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Left, Right, Left, Right…Wrong?

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I received a letter from a reader of the conservative political persuasion who has kindly and thoughtfully taken the time to outline our political differences. In hopes of continuing our dialogue, I herein reprint his letter, followed by my response.

 

To E. P. Harmon:

 

I am amazed at your naiveté and willingness to lay down your arms in face of certain death.

 

You misinterpret religion in saying it does not advocate defending oneself against one’s enemies. I can’t quote scripture but it seems to me that there was a lot of smiting with swords and ass jaws when it was all said and done. Remember the bit where one guy lays his sword down to get a drink of water and gets whacked? Good lesson.

 

Based on your logic, if I broke into your house and started raping you, your husband’s proper reaction would be to sit on the couch and pray that I go away. I don’t think he would do that.

 

We are presently engaged in World War IV—WWIII being the Cold War, which we won, by the way, when Reagan called the communists’ bluff and built up our arsenal, and they couldn’t match the pot.

 

Whether you want to recognize it or not, we have a world-wide entrenched enemy who wants to turn the entire world back to the 8th century. They are using some 20th century tools to do it and I can appreciate the irony of that. Instead of embracing the freedom that you espouse, they would be happy to have every country on earth have women clad in burkas, not attend school, and be told when and whom to marry.

 

I think that if we tried to engage them in the 60’s hippie love-fest you seem so eager to try, they would exploit that weakness and set off the very bomb you are afraid of.

 

Despite your misgivings, security agencies are busy dismantling terrorist groups inside the U.S. every day.

 

In my opinion, Iraq and the entire world are in better places today with Saddam behind bars and on trial by his countrymen, than they were previously. There are no more rape rooms, no torture chambers, no knocks on the door in the middle of the night. The country is bouncing down the bumpy road to democracy. They have achieved within a year something that took our founding fathers sixteen years to accomplish—a constitution. Their country is not going to look like America, nor do we wish it to; it will be what they want, and what their citizens, for the first time in fifty years, actually get to vote on. Last time I looked, Saddam got 100% of the vote; now a popular candidate gets maybe 40%. That is progress. For the first time ever in that country, women voted. The U.S. armed forces, whom you despise, have restored power, brought power where none existed, brought water, hospitals, rebuilt schools. Their citizens are joining their army and police forces in droves to protect their fellow citizens, even knowing they may get blown up by some thug with a bomb while they’re standing in line at a recruiting station.

 

There are now newspapers that print what they want with no fear of reprisal, not just papers run by the state. The most popular things to own are a cell phone, a PC, a satellite TV dish, and a car, all of which were illegal before.

 

Too bad we can’t get North Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam on the same footing as the Iraqis.

 

The world is safer. It’s kind of scary knowing we are in a shooting war, but we have their attention focused, and whenever they stick up their heads we take them off. We are dismantling their networks and making life more difficult. The jihadists are having trouble recruiting people. The Iraqis certainly aren’t. Why should they, with all the improvements in their lives? Why should they want to go back to the 8th century? The terrorists are coming in from outside countries—Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc., but not Iraq. If we were so bad for them, wouldn’t they be getting more Iraqis?

 

I didn’t see this in your articles, but I do have to admit I got a laugh out of the poor schmuck peace activists who got kidnapped by the terrorists. Talk about a group of people that can’t get no respect–it’s gotta be them. The first group goes to Iraq before the war, says we’re here to protest, gets told, “OK, that’s great, form a circle around the Ministry of Defense Building, we think that it might get bombed.” Then the war is over, we are in the square helping the Iraqis pull down Saddam’s statue, when some of the recently freed locals see some of the protesters coming out to chant at us, and tell us to go home, and the locals want to go kill them. Now our guys are having to protect them from the people that Saddam wanted to keep enslaved. Then to top it all off, they get captured by terrorists whom they wanted to support all along. You just have to wonder what was going through their heads. I wonder if it was, “Hey, Ahmed, I love you, I want your side to win, you’ve got the wrong guys.” LOL.

 

Seems to me you also have some issues to resolve with your father. You might want to seek some professional help. If I read that, and you were my kid, I’d be writing you out of the will. You equate people in the U.S. Armed Forces with your basic terrorist? Maybe your Dad didn’t take you to the base often enough, or teach you the code of the armed forces, or let you read the UCMJ or something. You apparently believe Kerry’s lies (which he has since denied, once he got caught) that there was widespread baby killing going on in Vietnam, or that all soldiers are like the losers in Abu Graib. You think someone who regrets the taking of innocent civilian lives, and who can get punished if he does, is morally equivalent to someone who straps on a bomb wrapped in nails and steps onto a school bus full of children. You simply amaze me.

 

But isn’t it nice, to be able to post this blog in a wonderful country like America, where you don’t have to walk two steps behind your husband wrapped head to toe and be kept illiterate, where if your blog were discovered you would be whisked off to the rape room where you would be gang-banged in front of your husband and children?

 

Your basic premise, that all we have to do is be nice enough and kind enough and that the rest of the world will turn away from evil simply because we wish it so is not real.

 

Sleep tight. Your American soldiers are protecting you, whether you want them to, whether you appreciate it, or understand it, or not.

 

 

From E. P. Harmon:

 

A lot of left/right political disagreements arise because people come to trust very different sources of information; the basic “facts” and assumptions we each accept as “true” are often quite different ones. Yet we all have to trust someone, sometime, and no one can arrive at a belief system entirely from firsthand experience. For instance, probably neither of us has ever been to Iraq; yet even people who have visited there, or who have lived there, or even grew up there, don’t agree about what’s going on there. It’s always hard to know whom to believe.

 

We can choose to listen to and trust generalists and popular authorities—public school texts, teachers, ministers, politicians, talk-show hosts…or we may choose to read and listen to experienced specialists with sterling credentials in various fields of expertise. But regardless of whom we read and hear and consider, all authorities are biased, because they, too, have arrived at their conclusions secondhand, and using incomplete information. No one ever knows everything.

 

Yet you and I and everyone else must nevertheless struggle to make a living, understand life, contribute, care for ourselves and our loved ones, and perhaps, realize some of our dreams—and most of the steps we take along the way are difficult ones—from childhood until the day we die. I think we would both agree that we live in a world full of people who are often angry, confused, and dangerous, and that to be human is often to be mistaken and harmful.

 

In the midst of all this struggle, pain, and confusion, we have to make a myriad of moment-to-moment decisions on every conceivable thing. With each decision, we can take only one of two courses of action, neither of which guarantees good results, safety, or prosperity, neither of which feels like an obvious best choice, neither of which is completely defensible, and both of which are risky, confusing, frightening, and difficult.

 

One course of action is to focus on our fears about the evil that mankind is capable of. This fear-based course of action can seem like common sense if we feel individually and collectively under constant attack from those who would hurt or compete with us. This course urges us to prepare to defend ourselves, to act aggressively, and to return fear with more fear, on both a personal and global scale.

 

A second course of action focuses on the good people are capable of, believing that love, in all its forms (respect, gentleness, openness, kindness, listening, patience, forbearance, acceptance, tolerance, forgiveness, cooperativeness, agreeableness, and so on) is stronger than fear in all its forms (hate, anger, violence, envy, suspicion, jealousy, greed, etc.), and also works better to improve human lives and relationships in the long run, whether personal or global.

 

A fear-based life assumes that, aside from minor human similarities, few people are really very much like you; most are less trustworthy, less virtuous, and less reliable, and most are more dangerous—so it makes sense to hold people at arms’ length, to hurt them before they hurt you, and to hurt them back, even more, when you are hurt.

 

A love-based life assumes that, despite superficial differences, most people are very much like you in most ways, having the same human sets of fears and needs and goals and loves and failings as you do—so it makes sense to offer compassion, respect, and forgiveness to all, including yourself (i.e., treat others as you would want to be treated—the “golden rule.”)

 

Both courses of action rely upon having in mind a particular attitude—“where you come from” mentally—rather than any differences in “what’s really out there.” Both courses of action are difficult paths to travel, confusing, and tenuous. Both require courage to live faithfully. Neither offers any guarantee of safety.

 

A life based on self-protection can offer comforting feelings of power, control, and safety—at times. But since most people like to be trusted, loved, and forgiven for their many mistakes, a defensive/aggressive attitude can become an increasingly lonely option, as relationships become more complicated and difficult to control, micromanage, or resolve—both personally and globally.

 

A life based on open giving also has many drawbacks and disappointments. No one likes getting kicked in the teeth, suffering injustice, or being walked on. A life based in love can be very frustrating, since love is an ideal impossible for humans to live up to—and no one ever gets it right. At most, you can chip away at such goals, and hope to keep on improving. Even then, since everyone is human and fallible, others will still hurt us and let us down, and we’ll still do the same to others. On the whole, though, people who care and trust and forgive draw other like-minded people to them, so lives based in love often move toward greater sharing, acceptance, support, and peace—both personally and globally.

 

Both general courses of action are logically indefensible. Laying down one’s defenses and allowing oneself to be vulnerable and open seems like asking for nothing but trouble—both personal and global. And just as surely, schoolyard bullies and warmongers seem to be asking for trouble, since they frighten and alienate others and accumulate dangerous, angry enemies, both personal and global.

 

Is either of these approaches right, and the other one wrong? Who can say? Everyone gets to choose the approach they think will work best for them.

 

In response to some specific comments in your letter: No, I don’t hate military forces, either ours or “theirs.” I believe that most soldiers everywhere, on all sides, are trying their best to live good lives and live up to their ideals. I have lived around soldiers all my life, and am drawn to their courage, idealism, and selflessness. It is true that I don’t distinguish between the actions of soldiers who drop expensive high-tech explosives on civilian populations, and the actions of suicide bombers who strap themselves with cheap nail-bombs and climb on school buses; both choose to further their political goals by indiscriminate, deliberate acts of violence that result, as you say, in dead babies, which I can’t agree with, no matter what the cause; there has to be a better way to achieve one’s political ends. Yet both sides believe their cause is just, and both are willing to sacrifice their lives, and others’, for their ideals and beliefs.

 

I am profoundly impressed by the vision and courage of the many senior officers currently in our Department of Defense, not to mention the line officers and foot soldiers, who are exploring and suggesting peaceful, effective, and far less costly alternative approaches to defending our country that don’t involve militancy and war, demonstrating the admirable and thoughtful tradition of leadership and high ideals historically associated with our military.

 

I’m not a pacifist, although I suspect I might be safer and happier if I were, just as the noncombatant Quaker farmers who welcomed all weary soldiers from both sides were safer during the Civil War. If someone were climbing in my window, though, I would defend myself and my family, although research tells us that reacting fearfully and aggressively (especially using weapons) during such situations usually produces worse results all around.

 

I don’t believe God co-authored any religious documents (including the Bible and the Koran), although we can all receive his inspiration if we ask for it,. I do, however, think that most collections of ancient religious writings (like the Bible and the Koran) offer a lot of wisdom, along with some clunkers; fortunately, God gave us brains so we could thoughtfully tell which passages are which. Anyone can find a rationale for anything if they look hard enough in religious texts, including both violent and non-violent action.

 

I’m wary of all explanations of what went on in the past—what we call “history”—because history is always written by the victors. The truth is, no one can ever know for sure the whole story about any event in the past, just as we can’t even be sure we have the whole story today when reading the newspaper—which is the first, and always controversial, rough draft of history. There are, for instance, a variety of versions of why the Cold War ended. I always like to ask myself, when reading someone’s theory: “Who is benefiting from people believing this particular version?” And although I approach all history cautiously, I was a college history major, and love reading history.

 

I don’t think either you or I are naïve about the depths of ignorance, depravity, despair, and cruelty to which people everywhere can fall. I do think it’s naïve, however, to imagine that one’s own familiar, particular culture has a lock on moral superiority. Every culture has much of value to learn from every other, so it’s naive to think that “we” (“our” culture, religion, nation, race, ethnicity, gender, kind, etc.) is “right,” “superior,” and “good,” while other, unfamiliar ones are “wrong,” “inferior,” and “bad.” We should be very suspicious of all the frightening things we hear about foreign nations, religions, and cultures, because well-paid demagogues whose last interest is truth create huge profits for those who pay them well to drum up fear. If America had as many crazed, bloodthirsty enemies as some demagogues now claim, all the kings horses and men couldn’t have prevented whole U.S. cities from being blown away long ago, our civic water supplies and food supplies being poisoned, and so on. It’s just too easy to wreak civic havoc cheaply and anonymously.

 

I also think it’s naïve to assume that our own local or national politicians are generally any more trustworthy than are politicians anywhere, or smarter, or any less greedy, or any less megalomaniacal. That’s why our framers built checks and balances into our constitution, and why we should strive to maintain them.

 

I also think it’s naïve to think that a non-violent democracy can arise courtesy of a violent foreign occupation, or that torture and rape are not natural outcomes of, and necessary to the maintenance of any violently-achieved power structure, or that freedom of the press is not repressed by unchecked power, or that the ranks of armies are not filled with desperate people willing to accept jobs and money from any well-heeled power.

 

It’s naïve to think that any war, ever, is initiated for unselfish, pure motives. It’s naïve to think that gentle, cooperative people living quietly in the lands of their ancestors are the bad guys, while the good guys are the armies from afar blowing everything up. It’s naïve to assume that partisan politicians are ever fully in control of any situation, or have much of a clue about taking care of people, or about international relations, or about running wars. It’s naïve to think that more killing ever results in less killing, and that hatred and violence don’t create more hatred and violence. It’s naïve to think that any nation with a growing number of enemies will be safe during the 21st century.

 

It’s naïve to think that the most-endangered and most-threatened nation in the world today, the one most urgently in need of taking pre-emptive military action to protect itself, is also the single, most-feared hegemonic empire best-armed with far more nuclear and conventional and high-tech weapons and money and soldiers and political and economic power than any other alliance of nations in the history of the world, the one nation with established military bases all over the world, the one nation currently waging wars in countries with prized economic resources, while ignoring (or supporting) dictatorships and tyrannies elsewhere.

