. It was, in my eyes, a pure power play - I mean, light switches? That's the hill from which you cannot retreat?
In a theater, the "work lights" are standard fluorescent or incandescent lights turned on during set building, early rehearsals, classes, cleaning, and the like. "House" lights are those over the seats, and "stage" lights are the ones directed to the stage, the ones used during performances. We (the students) weren't allowed, at this point, to touch any of them, especially the house or stage lights, unless it was during a performance. Those ran on dimmers on the light board. Back in the days before computers, each light had its own slider on a board full of them. Changing them during a performance meant balancing a bunch of sliders. During class, or any other non-performance time, it just meant running the house slider up to full so that the room was illuminated. It's a one finger operation.
On photo day, I walked into the room, flicked on the work lights (they were a standard light switch just inside the door), and ran up the house lights. The teacher left the room without a word, which I took to be a sign that I could work in peace. We - the drama guild president and I, with a lot of input - were deciding where to take the group photo when the Dean of Men, who was also in charge of most school discipline, came in, with the teacher trailing him.
"I'm told that someone touched the lighting board," he said, with that big, loud, authoritative voice. I found this rather silly.
"Yeah, I did. I turned on the lights."
"Why?"
Seriously? Why did we need light?
"Because I'm taking photos for the yearbook, and I can't do that in the dark."
At that point, I almost wanted him to make a big deal out of it, so that we had to involve the yearbook adviser, and explain that I hadn't been allowed to take photos because I turned on the lights.
This was the only time I saw any staff member behave as though the teacher's complaints were, if not outright silly, at least overblown. He sighed, then turned to her and said, in that voice used when a quarreling parent says, "Tell your father..." even though Father is standing two feet away, but Junior is complying, "She says she's taking pictures for the yearbook. She says she can't take pictures in the dark."
The teacher said, "Oh. OK." The Dean left. The teacher went out without another word and sat in the audience seats until we were done. (I'm pretty sure that I turned the lights back off when we left, but maybe I left them for her.)
So, wandering the campus in tears and talking to myself after being banned, that was the only incident that I could imagine being over the top, in her eyes. It was embarrassing, in front of another faculty member. But why weeks after the fact? Did it matter?
"She's too early. It's too soon. I should have another month."
Now, here comes the crux of this story - what is, for me, the most important part.
I know that, when they're sad, a lot of people would need hugs, consoling, reassurance that they're a good person and the other person is wrong. Usually, that annoys me or makes it worse. It turns out that this time, I needed Joe Beard and Tim Groves.
They were more theater kids, way cooler than I was, and if I remember right, also not allowed in the theater at this point. I ran into them just outside the school as I was wandering and crying. Finding out what was wrong with me did not elicit sympathy and hugs, but loud congratulations and high fives. They acted as though I'd just won the lottery. "Good for you!" "That's great!" "She only does that to people who know what they're doing!"
It worked. The tears dried up. I don't know where they'd been headed to when they found me, but they stayed with me and walked the school grounds aimlessly, talking about nothing in particular, just being next to me. When we ran into Gwen, another theater kid, they told her the story with breathless delight, and large hand gestures, as though it was something to celebrate. Gwen hugged me, but by then I was OK.
When I was finally ready to re-join the world, Tim and Joe wanted to know, "Are you OK?" before they left.
"Yeah. I'm OK." And I meant it.
I finished the play, and the school year, without theater classes. I told my mom the story, but not my dad. And "dangerous and disruptive" became a phrase that made me, and my friends, laugh.
Years later, I told my husband. He, too, laughs at the phrase.
I'm thinking of this because someone recently informed me, again, that I was dangerous. This time, they didn't pair it with "disruptive;" they called me "evil." This is because we have religious and political differences; apparently, that merits a label of dangerous and evil.
They're certainly entitled to their opinion, which I told them. I did not tell them that, at a time in my life when I was vulnerable, someone in a position of power had already fired that particular cannon at me, so its effect is very much blunted now. It's not fun, but it's certainly no longer devastating.
I don't really know what effect the speaker hoped those words would have on me, but I don't think they expected to evoke what's now a warm and fuzzy memory. When I hear myself described that way, I no longer think first of the devastation I was feeling at 17 - I think about Joe and Tim, and high fives. I think about a time that two teenage boys had my back, even though I was a hysterical, weeping teenage girl. I think about them walking with me until I was alright. That's a happy memory.
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
On The Street Where You Live
Recently, as we sat in traffic in a large city, my husband grumbled about being "surrounded by nothing but trash and crazy people."
