I have a new cleaning schedule. It makes so much sense, I don't know why I didn't think of this five years ago. In short, I tidy, dust, sweep or hoover and scrub (if applicable) one room of the flat a day, except Sundays. We have eight rooms (arguably nine, but currently we use the smallest as a closet), so two get done on either Saturday or Monday.
My sudden enthusiasm for cleaning is down to Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House. I opened the neglected volume for stain removal advice, and got sucked into the section on dusting. What I read about dust mites frightened me so much, I seized the hoover at once and hoovered the dickens out of the bedroom carpet even though it was Sunday.
We have sand-coloured wall to wall carpeting throughout the flat, which I hate on principle, but it was here before us, and here it will be when we go. Having been roused to unprecedented levels of cleaning activity, I shall sail out this weekend to buy a carpet cleaner.
Now the flat is entirely tidy and dusted, though the recycling has silted up in the kitchen again. Saturday mornings are dedicated to cleaning the kitchen. Incidentally, I have taken to hand cream. Last night I went to bed wearing cheap wool gloves, hands covered in shea butter. My fingernails are a wreck. I am a homemaking martyr.
The psychological boost I get after finishing a room, especially if I get it done by noon, is really amazing. I am hoping it is addictive. So is B.A. Usually he cleans the bathroom out of sheer desperation, poor man, and in five years he complained only once.
Showing posts with label Marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marriage. Show all posts
Friday, 18 July 2014
Thursday, 26 June 2014
Young Marriage vs Old Marriage
When I announced my engagement on Facebook almost six years ago, an old friend who had been married since he/she was in his/her early twenties congratulated me and said that I'd be spared a lot of suffering, getting married so late.
I am sure he/she also said something like "It's been great, but..." because he/she has a lot of kids, all of whom are wonderful and gifts from God, but...
The longer you are not in a fully sexual relationship, the fewer kids you are likely to conceive. That's just how it is. Any Christian who is really, really certain she does not have what it takes to raise children should not get married until she does. Natural Family Planning is a great tool for actually implementing some kind of family creation plan, but a good rule of thumb is that if you are under thirty and having frequent sexual relations, without contraception, you are going to get pregnant.
I'm not sure, though, why a Christian woman would be so sure she does not have what it takes to raise children. I suppose that if she has NO experience of caring for children, or pets, or plants or anything, then the idea of being a body slave to an extremely intelligent yet vulnerable human being must indeed be scary. However, women--most of us dirt poor--have always had and cared for babies. The vast majority of women in history have not worried about their babies' second language acquisition or whatever worry is the current obsession these days. The vast majority of women simply hoped (and hope) to keep their babies alive. If you can keep a baby alive and as comfortable and clean as possible, then you are good mother material.
But although babies and how many you might have, and how closely together, is uppermost on the minds of young Catholic women who hope to marry one day (and do boys think about the baby question quite so much?), there are the less pleasant spectres of abuse and divorce. When I was 21, I taught Latin to a class of twelve and thirteen year olds, and one day they were fascinated by the concept of annulments. This school, incidentally, was so anti-divorce that it asked me during my job interview (totally against the law, by the way), if I were divorced. It simply loathed divorce. And so my little moppets were fascinated by the topic of annulments which, I believe, they saw as a get-out-of-jail free card they would keep JUST IN CASE. Little did they or I know at the time that one day I would seek and receive an annulment myself.
Abuse is a tricky one, and all I can say is that an abusive 19 year old boyfriend is not going to stop being abusive once he's married, and neither is the abusive 19 year old girlfriend. The fastest and most effective way not to be abused by a spouse is to not marry an abusive person. In Canada we say (or used to say) as first date advice, "Watch how he treats the waitress, 'cause that's how he'll treat you." I have found a lot of truth in this, although there is almost so much an abusive man can do to a waitress compared to what he can do to his girlfriend, wife, sister or mother. Incidentally, any man who hates his sister or mother with a passion needs a therapist, not a wife. Even if his mother IS a real witch, unless he has made peace with that, he's going to pelt you with his mother issues.
Another way to avoid abuse is to put off marriage until you are old enough to handle carnaptious and aggressive young men. There are 19 year olds who can stop a rampaging rapscallion at ten paces, and there are 27 year olds who can't. Knowing how to look a loved one in the eye and say "Hey, you can't get away with that" is something that, for me, came with age. And I'm still not great at it, so it's just as well I married sweet-tempered man whose motto is "Anything for a quiet life."