 

It’s naïve to assume that any bureaucracy allowed to hide its activities behind a cloak of “national defense” is telling the truth about its results. It’s naïve to think that a small minority of citizens who perceive they have an interest in voting every four years for one of two unappealing candidates from two smarmy and very similar political parties running big-money campaigns in elections replete with fraud, have achieved much more than a degree of democracy. To be sure, I count my blessings and strive to strengthen the many great things this nation has achieved, because many countries are far less democratic. On the other hand, there are many far more democratic countries (including some without constitutions, by the way) from whom we could learn a lot.

 

On the subject of Islam: No one likes change, and Islamic migration has frightened those in the West who know only enough about Muslims to be terrified of what TV, radio, and pulpit demagogues tell them. Yet the highest and best practitioners of all major religions, including Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, are people anyone would respect, for their caring, their responsible lives, and for their great wisdom—if only we had the opportunity to know and understand them. On the other hand, there are practitioners in every religion, including Christians, Muslims, and Jews, who are ignorant, terrified, angry people who would bomb whole countries, who hate whole civilizations, races, and even genders, because they fear them too much to make an effort to understand them.

 

The West has much to learn from Islamic culture, as Islam has much to learn from us. Furthermore, both cultures are often wrong, mistaken, and cruel—in different ways. All cultures, ours included, grow accustomed and blind to their own particular sets of shortcomings. For instance, most Muslims are simply aghast that our culture allows so many young girls to grow up alienated from their families, schools, and churches, to become diseased, pregnant, promiscuous, alcoholic, addicted to drugs, divorced, abandoned, prostitutes, single mothers, etc. Just as we, in the West, are dismayed when we hear that Muslims cover their women and keep them hidden and schooled at home. The only thing we can know for sure, though, about what we hear, is that nothing is ever as simple as it seems, and to be wary of well-rewarded demagogues and their sponsors, who have a lot to gain financially from terrifying people with horrifying visions of the inhumanity and stupidity of our imagined enemy-of-the-day. The only road away from fear is understanding, which only comes with willingness to actively learn more about what it is we fear.

 

Non-violent activism, a form of love, is the most powerful force in the world, far more powerful than armies and weapons and bombs. Gandhi’s non-violent protests brought down the most powerful empire in the world in India, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s non-violent power brought civil rights to blacks in the American South. Both of these were long-standing, hard, hard problems, resolved, not by cowards and flakes, or by violence, but by courageous people of faith, who believed in the power of love, and who offered the tough, powerful solution of non-violent political activism.

 

The night before he died, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It’s nonviolence—or nonexistence.” The Dalai Lama has declared the 21st century, “the century of dialogue.” We can all learn more when we exchange views, listen to one another, ask questions, and keep an open mind.

 

Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

If You Love the Little Children of the World

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Sing this song to the tune of “Jesus Loves the Little Children…” (or the Civil War song, “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching,” which is the same tune.)

 

We’re so sick of all the fighting

Sick of wars around the world

Red and yellow black and white

Stop the fighting, it’s not right

If you love the little children of the world

 

Won’t you put away your weapons

They just hurt our moms and dads

All our friends and family too

'Til we don’t know what to do

If you love the little children of the world

 

Won’t you try to solve your problems

Please take turns and share your toys

You don’t have to fuss and fight

‘Cause it hurts us most, that’s right

If you love the little children of the world

 

Let us play with other children

Go to school and sing our songs

If you let us learn and play

You’ll be glad you did, some day

If you love the little children of the world

 

Please believe in one another

Trust that others are like you

Everybody needs a hand

All together we can stand

If you love the little children of the world

 

Please remember all are brothers

Doesn’t matter where we’re from

Different people can be one

Let’s be friends with everyone

If you love the little children of the world

 

Won’t you stay at home and raise us

Don’t go marching off to war

We need help and we need care

Need to know that you’ll be there

If you love the little children of the world

 

Won’t you try to keep your temper

Doesn’t matter, wrong or right

Please be gentle, please be mild

Then you’ll never hurt a child

If you love the little children of the world

 

Hating hurts the little children

Children all around the world

Suffer day and suffer night

Stop the hating, it’s not right

If you love the little children of the world

 

If they start a war tomorrow

Please just tell them you won’t go

Please stay home and care for me

Oh how happy we will be

If you love the little children of the world

 

Never hurt another person

Even though life seems unfair

Even when your heart is blue

We’ll hold hands and see it through

If you love the little children of the world

 

Please don’t be one of the bad guys

Never let that guy be you

All the guys who blow things up

How we wish they would grow up

If you love the little children of the world

 

Please don’t ever hurt another

Sad things happen when you do

Find a way to end the fight

Find a way to make things right

If you love the little children of the world

 

Won't you please just solve your problems

Talk them over till you do

Take your time and stay up late

There’s no hurry, we can wait

If you love the little children of the world

 

Fighting only makes it harder

Try to share and share alike

There’s enough for all, it’s true

When we do what we should do

If you love the little children of the world

 

Won’t you stop all of the hurting

All the crying and the pain

Help us keep our eyes and hands

Let us live in our own lands

If you love the little children of the world

 

It’s not really so confusing

You can do it if you try

Do as you would want them to

It’s not really hard to do

If you love the little children of the world

 

Hold your ears and never listen

To the mean things people say

You don’t have to be afraid

We’re a family God has made

If you love the little children of the world

 

Help us build a world for children

All the children of the world

Build a world of peace and joy

Safe for every girl and boy

If you love the little children of the world

 

Do you have a suggestion for another verse or two? Do you have a favorite? Thanks!

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real Geisha, Real Women, Real Men, Real Relationships, Real Feminism

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In Memoirs of a Geisha, director Rob Marshall missed out on a real opportunity to be a useful iconoclast showing the west what’s so special about geisha: why men admire and want them, what esoteric knowledge they have about pleasing men, how they work their spells….

 

Instead, Marshall played out only the same-old-same-old standard, politically-correct, puritanical view that geisha (and other sex workers) are pitiable at best and contemptible at worst, either evil manipulators or miserable powerless victims exploited heartlessly by the self-serving animals they generously called men….

 

Marshall also chose to heavily reinforce the popular delusion that no real feminist could ever, in good conscience, put herself in service to a man.

 

To be sure, Marshall provided us with beautiful, talented actresses dressed up in gorgeous geisha outfits, and acting out a poignant variety of human emotions on arresting, historically and culturally accurate sets. But none of this display showed any hint of the range of talents and social skills displayed by truly accomplished professional geisha.

 

Marshall’s vision suggests that geisha's primarily physical services emerge from a secretive, machiavellian world of women who dislike and disrespect men, and who plot together to exploit men’s weaknesses.

 

Nearly all religious and philosophical traditions, not to mention leaders in every field, teach that selfless, caring, compassionate service to others is a powerful, transformative act (the golden rule, even.) Rob Marshall could have chosen to offer a sympathetic alternative view of geisha—one less politically-correct—as a select, prosperous, accomplished group of women who like and enjoy men and feel comfortable with physical intimacy, who have mastered the arcane arts of pleasing men, and who accept the limitations and dangers of their work—women with skills, beauty, and talent who choose this line of work over other career options, among them, marriage.

 

The important, tragic and unfeminist thing about sex work is not that it provides a service, but that it usually exploits people economically, just as, say, child labor and child trafficking and porn does, or just as any other poorly paid, undervalued, and underappreciated work does. Feminists are rightly concerned about the grossly inhumane contexts in which workers with no economic options must sell their bodies into undervalued servitude—or die. Sex workers at the low end, like all other unskilled laborers, are victims of indifferent societies that first casually produce and then abandon them.

 

Feminists are legitimately concerned with women (and men) who have few or no choices because of gender discrimination, or whose particular and uniquely individually-selected gifts are rejected, devalued or unreciprocated because of gender discrimination.

 

Beyond such ravages of economic and gender exploitation, feminism has no legitimate interest in judging women’s specific choices of activities, such as, for instance, all the many possible forms of loving, or being loved by men and women. Loving men and women, including their bodies, does not necessarily imply gender exploitation or degradation or subservience, however distasteful or immoral some may judge it to be.

 

Nevertheless, even the world’s top geisha get no respect for their work from puritanical westerners, not because their work is sexist, but for the same reason that prostitution is everywhere disrespected:  prostitutes’ competitors–the many “honest women” happily ensconced within the powerful majority who believe they have a real stake in insuring that sex workers remain hidden and powerless.

 

Many modern women are completely confused about whether feminism is compatible with any kind of compassionate service (especially to men!) at all. Some women have come to wonder if service work of any kind–nursing, house cleaning, waiting tables–is unfeminist and demeaning. Many women feel constrained even within their marriages or romantic relationships, fearing that offering a life of lovingly exchanged service to a man must surely be anti-feminist—a form of caving to the enemy, of servility. 

 

When modern women do find it within themselves to offer men their friendliest services, many still wonder if there’s not something smarmy or beneath them about such offerings, even if their every hormone and natural givingness urges them ceaselessly to slather their beloved with wholehearted attention and kindness.

 

There is nothing sexist or anti-feminist about loving men (or women, for that matter)–about attracting them, pleasing them, or giving to them wholeheartedly. Loving, giving, and compassionate service of all kinds are never unworthy in themselves, although unworthy contexts involving extremes of compulsion, lack of appreciation and reciprocation truly are sexist and immoral.

 

Devoted service offered willingly and lovingly in an appreciative, reciprocal (if not tit-for-tat) context is absolutely necessary to optimal human functioning and happiness, and completely different from the kind of forced or half-hearted service in which someone’s gifts are disparaged, unreciprocated, and unappreciated.

 

Too many people nowadays overlook the fact that the very essence of a good relationship is standing in service to one another, regardless of whether that partnership is between husband and wife, mother and daughter, friends, siblings, in-laws, a CEO and her new mail clerk, young lovers…whoever.

 

Every conceivable positive relationship is based in reciprocal service. Relationships that are not about reciprocal service—however loosely defined—are not really relationships at all; they’re isolated billiard balls knocking about an empty lonely pool table universe, banging together sporadically and spectacularly in conflict and competition before resuming their separated lives.

 

The most universally prized life-enhancing romantic relationship, regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman, is one in which your dearly-beloved treats you like a king (or a princess), a goddess (or a god). Among the keys to such heavenly bliss are good-faith, wholeheartedness, appreciation, and reciprocation.

 

Because of confusion about the subtleties of feminism, modern romantic relationships evolved to become less concerned with caring, commitment, and helping one another in a challenging world, and more about cold, competitive calculations and sexual politics. Both sexes worry whether warm displays of affection will be perceived to be neediness. Both sexes fear that generous-spirited service iwill mply servitude. Both sexes exhaust themselves in endless, awkward, conflicted, back-and-forth rituals of worrying whether they’re giving more than they receive. Both sexes are all about, “you go first.” Yet both sexes are fully aware that their beloved wants a partner who is both powerful and slavishly devoted—because frankly, that’s what they want too. Many people deeply enjoy the lavish, tender, solicitous attention of an enchanting member of the opposite sex.

 

More young people of both sexes these days are giving up on what they see as the relationship game, foregoing the pain and uncertainty of modern committed relationships in great part because of their understandable confusion about the wisdom of putting themselves at service to another. I mean, if their long-dreamed-of personification of virtuous masculine/feminine perfections is ultimately unwilling to bow down, worship and serve them all their days, well really, why bother?

 

The age-old willingness of both sexes to offer their personal gifts to a single individual over a lifetime is in considerable decline, and considering the grave new shortage of available perfect partners for such paragons, may never recover.

 

Some women who would willingly offer loving service to women friends still feel historically (and often legitimately) constrained about giving to men, who thus are relegated to a very sad, under-served, second-class half of the world of often otherwise deserving, well-intentioned parents, bosses, employees, children, siblings, friends, and colleagues, which is too bad, too.

 

If feminists want more solidarity and sisterhood, they might consider offering compassionate service and empathy to exploited (or unexploited) sex workers. And while they’re doing that, they might benefit from listening to such workers’ hard-won geisha-type advice about how to please men, just as men could learn much from their gender's most supportive exemplars.

 

Most single young women today devote a large part of their earnings and their waking hours to pleasing men anyway, regardless of how feministically-conflicted they may feel about such efforts. Consider the successes of recent best-sellers offering love advice from former prostitutes….

 

It is certainly grossly sexist when women (and men) are constrained, unwilling givers to unappreciative, inequitable, unreciprocating receivers who have been deluded into thinking that such service is the rightful due of their gender.

 

Much of modern feminism is a reaction against unappreciative men who historically not only gobbled up all the good jobs and roles, but also most of the money, prestige and power that came along with them, and who later had the nerve to expect continued affectionate service from women, not as a freely-given, loving, and valued gift, but as their legitimate if unreciprocated due. Women, too, are finally seeing the sexism behind the long-standing assumption that men owe women a living….

 

To the often justifiably-aggrieved women who find little to like about men: please stop insisting that there’s something slavish, inappropriate, and/or sexist about freely choosing to be in a generous, mutually supportive relationship with a man (or a woman?) There isn’t.

 

Forewarned is forearmed: men like women who like them. If you don't much care for your man, or for men in general, for whatever reasons, don’t be surprised if he someday wanders off with someone completely unworthy of him but who likes him a lot and aims to please. The same goes for men who don't find much to like about women.

 

To all women: please try to see fit never again to disrespect a geisha or any other sex worker. Like the rest of us bumbling God-isn’t-finished-with-us-yet-either humans, sex workers need compassion, acceptance, and understanding, not contempt.

 

And finally, to women who love men, or who want to learn how to love them better, we can all reasonably choose, if we wish to, to learn a lot from geisha. Because geisha aren’t just about sex, you know. Sexuality, like spirituality, pervades all aspects of life. It's not just about genitals. The brain, they say, is the most important sex organ. Geisha know a lot about making men happier which is well worth knowing, if you’re one of the many who aspire to mutually enjoy and serve another.

