I've always thought that was a cruel expression. Along comes new technology or even just economic hard times, and British workers are "made redundant." Now I feel the meaning of those words with full force. I heard once that the purpose of being a parent is to make yourself obsolete; in that case, I have succeeded remarkably. I have made myself redundant.
Fiona attended her first bat mitzvah Sunday. We had been preparing for this for weeks, and I had a great deal invested in the outcome for various reasons. First, it was to be my daughter's first dress-up party without me. Second, at her age every social event is an opportunity for dizzying success or radical failure. Third, and this is embarrassing but true, I've never set foot in a synagogue myself. Hey, I grew up in the Deep South in the 70s and 80s. If there were any Jewish kids at my school, they were flying under the radar, hoping not to be noticed. As for me, I've always been something of a Jew-wannabe but sadly lacking exposure. So this bat mitzvah was a chance for my daughter to be exposed to something deeply meaningful and beautiful that I have not yet had the opportunity to observe for myself.
Excited, Fiona and I went shopping for the dress she would wear. Shopping together often consigns us to opposite and bitter camps, but this day was magic. She tried on a pink dress and loved it. You'd have to know her to know why that's so unusual (bit tomboyish, bit practical). She looked amazing. Oddly enough, she looked sophisticated in her pale, ballet pink. It had the weird effect, through its sheer simplicity, of making her look classic and elegant. It was 75% off. Every accessory was 75% off. We were charmed, tripping lightly through Macy's, collecting wraps and shoes and handbags, and the cost of the outfit in total fit on the remains of a gift card Jeff and I received last year when we got married. A propitious sign, indeed.
Sunday morning we awoke early and did her hair. It came out perfect. I let her wear a tiny bit of makeup. I knew how important this day was to her. We took pictures, and we deposited a happy but slightly apprehensive young lady at Beth Shalom.
I tried not to worry all day about how the affair was going. I knew how much was riding on its success, but I kept myself distracted. When it was time to pick her up, I couldn't wait to hear all the details. Who wore what? Did she dance with any boys? Did any of the girls, jealous of her beauty, make catty comments?
She greeted me with an impatient toss of her head, settled herself into the passenger seat, and proceeded to listen to "Soulja Boy" on the radio. When I asked her questions, she answered with impatience and scorn. I was devastated. She swore she had a great time, but she had no intention of sharing that good time with me. It was hers, not mine. Not mine at all.
I'm starting to come to terms with this. There will be so many more moments that she will refuse to share, and some of them will be golden, and I'll just miss out. I can't stop this. I will always hate it. But I'm guessing this means that I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. I'm there on the sidelines, in the process of making myself redundant.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Bleargh
Everything I said yesterday? Never mind.
I sucked last night in my belly dancing class. I was stiffer than the basketball-playing med students (who also happen to be in the armed forces--talk about overachievers!), and one left foot kept stepping on the other. The only thing I seemed to do well was, unbelievably, turns. I usually suck at these at home, where I'm generally treading on a dog or running into furniture.
Even the nerd who dances with a look on her face that resembles that of someone being forced to jump from a plane danced better than I did last night.
And I lost my favorite cheap earrings. I bought them in Ireland before Fiona was even born, so they can't possibly be replaced. I never lose anything, but I pick these to lose!
Oh yeah, and how the hell does Starbucks cram 500 calories into one tiny scone? I want to sue them to pay for my lipo.
Rant over.
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I sucked last night in my belly dancing class. I was stiffer than the basketball-playing med students (who also happen to be in the armed forces--talk about overachievers!), and one left foot kept stepping on the other. The only thing I seemed to do well was, unbelievably, turns. I usually suck at these at home, where I'm generally treading on a dog or running into furniture.
Even the nerd who dances with a look on her face that resembles that of someone being forced to jump from a plane danced better than I did last night.
And I lost my favorite cheap earrings. I bought them in Ireland before Fiona was even born, so they can't possibly be replaced. I never lose anything, but I pick these to lose!