Really, nobody should get married until she or he is a mature adult, and maturity comes at different ages. It would be better for the mature Single of thirty-plus to date a mature Single of twenty-five than an immature Single her own age. A mature 25 year old can handle marriage-and-babies, an immature thirty-something can't. He'd rather wait until he is 40, and then at 40 he may very well say he feels too old now.
The greatest disadvantage of old marriage is the risk of not having ANY children, but one advantage--if you feel this is an advantage--is that you will almost be guaranteed a smaller family than you might have had, had you married at 22. But the far greater advantage, if you have always been a late bloomer, is that you will have more confidence and maturity. You will now know who you are, and what you can and can't put up with, and the humility to change what ever it is that you do that drives your loved ones nuts. Having had many of your illusions shattered, you will be much more rooted in reality than you were when you were a wee sprog of 25.
And now I must rush off and do my Polish homework.
I am sure he/she also said something like "It's been great, but..." because he/she has a lot of kids, all of whom are wonderful and gifts from God, but...
The longer you are not in a fully sexual relationship, the fewer kids you are likely to conceive. That's just how it is. Any Christian who is really, really certain she does not have what it takes to raise children should not get married until she does. Natural Family Planning is a great tool for actually implementing some kind of family creation plan, but a good rule of thumb is that if you are under thirty and having frequent sexual relations, without contraception, you are going to get pregnant.
I'm not sure, though, why a Christian woman would be so sure she does not have what it takes to raise children. I suppose that if she has NO experience of caring for children, or pets, or plants or anything, then the idea of being a body slave to an extremely intelligent yet vulnerable human being must indeed be scary. However, women--most of us dirt poor--have always had and cared for babies. The vast majority of women in history have not worried about their babies' second language acquisition or whatever worry is the current obsession these days. The vast majority of women simply hoped (and hope) to keep their babies alive. If you can keep a baby alive and as comfortable and clean as possible, then you are good mother material.
But although babies and how many you might have, and how closely together, is uppermost on the minds of young Catholic women who hope to marry one day (and do boys think about the baby question quite so much?), there are the less pleasant spectres of abuse and divorce. When I was 21, I taught Latin to a class of twelve and thirteen year olds, and one day they were fascinated by the concept of annulments. This school, incidentally, was so anti-divorce that it asked me during my job interview (totally against the law, by the way), if I were divorced. It simply loathed divorce. And so my little moppets were fascinated by the topic of annulments which, I believe, they saw as a get-out-of-jail free card they would keep JUST IN CASE. Little did they or I know at the time that one day I would seek and receive an annulment myself.
Abuse is a tricky one, and all I can say is that an abusive 19 year old boyfriend is not going to stop being abusive once he's married, and neither is the abusive 19 year old girlfriend. The fastest and most effective way not to be abused by a spouse is to not marry an abusive person. In Canada we say (or used to say) as first date advice, "Watch how he treats the waitress, 'cause that's how he'll treat you." I have found a lot of truth in this, although there is almost so much an abusive man can do to a waitress compared to what he can do to his girlfriend, wife, sister or mother. Incidentally, any man who hates his sister or mother with a passion needs a therapist, not a wife. Even if his mother IS a real witch, unless he has made peace with that, he's going to pelt you with his mother issues.
Another way to avoid abuse is to put off marriage until you are old enough to handle carnaptious and aggressive young men. There are 19 year olds who can stop a rampaging rapscallion at ten paces, and there are 27 year olds who can't. Knowing how to look a loved one in the eye and say "Hey, you can't get away with that" is something that, for me, came with age. And I'm still not great at it, so it's just as well I married sweet-tempered man whose motto is "Anything for a quiet life."
Really, nobody should get married until she or he is a mature adult, and maturity comes at different ages. It would be better for the mature Single of thirty-plus to date a mature Single of twenty-five than an immature Single her own age. A mature 25 year old can handle marriage-and-babies, an immature thirty-something can't. He'd rather wait until he is 40, and then at 40 he may very well say he feels too old now.
