Month: April 2022

All cultures and religions seem to have some form of coming of age ceremonies. The timing of these rituals varies but usually occurs somewhere in the mid-teenage years. Many of my Hispanic female students celebrated the transition into a new stage of life with elaborate Quinciniera ceremonies at the age of fifteen. In the Jewish faith there are Bar Mitzvahs and in the Catholic Church there is the sacrament of Confirmation. Sometimes turning sixteen means being eligible to apply for a driver’s license or having permission from parents to go out on dates. I’ve even known of young people who get their first cars at sixteen to begin driving themselves to school and helping with family errands.

I remember my sixteenth birthday, but, as was more the norm back in the sixties, there was not a great deal of fanfare attached to that day. My mother would not have been able to afford the extra cost of purchasing more insurance so that I might drive, so my days behind the wheel of a car were delayed until I was working and able to pay the associated bills on my own. What I did receive were very symbolic gifts from my mom. 

She had purchased a beautiful royal blue wool pencil skirt for me that made me feel more womanly and mature than the gathered and pleated skirts that I usually wore. She included a pale blue sweater with a V neck that plunged just enough to make me look grown up, but not enough to expose much of my anatomy. The outfit complimented my thin body so well that I felt like a princess when I gazed in the mirror at how lovely it made me look and feel. 

An additional present from Mama was my very first tube of lipstick. It was the palest of pinks which gave a bit of color to my face without appearing to be ridiculous. I was over the moon with happiness that my mother had so symbolically informed me that she thought I was mature enough to take a step forward into becoming an adult. That moment might have brought me perfect bliss but for the silly antics of my younger brothers who behaved like silly kids upon seeing me so transformed. Their childish reaction was to snatch the tube of lipstick from my fingers and begin a game of catch that annoyed me to the point of screaming at them. Their laughter and silliness drove me to anger, but there was no retrieving my precious cosmetic. Suddenly one of them made a wrong move and my happiness dissolved into tears as I witnessed my lipstick tube hurling to the ground, coming open, and smashing into a pool of pink goo. Somehow in that moment I felt as though I had taken two steps backward into childishness. It was my mother who calmed the situation by chiding my brothers and assuring me that she would replace the ruined lipstick.

I usually had to wear a uniform to school but to my great pleasure my sixteenth birthday coincided with a free dress day on campus. It was a cold November day just as it had always been before the earth began to warm, so I bundled off to school with a coat hiding my brand new clothes. I’ll never forget standing at my locker, slipping out of my outerwear and hearing one of the guys in my class exclaim that I looked fabulous. Nothing like that had ever before happened and I really did feel like the most beautiful girl in the school. It was as though that skirt and sweater had transformed me into a confident person instead of the scared little mouse that I had been only the day before. 

Perhaps there is something quite wonderful about the symbolism of rites of passage. The formal acknowledgement of milestones, no matter how simple or inferred somehow transform us into more confident and independent versions of ourselves. It is the destiny of each of us to shed the skin of our childhoods and venture forth into the world as contributing members of the world. While we often long for that moment when we are in the process of growth, it is also somewhat frightening. When our elders let us know that they believe we are ready, it is a signal that we are on our way to becoming adult members of society. It may be a baby step, but it is forward progress one way or another. 

Memories of my sixteenth birthday are firmly planted in my brain. From that day forward my mother no longer called me her “little doll.” I loved that she stopped using that juvenile description of me. Somehow she knew that it was time for me to complete the process of growing up without reminders that might make me feel that I was not quite ready. 

The next few years would set me on a path of becoming. I would hold down very responsible jobs and positions of leadership both at home and at school. My mother wisely gave me my first taste of wine in our dining room. I quickly got tipsy and realized that I did not like the taste. i would not touch another drop of alcohol until I was twenty one. She also allowed me to puff on a cigarette that I found disgusting after a couple of draws. I never again had the desire to smoke. Her gentle way of introducing me to things that I might encounter out in the world made me realize that I had no need of sneaking around to see what such prohibited moments were like. I discovered in the safety of my home that I had no desire for such behaviors. 