Oh yeah, and how the hell does Starbucks cram 500 calories into one tiny scone? I want to sue them to pay for my lipo.
Rant over.
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Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Shaking Through, Part Two
Tonight is my belly dancing class. I love it. Last week I was on Cloud Nine because the instructor stopped me after class and told me I was doing a great job and to keep it up.
This may seem simple to you, but it's unbelievable to me. I've always loved dancing, but I've never been able to find something I could do that wouldn't make me feel fat and awkward. Ballet and modern choreography just don't look right on a short, stumpy woman, no matter how good a dancer she is. But belly dancing...it's magic. It's a wiggle that any woman with a little grace and a little jell-o in her limbs can make look fantastic and enticing.
It's so rare for me to find something that my body can do well. (Well, there's one thing, but I haven't always been so sure about my ability to do that, either.) I have no idea what I want to do with this. I can't imagine dancing in a recital. I just want to know I can do it and to study to improve. Just for myself.
Another thing I like about this class is that, unlike the last class I took awhile back, it's not populated mostly by gorgeous 20-somethings who've taken 12 years of classical dance and want to try something new. We're all more or less beginners here. And the 20-somethings who are in the class are newbies at dance and perhaps even at understanding their bodies. There's a group of medical students who come together each week who are earnest and hardworking but seem more at home on the basketball court than on the dance floor. Their bodies are stiff, as though they didn't know they could undulate and sway. It's fun watching them loosen up with an art form that's designed by and for women to work with the way a woman's body moves best.
Of course, it's a little unsettling for me to watch myself dance in a mirror. I thought I was a better dancer when I was doing it in the privacy of my bedroom with the terrible lighting. I didn't know then that my arms look like hams when I lift them over my head. And I seem a little stiff myself. I'm looking forward to loosening up and really letting go.
I wish I could get Fiona to do it. I'd like for her to experience the relaxation and joy of letting her body un-self-consciously move the way it's supposed to. Like me, she can be a little tense. But of course, the very idea of me belly dancing, much less her, prompts the never-ending eye roll.
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This may seem simple to you, but it's unbelievable to me. I've always loved dancing, but I've never been able to find something I could do that wouldn't make me feel fat and awkward. Ballet and modern choreography just don't look right on a short, stumpy woman, no matter how good a dancer she is. But belly dancing...it's magic. It's a wiggle that any woman with a little grace and a little jell-o in her limbs can make look fantastic and enticing.
It's so rare for me to find something that my body can do well. (Well, there's one thing, but I haven't always been so sure about my ability to do that, either.) I have no idea what I want to do with this. I can't imagine dancing in a recital. I just want to know I can do it and to study to improve. Just for myself.
Another thing I like about this class is that, unlike the last class I took awhile back, it's not populated mostly by gorgeous 20-somethings who've taken 12 years of classical dance and want to try something new. We're all more or less beginners here. And the 20-somethings who are in the class are newbies at dance and perhaps even at understanding their bodies. There's a group of medical students who come together each week who are earnest and hardworking but seem more at home on the basketball court than on the dance floor. Their bodies are stiff, as though they didn't know they could undulate and sway. It's fun watching them loosen up with an art form that's designed by and for women to work with the way a woman's body moves best.
Of course, it's a little unsettling for me to watch myself dance in a mirror. I thought I was a better dancer when I was doing it in the privacy of my bedroom with the terrible lighting. I didn't know then that my arms look like hams when I lift them over my head. And I seem a little stiff myself. I'm looking forward to loosening up and really letting go.
I wish I could get Fiona to do it. I'd like for her to experience the relaxation and joy of letting her body un-self-consciously move the way it's supposed to. Like me, she can be a little tense. But of course, the very idea of me belly dancing, much less her, prompts the never-ending eye roll.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Shaking Through
Maybe I'm just having one of those hormonal days, but today I'm feeling that I'm only squeaking by in life. I will never be the one at the office to win an award for--well, anything. I'll always get the job done, but I don't feel that I'm excelling. I'm an adequate mother in that I'm keeping a roof over my child's head and food in her belly, but I'm not always understanding what she really needs. And as far as being a good wife, I'm only doing the bare minimum to keep Nearly Perfect Husband from leaving me for someone more attentive.