 

Geisha lore offers a tempting (but not exclusive) window on relatively rare social arts: attentiveness, affection, tenderness, flirting, gentleness, refinement, courtesy, agreeableness, femininity, respect, presence, charm, humor, kindness, intellect, sensitivity, openness, loyalty, sensuality, giving, honoring, playfulness, intimacy, nurturing, acceptance, forgiveness, support, generosity, assistance, vulnerability, respect for tradition, and, in general, making a fuss over, and spoiling men rotten. Geisha are really good at making men feel truly wonderful about themselves. What’s not to like about that?

 

Whenever and however did this venerable list of praiseworthy social skills become politically incorrect? These subtly but important graces–along with physical beauty, gorgeous accoutrements, and skill in the arts of music, dance, serving food and the like–are a goodly part of what real geisha are all about, not to mention real women, real men, real relationships, and real feminism.

 

I don’t see much clarity about any of this in today’s society. I would love to see more thoughtful commentary and dialogue on these engaging contemporary issues, and regret not having found an in-depth treatment of them in Rob Marshall’s movie. I do think his film was beautiful made and visually and emotionally rich; he just missed this one important boat.

 

I hope someday to see highly-accomplished geisha finally receive from western audiences the recognition, support, and respect due them for their historic, centuries-old, artful, dedicated, cheerful, and very valuable example of freely-given, highly-valued compassionate service—not servitude or subjugation—to fortunate and highly appreciative men.

 

Please write comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

Here is a conversation I had with a thoughtful reader….)

 

 

Hello,

 

        A colleague forwarded your article to me, and I found it most interesting.   I agree with the vast majority of your assertions (although Marshall's set was not, in actuality, culturally accurate).    I wrote a doctoral dissertation on geisha (2002), and I propose geisha as feminists. I have an article in a book entitled Bad Girls of Japan; in a dialogue between me, a few geisha, and several customers, we discuss geisha as feminists.  I spent almost three years with geisha, and studied them as artists; I frame them as women in control of their own futures and outline just exactly how they exist within the arts world (the Ph.D. was completed in ethnomusicology).    I propose that the “bought and sold” model of geisha so treasured in America is a form of feminist Orientalism, and we need this false notion if we are to appear advanced in the gender department (another pipe dream).

    The film was ridiculous.   Even someone who's seen geisha for only a few minutes would never have tried to pass that off as accurate.   The Chinese actresses the country continues to rave about were pathetic actresses — we just have poor standards for this.   Real geisha couldn't be more different.

     The arts scenes were so far off as to be laughable — imagine casting the American basketball team as the Bolshoi, putting them in leotards, giving them a few lessons, and then allowing their “dance” to be passed off seriously as ballerinas.   These Chinese actresses couldn't even wear kimono properly because they hadn't done it for thirty odd years, couldn’t walk properly (an art learned from dance).

     Anyway, kudos to you for smelling a fraud even though you don't have the experience I've had, and for pointing out one of America's greatest blind spots.   Unfortunately, the rest of the nation is eagerly gobbling up the fantasy, and real geisha will suffer the consequences because young Japanese men don't want to be part of something that the world condemns.

      Feel free to email — kforeman69@hotmail.com

 

Best,

Kelly Foreman, Ph.D.

 

Dear Kelly,

 

Thank you so much for your thoughtful and interesting letter; it was very gratifying to hear from a scholar who is so experienced and knowledgeable about geisha, and I appreciated your support as well as your clarifications. What a fascinating experience you had in Japan!

 

My background in geisha and feminism is avocational. I was introduced to an exquisite geisha in Kyoto when I was a little girl, visiting the gardens surrounding a teahouse during the early 50's, and later that night saw more geisha singing and dancing on a kabuki stage, if my memory serves correctly. My father, a great Japanophile, was stationed in Tokyo in the U.S. occupation army–we lived there three years. My father described the “top” geisha to me as prized national treasures, personifications of the Japanese feminine ideal, carriers of a long oral cultural tradition, and the epitome of social refinement, courtesy, sensitivity, delicacy. My dad was my childhood hero, so his admiration piqued my interest greatly.

 

Perhaps I read a review of Bad Girls and picked up your idea of geisha as feminists–I don't remember, I'm sorry–we bloggers are pretty free to throw “our” stuff “out there” unhitched to anything, and just see what happens, unlike you more conscientious folk…. I really like your great thesis and agree with it, and I loved your NBA/Bolshoi image….

 

I've been blogging since Feb 05 and am enjoying it.  I forwarded the geisha article to your colleague (I only sent it to one person) since her name came up, when, as an afterthought, I googled “geisha” + “feminism.” I had started the piece as a review of Memoirs of a Geisha, and I guess it got away from me!

 

Thanks, too, for your comment on the set. The old town took me back a long ways into nostalgia-land, although to be sure, I shouldn't have pronounced it accurate, since I didn't know. I remember that I would take my 200-yen allowance weekly and wander the little shops in search of treasures. Everyone was always so kind to me–I'm still drawn to Asians. I didn't know there had been a war; I felt perfectly safe.

 

I will look for your book/article…. I hope to return to Japan some day. I remember spending a week at a lake resort called Kanizawa (I'm not sure of the spelling)–perhaps it has changed less than Tokyo? My favorite movie is Lost in Translation–I watch it over and over. I mean to review it–I'll send it when I do…. I've also been accused of having Japanese influences in my art–my compositions and technique too? I posted a couple of my portraits on my blog–do you see a Japanese influence? Interesting, as I left Japan when I was only 9.

 

What a fascinating field you are in–it's just exploding.

 

I really like/agree with your thesis on the American view of geisha; I'm guessing that the Japanese view is very mixed? I do hope some still cherish the geisha. Yes, the young everywhere are easily embarrassed by old ways, and hasten to throw them out; our Indian cultures come to mind. I remember how WEIRD I thought authentic (American) Indian music was when I first heard a recording (in elementary school)–anything different shocks the young–they are so rigid so early. I love it now, so it must have been a fruitful introduction–I stayed intrigued.

 

I was very interested by what you said about the actors' portrayal of the geisha in the movie, because I thought perhaps my memory might have been playing tricks on me. The movie geisha, to me, looked, in comparison to remembered geisha, very big, crude, and galumphing, sort of, although of course they are beautiful women. I loved Gong Li in To Live and earlier movies of Zhang Zhi (spelling?) better. My very different memory of geisha is of amazingly tiny, delicate, small birds. They also had beautiful cultivated voices, and were incredibly poised; every move seemed artless yet amazingly beautiful. My geisha was so gentle and warm to the little girl (me) shyly admiring her. And yes, no one in the movie reproduced their incredible walk….

 

I do recall seeing Sayonara many years ago, and the geisha/star in that movie seemed more authentic; I'll have to Netflix it and see what I think now, lo these many years later….

 

Thank you again, Kelly, for your kudos and your kindness. If I receive any interesting mail on the topic, I'll forward it to you. I will be very interested to follow your academic career.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Eppy Harmon

 

 

Hi Kelly-

 

An afterthought… May I post your letter to me on my blogsite (www.epharmony.com) along with my reply to you–following my geisha article, in the comment section? May I also post your email address, in case someone has a question for you? Thanks again so much for writing….

 

Yours,

Eppy

 

 

 

Hi-

 

        Thanks for your letter.  I like Kyoto too, and lived there, but kind of found that there were more actual artisans in Tokyo than in Kyoto (almost all of the arts headmasters who teach Kyoto geiko live in Tokyo or Osaka).   I love Tokyo's energy, and Tokyo geisha are really fun!   The kind geisha you saw in Kyoto are the real thing; they are far too busy to be as langourous as that film depicted, too refined to be as catty as that.   There's competition for the arts roles and artistic rivalry to be sure, but nobody has the time to waste like that.

 

    The real problem with the film, that the media seems not able to acknowledge, is that this awful film is based on an awful book. Golden's book is a fiction, and nothing more than a cheap white boy fantasy at that. He wrote it to cater to American orientalist fantasies, to sell copy (which it did).  So the movie should be viewed in the same vein as Harry Potter or something, if at all.

 

    Geisha do not spoil men; men feel spoiled around women who spend all day studying art, for most of their lives.  Imagine having dinner with a Bolshoi ballerina, or with Nadia Solerno-Sonnenberg?   Or a person with both talents combined?   We don't have anything like this.   Geisha don't cater to men's whims at all — I can assure this.  They are actually pretty aloof, in the way that artists are (even around the people who pay for their living).   Japan has gradually devalued its own arts, especially traditional music and dance, so any future audiences for geisha rely on a cultivated taste in these things, and this is unlikely.   Even the music tracks (all except for two) were completely inaccurate;  there's Chinese er-hu or pipa for many of them, shakuhachi (never heard in the geisha quarters), and tsugaru shamisen (a northern folk form).   Would you use blue grass fiddle music to depict classical ballet, just because the instrument is associated with it

(the violin)?!

 

            Please read the actual memoirs:   Geisha, a Life, by Mineko Iwasaki.  This is the same person that Golden interviewed for Memoirs, but chose instead to create his own weird version.   The two stories have no relationship whatsoever.

 

         Bad Girls of Japan (Palgrave Press, 2005) includes my chapter, called “Bad Girls Confined:  Okuni, Geisha, and Negotiation of Female Performance Space.”    It answers a lot of the questions many people have about geisha.   My dissertation is called The Role of Music in the Lives and Identities of Japanese Geisha (Kent State University Press, 2002), and I have an upcoming book being published by Ashgate Press in London called The Gei of Geisha:  Music, Identity, and Meaning (2007?).

 

         Thanks for the interest, and for doing the blog!   I’m fine with posting this conversation too….

 

Best,

Kelly

 

Hi Kelly-

 

Thanks for your permission to post our exchange. I must admit I enjoyed Golden’s book, and admired his story-telling abilities. I’m sure I projected my own image of geisha onto his. You, on the other hand, were evaluating critically, from an informed background and interest, which is another thing entirely…. Thank you for the above references…. I will post them too.

 

One last comment: I wish I’d said, “Geisha make men feel spoiled” instead of “geisha spoil men.” I agree that geisha are too hard-working and serious of purpose to have time to indulge men often. The lucky few men, on the other hand, who are graced with the good fortune to enjoy the complete, gentle focus and presence of a geisha, even for a short time, must feel spoiled and honored by that moment’s special attentiveness to their needs and thoughts. Too often, western women perceive attentiveness to men as flattery and indulgence, when sometimes what men want is merely courtesy, kindness, and a little unrushed attention…. They feel spoiled just to get that!

 

I look forward to talking with you again someday, Kelly.

 

Yours,

“Eppy”

 

<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/Memoirs of a Geisha” rel = “tag”>Memoirs of a Geisha</a>

<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/feminism” rel = “tag”>feminism</a>

<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/iconoclast” rel = “tag”>iconoclast</a>

<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/manipulation” rel = “tag”>manipulation</a>

<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/victim” rel = “tag”>victim</a>

<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/feminist” rel = “tag”>feminist</a>

<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/intimacy” rel = “tag”>intimacy</a>

<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/labor” rel = “tag”>labor</a>

<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/service” rel = “tag”>service</a>

<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/princess” rel = “tag”>princess</a>

<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/goddess” rel = “tag”>goddess</a>

<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/feminine” rel = “tag”>feminine</a>

<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/prostitute” rel = “tag”>prostitute</a>

<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/myth” rel = “tag”>myth</a>

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American Politics, Before the Next Terrorist Attack

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Our future safety and political freedoms rest upon whether Americans recognize sooner, rather than later, the terrifying truth that our traditional, well-intentioned and well-funded militaristic approaches to national defense and espionage have very limited preventative effects, and cannot keep us safe from the horrors of terrorism or global thermonuclear war during a century of instant communications and easily-accessible lethal weaponry.  Furthermore, such anachronistic, adversarial strategies actually provoke increasing threats to our country and our planet. Even as we squander more and more money, energy, and time, they advance the likelihood that our worst nightmares will become realities.

 

The next big terrorist attack on the United States will determine the direction of our political future. As 9/11 proved, confused and terrified Americans will support any leader who offers them reassurance, whether or not their proffered “plan” for safety is well-founded, tested, logical, reliable, understandable, open to public debate, cost-effective, democratic, credible, or even, in existence.

 

Rubber-stamping endless homeland defense expenditures primarily insures a politically-necessary illusion of security, since our “homeland” is clearly indefensible. Sending our grandchildren off to fight in distant, unwinnable pre-emptive invasions and occupations is morally unconscionable and fiscally reckless. Bankrolling unwieldy spy bureaucracies undermines the very freedoms such actions are meant to save. Focusing media attention on the weaknesses of our perceived enemies, and rattling our sabers self-righteously in their direction only heightens dangerous tensions. Pursuing “big-winner-takes-all” trade tactics lines a few greedy pockets and hurts everyone else. None of these strategies will keep us safe, and none can solve the real problems of the 21st century.

 

What we can learn, before nuclear horror humbles us all beyond recognition, is that there is no exclusive way to provide safety for any single nation or group of nations, no way to guarantee peace for only U.S. citizens and their allies. There are no constructive pathways to safety that can be selfishly withheld from some, or from any, on this unpredictable, unmicromanageable globe.

 

Only a universally inclusive path of international cooperation and non-violence can offer any long-term safety to Americans and our fellow-earthlings. Before the next terrorist attack, we must embrace the ancient wisdom inherent in all religions, that violence engenders only more violence, that war creates new problems without solving old ones, and that hatred begets more hate. Citizens of all nations will inevitably suffer tragic injustices during this violent century. We need not, however, add to their sum.

 

People everywhere want to live their lives in liberty, and to pursue their individual and collective dreams uninterrupted by violence. The only path to the very peace we all want for ourselves and our friends and families, is a path we can only walk together, along with everyone else. If we want peace and safety, we must teach it, live it, and offer it to all, just as if we lived in a world of next-door-neighbors. Which we do.

 

The night before his death, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It’s nonviolence—or nonexistence.”