I watch the elaborate celebrations of sixteenth birthdays that occur these days and I sometimes wonder if they actually make the recipients as delightedly happy as I was with my mother’s simple but meaningful way of letting me know that I was well on my way to becoming a woman like her. It was as though she helped me break out of my cocoon and fly away with the wings of a butterfly. It was the most glorious of days and I will always be thankful for the wisdom and love that she showed me as she help to present me to the world.  

I’ll be the first to admit that I just don’t get the fascination with reality television. The forays into the lives of supposedly ordinary people are of little interest to me. First of all I suspect that the cameras are run for many hours more than the final product. What ends up on the screen is a highly edited version of what actually happened during the filming, which I suppose is necessary to create a good story. Nonetheless, I lose curiosity about the people within a few minutes. I find that I care very little about the superficiality of their lives. 

I am generally an observer of people. I have been constantly watching the passing parade of humanity for all of my life. My own mother often corrected me for staring as I intently watched the people that I encountered. I found the most ordinary incidents to be extraordinary, so one would think that I might be one of the biggest fans of reality programs. I suppose that the fact that they are so highly engineered to created particular stories makes them uninteresting to me. I much prefer to do my people watching in the raw when individuals are not really performing so much as just going about the process of living from day to day. I could sit on a bench watching the passing parade of humanity for hours, not the staged productions of television.

It might be argued as Shakespeare so wisely noted that all the world is a stage. Each of us is a player in our own starring role. There are moments when we allow ourselves to be totally natural unedited versions of ourselves and times when we assume a different persona to fit the circumstances. Even our speech changes based on the uniqueness of each situation that we encounter. We learn over the course of our interactions with the world when it is safe to be unscripted and when we must adopt a more formal mode of acting. In a sense each of us plays different characters depending on the conditions in which we find ourselves. 

As a teacher I had to adopt a high level of professionalism. It was important for me to watch the use of language and learn how to be warm and encouraging to my students without crossing a line of inappropriate familiarity with them. I knew that every word that I spoke mattered and that included carefully guarding my personal points of view. My job was to teach mathematics with respect and understanding, but not to push my personal beliefs or to let my ability to cuss like a sailor find its way into my classroom. Such highly personal moments were reserved for members of my family and friends so trusted and dear that they would forgive me for slips of the tongue or behavior. 

When I write I reveal some of my very private thoughts. Composing my blogs and stories provides me with an outlet for honesty that is not always allowed in the other corners of my life. Still, if I were to be entirely truthful, even my most confessional tracts are as edited as those reality programs. I want to convey a particular belief so I leave out the entire dialogue that runs through my mind and only select what I deem to be most important. Some things in my brain are so raw and painful that I can’t even bring myself to tap the keys on my laptop to describe them. Only the most trusted and forgiving of the people that I know ever hear of those things. 

Perhaps reality television is a way for people to live vicariously with individuals who have a lifestyle that is very like or unlike their own. The stories provide individuals with an outlet for their own feelings or perhaps a way of informing their own curiosity about the world. I suspect that those who watch such programs are as interesting in people as I am, but they are so busy that they rarely have time or the inclination to sit on the sidelines of life simply observing. These shows must provide them with a look into situations that they never imagined, a vicarious way of expanding their own world views. 

When I am conducting my own sleuthing into human nature I am enthralled and I rarely find myself judging the people that I see. For some reason the folks on those reality programs irritate me and sometimes even incense me. I find that I rarely like them or their lifestyles. I become police, judge and jury all in a single moment and quickly change the channel. I think it is because the shows are so highly manufactured that they do not allow me to get to know the people on my own terms without preconceived ideas of who they are. I’m forced into a point of view from the start, which simply does not work for me. 

When I watch a series or a movie I enjoy the creativity. I know that I am watching fiction and within the confines of the story there is room for me to form my own reactions to the characters. If the writing, directing and acting is particularly good I find nuances and humanity in the people that always seems to be missing on reality television. I like dimensional people, not flat cardboard versions of them. We humans are so much more complex than what is shown on reality television.