"It's actually cleaner than I expected. And you're generalizing, aren't you? You haven't even met many residents. They might be lovely people." (I'm usually pretty Pollyanna about things.)
He looked at me as if I was also clearly crazy. "Sane people wouldn't put up with this!" He waved his hand at the traffic, the noise, the crowds (and also, I'm pretty sure, the inflated prices).
I laughed. "You know how many people say that about where we live, right?"
I have several loved ones who have waged a years long battle to convince me to move elsewhere, or at least to get with the program and consider my home state to be a punch line. I know that they sincerely want what's best for me, so I cut them slack, but it grates on my nerves.
For one thing, I sincerely like my area. We're high mountain desert, tucked up against a mountain range; everything from the wide open sand and sage of the Great Basin to the pine forests overlooking deep mountain lakes says "home" to me. It's pretty fantastic.
I like my house. It's comfortable and cost effective. I am intensely irritated by people who think that I'm living my life in the way that I am because I'm unaware that there are other options.
Recently, a friend moved to a new city, and asked for advice on her social media. "We're considering two houses. One is larger and less expensive, but the area isn't considered as desirable. The other is more money than we wanted to spend, but it's in a popular area. Which should we buy?" I think that I was the lone voice saying, "The less expensive house! Obviously!" Everyone else voted for the more expensive house, saying things like, "Think of the resale value!" and telling her that, obviously, the neighbors and the schools would be better in the popular area.
(They finally chose a third house that split the difference.)
People are frequently perplexed by our choice of a fixer upper in an aging neighborhood - not old enough to be "historic," just old enough to be "older." I say, "Hey, I'd rather live here and take my kids on vacation and send them to summer camp." I've been told that I'm doing things "all wrong." "It's more important to spend the money on something you'll use every day, not on something that only lasts for a week or two."
Balderdash. I can show you studies that verify that spending money on experiences instead of belongings results in a happier life, but I don't need them to justify my choices. I am happy in my life.
A friend was once trying to describe what she loved about living in a large city. "In my neighborhood, when I go to get coffee, or shop, or have lunch, the people working there know me, and I get personalized service." I responded, "That sounds like living in a small town." The last time I lived in a truly small town (it made the front page of the tri-county newspaper when we got our second stoplight), when I was buying groceries the cashier said, "That shed's looking pretty good!" My husband was building a shed in our yard, one visible from the road, but I have no idea how the clerk knew that I lived at the house with the shed under construction.
My friend was sure that I was deliberately misunderstanding her. I don't think so; in my city, when I go to the bank, the grocery store, the convenience store, and several restaurants, they know me, often by name. Sometimes, I will have known them for literally decades. I don't think that the size of my city has any bearing on that.
Of course, there are other conversations and other tactics.
"It's such a shame for your kids," to be living here, I was told.
"How do you figure?"
"They're never going to be exposed to different people from different backgrounds. Where you are, it's pretty homogenous; everyone's the same."
I have no idea where that mischaracterization came from. I went to church with a significant number of Tongans with names like Feofa'aki. My daughter's boyfriend was Navajo, and her best friend was from El Salvador. We'd planned birthday party menus to include Hindu, Muslim and Jewish guests. I know lawyers, accountants, ranchers, artists, singers, right here in my community.
I tried to encapsulate all of that in one sentence, without sounding like I was trotting people out as show ponies ("How can you say that? Look at my Token Minority friend!"), and speaking to the experiences of my kids. "My daughter is the only white girl in her Girl Scout troop."
"Well, yes, but I'm talking about professional, educated people."
Um, what? This is a lovely, sincere, well educated person, who always means well, but I was appalled. "Oh, I just know that you did not just imply that their parents are all dishwashers and maids, or that there would be anything wrong with it if they were!"
"No! No. I'm just saying that people in my community have been recruited from all over the world for their particular areas of expertise."
"Do you know what my Scouts' parents do? Because I don't, and I see them every week." This is true; I have actually known people for years before I find out what they do for a living.
I meet a lot of people at church or doing community theater, and we tend to "talk shop," not go through the cocktail party small talk of, "So, what do you do?" I rarely ask this of people. Sometimes, I'm taken by surprise when I find out.