 

The world can learn peaceful ways without facing the devastation of nuclear annihilation. We can open our minds and hearts now to the practical promise of non-violence, before greater tragedies befall our world. Non-violence has come of age; it is an idea whose time has finally come.

 

The cancer of violence is insidiously attacking, organ by organ, the body of humanity, destroying the nature and quality of human life on our small planet. Only when we learn to apply non-violent solutions to this century’s most urgent problems—energy sufficiency, disease, injustice, hopelessness, hunger, greed, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addictions, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, crime, poverty, war, terrorism, and violence itself—can we restore health and safety to the embattled body of mankind and to our mother earth.

 

Which path to safety will we choose during our next elections? A violent, power-based one? Or the path of non-violence, Jesus’ path, Gandhi’s path, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s path, the gentle path of all those around the world who are now peacefully resisting tyrants? Do we want a path to a police state or a peace state?

 

In the past, we elected many representatives of the old politics of fear and aggression. During our next election, we can turn away from demagogues who rule our emotions with the fear of fear itself, turning instead to new, moral leadership which shows us peaceful pathways to greater global safety.

 

Nothing matters more than that our new leaders embrace the universal, timeless, and essential values of faith, hope, and love….

 

Because:

 

Only faithful leaders trust in God’s redemptive love for every one of earth’s children, and in international dialogue and peaceful cooperative efforts, disavowing the politics of exclusion, polarization, and dehumanization;

 

Only hopeful leaders join with like-minded light-bearers of other nations, stand with them, work with them, and lift all nations and peoples up, leaving no one behind;

 

Only loving leaders forgive, and let the past–and past blame–go, accepting, supporting, and respecting human life everywhere.

 

Led with faith, hope, and love, Americans can work with the whole global community to make the world a safer, more inclusive place for all. We can swing open, to greater cooperation and mutual support, the closed doors of secretive agencies. We can build new peace initiatives within our dedicated, patriotic Defense Department. We can develop a volunteer force of unarmed citizens to observe violent conflicts at home and abroad. We can establish a U.S. Peace Academy, equivalent in honor, distinction, and service to our proud military academies. We can found a cabinet-level Department of Peace, to influence policy, conflict resolution, and decision-making at the highest levels, as well as in our home towns and school curricula. We can apply cutting-edge peace research to the transformation of our combative diplomatic, justice, welfare, and education systems.

 

We don’t have to keep on contributing to an ever-more-insane world. We can decide now to work together to build a different one, where acceptance, respect, and support for human life everywhere is the new highest value, an inclusive world where Americans reach out in friendship and forgiveness to former enemies, and where all live together in safety and peace in a shared global home.

 

Wherever non-violent methods have been applied to political, personal, global, and local conflicts, they have proved to be successful, cost-effective approaches which defuse tensions, resolve conflicts, and heal past grievances. Non-violence, the best approach to a sound national defense program, offers us all the promise of a more effective, values-based, long-term path to a safer future.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Safety in America–and Everywhere Else

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Americans are justifiably terrified, not only by the dual threats of terrorism and nuclear war, but also by a dawning recognition that our present violent “defense” measures cannot save us from harm. Indeed, they are inviting greater harm. We’re squandering our national resources—money, energy, and time—on defense strategies that can defend neither our citizenry nor our beloved freedoms.

 

President Bush often equates the killing and destruction in Iraq with “freedom” and “liberty.” Yet if foreigners stormed into the U.S., shot up suspicious-looking citizens, blew up heavily-populated real estate, and established hundreds of foreign military bases on U.S. soil, Americans wouldn’t view such invasions as “freedom” or “liberty.”

 

In the 60’s, the hippies tried to tell us that no violent path, no armed road, no non-peaceful “way” could ever finally arrive at any peaceful destination, but that rather, peace itself is the only “way” to the goal of peace. The memorable hippie line, “Fighting for peace is like fucking for chastity” may sound distasteful to some, but it’s hard to miss its point—you can’t reach a goal or a destination using an antithetical process to get there.

 

“Hatred, “quoth the Buddha, “does not end through hatred. Hatred ends only through loving.” In the long run, violence primarily begets more violence, hatred engenders more hate, fear begets more fear.

 

None of America’s current violence-based defense strategies—whether war, stockpiled high-tech and nuclear weaponry, armed forces, spying, occupations, torture, imprisonment, or any other form of violence—will keep Americans safe. There will be no safe place for U.S. citizens during the 21st century, as long as our ham-handed foreign policies continue to breed more angry, hopeless enemies each minute.

 

No matter how lavish our support for unwieldy global spy bureaucracies, no matter how profligate our expenditures on formidable armed forces, no matter how many nuclear weapons we brandish, until we convince the Muslim world (not to mention China, Africa, and South America) that we will no longer irritate, threaten, exploit, or occupy them, until we learn to act like polite guests visiting foreign lands, and until we non-violently negotiate our commercial and strategic national interests like proper world citizens, we can only nervously await the inevitable lethal handful of angry, violent extremists who are now resolutely making their way to our largely indefensible shores in hopes of getting a really big bang from their terrorist bucks.

 

Wreaking havoc in America is as simple and cheap as poisoning a municipal water or food supply. John F. Kennedy once observed that anyone willing to trade their life for his could assassinate a president…and so it was. May I add that anyone who is determined, smart, and just a little bit lucky can commit a politically, socially, and economically devastating act of terrorism in America.

 

So why haven’t there been more terrorist attacks here? Has our vast spy network worked so well to protect us?

 

What Islamic extremists are most focused upon is ridding their lands of occupiers. Most Muslims see the American people as misguided friends tolerant of a diversity of peaceful worldviews; their quarrel is not with Americans, but with aggressive American governments (and citizens who elect such governments)—enemies perceived to be threatening Islamic political, social, and economic autonomy, religious traditions, and cultural heritage. Osama bin Laden justified his 9/11 attack in New York as a retaliation for earlier, American destruction of two similar Muslim “towers.”

 

If throwing money, soldiers, spies, and bombs at terrorists is not going to keep us safe, who or what will? Can any approach keep Americans safe? Is there a more effective way to spend our money on safety?

 

Our government could stop throwing its weight around for narrow, immediate commercial and strategic interests, and instead generously invest America’s creativity, wealth, and power in very different kinds of peaceful diplomatic, aid and trade initiatives that would help all nations achieve whatever is uniquely most important to their peoples. Thus, without conquering anyone, we could gradually transform even our most dangerous enemies into harmless friends—just as we did, eventually, and at far greater cost, with Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Libya.

 

Non-violence doesn’t require turning our backs on slaughter anywhere in the world. We can train large unarmed forces of peaceful observers, and send them wherever civilian or state thugs threaten the peace. America can stand ready to truck/ helicopter/ and parachute in massive armies of these volunteer citizens, who could then stay, watch, mingle with private citizens, and serve as heroic unarmed mediators, peacemakers, and media magnets.

 

To be sure, like the patriotic young soldiers who currently trade their lives willingly for their deeply-held beliefs, the idealistic youthful and elderly volunteer observers would risk and sometimes lose their lives in order to non-violently shine their personal lights on the world’s darkest places, and rivet media and world attention upon each pocket of violence.

 

Well-designed, well-funded media campaigns before, during, and after such mass observances of violence, would draw idealists from everywhere to volunteer for financially-supported opportunities to do good, learn, share adventures, thrills and chills, meet new like-minded friends, and risk their lives—all of which they already do at home, but to less useful purpose.

 

Over time, as such unarmed forces flourish in many countries, as more and more media outlets report on their courage, purity, optimism, and the truth of their message, as the heroism of their martyrs becomes widely celebrated and their values universally adopted, thugs everywhere will begin to recognize that international opprobrium and scrutiny will closely follow their acts of violence, while their victims will reach out more quickly for ever more readily available help.

 

Neither violent nor non-violent approaches to self-defense can guarantee the safety of Americans as long as the number of our enemies continues to rise. During this violent and polarized century, innocents of every nation, including our own, will suffer some tragic injustices. But none of us need choose to add to their sum. By applying internationally cooperative, non-violent approaches to self-defense, rather than inflaming the fears and hatred of those who presently see us as enemies, we can begin together to build a safer world for all.

 

Please write comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“To Live” is To Die For

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If To Live was intended to be a very persuasive heroic epic offering a model of feminine perfection during a lifetime of political and personal adversity, it succeeded admirably. I had to keep reminding myself that it was only a movie, and that the character played by Gong Li was fictional; I was stunned by her purity, refinement, selflessness, tranquility, quiet charm, and gentleness, and her apparent total commitment to creating a peaceful family life. Repeatedly, she let go of past regrets and bitterness, and worked through the many negatives of her life with a positive attitude toward the present and the future—despite a marriage to a weak, difficult husband.

 

I so admired the quality of contentedness I saw in this movie. Without any apparent advantages in education, cleverness, wit, talent, athletic ability, skill, spirituality, creativity, or money-making abilities (and other qualities many people aspire to), Gong Li’s character accepted herself, others, and her own situation, quietly working to improve her life without throwing energy into resisting or rejecting her challenging constraints. Her character projected no struggle whatsoever against the injustices of her situation, while so many of us second-guess every aspect of our lives, every choice we’ve ever made or have yet to make.

 

Most Americans—and probably most Chinese, who knows?—want so much more than “just” a quiet life with their spouses and children. And even when our steady American stream of personal requirements is lavishly addressed, few of us feel fulfilled, or filled with anything like satisfaction. Instead, we’re restless, doubtful, and grasping for more.

 

Gong Li’s character was so–believably–pure, I almost felt dirty–selfish, demanding, spoiled, neurotic. This film made me resolve to be less so in the future. I’m perfectly capable of getting myself in a big twist over a small thing; Gong Li’s character managed to make a happy marriage and a good family life out of very difficult circumstances and an unlucky match. Yet the movie still seemed a convincing personal vignette about a unique family.

 

To Live left me with a quiet ache for more simplicity and gentleness in everyday American life. For example—I was touched by how kindly and hospitably the older couple welcomed a shy young man as a possible match for their daughter—how accepting they were—especially when I consider all the hoops we sometimes make our prospective sons- and daughters-in-law jump through, and the impossible expectations we burden our children with.

 

Although I’m sure that Chinese culture has its many areas of challenge, I suspect that this movie is at least representative of values and attitudes the Chinese government would like to promote, and possibly is supporting through direct advocacy of such filmmaking. I wish we would see more similar work in our own culture; the media is such a powerful tool, and our airways are supposedly owned by the public—why not use them more wisely for the general good? Universal values are universal values—there’s little argument about what values we can all aspire to if we want to be happier. Yet, too often, our powerful media seems to be working against parental attempts to raise positive, productive, mentally and physically healthy children, and to create accepting, contented marriages.

 

I’m aware of the popular notion that Chinese blockbusters glorify communist history, but I saw little of that here. To be sure, the movie was pro-communist, just as many American movies are fundamentally (if perhaps less consciously) pro-capitalist, but viewers will see both the pros and cons of a rapidly-emerging culture during a very complicated, difficult, very human and fallible political and social era. In that sense, the portrayal of historical social and political realities should be familiar to Americans.

 

I found this window into a very-different-from-my-own private lifestyle completely fascinating.

 

I didn’t much enjoy the depressing, off-putting first fifteen minutes of the movie, as the director set up its initial sad premises. Furthermore, unsophisticated western ears won’t appreciate the traditional Chinese dramatic music during opening scenes, and may also find the opening gambling scenes, and dissolution of the early family, abhorrent. I was also restless during the initial revolutionary war scenes in which the Red Army was unrealistically idealized (war is, after all, war.) But when Gong Li finally returned to the screen, everything picked up, and the film was fascinating from then on.

 

The acting and the direction were outstanding, and the sets arresting and probably authentic. The very sad and memorable scenes depicting personal tragedies were compelling, beautifully, and convincingly produced.

 

I can’t wait to see Gong Li as the evil Hatsumomo in Memoirs of a Geisha. I’ve read that she does a brilliant job as Sayuri’s rival. What an opportunity to see Gong Li’s full range of acting abilities—from her portrayal of the somewhat Melanie Wilkes-type character in To Live, all the way to her villainous geisha in Memoirs.

 

If you think you might enjoy a poignant, thoughtful, beautifully-made movie depicting a starkly different culture, and offering on the side some sense of recent Chinese history and politics, you will enjoy To Live.

 

Please address comments to epharmon@adelphia.net.

 

 

 

 

Coulda Been, Woulda Been, Shoulda Been….Sad Lessons in 20/20 Foresight

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A few weeks after 9/11, my local newspaper published my “solutions” and comments about “what we should do next/now.” Here is the article as printed then:

If I were the U.S. government, (and, come to think of it, I am!–a person in the government of the people, by the people and for the people) I would figure out which American foreign policies have resulted in so much global hatred and criticism, and change them.

I would use this terrible, tragic attack an an opening to form global alliances based in respect and love for human life, human freedom, and human interests everywhere.

I would stop acting as if American interests and American children and American families and American freedom and American lives are more important than, or in some way separable from, the interests of children and families and  freedom and lives everywhere. People in faraway places feel just as much pain, anger, confusion, frustration, sadness as Americans do, when violence touches them.

I would defend the lives of my family and friends with my own. I would defend our land, our forms of government and economics, our people and cultures and freedoms and ideals and our chosen way of life, but I would not insist that everyone everywhere adopt them.

I would not subvert, and would ardently support, the right of women everywhere to freely choose their roles and work and religions and cultures–whether or not I agree with their particular choices.

I would not use the arguments of “stability,” “American interests,” or “protection of our citizenry” to legitimize unjustly invading, occupying, imposing on, or exploiting any other peoples, or to create or support undemocratic governments favorable to American interests.

I would not send secret agents to undermine others' right to self-determination. I would not assume that everyone wants us to come over and tell them how to live.

I would offer help to others in reaching whatever goals are important to them; that seems to be a good way to win friends.

Sharing our loving American hearts with people everywhere would make good economic and political and military sense. If some of the money we spend on military and intelligence were spent on kindness, diplomacy, and sharing, we'd be a safer, richer, happier country.