I always thought that reality programming was a passing phase but it actually seems to be more popular than ever. The characters on these shows become famous for doing nothing but mugging for the camera and adopting personas designed to steal the limelight. Because such shows and their participants somehow become part of the news, the characteristics that create standouts has found its way into our politics. Now all the world is a show, making us somehow believe that we too can become stars of the play. Hopefully we will come to understand that it is not real and return to a more serious and real manner of doing things. We have to relearn the difference between reality and entertainment if civilization is to survive.  

I am into my sixth decade of romance with my husband. He and are at the point of having the same thoughts at the same time. Both of us look like the grandparents that we are. Our hair is graying and thinning and our faces are showing all of the signs of age. We could use some sessions at a gym as our mid-sections grow a bit more flabby each year, but we are still madly in love with one another. When we gaze at each other we see someone who is incredibly beautiful. We’d rather be with each other than anyone else. We have shared a lifetime of experiences and it has been remarkable. 

These days our “dates” are rather subdued. We don’t need much to have a very good time. we regularly take continuing education classes at Rice University and those afternoons out remind us of the joy that learning has brought into our lives. We make each Tuesdays a special day, often indulging in our favorite Turkish food or enjoying a po-boy sandwich after the lecture. We have discussions about what we have learned and how the long thread of history has an impact on the present. Those conversations are incredibly romantic to me because from the beginning of our relationship my man has treated me as an intellectual equal. We are a perfectly balanced team with the greatest respect for one another. 

We like to travel together as well. We take our trailer along these days and have so much fun in that twenty one foot space. It’s so cozy that we would have to like each other very much or we would soon be fighting. We’ve have had grand adventures in summer and winter, fall and spring. Soon we will be heading out for some camping in a swampy area filled with gators and I can hardly wait. Somehow just being together in that home away from home brings us even closer together than we already are. 

Some of my friends are now single and their dates are filled with fine dinners, evenings at musicals, and deliveries of flowers for no special reason. This is of course at it should be in a courtship, but my husband and I don’t seem to need those kind of things anymore. A trip to a plant nursery to purchase a new rose bush is much more fun. Setting it into the ground and watching it grow is what we enjoy. We sit in our backyard with the butterflies and doves skittering about enjoying the handiwork we have done in the yard. Just relaxing, sipping on a nice glass of wine and laughing at the same jokes is where we are now. 

There is nothing that says love like being able to spend all day without makeup, padding around in my bare feet and still having my husband walk up and tell me how beautiful I am. It’s lucky that we are so comfortable with who we are together because otherwise we might have driven each other crazy in the past couple of years. Instead we’ve cooked together, watched movies that we both enjoyed and just sat reading and writing without a word. We listen to music and sometimes get in our truck just drive around talking for no reason at all. 

I suppose that my husband learned how to be the perfect partner from his father. My father-in-law is in his nineties and he is incredibly thoughtful with his wife. She has been quite ill for most of the past year. She has to use oxygen all day long and walking to the bathroom is an effort. He patiently and lovingly cares for her without a single complaint. He buys foods that she likes and can still eat. He awakens in the night when she needs assistance. He has become mostly homebound unless some of us come to relieve him of his duties and give him an opportunity to get out for a bit. I seriously find his behavior to be the ultimate form of romance. There is nothing quite as beautiful as continuing to love someone in sickness. 

I suppose that most people would watch me and my husband and think that perhaps the romance has gone out of our relationship because we have grown as comfortable with each other as with an old pair of shoes. We have a set routine but never once have we taken each other for granted. Every minute of every day we know how fortunate we are to have found each other and built our entire lives around each other. All we really need is to be together. 

We have learned how to forgive each other for mistakes and how to laugh at our troubles. We have no doubt that we will make it through anything that comes our way. I can’t think of a greater gift than being able to be totally myself with every one of my flaws exposed and still be loved. I suppose that is why I don’t really need all of the trappings of romance to feel happy and secure.

My one wish would be for everyone to find a relationship like I have. I can’t say that I have done anything special to deserve it. Somehow it just happened and I knew it from our very first date. I remember telling my friends that I had met the guy I was going to marry and I never looked back. We literally grew up together, doing all kinds of stupid things along the way, but always supporting each other no matter what was happening. I’ve been on a romantic journey for decades and it has been bliss.

