Why do some folks focus on what or who they don’t like? Why give attention to the things and people who upset them, when they could be spending that same time and attention thinking about things and people they do like ?
Notice what singer was given the most attention last year? When asked in an interview if she regretted her performance at the VMAs, she smiled and said, “No! People won’t stop talking about it!” Talk about free publicity. She’s laughing all the way to the bank. Smart girl, really. She knew exactly what the reaction would be.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if music legend Carlos Santana had gotten the same amount of attention for what he had done? Don’t know what I’m talking about? Exactly.
On that unseasonably warm, 67 degree December afternoon, realization hit me just as I began my 4.3-mile drive across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge: The funeral we were returning home from had told me all I needed to know about him.
He came from a tiny town that sits on one of those little fingers of land hanging out into the bay. A waterman and a carpenter by trade, he was laid out to rest in his favorite red and black checked, flannel shirt. We arrived an hour into the two hour visitation and we had to wait in a long line. After we sat in one of the pews to wait for the service, we noticed that the stream of people was constant. When the time came to begin the line was still long and the time was pushed back. Looking around the room I saw white faces, black faces, brown faces, and a same sex married couple. Fireman showed up in dress uniform, as he had worked with them as a volunteer EMT. He had loved them all, and the grief on their faces showed they loved him back. The minister told of the devotion of his daughters, who put their lives on hold to care for him and his wife, who stood by him for many years. He said that last summer, when he first went to their house to visit, the yard and driveway were filled with tables of food and it looked like the entire town was there to spend the day.
Looking out over the Chesapeake, across the water where he had spent most of his life, I felt cheated for not knowing him better. I envied my husband for sharing his DNA. Just hearing about him made me want to be the best person I can be. I wondered; what would any of our final farewells say about us?
This Saturday, December 21, we are planning to drive three hours to attend a funeral.
What could possibly be more important than time spent with the people we love? Yet I hear complaints about stupid things like what children’s school Christmas-Holiday-Winter Concerts should or should not be billed as. Does it matter that much? I personally know two young mothers whose little girls didn’t live long enough to start school. There are actually arguments over the ethnicity of Santa. In my own childhood, Santa was a woman (played by my now long gone grandma). The Santa of my grandson’s younger years was a young African American man (also now gone from this world).
I know two young ladies who are facing the first Christmas without their mothers. A former classmate will spend another Christmas without his son, who was killed in Afghanistan. My mother’s oldest friend is going to dress up and drive to the nursing home, where she will eat Christmas dinner with her husband of over 60 years, a resident there who suffers from Alzheimer’s. My son works all day on Christmas. The hospital is full of people who will also be spending the holiday there. He gets to come home when his 12-hour shift ends; they do not.
It doesn’t matter if the cookies burn, the weather is lousy, the tree is crooked, and the turkey is a bit dry. Who cares if we have to exchange the ugly sweater we received, the kid’s Christmas concert was called a Winter concert, Santa didn’t look the way we thought he should or the wrapping paper didn’t match the tree ornaments? Does it matter if, because of scheduling conflicts, we have to celebrate two days before or three days after? The greatest gift any of us could possibly hope for is the gift of time. Not much else matters.
This Saturday, the winter solstice, will be the darkest day of the year. It is the day with the least daylight hours. Each day after will be a little brighter.
My husband’s birthday fell on a rainy Friday. We thought it would be fun to catch a matinee of ‘Last Vegas’, which is a tame, older men version of ‘The Hangover’. While it certainly won’t be in the running come awards season, it was funny and it was perfect for a man out celebrating his 62nd. I did, however, find something about the movie rather striking.
Morgan Freeman, Robert DeNiro, Michael Douglas and Kevin Kline rang in age from 76 to 66 years old. Freeman, DeNiro and Kline are all seen looking pretty much the way men of their age would really look; a bit of a belly, glasses on some, and a hearing aid worn by Kline. All have gray or salt and pepper hair. The exception was Douglas’s character, with his super whitened teeth, orange fake tan and hair that was a running joke throughout the movie. His upcoming marriage to a 32-year-old woman was the basis for the plot line. The three men who looked their age made jokes about his trying to stay young.
And then there were the women, played by the lovely Mary Steenburgen, who is 60, and Joanna Gleason, who is 63. These women are very thin and in incredible shape. Both have long, beautiful chocolate brown hair.
I wondered. Why was the male character, who dyed his hair and dressed in something other than dad jeans, crazy plaid jackets or a British driving cap, made into the joke? Why was it seen as “sexy” for the women and “desperate” for the man? Why wasn’t the lady the men were going gaga over being played by, say, Kathy Bates? What about the stunning Dame Judi Dench? Or Bette Midler? Beautiful women, those three ladies, and in the right age range as well.
When we came home, we sat by the fire and watched a movie on TV. Which just happened to star the pudgy, weathered Jack Nicholson. Opposite him, the stunning and very thin Diane Keaton, who seems to get more beautiful with each passing year.
How wonderful that there are good movies starring incredibly talented older actors. But maybe we still have a long way to go. Maybe when the ladies with silver in their hair and a few extra ounces on their hips are the ones who are receiving the appreciative glances from the male characters, maybe then we can say we’ve reached a level of equality between men and woman.
You’ll find them at the dinner table, in coffee shops, on the beach and just strolling down the street on a nice day. They can be seen in cars, at the mall, or in the grocery store. They are “the extra person in the room”. They are the electronic devices. Almost a species of their own, they are carried around and talked to, given attention and frantically searched for if they go missing.
I stood back and took notice of how, when watching a pay per view movie over the Thanksgiving holiday, there were several “extra people”, uninvited mind you, who were getting lots of attention. One “extra” was playing backgammon with my husband, who wasn’t interested in the movie. Another was facilitating a chat between my grandson and his friend. The third was sending real time photos of scenes of the movie to my daughter’s social media account. The following day I watched a woman get her dog’s leash tangled in her legs while chatting with her friend via “the extra person”. (By the way, I now know what she pays for car insurance, what gift she is getting for her husband for Christmas and how much she paid through Amazon, and that she’s pretty sure the relationship between her sister and married coworker is no longer platonic.) While getting groceries, I was treated to the details of a woman’s gynecological exam, as she relayed that experience to her mother via the “extra person”. I’ve been shown real time photos of people I have never met doing things I have no interest in. I’ve watched people so preoccupied with “sharing” something as it was happening that I’m not real sure they were fully aware of the experience themselves, even though they were RIGHT THERE.
The result? I am setting out to prove there is life without “them”. The holiday season is hectic, what with the baking, shopping and meal planning. This year, I am going to go through Christmas without the help of social media or cell phone. The computer will be limited. I will buy a few things on line that I can’t get locally, but will finally pay a visit to some of the lovely little mom and pop shops downtown. I may look up a recipe or two, but more probably I will peruse those dusty old cookbooks I’ve collected over the years.
The “extra person” is not invited. I plan to savor the season without added distraction. I want to be fully engaged in the experience.