I would give no support to government policies and decisions that legitimize treating non-Americans in ways we Americans would not wish to be treated.

That's the golden rule for you–Jesus' rule, Buddha's rule, Confucius' rule, Moses' rule, Mohammed's rule. Treating others as you would wish to be treated is the christian thing, the humanitarian thing to do.

America is a land and a way of life that can legitimately be defended from those who would invade or impose upon us, true. But the America that is most worth defending is not just a land, not just a people, but a noble idea, a symbol, a belief and value system that supports freedom for all (not just Americans), a happy, joyful life for all children (not just American children), democracy for all (not just Americans), equality of opportunity for all (not just Americans), peace for all (not just Americans), freedom from terrorism and tyranny and war (90 percent of war deaths are civilians) for all, not just for Americans.

What we Americans all stand for, what is most worth defending, is the American creed we uphold, our fundamental creed that reminds us that our creator gave us all (not just Americans) inalienable rights.

Americanism is a creed declaring freedom for all, justice for all, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all. If not, we Americans are not really about justice, democracy, freedom, rights, at all. By definition, these are inclusive human rights and legitimate pursuits, or they mean nothing at all.

How can we be responsible for everyone else? Well, we can at least make a small start by making sure that we're not part of the problem for anyone else.

We can look and see where we have burdened other people or countries, where we have taken unfair advantage, where we have supported an unrepresentative system of government for our own convenience or comfort or gain, where we have taken advantage of unjust conditions and governments and situations and workers to reap an inequitable, unkind benefit–and stop doing that.

Would I be willing to give up some of my comforts, some of my privileges? Yes, gladly, and so would most other Americans. We would give up a great deal, for freedom, for justice.

We must actively insist that our government act only in ways that express and uphold the values we believe in.

Capitalism does not have to mean unfair exploitation, unbridled selfishness, uncontrolled greed, blind materialism. Capitalism isn't a system designed to protect the rights of everyone to take whatever they want however they can get it. Capitalism is not about allowing the rich to exploit the poor. Capitalism is about open, ethical markets among free peoples. Capitalism is about creating and protecting fair economic systems which work to support the interests of all people, everywhere in the world.

If the idea of America is about anything, if it's worth anything, it's about justice, fairness, kindness, support for true freedom and democracy and abundance for all.

If we allow America to be about freedom, justice, and abundance–but only for Americans–how can we say we value human life itself? How can we be angry with others who don't seem to value human life, who take it away senselessly in terrorist acts?

How can we expect the rest of the world to give a damn about the 6,000+ beautiful lives that were lost in America on Sept. 11, and about the thousands of family and friends who are suffering today because of those losses, if we ourselves don't care, moment-to-moment, day-to-day, month-to-month, and year-to-year whether our own economic and military and political policies contribute to the long-term suffering, starvation, disease, and death of millions everywhere in the world, and in our own country?

If we don't care about the millions of Afghans who died and/or are currently refugees from the last decade of war? If we don't care about the Iraqi children, 5,000 dying every month? If we don't care about these things, then we're not Americans, we're…I don't know…something else…hedonists?…some other entity that doesn't deserve to win, to be powerful, to thrive, to speak proudly of our rights and values and ideals and heritage, to people everywhere.

If we value human life at all, if we expect others to value American lives, then we must examine our own economic, military, diplomatic, intelligence and foreign policies, and hold our government responsible to insure that each of our policies and decisions reflects value and respect for human life, not just American life. Whenever we make policy that affects anyone anywhere, we must ask if we would want that policy directed towards ourselves.

Nothing can excuse this terrible, violent act of terrorism, or ever make it right. It has opened a Pandora's box of hatred and anger which will increase for a long time, and I pray in the name of its most direct sufferers that their memory will not be disrespected by using them as an excuse to start World War III. They know more than anyone else right now how much human suffering another war would create. Instead, I look for some kind of silver lining, some hope that some good can come of senseless tragedy, some understanding, some growth,  some meanings, as all things can work together for good.

I hope this disaster will impel us to finally open up global money tracking so criminals, terrorists, and drug dealers of all stripes cannot have a free hand. I hope we will finally track down all the weapons ever made, and make no more. I hope we will strengthen our highest-minded global alliances, create more, and continue to reach across national, racial, ethnic, historical, age, gender and religious boundaries, person to person, to further our highest ideals.

I hope we will support representative, responsive governments everywhere. I hope we will all listen, and talk, and share, and learn, and act in ways that respect human life and freedom and dignity, that alleviate human suffering. I hope that we will make decisions which reflect the highest beliefs of Christianity, of Islam, of Judaism, of Buddhism, of humanitariansm.

Only when we work together internationally in love, will we be able to begin to save our planet from the ravages or man's fear, greed, ignorance, and selfishness.

We must make choices from now on that are worthy and honorific of our beloved dead.

(Postscript, written on 12/19/05):

I never thought WMDs in Iraq probable (although possible.) My reasons for this opinion were generally rejected, though, by “average Americans” (people relatively unsophisticated about politics who trusted a narrow, steady diet of  conservative news outlets) with whom I spoke on the subject at the time—so enthralled were they with the booming Saddam-As-Evil-Incarnate pro-war propaganda machine as to be unreceptive to any alternate probabilities.

The reasons I thought Saddam probably didn't have WMDs were: (1) He was unlikely to have been able to conceal WMDs throughout so many years of U.N. sanctions and scrutiny; (2) he was unlikely to respond to the imminent U.S. threat by admitting he had no defensive capacity; (3) U.N. inspectors were very clear about the fact that their expensive and expansive searches had not as yet found any such weapons; (4) all the U.S. pro-war hawks had already embraced sufficient motivations for invading Iraq–a list including cockiness, dominance, militarism, oil, power lust, ideology, fear, religious convictions involving protection of  Israel, U.S. strategic and commercial interests, a desire to test and use their fancy new weapons and troops, “because they could,” and so on….) So I distrusted what they said about WMDs (along with everything else) as likely being just another part of their long dubious list of overblown, panic-inducing manufactured justifications for going to war; and (5) I knew enough about the U.S. government's history of setting up and supporting tyrannical thugs throughout the world in the past, not to buy into any newly convenient shrill indignation about how suddenly dangerous to the U.S. Saddam Hussein had become, how he'd gassed his own people, etc. It was the U.S. (the CIA) who originally set Saddam Hussein up as Iraq's leader, who financially supported him in exactly that type of thuggery for many many years, in order to protect “our” cheap and steady flow of Iraqi oil from an Iran-like oil industry nationalization. (For annotated and documented history of such repugnant U.S. actions, read he-whom-conservative-demagogues-most-fear-you'll-read: MIT's Noam Chomsky. For starters.)

Although I didn't write critically about the WMD speculations post 9/11, a lot of very informed and interested people who opposed invasion did. I wish someone would take the (considerable) research trouble to compile an “I told you so” expose, listing all the thoughtful people who, before the war, accurately predicted in U.S. daily newspapers, exactly what happened later in Iraq.

I wish this researcher would list who and when and what each critic wrote at that time, to answer all those who now say, “Everyone worldwide thought there were WMDs.” This assertion is simply blatantly false–“everyone” did not believe that. A multitude of spot-on pre-war critics wrote frantically, both in the U.S. and in international periodicals and newspapers, offering scholarly, articulate, and perfectly reasonable rationales against WMDs and for not going to war—although by then most Americans were so terrified by the steady drumbeat of pro-war, pro-fear propaganda that they had already made up their minds—including, unfortunately, many in leadership roles in our government who never even bothered to read about or consider the warnings. 

Anyone who was the least bit skeptical about the logic, trustworthiness, and veracity of the Bush administration's blustering could have read all such arguments in many daily U.S. and international newspapers, and certainly they were rampant on the web. For example, most of such arguments against WMDs and invasion were right there in black-and-white, as plain as day (if sometimes in small print and at the ends of articles) in The Washington Post—the daily newspaper I read—tied up with string, for me and all others willing and capable of looking past the pro-war lies and hype.

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net.

 

 

 

 

Fear–or Faith? Despair–or Hope? Hate–or Love? So What's It Gonna Be, President Bush?

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President Bush revealed his very human moral ambivalence in unscripted remarks following a recent speech in Philadelphia, when he said, “My job as president is to see the world the way it is, not the way we hope it is.”

 

To the contrary. I still count on my president to resist the temptation to give in to his darkest fears. Although 9/11 filled us all with doubts about the redeemability of terrorists—the ones who “lurk, hide, plan and plot” and coldly use violence to achieve their political aims—all the more reason, then, that President Bush should offer us all a consistent spiritual vision of a forgivable world where all of God’s children are lovable and capable of learning, right down to the last sorry, blackhearted, spotted, faithless self (that’s all of us, at times.)

 

Although President Bush has faith in the ideals of freedom and liberty, and professes a Christian faith, he still doesn’t “get” that he—and all other global leaders who resort to violence to achieve their political aims, whether offensively or defensively, through snipers, spies, armies, bombs, torture, economic policies, suicide attacks, or any other form of aggression—are demonstrating the same faithlessness and fatalism, the same motives and methods used by the very “evildoers” who, Mr. Bush believes, can never “become hospitable and decent citizens of the world.”

 

However admirable his desire to fulfill his oath to protect his countrymen, President Bush has abandoned his most formidable weapon against terror—faith in mankind's redeemability. Of late, instead of spiritual vision, he’s offered us instead only the worst fruits of spiritual defeatism—endless war, immense armies and arsenals, disrespectful nation-building, and huge, unwieldy, cruel intelligence-gathering bureaucracies.

 

Our fragile planet’s only hope during these chaotic times is our steadfast faith, hope, and love for all of God’s violent, prodigal sons and daughters everywhere, who will one day beat their swords into ploughshares and be welcomed back into the peaceful community of mankind.

 

Which will it be, President Bush? Are you a visionary leader who can accept that Americans may suffer some tragic injustices along with our fellow-earthlings, yet resist adding to their sum? Can you lead the world in solving the real problems of the 21st century, and in creating the new global reality we long for?

 

Or will you one day be remembered as just another in a long line of frightened, bloody world leaders who reacted blindly to their own fears and the paranoia of others, and ended up creating human nightmares far worse than any dreamed of by their enemies?

 

Only spiritual leadership can provide the understanding, acceptance, and appreciation necessary to unify the planet’s five polarized cultures—Africans, South Americans, China, the Muslim world, and the West. Only idealistic leadership can inspire each of these cultures to achieve its own unique ideals, hopes, and dreams, while respecting and supporting the quality of human life everywhere. Only non-violent leadership can address the century’s most urgent problems—the ravages of disease, injustice, hopelessness, greed, hunger, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, crime, poverty, war, terrorism, and yes, violence, itself.

 

So what's it gonna be, President Bush? Fear–or faith? Despair–or hope? Hate–or love?

 

Will the real President Bush please stand up, and lead?

 

 

Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afterimage – A Short Story

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I search her face across the table for its usual reassuring perfections, but the comforting illusion of Claire the Exquisite eludes me today. She’s talking warily—but at least she’s talking, that’s good. So often we don’t talk at all. Such a tiff in the car on the way over here, about nothing. And then we both laughed at that sign announcing “Reliable Junk”—our own shared private brand of hilarity. We laugh at all the same things. Why waste even a minute picking at each other?

 

She wants to be good company today for our annual mom-daughter Christmas-shopping trip. I love taking her to lunch during the holidays, love encouraging her to select her own gifts.

 

She’s leaning forward now, for once chatty, confident, confidential, an evanescent afterimage of the sweet vulnerable darling who once trusted me with her whole world. But it doesn’t happen often anymore, not since our infamous adolescence wars.

 

Now she’s off on one of her quick voluble trips through slanguage, emotions, contemporary cultural allusions, my reader, film devotee, my fathomless millennium-daughter. She waves her slim arms, flutters her long manicured fingers.

 

Her earnest elaborations of distressing personal revelations are making me nervous. She’ll be anxious for my good opinion later, I know it. She’ll wish she’d been more reserved. I resist inserting acerbic remarks that would stop all her words along with my terrors about her welfare. She won’t hear them anyway, I won’t say them, they’ve always been ignored before. She just shuts down anyway.

 

“Well, very interesting,” I offer lamely. I know Claire scrutinized every word of Sex in the City for moral guidance, an unpleasant-enough reality without her filling in terrifying personal details. Raising a baby alone was hard on my body, my finances, and my sleep—but parenting an adult is so much harder on the heart. Our skirmishes back then were bloodless little all-defenses-down lullabies compared with the ever-threatening storm clouds cracking over our present well-mined war zone.

 

But. I’ve vowed that no subjects will be off-limits today. I will offer only matter-of-fact responses to any requests for information, any hints of her willingness to share. I will come from a peaceful, higher perspective where we can be honest and respectful and loving. A good mother should offer a retreat, a place where her young empress can try on outlandish new selves, rehearse her first drafts, teeter on her brink and fling herself haphazardly out into brand-new universes—all from her mom’s safe jumping-off pinnacle.

 

I so much want to be the non-judgmental friend I looked for in vain in my own mother when I was twenty-two.

 

“Hey Mom, I talked with Zilsa last night.” Our younger daughter, a freshman across the continent at USC.

 

“I’m so glad you two are close. How is Zilsa?”

 

“OK. Except she’s completely berserk. She’s contemplating leaving California to come home, have babies and a beautiful wedding or something. What a dork.” Zilsa passionately loves her hometown boyfriend Stephen, but also has very high career aspirations. We’ve resisted pushing her one way or the other, although we’ve stated our preferences. We like Stephen, but Zilsa’s welfare comes first.

 

Claire confides, “Zilsa says Stephen is practically suicidal without her.”

 

“Better him than her. He can move in with her, work in California. He’s not going to school here anyway.”

 

Claire agrees indignantly, and her voice rises as she itemizes Zilsa’s errancies.

 

Claire, no, please. We count on you to be Zilsa’s very necessary, listening, accepting big sister and friend.  Don’t sound so like me, so critical-parent, my little mirror. Claire always fought against my bossy, pushy, know-it-all side. She said she’d rather die than turn out reproachful and demanding like me. Don’t you dare pick up those crummy traits from me, Claire. I tried them already. They don’t work.