I’ve become such a fan of Julian Fellows’ The Guilded Age that I even belong to a group that discusses each episode. One thing that I have noticed in the comments is the tendency to dissect the characters with our modern day ways of thinking. Fortunately Fellows has instead studied the era and carefully crafts his characters to behave according to the customs of the time. 

We might wish that the ingenue, Marion, were less naive and more forceful, but she is a product of beliefs about young women that were prevalent back then. She is expected to behave according to a particular code. Deviating from the accepted ways would be a clear pathway to a difficult life, especially for a woman or anyone who is different. 

Thus we may cringe at the seeming deviousness of Aunt Agnes’ son, but we have to remember that he is a gay man living in an age when being so endangered his freedoms. The total lack of understanding and acceptance of who he is forces him to live a lie every single day. Pretense has been forced on him by a society that would make him an outcast and judge him to be a deviant if they learned his truths. 

So it is with every character in the series, people caught in a highly constricting and judgmental time of history when aggressive women were viewed as pariahs and even educated Black citizens were confined to the downstairs. It was a time before an awakening to the value of every person regardless of who they are and where they began their journeys. 

The Guilded Age was just that, a time society was judged and ranked on artificial characteristics over which they often had no control. Women were pretty little adornments for their powerful husbands. Race was segregated from view. Sexual preferences were considered an abomination. The right to vote was confined mostly to white men. For all of the mansions and fashions from France it was in truth a difficult time for most people, even the most wealthy who were never completely free to be themselves. 

As I watch this program and research its authenticity I marvel at how far we have come in our acceptance of one another. Women hold powerful positions in families, industry and the government. Our LGBTQ community is becoming more and more open about who they are and how they feel. All races are demanding the equality that should have been theirs all along. We speak out, tear down social barriers, and advocate for freedoms that once were impossible to achieve for a vast swathe of the population.  

We all have a sense that there is more to do and that our present day ways are imperfect, but few of us would want to return to an age that was so stifling to so many people. In all likelihood few of us would have been members of the wealthiest class that dominated and hoarded the prizes of the era. Most of us would have instead lived rather dreary existences working sixteen hour days at the mercy of barons of industry whose only goals were to make more and more money. 

We might complain about the cost of gasoline today, but we actually have cars to drive. We get stressed over the schools that our children attend, but they get to stay in them for a full twelve years at no cost to us other than the taxes we pay. Many of us have homes that would have been unattainable for ordinary people in earlier times. We dine out at restaurants regularly and attend plays, concerts, ballgames and other events that were unreachable for most people in the nineteenth century. We have an openly gay man holding an important cabinet position in the government and a Black woman serving as Vice President of the United States. We indeed live in a time when opportunities are almost endless for anyone with imagination who is willing to work hard, and yet we spend a great deal of time complaining and longing for an earlier time that we have wrongly imagined was better than the present. 

Life can be tough regardless of advances. We may live in ways that our ancestors would not have been able to imagine, but there are prices to pay, sacrifices to made just to maintain the lifestyles that we have come to take for granted. We want our big screen televisions with hundreds of channels and our fancy phones and laptops without having to give up something else. We are finding out that we may have reached a moment in time that calls for each of us to be willing to give a little and to adapt. 

The world is always changing and asking us to be flexible enough to keep up with it. One day we were riding in buggies pulled by horses and the next we had gasoline powered cars. There was a time when darkness made it difficult to see but soon electricity lit up the world making it possible to be productive twenty four hours a day. Our grandparents were lucky to reach the eighth grade before joining the workforce and now we take high school diplomas for granted. Instead of complaining about where we are now, we should be celebrating that we have come this far. We should be working to make certain that everyone has better opportunities for living a good life. 

Frankly I don’t want to be constricted by the heavy corsets and restricting societal practices of the Guilded Age. I feel fortunate to be living in the present time. Even with all of its problems it is generally a better place for the vast majority of us. I’ll adapt to the rough spots and work toward spreading the freedoms even more. Now that we have broken away there is no turning back. I can be me and you can be you. We have unguilded the times to be freer than ever before. Let’s keep up the work of moving forward. There is still much to do.