The girls in the Scout troops I led always had parents who took their cookie order forms to work, and sometimes I'd find out what they did for a living based on where they made their sales. On year, the top seller had a (very pretty) mother who was a bartender, and made her sales at the bar. ("And if they don't pick up the cookies, I know I can just sell them to somebody else who's there.") One year, the top seller had a grandmother who worked at a local brothel, and made her sales there. No, I didn't ask in what capacity, although I know that they have non-prostitute staff. I once did theater with a young lady who was the cashier at a brothel.
No, I did not bring up the brothel workers at that point in the conversation. No, I do not think that they prove my loved one's point. No, I did not point out that the area in which this person lived in is known for a particular industry, and therefore more "homogenous" than many other communities, in that you can probably accurately guess what industry in which any person you meet is likely to be employed. I did not point out that when I'm sitting in church in between the owner of a construction business and the owner of a potato farm, listening to a schoolteacher give the lesson, I'm simultaneously experiencing diversity and not categorizing people based on occupation or education.
What I did was rather forcefully change the subject. This is a relationship that I truly value, but if I'm expected to be a job snob and feel that I'm shortchanging my kids by refusing to be badgered into moving to a sprawling metropolis, well, I may start to value it less.
Someone else described me to myself this way - "You're so... so... provincial!"
(You know how sometimes you make a friend, and you laugh together about how you never would have hung out when you were in high school? Yeah - I'm aware that people who love me, but met me when we were kids, would probably not be interested in making friends with me if they met me today. That's OK. We love each other anyway.)
I enjoy visiting large cities in order to experience museums, theaters, historic sites and the like, but then I want to leave and go home.
Something I discovered as an adult, and it was a pleasant surprise, is that I could conceivably live anywhere. I pick up real estate guides every time I travel. We recently spent time in cities older than my nation, staying in apartments, and commenting, "I could live here." I may live somewhere else in the future; but it won't be because I don't like it here, where I am now.
Why am I thinking about this? I was sorting through and organizing photos recently, and I came across this:
Oh, yeah. This image is comfortable, happy - it says "home." It lowers my blood pressure. I could live down that road. Looking at it, I know what it smells like, sounds like, feels like. I want to know what's over the horizon. I want to wander and explore.
That's in contrast to how I feel looking at this image:
I also know what this sounds, smells and feels like; I took both photos. I know that there are places to discover, to eat, to shop. I could conceivable live there. But, given a choice - not so much.
Given a choice, I'll probably always take the dirt road.
"It's actually cleaner than I expected. And you're generalizing, aren't you? You haven't even met many residents. They might be lovely people." (I'm usually pretty Pollyanna about things.)
He looked at me as if I was also clearly crazy. "Sane people wouldn't put up with this!" He waved his hand at the traffic, the noise, the crowds (and also, I'm pretty sure, the inflated prices).
I laughed. "You know how many people say that about where we live, right?"
I have several loved ones who have waged a years long battle to convince me to move elsewhere, or at least to get with the program and consider my home state to be a punch line. I know that they sincerely want what's best for me, so I cut them slack, but it grates on my nerves.
For one thing, I sincerely like my area. We're high mountain desert, tucked up against a mountain range; everything from the wide open sand and sage of the Great Basin to the pine forests overlooking deep mountain lakes says "home" to me. It's pretty fantastic.
I like my house. It's comfortable and cost effective. I am intensely irritated by people who think that I'm living my life in the way that I am because I'm unaware that there are other options.
Recently, a friend moved to a new city, and asked for advice on her social media. "We're considering two houses. One is larger and less expensive, but the area isn't considered as desirable. The other is more money than we wanted to spend, but it's in a popular area. Which should we buy?" I think that I was the lone voice saying, "The less expensive house! Obviously!" Everyone else voted for the more expensive house, saying things like, "Think of the resale value!" and telling her that, obviously, the neighbors and the schools would be better in the popular area.
(They finally chose a third house that split the difference.)
People are frequently perplexed by our choice of a fixer upper in an aging neighborhood - not old enough to be "historic," just old enough to be "older." I say, "Hey, I'd rather live here and take my kids on vacation and send them to summer camp." I've been told that I'm doing things "all wrong." "It's more important to spend the money on something you'll use every day, not on something that only lasts for a week or two."
Balderdash. I can show you studies that verify that spending money on experiences instead of belongings results in a happier life, but I don't need them to justify my choices. I am happy in my life.
A friend was once trying to describe what she loved about living in a large city. "In my neighborhood, when I go to get coffee, or shop, or have lunch, the people working there know me, and I get personalized service." I responded, "That sounds like living in a small town." The last time I lived in a truly small town (it made the front page of the tri-county newspaper when we got our second stoplight), when I was buying groceries the cashier said, "That shed's looking pretty good!" My husband was building a shed in our yard, one visible from the road, but I have no idea how the clerk knew that I lived at the house with the shed under construction.