 

I’ve been better at handling Zilsa’s adolescence than Claire’s. All my fears still clamor, but I’ve learned to turn down their volume, to hold tightly to my vision of my children’s goodness, their luminous futures. Claire sure shoved my spluttering face down deep enough into that fount of knowledge. I can never change fast enough, though. I’ve finally got it down to an iterative but reasonable-length fit of weeping and rending and gnashing of teeth.

 

Claire doubly challenges me these days, since she’s become my double in anxiety and reactiveness. For it seems that, before I turned her loose on the world, I carefully passed on to her all my fears, and now she’s as defensive and alarmist with me as I was with her.

 

Claire and I do still occasionally manage some forward motion in our relationship, but it’s like doing the hokey-pokey.

 

“I wonder if you can help Zilsa?”

 

“I can’t. There’s no way.” Claire polarizes when she’s uncomfortable. She seems most assured and self-confident whenever she’s most uncomfortable—as if confidence in some opposite delusion will keep her safe. “She has to make her own decisions. All I can do is tell her what I think. And I think she’s a dork.”

 

Such wild polar swings—ah, my own old familiar path. Blunt. Black or white, yes or no, all or nothing.  Everything with Claire nowadays is good or bad, now or never, approach or escape, wonderful or unbearable, dead stop or full speed ahead. It’s not enough for Claire to be a fallible human being, to stumble along through life along with the rest of us mortals. No, for Claire to feel minimally worthwhile, or even just a little lovable, she must be perfect. Because whenever Claire makes a mistake, when she fails or is wrong, she sees herself as the dregs of society, of no use to anyone at all. My little gift to her.

 

When my own fearful mental conversations come up these days, I can recognize and acknowledge them more quickly and send them packing. I don’t swing quite so far so fast anymore. But my poor little rosy apple didn’t have much of a chance to fall far from her quaking mother-tree.

 

Like mother, like daughter. Shit.

 

I was scared back then. And awful to Claire. I was so terrified of that damnable public high school/ media/ youth culture. And haunted by my own missed opportunities. I wanted to keep her safe, keep her options open. I wanted Claire to make her own original mistakes, ones I hadn’t made first, couldn’t foresee, couldn’t throw my body in front of.

 

And I was quite successful—at circumventing every potentially character-building lesson that might have timidly ventured across Claire's path. And at impressing upon her every apprehension and dread in my vast repertoire. Yes, I honed every one of my trepidations onto my sweet little mime, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t repeat my own particular errors.  Just exactly as my mother insured that I would repeat all of hers.

 

“Claire, can’t you think of any way to talk to Zilsa?”

 

“Let’s just drop it Mom. It depresses me to think about it.” Claire gives me her hard, unblinking look, and I do drop it. Abrupt, direct. Despite our substantial differences in interests, experiences, and talents, Claire is totally my emotional and behavioral duplicate. If ever I had wanted to share my joys with this, my cherished daughter, why did I choose instead to act out every one of my fears?

 

I search for a less controversial subject. “What do you think of the war? Isn’t it unbelievable?”

 

“Mom! Don’t you ever have anything nice to say about your own country?” My previously well-indoctrinated left-leaning Claire is these days influenced by her buttoned-down law-school boyfriend. “Do you always have to see the worst?” She glares at me and then remembers herself. “Oh never mind.” Impatient. Dismissive. “You have a right to your opinion.” She looks away forlornly.

 

Claire hates to talk politics with me. She feels overpowered, squelched by my lifelong interest in politics. She’s young and forming her own ideas. Besides, she thinks it rude the way I turn polite social contexts into intellectual forums. I love serious exchanges, but she thinks I also talk too much and too loud, and listen too little. She’s right, of course. Claire likes to keep things light and fun. Her forte is sprightly intelligent witty small talk. Neither one of us has any clue at all about listening.

 

But no small talk will be forthcoming today it seems, for she has already backed away again, already forgetten how easily she can lighten me up, change any subject, make me laugh, effervesce among novelties so fast I can’t keep up with her.

 

I search for an undevisive, luncheony topic, but she’s cautious now, recalling how I lurk in the corners of conversations, hoarding stuff in the dark, waiting for opportunities to leap out and poison her tentative little essays with all my lectures.

 

God. Stop. Sometimes I even drive me crazy.

 

I know we both look forward to our annual mother-daughter lunch at Nordstrom’s. We always order different things and split them, because we know we’ll end up coveting what’s on each other’s plates anyway. Claire and I lust after the same fresh fruits and veggies, salads, sandwiches, ethnic experiments. Husbands never share this commonality, certainly not Ben. It’s a nice mother-daughter thing.

 

Now Claire has taken a deep breath, and has turned back to me, once again beaming little rays of sunshine. “You order that pear and gorgonzola salad every year. Ah, food sharing. Our special tradition.” She’s so mercurial—all light and affection once again, so much her truest nature.

 

Although it’s secreted well these days beneath that spiny skin she grew during our late culture wars.

 

“You are so nice, my sweet Mom, to take me out to eat and shop. I love eating out with you. It’s so hard for me to get out anymore. I’m always short on money. Seems like I just pay my bills and then starve for the rest of the month. I sure need a raise. I’m living on chicken-cup-a-soups these days. No, really. That’s all. That’s it.”

 

How long before her gums start bleeding and her teeth fall out? She’s exaggerating of course. Her boyfriend pays for a lot of meals out, and I know she lunches out with colleagues, even occasionally cooks. Is she trying to tell me she needs money, but can’t come out and say so?

 

It’s evident that I’m going to be a challenge today, for myself and for her, that’s for certain. But she’s graciously rising to it, determined to stay calm with me, to exude cheer, to be my loving, appreciative daughter. She has a short memory for grudges, she hates to stay mad. She was always a sunny little thing, with only occasional flashes of heat lightning.

 

“So, Claire, how’re things at work?”

 

“They’re OK. Mom, please, I don’t want to talk about work right now.”

 

Well. So much for that subject. I thought her job was going so well. They’re so lucky to have her, such a hard worker, a genius in my humble opinion, so much potential, such a darling personality…. Maybe relations with China are affecting sales?  She’s usually so enthusiastic about her work. I do hope nothing’s wrong. I want information, reassurance.

 

“Well, I hope everything’s all right….”

 

She glares at me.

 

OK, so push me out of two-thirds of your life, push me out of how you spend your days and half your nights and weekends. So we can’t talk about Zilsa. Or work. What else is there?

 

We eat, quiet, distrustful. Our new sad little norm.

 

I wish she’d ask me about what I’ve been doing, about my painting, my gardening. I probably don’t give her a chance to. I know she loves me, I know she finds me interesting and even admirable—sometimes she blurts it out spontaneously, confides it warmly. I feel it. I’m her irreplaceable Mom of childhood, her favorite ally in a dark alley. She knows she has me, forever.

 

Once I told her “I hate you.” She was a senior in high school, and truly awful to me, though charming to everyone else. It was the most frustrating moment of our whole lives together so far, and I screamed at her what I’d never dreamed I’d ever say.

 

She stopped whatever she was doing or saying…I forget what now…shocked. She stared solemnly at me for a long moment. And then she actually burst out laughing. And hugged me, uproarious at her slapstick comedienne mother who had just dropped a fish down her underpants. Like I’d just said the funniest thing she’d ever heard.

 

Smothering snorts but still stern and instructive, Claire scolded, “No, Mom. You don’t hate me.” Like it was necessary to remind her mildly retarded mom of the unshakeable reality that really, she loved her daughter boundlessly, unconditionally. I realized then that Claire hadn’t even been angry with me at all—she’d merely been toying with me, torturing me, testing her limits, watching me squirm.

 

Like quicksilver, she was doubled over before me, winding her long arms around her waist and wiping away tears of merriment.

 

But I just couldn’t let it drop, then, not yet. “I did mean it, Claire, at least I meant it when I said it. I don’t lie to you.” I’m feeling guilty, retreating a little, but I still want clarity on my hard-won point before I drop it forever, she’d been too mean. “Claire, for that one moment, I meant it.”

 

“No. You didn’t, Mom.” She smiles, wider, ever more amused, even delighted, her beautiful blue eyes innocent, confiding, tender. “I know you didn’t.”

 

Bratty little know-it-all. Contradicting me right to my face. And she’s still teasing me too. My hackles are still all fuzzed up, though. And besides, she’s raised questions of my integrity and self-awareness. “No Claire. I meant it. At least I meant it when I said it.” And I add, “And I’m still mad at you.” But I can’t find my anger anymore, it’s melting, melting. The wicked witch of the west is melting, and this makes me madder still. But melting.

 

“No, you didn’t, Mom,” Claire repeats calmly, confrontively, so sure of herself and her place in my heart–in fact, rather charmed by the notion that her steadfastly loving, if slightly unbalanced, Mom could manage anything but adoration for her beloved firstborn. Silly old Mom.

 

I’m rendered clawless and helpless and helpful once again, as always. I am, in fact, comforted, in a backhanded sort of way, at having done such a good job convincing Claire that she is loved. For a long while there, I was the only one she had. When you’re someone’s everything, you don’t drop the ball. I guess that’s something I can feel smug about, Claire. You’re secure in my love, you little twerp.

 

But she never asks me how I am, what I’ve been doing.

 

Deep down, Claire operates in our relationship just exactly as I’ve taught her to operate, taught her with infinite patience and attention to the minutest detail: she is the important one in our relationship, the one who counts, whose requirements need and deserve serving. And I’m the one who’s always OK, temporarily dismissable, capable, self-reliant, resilient.

 

I doubt she even yet sees me as having any reality at all outside my relationship with her. My lifelong urgent focus upon her moment-to-moment needs has negated any present possibility of her dredging up any real interest in my trivial day-to-day pursuits. I’ll bet Claire envisions me a robot, standing frozen and Schwarzeneggerishly erect on standby, waiting beside the phone night and day, all bodily systems shut down, ready to light up and leap into action whenever she calls me with some menial favor to ask, some minor request to keep me busy and keep my mind off my troubles. I’m like a toy doll to her, coming to life only in her presence, flopping back to the floor when she leaves, perking up again when she calls me back into being.

 

I close most of our phone conversations with, “Are you OK, Claire? Is there anything we can do for you?”—hoping to help, but also hoping to model for her a caring relationship. Too bad, though. Claire seems to think that my effusive-doormat approach is just the way all parents are supposed to treat their kids.

 

My own mother vacillated between nervous nurturing and critical sniping, doting and doubting, and of course I raised Claire the same way, unaware until long after my own little reproduction was well-stamped with the same overbearing pattern. I loved my parents, but didn’t treat them as well as I now wish I had, looking back. I grew up alternately insisting on and resisting their attentions, completely unobservant of their own, many, very human requirements.

 

I learned from their example that there are two very different kinds of love: one, openhanded, openhearted, and anxious, the kind of love one extends to one’s offspring. And another, more self-centered, self-protective, defensive, and begrudging—the kind reserved for one’s lovable but pushy parents.

 

To Claire’s great credit, she cooperates with most of the familyish things we ask of her, coming home often and keeping us generally informed of her whereabouts in a sort of  a “See? I’m not dead!” sort of way. I think she’d be there for us if we needed her.

 

She sure doesn’t come around looking for trouble though. Doesn’t peer around suspiciously as I do when I visit her place, projecting potential dangers requiring maternal input. Probably Ben’s and my little needs and dreams don’t even show up on her monitor at all. Probably she doesn’t see any connection between them and her day-to-day life. In fact, I’m sure she dreads the day serious needs will come up. As we do. And we’re quick to insist if she does ask: oh no, no, nothing, there’s nothing you can do for us.

 

But she usually doesn’t ask. And of course we don’t particularly want her youthful energies diverted to our support. She has enough to do to establish a career, friends, a family, a future—we’ve already done all that.

 

I do wish she’d be more solicitous though.

 

Poor Claire, what a mixed message.

 

If we need her, she’ll be there for us.

 

We hope.

 

But for now, she’s accustomed to our lopsided arrangement.

 

But then, after all, what is unequal about Claire’s willingness to bloom in our too-well-cultivated field of expectations, under the storm of our fears and hopes and ambitions?

 

Unarguably, Claire is drawn to this odd person, her mother. She’s expressed a guarded fascination with me, the sort that evolutionary biologists reserve for platypi and peacocks. She’s genuinely intrigued by my unconventional talents and experiences. Of couse, she’s not one to go around saying oh you’re so wonderful, and she knows to use extreme caution before showing any interest in anything that smacks of one of her mom’s “things.” Because I overreact and overwhelm her if she even inquires about what I do with my days. Outre among her friends, warm to strangers, Claire holds in all her emotions with me, except of course when we’re both drunk. We both get affectionately goofy and maudlin over a bottle of wine. How awful.

 

And she’s certainly inherited my own awkwardness with deep feelings, my own over-sensitivity when anyone gets too personal. Claire scrupulously avoids being nosy; she doesn’t want to be…what…like me, who these days is bashfully but persistently nosy, ever since Claire’s adolescent withdrawal.

 

Claire never asks me questions. She certainly doesn’t want to invite any of the potentially uncomfortable, or alarming, or boring answers she might get. I might let down my gray hair, share some intimate detail of my personal life, my sex life even, yuck, gross. Claire has nothing against Ben, he’s a wonderful stepdad, but really. Ugh. As far as Claire’s concerned, anyone over thirty should have the good sense to go out and shoot themselves. To be sure, she’s generously made an exception for us because we’re her parents and we need to…exist…somehow, somewhere, still available to her. But preferably in a distant parallel universe.

 

What Claire doesn’t want to know, what she’s definitely not interested in hearing from me, are exactly those details of my daily life that I’d welcome hearing about hers—details that, in fact, I’m jealous that she shares so freely with her boyfriend, her roommates, her sister. Claire’s current philosophy with her mother is: don’t ask don’t tell.