When I was in high school I had the same English teacher, Father Shane, for four years. It might have been a disaster had he not been such an incredible educator. In fact, he easily became my all time favorite teacher and the favorite of countless other students as well. I think the secret to his popularity lay in the fact that he introduced us to aspects of life that few of us had ever before known. One of his favorite sayings was that he was going to show us how to be citizens of the world. 

I had never heard of the The New Yorker magazine before he posted cartoons from that periodical with regularity. The satire and artistry in those illustrations were remarkable. They introduced me to the Addams Family before everyone else met them on television and later in movies. To this day I have an online subscription to the magazine and now and again I collect copies of some of the most historic and iconic covers. 

Father Shane also brought reproductions of works of art into the classroom. He took us on field trips to the Museum of Fine Arts to see the sculptures of Alexander Calder. He told funny stories about Matisse and other artists. He showed us how to assess the colors, techniques and subjects of art. He made us aware of the wondrous centers of art across the globe. 

Long after I had graduated from high school and he had died I visited the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. I was stunned by how much of the collection I had learned about from Father Shane. I literally stood in front of some of the pieces thinking, “Hey, Father Shane, here I am looking at some of the greatest art of the century and you helped me to understand and appreciated it.” I even had an emotional moment when I felt so enormously grateful that he had indeed made me a citizen of the world. 

When I visited the Globe Theater in London my thoughts went to Father Shane as well. It was as though I had arrived as a well rounded person as I sat on those hard benches and watched Shakespeare being performed in much the way that it might have been done back in the Elizabethan era. I was proud to be able to explain the story and the language to the rest of the group just as Father Shane had done for me when I was just a teenager wondering why we should have to pore over language filled with cadences and words that were so unfamiliar. 

On a visit to the Tate Museum I knew the story of the Lady of Shalott, a painting that is part of their permanent collection. I would later purchase a lovely English rose named for that character of art and poetry. On every occasion such as these I would marvel at how much Father Shane had taught me in four short years. He was the person who opened my once blind eyes to the beauty of music, art, literature, theater, and even the way we speak and write our language. His gift has been a treasure that keeps me open-minded about the ideas, creations, and talents of my fellow humans both from the past and in the present. 

There is a great deal of concern these days about the influence of teachers on students. Most of that worry centers on unscrupulous teachers attempting to brainwash students. While this does happen sometimes, it is much more likely that students will find that one extraordinary teacher who changes their lives and enlightens their minds.

When I first entered Father Shane’s classroom I was a backward and ignorant little girl. I left with an enlightened mind, ready to learn for a lifetime. I became a great appreciator of the arts just as he predicted I would. I deeply understood the tremendous talent and hard work it takes to create something that endures through the ages. He taught us to look for the nuances of a particular word, a comma, a color, an empty space. When I read or gaze at a work of art I see more than just its superficialities. I can almost feel the soul of the person who made it. 

Upon visiting the British Museum I was walking down a long hall when I saw a tiny painting in a far away room. It beckoned to me and I walked quickly past lovely portraits and landscapes in pursuit of the face of a woman that seemed to be calling me. When I finally stood in front of the striking piece I saw that it had been painted by Leonardo da Vinci. It took my breath away because Father Shane had taught me how to honor the genius of such a treasure. I stood silently for a very long time and tried to imagine what Father Shane would have said about the portrait. I also thought of how remarkable it was that I was looking at a work of art created so long ago by one of the masters of painting. I wondered if I would have even been in that spot at that time if it had not been for Father Shane. 

Perhaps we would do well in today’s atmosphere to applaud our teachers a bit more rather than insinuating that they are ruining our children’s minds. I hate to think that we are damping the spirits of gifted teachers with all of the outrage that surrounds our schools. Who will grow weary and leave the profession? Who will become afraid to discuss certain books or plays or works of art out of fear that someone will complain? There are many Father Shane’s out there who have made a huge difference in the lives of countless students. Find them and remind them of how wonderful they are. Support them in the great work they are doing. Congratulate them for mastering the art of teaching.