But here in the the Maryland suburbs, I seem to be surrounded by people who are succeeding. It seems like no one in Montgomery County does anything half way. Their houses are huge, their cars are sparkling, their kids are high achievers, and even their marriages don't reveal their cracks by the light of day. I thought I had a good salary--theirs are better. I thought I had a responsible job--theirs are better, or better yet, they're such good moms they don't even work. They totally devote themselves to driving their kids to numerous practices and lessons, and then, supposedly, they have quality family time when they all get home.
These people even excel at being tired. The busiest mom gets the bragging rights, and it seems that while their comments adopt the language of complaint, their first language is the boast. They're proud of how tired they are, dammit, when all I can think about is how the hell can I spend time with my family, do my job, and actually get enough sleep at night so that I don't have to nap in my car during my lunch hour just to keep from falling asleep at my desk or, horrors, during a meeting.
And when I try to tell these tired moms that my daughter has frustrated me lately, they look at me sympathetically, but they never chime in with their own parenting issues. Never. If I say that Fiona's being snarky and disrespectful, they never offer their own stories. "Really?" they say. "I would never put up with that."
So it's back on me again, the mediocre mom, boss, and wife--the woman with the only disrespectful child in the Metro DC area.
I think they're lying. I think their kids are equally rotten, if not more so. I know their kids are lying to them. I know their husbands occasionally cheat on them and often ignore them. I know there are plenty of nights when they turn their cheeks for a kiss in a clear signal that nothing else will be forthcoming. I know that success is sometimes only a fashion that they wear, but I'm still left bemused by their desire to wear it.
I want out. I want the freedom to admit I ain't all that. When I was a kid, I knew lots of mediocre people leading dull lives, and they were very nice. They were the "salt of the earth." If I'm destined to always finish in the middle of the pack, I want that to be okay.
Who is the Poet Laureate of the ordinary?
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But here in the the Maryland suburbs, I seem to be surrounded by people who are succeeding. It seems like no one in Montgomery County does anything half way. Their houses are huge, their cars are sparkling, their kids are high achievers, and even their marriages don't reveal their cracks by the light of day. I thought I had a good salary--theirs are better. I thought I had a responsible job--theirs are better, or better yet, they're such good moms they don't even work. They totally devote themselves to driving their kids to numerous practices and lessons, and then, supposedly, they have quality family time when they all get home.
These people even excel at being tired. The busiest mom gets the bragging rights, and it seems that while their comments adopt the language of complaint, their first language is the boast. They're proud of how tired they are, dammit, when all I can think about is how the hell can I spend time with my family, do my job, and actually get enough sleep at night so that I don't have to nap in my car during my lunch hour just to keep from falling asleep at my desk or, horrors, during a meeting.
And when I try to tell these tired moms that my daughter has frustrated me lately, they look at me sympathetically, but they never chime in with their own parenting issues. Never. If I say that Fiona's being snarky and disrespectful, they never offer their own stories. "Really?" they say. "I would never put up with that."
So it's back on me again, the mediocre mom, boss, and wife--the woman with the only disrespectful child in the Metro DC area.
I think they're lying. I think their kids are equally rotten, if not more so. I know their kids are lying to them. I know their husbands occasionally cheat on them and often ignore them. I know there are plenty of nights when they turn their cheeks for a kiss in a clear signal that nothing else will be forthcoming. I know that success is sometimes only a fashion that they wear, but I'm still left bemused by their desire to wear it.
I want out. I want the freedom to admit I ain't all that. When I was a kid, I knew lots of mediocre people leading dull lives, and they were very nice. They were the "salt of the earth." If I'm destined to always finish in the middle of the pack, I want that to be okay.
Who is the Poet Laureate of the ordinary?