 

Probably because when she does ask me something, I’m thrilled. I light up like R2D2, snort deeply and paw the ground as if preparing to fight the Trojan War or recite the Iliad, I’m so fearful that I’ll run out of air before she breaks in or breaks away, before I have time to reach the ever-receding horizon of my pent-up verbal barrage of repressed input.

 

I’m not shallow, and Claire respects my ideas, even some of my conclusions. But occasionally my thought processes tend toward the circuitous and muddied, weaving right past her, while I endlessly stalk my point, pounce on it, worry it, loop back and beat it to death…. As you see….

 

“So how’s Ben?”

 

“Ben’s good. Ben’s always good. His deck-building project is going well.”

 

“Oh good. He always enjoys his building projects—his 'therapy.'”

 

“Yes, his therapy.” For being married to me—Ben’s joke.

 

I want to tell Claire how sweet Ben was last night, how strong his arms were, how he makes me feel like a girl again, in bed with her best friend. I wish I could share my worries that’s he’s taxing his health working too many long hours, my resentment at having to ration my requirements on his time. But I don’t want to worry her.

 

On the other hand, Claire is a grown-up. So why not model the honesty, openness and vulnerability I want from her? After all, she did ask….

 

“To tell the truth, Claire, I kind of miss Ben lately. He’s been so busy, we don’t talk as much as we used to. It kind of worries me. I don’t want us to drift apart.”

 

Claire looks up startled, eyes wide and alert. “What do you mean!” she accuses me, countering my perceived frontal assault with one of her own. Her eyes glint ominously. How dare her parents’ relationship not be perfect? They’re fiftyish for godsake, crazy about each other. She glowers at me in apprehensive silence, her blond eyebrows rising to their haughtiest peak, her mouth fixing itself in an elaborate twist to conceal her concern.

 

I hasten to reassure her: “There’s nothing for you to worry about Claire. Just normal husband-and-wife stuff. Even good relationships have issues.”

 

Claire’s brow wrinkles wrathfully. How dare I unnecessarily alarm her? And she’s fighting another internal battle as well, torn between defending me and, well, fixing me. She likes things between her parents to be unworrisome, tidy. Should she be doing something about all this? Be indignant with Ben? Or sterner with me for spending too much time in the garden or curled up with a book? Should she take a stand, a side? Offer some help somehow to someone?

 

She shakes her head as if to clear out cobwebs, straightens her shoulders and spine, recomposes her face and body into its usual elegant lines. It’s all too confusing, too much for her. There’s nothing she can do about it. Let it go.

 

I shake out my own cobwebs, a little stunned by Claire’s peremptory dismissal of my smallest attempt to open up my inner life to her. Talk about an out-of-hand rejection. I’m suddenly feeling old, tired, and bereft. She’s young, and I’m dying, tomorrow, or in fifty years, whatever, whenever. The days suddenly feel so short, and my time with her so precious.

 

This whole conversation is so typically Claire-and-Grace, at least these days. No safe subjects. Everything loaded, risky, emotionally charged. I’m allowed to discuss only boring subjects. The weather…and…good grief, I can’t even think of a safe second subject. Or I can stick to her areas of interest and expertise—current eye shadow shades, accessorizing choices of bypassers, shoe styles, for godsake. Any subject of consequence spins us screaming back into the void, thrown into our lizard brains.

 

This is such hard work. So sad. Claire is awesome, too awesome for anyone to fight with. Translucent skin, shining hair curling in ringlets down her neck, electric currents shooting through her, so bright and charged up, so excited by all that’s happening in her job, her relationships, her culture, her city, her world.

 

But so private and self-protective. And so determined that I should not have a single chance to drape my soggy disapproving blanket over a single one of her passions. Her mind these days is an exclusive by-invitation-only place, a seething vibrant place I visit only in my dreams.

 

But I’m so determined that we will have time, to swing open all the rusty doors we once slammed shut. We will have time to scale the fortifications we hastily erected in the fright and flight of her adolescence.

 

Too bad. I still catch myself shading honesty with her, still withhold openness. Sometimes I still shelter her, buffer her, parse my sharings, as—regrettably—I did so often when she was a child. Yet now it’s not just to protect her, but to protect myself as well, from her disapproval and legitimate judgment.

 

We trudge despondently down our long, convoluted path, so far from that open-faced child who ran so ecstatically to her open-armed mother.

 

We know each other now too well these days. And too little. Her eyes searchlight around, elaborately casual, looking toward no one and nothing.

 

A long silence.

 

“Have you been writing much?” And instantly, I bite my tongue, absolutely certain that my carefully preconsidered, very thoughtfully analyzed, precisely-worded inquiry will not be received as intended—as the most general and open-ended and impersonal of questions.

 

And indeed: “I don’t want to talk about my writing, Mom. Why are you always pushing me to write? Maybe I’m writing and you don’t even know about it! And there might be a reason for that. Did you ever think about that possibility?” Accusingly glaring at me, backed up, hurt again.

 

What hath I wrought? Whenever did I mold such a prickly, ill-mannered girl-child, whenever did I earn such ill-concealed resentment, such instantly hostile assumptions about my presumed opinions about whether or not she’s writing, or how often, or what?

 

But then, it’s karma. I’m being repaid, inexorably, for all those high school years when I leaned on her, interfered with her, pushed, prodded, and directed. Bent her tenderly-budding still-supple twig none too gently this way and that.

 

But I’m not doing that anymore, Claire. I’ve learned. This is me, Claire, this is now, we’re sitting here in a restaurant at a mall, it’s Christmastime, years and years have passed. Can’t we just stay in the present?

 

But no. She would take even this as angry criticism. Which I suppose it is.

 

I know, finally, that I’m on this earth only to love her, not to change her. So why didn’t I know that earlier? Why have I finally learned it only when it’s too late to get anything right?

 

And why do I keep forgetting it?

 

“I’m sorry, Claire. Of course you don’t have to talk about your writing. I’m happy just … that you're writing…or…er, well, I mean, if you aren’t, that’s OK too.” Lame. “And no, you don’t have to tell me about any of it. I just thought…” picking around among my words “…that it might be fun…you know, to talk about…to hear you bounce your ideas off me, whatever you’re thinking about.”

 

“Can’t you just trust me, Mom?”

 

Trust you? What are you talking about? What does trust have to do with anything? What do you mean, do I trust you? To do what? To want good things for your life? Well, then, OK, do you know, Claire, that wanting things isn’t enough? That writing takes practice, work, perseverance? I found my artwork so late. Do you know that wanting something doesn’t matter, Claire? That only taking action does? No, I don’t trust you. to know that. I do wish I could tell you all the things I didn’t tell you before, because I didn’t know them yet.

 

But, no. Not today. Telling her anything won’t be on her agenda today, and what I want most of all after all is just to share a happy day with Claire. Not to ferret around in her mind, not to sharpen up her decisions, question her premises, show up her inconsistencies. Yes, yes, I used to do all that. Yes. All right. I did a lot of that.

 

OK, all the time.

 

But not any more. Not now.

 

Damn it, I hate myself.

 

Claire is looking at me tenderly, inquiringly. And I probably do look sad. Fended-off. Flustered. Resigned. Depressed. Discouraged. Defeated…. Alliterative.

 

“I’m so sorry Mom. I never mean to hurt you. I just can’t write, that way, you know, sharing it with you….” She’s looking closely at me, concern and kindness brimming in her eyes. “I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings, Mom. I never intend to.” Now she’s reaching over, touching my cheek. “It’s just that I work better alone. You know, you know I love your support and encouragement. It’s just that…all that career stuff…. It’s something I have to do on my own. Whenever you help me, it makes me feel like you don’t think I can do it on my own.”

 

“Well of course I think you can do anything on your own, Claire. I’ve told you a gadzillion times I think you’re brilliant. You hate the very word ‘potential.’ Of course you don’t need help. It’s just that…well, everyone makes better decisions…accomplishes more…when they have friends to help them. There’s no reason for you to go through your life alone.”

 

Claire sighs, shrugs. And it’s true, I’m hopeless. Open your eyes, Mom, are you blind? Claire is young and beautiful and bright and sweet and funny, and not, as you might have noticed, alone. In fact, she’s hounded by friends and colleagues and suitors thrilled with any opportunity to lend her an ear, a hand, whatever she’ll take. She needs acceptance from her Mom, not the same brand-new old brilliant revelations and insights. She needs my love and acceptance, as-is. How can I keep forgetting? My little Claire has the whole universe on her side. I’ve had all my chances, twenty-one years of chances, to dictate her progress. Now it’s time to let her go, to turn her over to a new world of eager new benefactors…and opportunists…and con men…..

 

Stop.

 

Now even I’ve had just about all of myself I can stand.

 

I’m not hurt anymore, just lingeringly in love with my sweet Claire, sadly letting go of the old us, weaning myself away from her. I never could stay mad at her for long, she could win me over in an instant with the smallest loving touch or temperate word. I know I'll always forgive her anything, as long as she’ll let me be her mom, as long as she’ll be my daughter. Whatever that means. To be a daughter, a mother.

 

Whatever we decide on, whatever we come up with, moment-to-moment, I guess. Whatever it is that we make together, whatever we choose to create.

 

I guess that’s a lot.

 

And now she’s meek and mild Claire, once again.

 

“I know you care about me, Mom. I know you’re just trying to help. Really, I know it. Sometimes it just kind of makes me mad. I sort of forget everything I’ve ever known, kind of momentarily lose it? You know? Like you used to? So please, forgive me? Believe in me?”

 

“But I still want to know you, to share your life, Claire. How can I help still being interested in you, after caring for you all those years? Sometimes I just can’t help myself, can’t stop myself, can’t keep from helping you. I’m trying. It’s just hard.” A humble petition for understanding and patience.

 

But she’s already bored with her apparently failed attempt at openness. She’s tried to explain, she’s given me her all, she’s been open, vulnerable, but I wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t hear, it didn’t work, she’s given up. She folds her arms, looks away, alone and frustrated again.

 

We sit tired, groping for another topic.

 

“I finished a painting yesterday.”

 

“Yeah? What?”

 

“About the war. Just some visual concepts about empire building, aggression, you know.”

 

“Mom! I thought you decided you weren’t going to put out all that radical stuff. I thought you were worried about how your weird ideas might affect Ben’s job.” Icy pale-blue eyes narrowing.

 

“Well, I decided it was more important to express myself than to repress my voice,  worrying about his job. If this war goes on, maybe no one will have a job, or a pension, or a home, or maybe even a country when it’s all over.

 

“Mmmmph.” Turning her head away.

 

Well, thanks again for nothing, Claire. Thanks for your sensitive encouragement of my first fumbling attempts to be creative and useful to the world since devoting my life to raising you.

 

I know I’m exaggerating wildly, but still, I cross my arms too, look irritable. I do try to stop myself.

 

Here we go again.

 

“Nothing against your painting, Mom. I’m just worried about Ben. Not everyone feels about politics the way you do.”

 

“That’s true.”

 

Well. End of that topic.

 

Claire’s lovelife is usually a safe place to go for a nice talk. She usually blathers quite happily about her current flame. “How’s Wayne?”

 

“Fine.” But after a quick warning look at me, Claire’s face rearranges itself to studied coolness. Uh-oh.

 

Now she’s looking down, fidgeting, glancing around nonchalantly, casting a suspicious glance my way. A sigh.

 

So cagey. Who can know anything? And how did I find myself so lost in this unapproachable emotional-earthquakeville? Even the most polite, most considered conversation with Claire today seems an impossibility. Any interest at all in her life, in anything that matters to her, any small hope for a response, good bad indifferent boring interesting relevant, or not, who cares, meaningful or trifling….

 

I’d welcome the words to her favorite song, a retelling of any book she’s reading….

 

Damn.

 

Her hard face says, Mom, please, butt out of my relationship with Wayne.

 

Claire wants me to think she handles everything with ease—all her relationships, her career, her money—but what person can do that, young or old?

 

I did push her to be perfect, I admit it, just as my mother pushed me, only hoping to keep me safe. I wanted only to protect Claire, protect her options, keep her from hurting. Now she thinks anything less than an announcement of ease and automatic achievement in every area will leave me distressed and overwrought. And continuingly critical. And she’s right.

 

She certainly doesn’t want my advice either. She thinks she’s heard it all already, she’s sure of it, all the same old things she was forced to listen to when she was in high school.

 

But we’ve both grown up. We've changed so much since then. I’ve learned some new things, some new stuff I want to share.

 

But she doesn’t want to share any of it, not with me, certainly not all the gory details of her life, certainly not the unpleasant ones…and god, certainly not the good ones, not with her mom.

 

We face off across our usual thousand-foot-deep-high-wide chasm.

 

“I guess Wayne’s busy with work these days?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Anything fun lately?” Fun would seem a safe-enough subject. Claire takes pride in my vicarious delight in her pleasures, and she and Wayne are fun people, always running around, always into all the latest things.

 

She shrugs in disgust at her presently unfulfilled life. “No. Nothing. We’re always both out of money and comatose from work and studying and from marathon training. We just sit around a lot, sit around and eat.” She glowers, defensive now about this distasteful revelation, wanting to fly instead to Wayne’s defense, prepared to fend off my forthcoming judgment.

 

And then her face lights up. “Guess what? Wayne bought us tickets to Ireland!”

 

“How sweet of him.” Icily.

 

Such spendthrifts they are, such obsessive-compulsive consumers. And she’ll have to pay her own way in Ireland, I’m sure of it. No wonder she never has any money for new tires or dentist appointments. And I guess that blows any possibility that she’ll be with us in San Diego on her birthday.

 

Stop.

 

“I guess you’ll have fun showing him around all your favorite spots?”

 

“Yes! We’re planning so many neat things! We’re staying one night each in seven different places, and I’m going to take him to all my favorite pubs and restaurants, and to the cliffs too.”

 

“Wow. Sounds great!”

 

Hmmmph. Sounds expensive.

 

Shut up. Let her live her own life.

 

“I know you loved Ireland! What a romantic place. Let me see, weren’t you with Sam, the last time you were there?”