My friend was sure that I was deliberately misunderstanding her. I don't think so; in my city, when I go to the bank, the grocery store, the convenience store, and several restaurants, they know me, often by name. Sometimes, I will have known them for literally decades. I don't think that the size of my city has any bearing on that.
Of course, there are other conversations and other tactics.
"It's such a shame for your kids," to be living here, I was told.
"How do you figure?"
"They're never going to be exposed to different people from different backgrounds. Where you are, it's pretty homogenous; everyone's the same."
I have no idea where that mischaracterization came from. I went to church with a significant number of Tongans with names like Feofa'aki. My daughter's boyfriend was Navajo, and her best friend was from El Salvador. We'd planned birthday party menus to include Hindu, Muslim and Jewish guests. I know lawyers, accountants, ranchers, artists, singers, right here in my community.
I tried to encapsulate all of that in one sentence, without sounding like I was trotting people out as show ponies ("How can you say that? Look at my Token Minority friend!"), and speaking to the experiences of my kids. "My daughter is the only white girl in her Girl Scout troop."
"Well, yes, but I'm talking about professional, educated people."
Um, what? This is a lovely, sincere, well educated person, who always means well, but I was appalled. "Oh, I just know that you did not just imply that their parents are all dishwashers and maids, or that there would be anything wrong with it if they were!"
"No! No. I'm just saying that people in my community have been recruited from all over the world for their particular areas of expertise."
"Do you know what my Scouts' parents do? Because I don't, and I see them every week." This is true; I have actually known people for years before I find out what they do for a living.
I meet a lot of people at church or doing community theater, and we tend to "talk shop," not go through the cocktail party small talk of, "So, what do you do?" I rarely ask this of people. Sometimes, I'm taken by surprise when I find out.
The girls in the Scout troops I led always had parents who took their cookie order forms to work, and sometimes I'd find out what they did for a living based on where they made their sales. On year, the top seller had a (very pretty) mother who was a bartender, and made her sales at the bar. ("And if they don't pick up the cookies, I know I can just sell them to somebody else who's there.") One year, the top seller had a grandmother who worked at a local brothel, and made her sales there. No, I didn't ask in what capacity, although I know that they have non-prostitute staff. I once did theater with a young lady who was the cashier at a brothel.
No, I did not bring up the brothel workers at that point in the conversation. No, I do not think that they prove my loved one's point. No, I did not point out that the area in which this person lived in is known for a particular industry, and therefore more "homogenous" than many other communities, in that you can probably accurately guess what industry in which any person you meet is likely to be employed. I did not point out that when I'm sitting in church in between the owner of a construction business and the owner of a potato farm, listening to a schoolteacher give the lesson, I'm simultaneously experiencing diversity and not categorizing people based on occupation or education.
What I did was rather forcefully change the subject. This is a relationship that I truly value, but if I'm expected to be a job snob and feel that I'm shortchanging my kids by refusing to be badgered into moving to a sprawling metropolis, well, I may start to value it less.
Someone else described me to myself this way - "You're so... so... provincial!"
(You know how sometimes you make a friend, and you laugh together about how you never would have hung out when you were in high school? Yeah - I'm aware that people who love me, but met me when we were kids, would probably not be interested in making friends with me if they met me today. That's OK. We love each other anyway.)
I enjoy visiting large cities in order to experience museums, theaters, historic sites and the like, but then I want to leave and go home.
Something I discovered as an adult, and it was a pleasant surprise, is that I could conceivably live anywhere. I pick up real estate guides every time I travel. We recently spent time in cities older than my nation, staying in apartments, and commenting, "I could live here." I may live somewhere else in the future; but it won't be because I don't like it here, where I am now.
Why am I thinking about this? I was sorting through and organizing photos recently, and I came across this:
Oh, yeah. This image is comfortable, happy - it says "home." It lowers my blood pressure. I could live down that road. Looking at it, I know what it smells like, sounds like, feels like. I want to know what's over the horizon. I want to wander and explore.
That's in contrast to how I feel looking at this image:
I also know what this sounds, smells and feels like; I took both photos. I know that there are places to discover, to eat, to shop. I could conceivable live there. But, given a choice - not so much.
Given a choice, I'll probably always take the dirt road.
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