The greatest disadvantage of old marriage is the risk of not having ANY children, but one advantage--if you feel this is an advantage--is that you will almost be guaranteed a smaller family than you might have had, had you married at 22. But the far greater advantage, if you have always been a late bloomer, is that you will have more confidence and maturity. You will now know who you are, and what you can and can't put up with, and the humility to change what ever it is that you do that drives your loved ones nuts. Having had many of your illusions shattered, you will be much more rooted in reality than you were when you were a wee sprog of 25.
And now I must rush off and do my Polish homework.
Monday, 23 June 2014
My Day in Victory Rolls
Oh, poppets. I have discovered what makes you look weirder than a punk rocker or a Goth, and it is a 1940s hairdo, especially if you have long hair. As I looked at myself in the hairdresser's mirror, my little heart sank. I sported modified 1940s hairdos in elementary school, when rollers fixed my fuzzy hair into smooth waves for Picture Days, but this was much, much worse. Instead of two balanced victory rolls, I had one huge victory roll and two pin curls on either side. I crept out of the salon half-expecting to be accosted by school bullies. Taxi!
However, I am not in school but a grown-up and I spent the day inside grown-up Summerhall listening to very grown-up topics as part of the Polish Scottish Heritage Festival.
The first lecture was Scottish Nationalist Party propaganda disguised with a thin veneer of history. The lecture was supposed to be about Scottish migration in the 16th to early 18th centuries to Poland, i.e. between the early days of the Scottish Reformation and the Union of Scotland and England. What economic factors sent the Protestant Scots to Poland, you might ask. Terrible restrictions because pre-union Scotland was in direct competition with powerhouse England? And what economic factors following upon the Union stopped Scots from going there, you might also ask. Astonishing Scottish economic growth? And although what I wanted to do was pass unnoticed (if such a thing was possible, given the size of my victory roll), I did ask these questions. AND DID NOT BL**DY WELL GET STRAIGHT ANSWERS. Because the whole point of the lecture was not to discuss historical realities but to exploit Polish sympathies for nationalism to get more "Yes" votes for the separatist referendum.
I asked the only questions because the other "questions" were actually just other Scotsmen listening to themselves talk, and I do not recall which one it was who tried to draw parallels between Scotland's role in the United Kingdom with the three partitions of Poland, but the speaker certainly did not say that was a stretch. Seven of Britain's Prime Ministers have been born in Scotland; pretending Scots have been groaning under foreign domination since 1707 is ahistorical, an insult and a lie. Not only is it an insult to generations of Scots in Britain, and to Britain in general, but an insult to generations of Poles who suffered in ways the vast majority of Scots born since 1707 could not possibly imagine. How interesting that Poles continue to be exploited, this time by Scottish pseudo-intellectuals prostituting history for their "Yes" votes.*
The speaker was wearing a "YES" button--believe me, it was THAT obvious. I was so angry, I thought the rest of the day would be ruined for me. First I had mad hair, and second the Scots Nats seemed to have hijacked the Scottish Polish Heritage Festival. However, I then heard two excellent testimonies from Scots about Polish experiences in the Second World War and after, in Poland and Scotland. One Scot had a Polish father, and the other had aided Polish displaced persons in Germany in the 1950s and become a Polonophile. The latter wrote a series of short stories, and I was so impressed by her reading that I bought her book. The former's book sounded interesting, too, but he hogged the question period as the woman sat there quietly, so he lost my buyer's sympathy.
Next was an American film called "The Officer's Wife", about the Katyn massacre and the deportation of two million Poles to Siberia. It was very good although natually very depressing. I was curious about the voice given to the actress reading the memoirs of filmmaker's Polish-Chicago grandmother; it sounded neither Polish nor Chicago. It was also political, but at least it wasn't a cheap ploy to get the Poles living in Scotland to vote against the Union (which is not, IMHO) in their economic or political interests AT ALL. No, the film is 100% anti-Soviet and 99.99% anti-current Russian regime, which--given the events described by the film--is fair enough.
