So, let’s talk about sensitivity… cultural and personal.
I see no reason for us to question all things obvious about
me. But I do have some pet peeves. It’s just that MY pet peeves won’t get any
kind of national attention. In fact, if
you ask the people who peeve me (and they shall remain nameless for the sake of
respect) they will say I am being ridiculous.
And you can take THAT prediction to the bank…. Because it will be true
on a whole bunch of levels. I am going
to be intentionally ridiculous. I am
going to be sincere and, consequently, accidentally ridiculous. I am going to rant and rave. And I will leave it up to you to decide which
is which and if it deserves any kind of national attention, crashing of
statutes or burning of buildings. In the
end, I hope you see it for what it is: an
attempt at entertainment.
I have been doing a lot of ruminating (think cows and
multiple stomachs and you get the idea of thoroughness and duration… and what
it comes out as in the end might be the same?!). I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to do
with my life back when I cared more and head been kicked in the head less. I am looking at relationships I had with
people I worked for or with and I wish I had done a few things differently IF
they were going to do exactly the same thing they did…
Occasion #1.
I lived in Paradise for six years. Then I had to go to Purgatory for an extended
stay. At first, I didn’t realize it was
no longer heaven – it was sunny and pleasant initially… then I had to get a job
to support the base lifestyle to which I wanted to be accustomed. But my new boss, when he hired me, said
something I will never forget if I live to be 400 years old: “I offered this job to a man, but he decided
to move to New Mexico, so I guess I am asking you to come work with us.” I was SO EXCITED that I got offered a job
that would forever change my outlook and life direction that I didn’t even KNOW
that I should have been offended and called Headquarters that he committed a
grievous gender-based slam to my face.
Or I could have just told him where HE could go … but it wasn’t in me
back then to say that. Now I probably
would. Plus, I wanted the job.
It’s not that I am thick-skinned. It is that I am at times an airhead and miss
direct hits as they are intended. So, he
got away with that. And two years later,
when he was reassigned to another post with people he thought he might like
more than our “suburbials” (as Jimmy Walker coined the term), the new guy who
took the post was the exact opposite. I
was upset by something and went in to talk to the new boss. As you can imagine, it took me by complete
surprise that he ran around his desk and swooped me into his arms to “console”
me … and that creeped me out (as well it should, I would find out years later. He no longer has that kind of a job anymore.) To quote my friend Raelynn: “Trust your gut. If it FEELS weird, it IS weird.” I only wish I could give every young woman
in the universe that advice.
Occasion #2
In my field of work, back then in that part of the country,
it was customary to call ALL adults by their first name unless, of course, they
were titled people like politicians, priests and principals. Even the teenagers called us by our first
names – and that was fine because it gives sort of an extended illusion that
you have imbibed from the Fountain of Youth.
All are your peers. All is
friendly. All is well. Kumbya, kum-bay-ahhhhh…
And then I moved to the frozen tundra for a few
decades. Cold climate. Cold people.
Cold harsh reality everywhere you turn.
Any efforts in my field of work were easily 25 years behind-the-times,
consequently there were no full-time jobs in exactly my line of work. I did things that were “close enough” for
less money than you can imagine. And They
practice a totally self-serving maneuver of giving tiny little, if any, raise
based on extra things they load onto your job title. If you have the mental image of a donkey,
loaded down and stumbling along the cliffside path of the Grand Canyon, you are
in the right field of dreams.
Mis-take (something you screw up). Mis-appropriate (something that puts a person
in jail).
Occasion #3.
A village to the north of my state is named after a famous
Polish general that my family-of-origin deeply respects. Wikipedia lists him as follows: “Kazimierz Michał Władysław Wiktor Pułaski of
Ślepowron was a Polish nobleman, soldier and military commander who has been
called, together with his counterpart Michael Kovats de Fabriczy, "the
father of the American cavalry." He is Polish, and he is military and he helped America. Really, the guy didn’t need to be or do much
more to be a folk-hero in the eyes of my people. And his last name seems kind of simple. And yet the rednecks up here pronounce
it: “pool-ask-eye” or maybe more like “pull-ass-k-eye.” When I actually told my family that, two of
the men almost needed cardiac attention.
They began yelling: “what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-them??!!!! The man gave his LIFE for this country and
they can’t even pronounce his name!!!” (Pull-ahs-kee). Do you know why a lot of Polish names end in “ski”
– because we can’t all spell toboggan.
Have my people torn down anyone else’s statues because we are
offended? No. We accept the reality that many nations, many
levels of intelligence, and many levels of class are co-existing here. We do not have an axe to grind. We go to work, we fall in love, we raise our
families and life goes on. This is, in
some part, why when the European immigrants came to this country, they lived in
communities together. It was to keep parts of their culture alive
as they began to assimilate into the bigger picture of America. Language, customs, religious practices,
values – all these things survive longer within the broader embrace of a
community.