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Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Nostalgia (or RIP, Athens, GA)
Too much time on my hands at work the other day led me to hunt around the Internet for a rare recording of REM's "So. Central Rain" and thus began for me a long, strange trip into the past that left me astounded by the way a song can take you back to a time that wasn't so great and make it seem golden somehow.
I know that it's only the song that's golden. It's stood the test of time, sounding as fresh as ever nearly 25 years after it was released, while I've moved on, utterly altered by my Athens experience. Living there with the "cool people" taught me some valuable lessons--for example, the cool people are seldom cool. What I thought was a creative, friendly town where I could blossom wound up for me a tomb to the girl I'd created. Good riddance to her, anyway.
I was too star-struck, too happy to be in a place where "weird" was okay, and too willing to trust the wrong people. I loved the wrong people. I utterly lost myself.
So why does a song take me back to a place I never was? If I hear an old REM song, I'm remembering rundown group houses, vintage clothes, seabreezes (the drink, not the winds, for those of you aware of how land-bound Athens is), friends dropping by unannounced at 3 in the morning, and the humid afternoons that lasted until you thought the night, when everything began, would never come. I'm not remembering the breakup that woke me up and sent me packing to DC, nor the false friends who dropped me when He Who Shall Not Be Named (it's a legal thing) stopped speaking to me. I'm not remembering that instead of freedom from Southern narrow-mindedness, I found instead a harsh regime of its own kind. Certain bands weren't cool. You couldn't be seen in your office clothes, or no one would respect you. Under no circumstances were you allowed to like REM's music--but bragging about hanging with them and doing their drugs was de rigeur.
I don't mean to sound bitter about all this years later. I'm over it. It's just so odd how the music bathes it all in a flattering light. Jeff says it's the same kind of amnesia women get about childbirth. If we could remember how painful it was, we'd never slog on and have more than one kid.
By that logic, if we could accurately remember the past, would we keep slogging through life?
I never did find the version of "So. Central Rain" that I wanted, which I think is perfectly fitting.
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I know that it's only the song that's golden. It's stood the test of time, sounding as fresh as ever nearly 25 years after it was released, while I've moved on, utterly altered by my Athens experience. Living there with the "cool people" taught me some valuable lessons--for example, the cool people are seldom cool. What I thought was a creative, friendly town where I could blossom wound up for me a tomb to the girl I'd created. Good riddance to her, anyway.
I was too star-struck, too happy to be in a place where "weird" was okay, and too willing to trust the wrong people. I loved the wrong people. I utterly lost myself.
So why does a song take me back to a place I never was? If I hear an old REM song, I'm remembering rundown group houses, vintage clothes, seabreezes (the drink, not the winds, for those of you aware of how land-bound Athens is), friends dropping by unannounced at 3 in the morning, and the humid afternoons that lasted until you thought the night, when everything began, would never come. I'm not remembering the breakup that woke me up and sent me packing to DC, nor the false friends who dropped me when He Who Shall Not Be Named (it's a legal thing) stopped speaking to me. I'm not remembering that instead of freedom from Southern narrow-mindedness, I found instead a harsh regime of its own kind. Certain bands weren't cool. You couldn't be seen in your office clothes, or no one would respect you. Under no circumstances were you allowed to like REM's music--but bragging about hanging with them and doing their drugs was de rigeur.
I don't mean to sound bitter about all this years later. I'm over it. It's just so odd how the music bathes it all in a flattering light. Jeff says it's the same kind of amnesia women get about childbirth. If we could remember how painful it was, we'd never slog on and have more than one kid.
By that logic, if we could accurately remember the past, would we keep slogging through life?
I never did find the version of "So. Central Rain" that I wanted, which I think is perfectly fitting.
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Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Boredom
I'm going to risk sounding ancient here, but I'm concerned about something I'm observing in my daughter and her friends lately. They are absolutely, positively unable to tolerate boredom. If they find themselves with more than five minutes' unscheduled time that happens to coincide with nothing to watch on television and no friends on IM, they panic. Fiona actually wailed last night about a workout she was doing that was boring, and she wanted to stop. Aren't most workouts boring? Is entertainment really the point?