Then there was a concert in the main hall by Polish folk singers, which was very loud and reminded me that, although I am a huge fan of Polish pop music of the interwar--and war--period, and have a soft spot for the 1950s stuff (condemned by Polish Pretend Son as Stalinist forced cheer), and enjoy Disco Polo and other modern Polish stuff (and Chopin), I do not like village stuff. I really do not like Polish village stuff. I dislike it so much, I wrote a note to remind myself because every time I think I will like it this time, I do not. And as the room was very crowded with enthusiastic Polish folk music lovers, and I already stuck out like a sore victory roll, I couldn't escape. Oh dear. But at least that wasn't anti-British either. And when it was done, I tied a scarf around my head, like your great-grandmothers, and went out into the outside world for coffee.
My self-confidence improved drastically an hour or so later when I put on my 1940s gear in the Summerhall toilet reserved for the disabled. I had proper 1940s corsetry (squeeeeeze) and tights with lines down the back. I had a long black dress that could have been from the 1940s, black gloves and shoes of a rather 1940s-looking design. I had chunky rhinestone jewellery. Above all, I had brown eyeshadow with which to 1940sfy my eyebrows and super-dark red lipstick. And so I no longer looked simply peculiar but like a 40-something woman in 1940.
The reason many of us all think we look young for our age is because nothing was as aging to our grandmothers and great-grandmothers as the great divide between Maidens' Clothes and Matrons' Clothes. Once upon a time, once you were of a certain age, you HAD to stop dressing like a young woman. And, lo, if you were over thirty in 1940 you might have looked like this:
My mother says I looked magnificent and my hair is just like that of my grandmother in a photo my mother keeps on her mirror, but she has not offered it to my view as proof. Frankly, I thought I was not going to make a very good wingwoman for my Single pal after all, for surely the male reaction to my hair would be to fall about laughing.
But no. After supper and the Katy Carr concert, there was a swing dance, and at this dance I was suddenly SEIZED by a Polish Pretend Pilot (out of uniform) of about 60 and made to swing-dance all over the floor. He had a huge grey moustache and was delicately scented with tobacco and was reluctant to speak in either Polish or English, but I thought I would introduced him to my Single pal anyway. At first she did not look happy with this, for although our saviour from wallflowerdom was an excellent dancer, he was also familiarly affectionate, as if we were his long-lost grand-daughters.
Personally, I expect to be squeezed just a little too much and kissed soundly on the cheek or forehead by slightly tipsy cigarette smokers I have never met before on the dance floor. It is the price one pays for partner dancing. Indeed, I bet generations of women would agree with me, although nobody would admit it. However, my pal is a little more fastidious, so she looked rather irked, but she is also endlessly forgiving, so she may have forgotten about the over-squeezing and face-kissing already.
So after we had both been rescued from wallflowerdom, we went to the bar fashioned out of a room across the hall. The Scots barman had three bottles of vodka behind him, but he literally thought I was joking when I asked for mine straight. He even laughed. "They told me this one goes with apple juice," he said, so I had my zubrowka with apple juice, and it was actually very good. It also gave me the courage for my next wingwoman manoeuvre, so pay attention.
"We must dance with younger men," said I to my Single Pal. She agreed and bewailed the new male tendency not to ask women they don't know to dance. Primed with vodka, I looked around the room for anyone I knew, even slightly. But the only person I knew was Kasia, who looked great, by the way. However, I did recognize one of the men as someone who goes to various of Kasia's Polish poetry events, so I carted my Single Pal along to where he was talking to another youngish man, and I said, "Hey! I know you! You're a friend of Kasia's!"
This of course flies in the face of "The Rules", but I did not care because, being married, I am not interested in male strangers at parties as anyone other than men who might ask my Single Pals to dance. If great cosmic punishment falls upon those who talk to strange men at parties, it will fall on me, not on my innocent Single Pals. Perhaps this is one reason why Single Girls should have Married Pal friends. The caveat is that the Married Pal shouldn't look too obviously married and as if she were merely trying to marry off her Single friend. No, no, no. The Married Pal must look interested in whomever for himself, so that if he shrinks from her brazenness, her friend will look better by comparison. If he recoils with maidenly disgust, the really Single friend can roll her eyes in sympathy and apology and thus create a BOND of shared feeling with the cute stranger.
"Which Kasia?" asked the Polish guy, smirking. "I have two friends here named Kasia."
Oooh. Polish surnames. You know, I see them on Facebook, but it is years before I actually sound them out to myself, let alone memorize them. Faking your way through them is not really an option but...
"Kasia Kokosanka", I claimed.