A tip of the hat at this point to the Greeks. For all the literature and culture that the
Greeks have to their credit I want to say again that there is one Greek custom
they should re-iterate to their kids. I
was at my friend’s funeral Mass. She had
died, truly, before her Time, in midlife … another victim of the “C” word. No, not this one of 2021 – the real
C-word: “Cancer.”
I sat in the back of the Greek church – at times with my eyes closed
just breathing in the incense and the palpable holiness of the place; then I’d
re-open and study the hagiography (holy pictures of saints). I know some basic Greek and was able to decipher
a few of the captions around pictures – names and phrases. And then the priest stood behind the casket,
but facing the congregation, and he LIFTED THE LID OF THE CASKET. Holy smokes!
What was he doing?!? From somewhere
behind him on a small table he took a small piece of cake on a plate (no it
wasn’t communion) and put it INSIDE the casket!
And I thought to myself, good-gracious, I have found “my people” - any Church that buries you with cake for
the Journey is a truly Great Church. He
closed the lid and began to chant: Hagios ‘o Theos …. Hagios o’Thanatos… Eleison
… ‘emas. (Holy God, Holy Un-dying One,
Have mercy on us. Amen.) All I can say is I hope to marry a Greek man
some day so I can be buried from their Church….
Wow. Cake. They send you out with a piece of cake. I did “corner” one of the little ladies for
the back-story at the funeral luncheon when I saw the entire sheet cake sitting
on the counter with one very obvious wedge missing …. Apparently, they call it “resurrection”
cake because it is made of wheat (and berries) reflecting the words of Jesus, “Unless
a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat
…”
It is for this reason I reiterate the importance of being open to
cultures and more than one way of doing things.
We all bring something cool to the table. Let us live in peace and openness. And let us end with cake.
Occasion #4.
It is not for lack of a hair dresser that my hair is long and a
better color than it used to be. It is
not one more of the inane things people can blame on COVID. We just made it through a national pandemic
and the vanity of Americans is more obvious than ever before. People were bitching about wearing a small
blue mask – which in the scope of inconveniences is really NO BIG DEAL – while others
were getting seriously ill and being carted off to the hospital. Avoiding the polarization of politics – the only
point I am making is the importance of identifying molehills and mountains and
not confusing them with each other…. An art which we aren’t even CLOSE to
mastering.
Decades ago, someone once said to me: “I think women over 40 with long hair look
ridiculous.” It was a woman who said
that. It stuck with me as a sweeping
generalization upon which I intended to put the proverbial “kibosh.” So here I am very well past 40 and my hair is
going the direction God intended it to go …. Long …. And I am loving it. I am giving Crystal Gayle no competition yet
at this point (youngsters: you have to
look her up.) Perhaps I am growing my
hair for the same reason Phil Robertson & the Dynasty men grow beards:
because we can. But my reason for
coloring is different.
I cannot count on only one hand the number of hair dressers I have
asked to change my color one way or the other and they argued with me. This has been all my life. One wouldn’t let me go lighter; the other
wouldn’t let me go darker, etc. ... all the while I hold my checkbook at the
ready to enforce the point of what I want.
They end up doing it the exact color or style that they wanted and it’s MY hair!
At this juncture in my personal
history I want to stand up and definitively say: “If one of my clients can dye
her hair yellow-blonde with fuschia highlights and wonder why people at the
synagogue were staring at her: GET OFF
MY BACK TURKEYS! It is, in the end, MY
HAIR. And all I asked was to go up or
down a shade – not dye the American flag into my head.” There.
I said it. Now hand me my box of
magic Fountain of Youth coloring and have a nice day. It cost me $75 to fight with them but $10 to
have it my way…. You do the math.
So, we have here four examples:
a gender offense, a vocational offense, a cultural offense and a
personal offense. In the end all I can
offer you in all seriousness is that:
being offended can only become a way of life if you let it. I think of
two expressions told to me in my lifetime: “If you look for a reason to be
offended you can always find one” and “Let go; let God.” The latter has much to be said for it; as a
Life Philosophy even though it’s merely 4 words it covers a lot of territory; I’ve
been surprised by that.
It is remarkable that forgiveness is so much more difficult and
makes you so much stronger personally than any amount of push-back and “getting
even” could conjure up. So I submit to
you a favorite in my collection of Life Adages:
“Don’t be a bitter person; be a better person.”
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*Post-script: the opinions above are
not meant to excuse anyone’s bad behavior/manners, etc., nor are they intended
to deny the importance of legal and ethical means of securing the life, liberty
and happiness each person is entitled to by the Constitution. Taxes and DMV fees may apply. See your local dealer for term limits and
exclusions which may also apply. You
have a right to an attorney. Anything
you say can and will be held against you in the court of law. From sea to shining sea with the purple
mountains’ majesty not excluded. (you
get my point – we have to Mirandize everything we say with exclusions). Good night and good news. Amen.
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