 

Now how did that pop out of my mouth?

 

“Yeah.” Pensively. “And I hope Wayne won’t be as much of a pain in the ass as Sam was. I remember we fought the whole way across Europe. God I hope Wayne and I can stand each other for a whole week. We get on each other’s nerves. You know, Sam drove me crazy all the way across Ireland.”

 

Yes, I do know. I know Claire’s love relationships, which tend, like mine did at her age, toward extremes of passionate abandon or dark doubts.

 

“When I was your age, Claire” (am I the one now really saying this?) “I wanted so much for everything, my whole life, to be decided right now. I was dying to know who I was going to marry, what my career would be, what I’d name my kids, where I would settle down….”

 

“Yeah, Mom. Thanks, but I don’t feel that way.”

 

“You don’t?” Now that’s interesting. A dismissal? A sign of growth? I’m intrigued. “Claire…?”

 

But the waiter appears, refills our water glasses, takes our plates and our orders for coffee and dessert. And the moment passes.

 

Claire remembers something she’d wanted to share. “Did I tell you what I’m getting Wayne for Christmas? And what he’s getting me? I bought him this fantastic leather jacket he tried on the other day. Incredible. I just had to get it, he looked so hot in it. And he’s made us Christmas Eve reservations at the Inn at Little Washington. Have you heard of it?”

 

Just that it’s expensive…. Shut up.

 

“Wonderful!” I say enthusiastically.

 

So we won’t see you on Christmas either, Claire?

 

Stop, Grace. Don’t go a step further.

 

I do anyway.

“I hope you’ve managed to set aside a little money for Ben and Zilsa’s Christmas gifts this year.” (And mine. Don’t forget about me! Again.)

Claire scowls darkly at me. “I’m not going to forget your present, Mom, if that’s what you’re worrying about. That was in college. I’m a big girl now.” But still, she looks a little lost and sad. “I hope it’s OK if I don’t spend too much on you guys this year. With the Ireland trip coming up. And all my bills. But I should get a raise soon.” She brightens up at that thought.

“Hey, Mom, I made my Christmas list, like you asked me to. Wanna see it?”

I love Christmas shopping with Claire, love the self-indulgence of going in and out of every store looking for exactly what we want. I love watching her try things on, love to watch her prance around in new finery. I love giving Claire pretty things, dressing her up, helping her. It’s fun to buy things for one so pretty and young—I wish I could have bought things when I was young and gorgeous, or whatever. Claire looks so good in everything. And she does appreciate what we give her. And she knows we don’t want her to feel obligated, just want to share our small disposable income with her.

It must be hard for her to take our money, though, our gifts, even though we don’t attach strings.

On the other hand, this generation is so materialistic.

Stop, Grace. Stop being a fuddy-duddy. It’s a new century. She likes having things. And just what alternatives did I hope would attract Claire at this stage? Perhaps she should live in a dump in rags with no material desires at all? Like I did?

I am so hard on her. Whatever she chooses, she can’t win. I always question it, ponder all the alternative choices she’s missing out on.

But at least she’s having fun now, anyway. “That was a great lunch Mom! Thank you so much. I love our Christmas shopping trip, don’t you?” She strides ahead, a tawny feline, oblivious of all the turning heads. Ah, I remember those days. Vaguely.

Claire’s incorrigible when she gets going on something, so animated, funny, and now she’s going on about Wayne, all the funny things he said, what the guy across from her cube said on email, what she’ll wear to the Christmas party, all those prom dresses we bought her in high school, how she never appreciated them but really does now. Poor Claire, so young and beautiful and poor and tempted by everything. But we’re proud of her, the way she’s taken on the tough job of taking care of herself, standing on her own two big feet, making her way.

Suddenly she’s frowning, confronting the total stress of having nothing to wear to the office party, thinking about all her tough day-to-day economic choices, her dire state of poverty, Ireland, Wayne's new jacket, the long career climb ahead, paying for graduate school too, all before she can begin to go where she wants to go.

Subtly but surely, her long lithe body seems to bend slightly, collapsing inward. She seems suddenly smaller. She’s been working too hard, not getting enough sleep, no exercise. She’s not eating right.

“Do you want to rethink your Christmas list, Claire, with a party dress in mind?”

Her brow furrows into a deep frown. “No. I need those work clothes.” Then she slips her long arm companionably through mind, leans into me, smiles apologetically for being so short with me, and we swing along looking into store windows.

Well. This is fun. Though I’m still feeling a bit tender, a little wistful, knowing, regretting, that I can’t, and in fact never could, control Claire’s tomorrows.

A hard lesson. But one I’ve learned. For sure. For ever.

I look down at her Christmas list.

“Why on earth would you want a black purse, Claire? I thought you were going to go with browns and neutrals, not blacks and whites. It’s like silver or gold, you have to choose, at your stage in life, in your financial situation….”

“Mom! Let me make my own fashion decisions, OK?!”

She’s given up on me now, can’t even look at me, afraid I’ll see her totally—berserk—deranged—furious. She feels completely put upon, overwhelmed. I’m impossible. It never ends, does it? It will always be the same old stuff. Her mom will never give up, I'll always baby her. It will always be like this. Good god, telling her what clothes to buy, giving her advice on style, her, the only one in the whole hippie family who ever even cared about what she looked like….

Claire’s face is furious.

And I’m recomposing my own face now, too, feeling so old, so cold, so completely frustrated. And struggling to hide it.

I want to shriek, give me a break!

Is there any subject you’re not touchy about? If there is one, tell me, tell me now! I need to know what it is! However may I earn your royal highness’ approval? How ascend Rapunzel’s lofty, impregnable wall? Tell me, what is it that you want me to say?

Or shall I just retreat forever into silence??

Not to mention: Pardon me for living!

I just want to go home, want to get a nice backrub from my warm, accepting husband, drink the glass of merlot he’ll hand me with a sympathetic grin. He knows our relationship, he hears me whine about it until late into the night curled up close, murmuring, she’ll be fine, she’s wonderful, keep trying, everything will come out all right….

Claire and I are two copycat mannequins, one feeling so very old and one so young. We stumble along side-by-side, grimacing, vacant, extending ourselves numbly and pointlessly away from each other, outward toward nothing, our hearts hardening.

Claire sees the veiled twist of my mouth that trembles infuriatingly when I’m most hurt, when I’m trying, god forbid, not to cry.

“Uh-oh,” she says. “Mom’s mad.”

Damn straight. And thanks, Claire, that helps a lot.

My long hard look at her means, just drop it. You don’t even want to know what I’m thinking.

And sure enough, that look is devastating, and it’s had its withering effect. Claire now looks quickly away too, her own mouth twisting.

We're affronted little hurt-twins, distraught duplicates, huffing along in unison, our eyes rolling in torment, our livers picked endlessly by crows. We sigh. We shrug. We sigh heavily again.

“I can’t seem to find any safe subjects, Claire. Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

“Not really.” Grimly. “Let’s shop.”

Let’s get this over with, she means. I just hate this. We both hate this. It’s impossible. She hates taking my money, hates acting happy and grateful, hates being here with me, hates being the dutiful appreciative trapped recipient of my importunate largesse. She doesn’t want any of this, wants to run away, wants to go home to her friends, at least they like her, Wayne likes her….

We stomp along efficiently, towards nowhere in particular.

All right. We’ll shop.

I press my lips together. No words will pass them that’s for sure. No words to be misunderstood and misinterpreted and judged unworthy. Far be it from me. I’m finally and forever hunkered down. All right. This is what she wants. All right. So we’ll both just get old and gray just like this, driving each other crazy. All right. Isn’t this fun? OK. We’ll shop in silence. Fine.

“Do you want to go in here?” she asks. Indifferent.

“Whatever you like, Claire.”

I spy a beautiful lagoon-blue jacket, the precise color that sets off her eyes, her skin, her hair, the Banana Republic style she gushes over. I hold it up and signal across the room, “Hey—like this?”

Of course she doesn’t. She drags herself up from her own deep scrutiny of something important, distantly polite. Coldly examines my limp offering. “No. Thank you.”

I put the sweater back. Of course.

Much later….

“How ‘bout this one?” and even as I hold it up, I instantly regret having done so, instantly dread her condescension, her pained response to the very suggestion that I might select something appropriate for her. I actually have to strain to momentarily hold the sweater up for her bored inspection, almost duck behind it, longing to bury my indiscretion back under the clothes on the rack.

Claire dutifully glances in my direction accommodating my improbable, outrageous request once more for her attention, endures the wasted length of time necessary to coolly dismiss whatever implausible remnant I might hold in my hand.

Her eyes dilate.

She peers closely, sucks in her breath, whistles out through pursed lips.

“Yes. That is nice,” she exults, walking over, whisking the sweater away, hugging it, doing a little whirlwind dance in a circle around me. “It's perfect, Mom! Thank you!”

It’s so sad. It's so maddening. It’s such work, loving your mom, loving your daughter. It’s so hard.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net . Thank you!

 

 

 

 

“Eat Drink Man Woman” – Universal, Instructive, Thought-Provoking, Culturally Fascinating

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One reason I watch foreign films is to broaden myself about the ways American films, families, and culture are different from those of other cultures. This movie was richly rewarding in that sense, as well as very enjoyable, and artistically very well-done.

 

“Eat Drink Man Woman” is a thoughtful drama about a Taiwanese master chef/widower with three marriageable daughters.

 

The many intertwined plots were surprising and satisfying, never pat. The disparate characters were each interesting and believable, and their choices turned out to be very true to their characters. I felt a sense of real people, distinct, unique, each with his/her own very human set of strengths and weaknesses, each making real, important choices; yet this movie left me with no sense at all of strings having been tidily or predictably tied up, or even ending. Instead, I felt that much had changed, much had stayed the same, and family life would go on, a bit differently. How like life….

 

It was interesting to see how each character isolated him (or her) self  from the others concerning their most important, major private struggles. It was also interesting to see how unique and true-to-character each was in his/her choice of personal struggles, and how differently, in terms of personal styles, each one went about pursuing his or her chosen quests–and finally, how OK all these varied paths felt.

 

This movie left me with so much respect for uniqueness, and with a renewed realization that there really are no universal answers that work for everyone, although there are some pretty good universal values.

 

For instance, one character’s personality was quite unconscious about herself and others, resistant and defensive, even to choices which later worked out to be just right for her. Yet she was always true to herself, and worked to surround herself with others who cared about her.

 

One character strove toward a difficult long-term commitment, taking step after careful step to overcome heavy obstacles to achieving that goal. Another character merrily flowed along in life, characteristically open, eager, honest, generous and thoughtless—and of course stumbled enthusiastically into his/her destiny.

 

An unusually talented individual with great integrity anguished over every small deliberate choice, making small, excellent, creative decisions among many options despite considerable adversity, opening many more new opportunities to yet more expansive sets of difficult choices. This individual subtly worked to balance all her choices for the good of everyone she cared about, herself very much included, miraculously without being obnoxious about any of it.

 

Each character in this movie, like every human being, came burdened with past mistakes, regrets, heartaches, disappointments and misunderstandings, which of course impacted their present feelings and choices.

 

I admired this family’s loyalty, and their mutual respect and support, all very evident in their efforts to be kind, helpful and courteous to one another and others, despite life's many challenges.

 

I was intrigued as well about the evident “Asian” diffidence concerning effusive affection. Americans are often more pal-ly (pal-ish?) and casual, which can be hurtful or helpful, depending perhaps upon sensitivity and luck? It also seemed “Asian” somehow that no one in this movie really knew much about what was going on in one another’s lives and thoughts—but then, do Americans ever really know very much either, despite how much we share about ourselves and how many questions we ask? Everyone in this particular family seemed to accept one another’s right to privacy (perhaps to a fault); evidently this is a mixed blessing, which Americans often share with equally mixed results. Just like in America, these characters avoided and deflected direct questions about the really important issues in their lives–yet everyone still did a lot of guessing and gossiping, with all the usual resultant confusions–because everyone’s assumptions are always way off. All of which made the movie that much more interesting and universal.

 

The many intricate plots were each compelling, moving, and beautifully acted, and each story was worth telling and well-told. Each story, as well as the story of the whole family (an interesting plot in itself) was allowed to develop naturally and richly over time, yet efficiently, with no extraneous detail.

 

Although each person was very private, sharing little of their personal lives with one another, and rarely consultative about decision-making, each announced important personal decisions which would affect the family courageously, honestly, and openly, even when such disclosures were sure to be upsetting or unwelcome. The family always seemed to surmount initial emotional reactions and eventually come around to respect, acceptance and support for the different choices and values of the others, with no attempts to change or manipulate one another.

 

I was also impressed, coming as I do from a culture of fast-food and fast-living, with how much time and excellence this family put into its mutual offerings of caring for each other, friends, colleagues, etc.

 

If you like beautiful cooking, you’ll like this movie.

 

I took away a strong sense that things tend to work out in families (if not in the exact ways each family member would want) when family members strive to uphold ideals and values of commitment, courtesy, acceptance, caring, and respect, despite conflicting personal values, personalities and choices, and often in the face of tragic, embarrassing, or unwanted outcomes. In this sense, this movie reminded me of a Japanese book I once read (and also enjoyed very much) called The Makioki Sisters.

 

I found it difficult to keep up with the many names and faces at first. But I enjoyed this movie so much that I watched it again, so as not to miss all the delicious, rewarding details, and was glad I did.

 

The filming was gorgeous, particular the details about food preparation. I particularly admired the acting of the father, and the middle sister, who was memorably beautiful and charming. I appreciated that “Eat Drink Man Woman” was exemplary of the “show me, don’t tell me” school of art.

 

A character in the movie made the comment that different families communicate in different ways: this family communicated—really, loved one another–through food. It made me remember how much my birth family loved one another through singing together.

 

I recommend this movie for anyone interested in a charming, artistic story about individuals in a close family facing many challenges, both together and apart, over time. I also picked up a lot of fascinating details about interesting cultural differences in Taiwan.

 

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net .