Perhaps I'm jealous. I haven't been bored in years simply because I haven't had time to be. But I've always found boredom to be liberating, anyway. When my mind is free to wander, it goes to the most interesting places because it's not fettered by a task or deadline. I had a 3 1/2-day weekend this week, and by day two I was actually able to sit down and write a few paragraphs of fiction because my mind had finally had enough leisure to think creatively. Imagery of wild, beautiful animals being released from captivity comes to mind, but I suppose that's a bit trite.
I wish I could explain to her and her peers how liberating boredom can be, and how they're depriving themselves of these precious moments of nothing set to do, no flickering images before them, no electronic beeps alerting them that a friend is online. I didn't have these things when I was young, of course, and my creativity was fertile. Boredom, paradoxically, made life exciting.
I have no idea how these kids are going to fare when they hit the working world. Much as I generally enjoy myself at work, there's a lot of boredom in board rooms. Sometimes while sitting at my desk, I'm appalled at the lack of enthusiasm I have for some of the items on my to-do list that are less interesting or challenging than others. But I'm convinced that I could never have an original thought if my mind weren't free to wander, so I try to embrace the dull.
I'm sure we can blame the parents (I include myself here). It's so much easier to let the television babysit the kids, and isn't it a relief that they have the computer to entertain them while we're vacuuming? Okay, it isn't, really; but now that I want out of all this and want family time reading together, listening to music, or discussing current events, I realize I may not be able to have it. How are we going to have anything to talk about if we don't create some stillness so we can think? And how can children who've been bombarded with stimulation every minute of their lives possibly bear its absence?
Perhaps I'm just blowing hot air here. We parents complain about how we're losing our children to technology, but we don't seem to be willing to do much about it. For example, we still have a television in the house. Just one, and only in the family room, but there it remains. I'd like to kill it, but perhaps I fear missing out on something if I do.
Perhaps if I sit here at work long enough with nothing interesting to do, I'll come up with the answer.
Perhaps I'm jealous. I haven't been bored in years simply because I haven't had time to be. But I've always found boredom to be liberating, anyway. When my mind is free to wander, it goes to the most interesting places because it's not fettered by a task or deadline. I had a 3 1/2-day weekend this week, and by day two I was actually able to sit down and write a few paragraphs of fiction because my mind had finally had enough leisure to think creatively. Imagery of wild, beautiful animals being released from captivity comes to mind, but I suppose that's a bit trite.
I wish I could explain to her and her peers how liberating boredom can be, and how they're depriving themselves of these precious moments of nothing set to do, no flickering images before them, no electronic beeps alerting them that a friend is online. I didn't have these things when I was young, of course, and my creativity was fertile. Boredom, paradoxically, made life exciting.
I have no idea how these kids are going to fare when they hit the working world. Much as I generally enjoy myself at work, there's a lot of boredom in board rooms. Sometimes while sitting at my desk, I'm appalled at the lack of enthusiasm I have for some of the items on my to-do list that are less interesting or challenging than others. But I'm convinced that I could never have an original thought if my mind weren't free to wander, so I try to embrace the dull.
I'm sure we can blame the parents (I include myself here). It's so much easier to let the television babysit the kids, and isn't it a relief that they have the computer to entertain them while we're vacuuming? Okay, it isn't, really; but now that I want out of all this and want family time reading together, listening to music, or discussing current events, I realize I may not be able to have it. How are we going to have anything to talk about if we don't create some stillness so we can think? And how can children who've been bombarded with stimulation every minute of their lives possibly bear its absence?
Perhaps I'm just blowing hot air here. We parents complain about how we're losing our children to technology, but we don't seem to be willing to do much about it. For example, we still have a television in the house. Just one, and only in the family room, but there it remains. I'd like to kill it, but perhaps I fear missing out on something if I do.
Perhaps if I sit here at work long enough with nothing interesting to do, I'll come up with the answer.
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