Category: Commentary

I was a ridiculously young and naive bride. I had barely ventured beyond the borders of my neighborhood when I decided to marry my husband, Mike. My life had been quite narrowly defined and the role models that I had were limited mostly to members of my family, teachers, and the ladies who lived on the street where I lived. When I was introduced to Mike’s female relatives I felt mostly overwhelmed because they appeared to me to be almost uniformly sophisticated, beautiful, and worldly in a way with which I was unfamiliar. They even wore stylish hats to Christmas dinner! 

While I was certain that Mike was my one true love I felt awkward and quite different from the rest of his family. I suppose that I was all too much like Tom Branson, the Irish chauffeur who married into the wealth and prestige of the Grantham family in Downton Abbey. Mike’s kin were very kind to me, but I was self-conscious and sensed that I didn’t quite fit in. It would be years before I matured enough to build up my confidence and feel quite equal even to those who appeared to be my betters. Along the way I found the one person who would inspire me and demonstrate to me exactly how to be a woman of distinction and great strength. Her name was Rosemary and she was married to Mike’s father’s first cousin. We called her Aunt Rosemary.

Rosemary stood out even among the lovely ladies who populated Mike’s family. Her Irish features pegged her as a descendant of the Emerald Isle even before I knew her story. She had grown up in Chicago, the daughter of a plumber as she often liked to note. She possessed a strong Catholic faith and the firm resolve to help the underdogs of this world when she set out from home to work as a nurse. Along the way she met a very handsome Puerto Rican doctor and the two of them fell in love and began a partnership that would define both romance and enduring commitment. They settled in Houston where he became a noted cardiologist and she devoted her time and talents to supporting his career and raising five lovely daughters. From the time that I first met Rosemary she instantly impressed me as one of the most genuinely loving people that I had ever known. In spite of the awe that I felt for her, she made me feel comfortable and safe. I would silently observe her over the years and vow to pattern myself after her as best I might.

It’s difficult to explain the essence of Rosemary. She was down to earth and refined at one and the same time. She never forgot her own humble beginnings but she was also able to entertain kings and potentates with ease. Perhaps it was because, even with the trappings of success, she never attempted to be anything more than herself, an incredibly giving and sympathetic individual. Rosemary was the kind of person who lived completely outside of herself. She was as kind to the downtrodden as to an influential kingmaker. She read and contemplated the gospels and then lived them as fully as anyone that I have ever known. She was the consummate mother, a devoted wife, an ever faithful friend, and a lifelong learner. She read with a voracious appetite and enjoyed contemplating and discussing new ideas. She was a natural beauty whose inner goodness radiated from her angelic face. She loved and is still loved by all who have had the good fortune to know her. 

Rosemary was my mother-in-law Mary’s best friend. The two of them seemed destined to be together. They shared the same birthday, February 4. They married cousins who are more like brothers. They were highly intelligent women in their own right who were capable of holding their own in even the most esoteric discussions. They both understood how to love deeply and unconditionally and their bond with one another was strong. When my mother-in-law died it was a great loss to everyone. Undoubtedly it was devastating to Rosemary who no longer had her beloved confidante. In characteristic fashion Rosemary quietly assumed the role of guardian over her friend’s family. She watched over my mother just as Mary had. She helped my father-in-law to deal with his grief and celebrated his joy when he found a new bride. She kept in contact with Mike so that he would be certain of her love. She was the guardian angel that I had always known her to be.

Rosemary had a more difficult time spreading her joy in her final days on earth. She had an accident that left her with broken bones and limited mobility. Her healing process was long and tedious due to her age but she was determined to continue to lead her life with as much gusto as she was able to muster. Eventually her health deteriorated even more and she spent her final years bedridden and under the care of nurses.

Rosemary faced down challenges and tragedies for most of her lifetime and she did so done so with wisdom and grace. She was continually surrounded by many people who loved and respected her. In many ways she epitomized the well lived life and was the ultimate feminist. She followed her heart and chose the path that best suited her. Hers was a lifetime of service, a lofty goal which she achieved with humility and little fanfare. She raised five warm hearted and accomplished daughters who like their mother have been a gift to all who know them. Even after all of these years I can’t think of anyone that I would rather emulate than Rosemary. 

As a young girl I used to read stories of saints and biographies of women as I searched for a life that I felt I might attempt to follow. Most of the saints appeared to be too perfect to me except perhaps St. Theresa. Few of the famous women about whom I read captured my fancy other than Eleanor Roosevelt. There was no way that I might have known that I would one day meet the woman who most closely resembled the kind of person that I wanted to be. I knew that Rosemary was my icon almost from the first time that I saw her tending her brood of excited little girls. Nothing about her ever disappointed me. She had the imperfections and fears that are normal for all humans, but she transcended them with her unselfish and giving heart. She taught me that the key to a good life lies in the simple everyday things that we do for those who need our love. 

I continued to learn how to be an amazing woman from Rosemary. Of late I have marveled at her courage and her ability to set her own pain aside. I still hope that I might slowly but surely become more and more like her. It is a lofty goal, but one that has been my holy grail for decades. Rosemary was a true warrior among women and I am most grateful that I have been a recipient of her love. 

Rosemary K. Garcia died on Easter Sunday, a fitting day for someone like her. I have no doubt that she went immediately to heaven. I still thank her for being the woman who inspired me most. She was a living Irish blessing among us and now she is a saint. “May the roads rise to meet you, may the winds be always at your back, may the sunshine warm your face, the rains fall soft on your fields, and until we meet again may God hold you in the hollow of His hand.” I love you, Rosemary!

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.