As if that's an excuse for the blogger's equivalent of drunk dialing. I've not written lately for many reasons; the most plausible excuse being that life lately has been so very personal. So, if you want to know what I have to think about something feel free to hack into my personal e-mail accounts. (Joke, that.)
Anyway, in addition to Happy Spring (and does anyone else feel like a fat, black bear unfurling from a long hibernation?) I want to share two of my comparative dumb-as-a-box-o'-rocks moments. Both are tangentially related to religion. I stopped attending church as a teenager. A result of the cessation of my mother's enforcement regime (and my disenchantment with the congregation during the height of the Vietnam War). For years my mother made sure we made it to Sunday School and church with my father. (My long poem, "Beatrice's Neck" is crafted from those Sundays.) Only now do I realize that it had less to do with inculcating religiousity than it had to do with creating some god-damn time to herself witha family of one husband and 4 rowdy kids. (Although I do think church meant something to her; she, herself returned to church towards to end of her too short life.) All of that to say that I do claim some home training which makes these lapses in recognition all the more mortifying.
Fast forward to the early 1980s. I'm working in Washington, DC. It's spring. I'm still young enough and green enough that The City (and its comfortable denizens) were still undeniably glamourous to me. One day I'm on say, K Street, and I see this elegant middle-aged woman walking towards me. Looked like she graduated from Smith (back in the day), and worked for a law firm or was some high-level goverment appointee. Well put together, like i wished I could be but never ever achieved. I glanced at her but got stuck at her forehead. This elegant, Ann Taylor-clad (yeah, yeah when it meant something) woman had a big black smudge on the middle of her forehead. I wanted to wet my thumb and wipe it off. It surprised me: didn't you check the mirror before you left the house? Don't you have a compact in your purse? When was the last time you applied your Naked Librarian Coral lipstick?!?!?! So, when I got into work I started babbling about this woman I saw who didn't realize that she had dirt on her face, can you b'leve it?
I'm sure someone, probably a co-worker who did graduate from one of the Seven Sisters, took pity on me and gently explained that that day was Ash Wednesday. The Episcopal and Catholic observant are marked as an acknowledgement of mortality and human fallibility. Oh. Thanks and I hauled my lapsed Baptist ass to my desk and said not another word.
Never content to make a fool of myself once when I can do it several times years later I asked one of our Egyptian guides why so many men had a dark smudge on their foreheads. (You know where my mind was going, don't you?) I asked, of course, while being driven around by one such man. Patiently and respectfully I was told that it is basically a sign of piety. That men who pray the requisite times per day and have spent a lifetime putting head to ground acquire that bruise.
Oh. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
So, that's it. Late and I just finished listening to a great Afropop radio documentary about Um Kulthum. To Egypt, and elections. To all the other Christians out there who don't believe in resurrection: this is all we've got. Happy spring.
Good night.
Anyway, in addition to Happy Spring (and does anyone else feel like a fat, black bear unfurling from a long hibernation?) I want to share two of my comparative dumb-as-a-box-o'-rocks moments. Both are tangentially related to religion. I stopped attending church as a teenager. A result of the cessation of my mother's enforcement regime (and my disenchantment with the congregation during the height of the Vietnam War). For years my mother made sure we made it to Sunday School and church with my father. (My long poem, "Beatrice's Neck" is crafted from those Sundays.) Only now do I realize that it had less to do with inculcating religiousity than it had to do with creating some god-damn time to herself witha family of one husband and 4 rowdy kids. (Although I do think church meant something to her; she, herself returned to church towards to end of her too short life.) All of that to say that I do claim some home training which makes these lapses in recognition all the more mortifying.
Fast forward to the early 1980s. I'm working in Washington, DC. It's spring. I'm still young enough and green enough that The City (and its comfortable denizens) were still undeniably glamourous to me. One day I'm on say, K Street, and I see this elegant middle-aged woman walking towards me. Looked like she graduated from Smith (back in the day), and worked for a law firm or was some high-level goverment appointee. Well put together, like i wished I could be but never ever achieved. I glanced at her but got stuck at her forehead. This elegant, Ann Taylor-clad (yeah, yeah when it meant something) woman had a big black smudge on the middle of her forehead. I wanted to wet my thumb and wipe it off. It surprised me: didn't you check the mirror before you left the house? Don't you have a compact in your purse? When was the last time you applied your Naked Librarian Coral lipstick?!?!?! So, when I got into work I started babbling about this woman I saw who didn't realize that she had dirt on her face, can you b'leve it?
I'm sure someone, probably a co-worker who did graduate from one of the Seven Sisters, took pity on me and gently explained that that day was Ash Wednesday. The Episcopal and Catholic observant are marked as an acknowledgement of mortality and human fallibility. Oh. Thanks and I hauled my lapsed Baptist ass to my desk and said not another word.
Never content to make a fool of myself once when I can do it several times years later I asked one of our Egyptian guides why so many men had a dark smudge on their foreheads. (You know where my mind was going, don't you?) I asked, of course, while being driven around by one such man. Patiently and respectfully I was told that it is basically a sign of piety. That men who pray the requisite times per day and have spent a lifetime putting head to ground acquire that bruise.
Oh. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
So, that's it. Late and I just finished listening to a great Afropop radio documentary about Um Kulthum. To Egypt, and elections. To all the other Christians out there who don't believe in resurrection: this is all we've got. Happy spring.
Good night.
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