The Polish guy laughed and well he might, for kokosanka, I have since discovered, means coconut cake.
"That's not her name," he said, chortling away.
"So what is it?" I asked, and as he could not remember, I said he had a lot of nerve laughing at me in that case. I then introduced him to my Single Pal, and eventually he asked her to dance. Ta-dah! (Victory roll.)
I then talked to his non-Polish pal, and eventually asked him to dance, as I cannot resist Irving Berlin songs, and had a marvelous time. My Single Pal may have helpfully corrected any potential misunderstandings by mentioning, when the non-Polish pal made inquiries, that I was married. I think I was back in the arms of Mr Squeezy Moustache at the time.
At 11:15 or so, the crowd had thinned out a bit, and my Single Pal and I rushed off to our respective buses which, conveniently, came to the same stop almost simultaneously. And so I was safely home by midnight, and instead of facing dismay that his wife had run about town with attention-getting hair, Benedict Ambrose took a lot of photos.
"Did that really only cost forty pounds?" he asked, which as you may discover, is one of the nicest things a husband can say, combining flattery about your looks with the assertion that they didn't cost you that much. (Second victory roll!)
*Poles resident in Scotland can vote for or against the Union in September's Scottish so-called "independence" referendum. No-one living in any other part of the UK, including those born in Scotland of Scottish parentage, can vote. Four million people, including 16 year olds and people not born anywhere in the UK (including me), get to make a decision that will potentially worsen the lives of sixty-two million people. Nice, eh? Before the SNP got into power, "independence", never mind Scottish republicanism, was a fringe interest. IMHO this whole stramash is a vanity project for Scottish politicians without the talent or clout to get anywhere in the Union as a whole. As I said, at least seven Scots have been Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, a major first world power. Why we're going to chuck this in... Oh well. If the economy collapes, B.A. and I can always go to Canada, and the Poles can always go back to Poland or to England, which I hope would weather the storm.
However, I am not in school but a grown-up and I spent the day inside grown-up Summerhall listening to very grown-up topics as part of the Polish Scottish Heritage Festival.
The first lecture was Scottish Nationalist Party propaganda disguised with a thin veneer of history. The lecture was supposed to be about Scottish migration in the 16th to early 18th centuries to Poland, i.e. between the early days of the Scottish Reformation and the Union of Scotland and England. What economic factors sent the Protestant Scots to Poland, you might ask. Terrible restrictions because pre-union Scotland was in direct competition with powerhouse England? And what economic factors following upon the Union stopped Scots from going there, you might also ask. Astonishing Scottish economic growth? And although what I wanted to do was pass unnoticed (if such a thing was possible, given the size of my victory roll), I did ask these questions. AND DID NOT BL**DY WELL GET STRAIGHT ANSWERS. Because the whole point of the lecture was not to discuss historical realities but to exploit Polish sympathies for nationalism to get more "Yes" votes for the separatist referendum.
I asked the only questions because the other "questions" were actually just other Scotsmen listening to themselves talk, and I do not recall which one it was who tried to draw parallels between Scotland's role in the United Kingdom with the three partitions of Poland, but the speaker certainly did not say that was a stretch. Seven of Britain's Prime Ministers have been born in Scotland; pretending Scots have been groaning under foreign domination since 1707 is ahistorical, an insult and a lie. Not only is it an insult to generations of Scots in Britain, and to Britain in general, but an insult to generations of Poles who suffered in ways the vast majority of Scots born since 1707 could not possibly imagine. How interesting that Poles continue to be exploited, this time by Scottish pseudo-intellectuals prostituting history for their "Yes" votes.*
The speaker was wearing a "YES" button--believe me, it was THAT obvious. I was so angry, I thought the rest of the day would be ruined for me. First I had mad hair, and second the Scots Nats seemed to have hijacked the Scottish Polish Heritage Festival. However, I then heard two excellent testimonies from Scots about Polish experiences in the Second World War and after, in Poland and Scotland. One Scot had a Polish father, and the other had aided Polish displaced persons in Germany in the 1950s and become a Polonophile. The latter wrote a series of short stories, and I was so impressed by her reading that I bought her book. The former's book sounded interesting, too, but he hogged the question period as the woman sat there quietly, so he lost my buyer's sympathy.
Next was an American film called "The Officer's Wife", about the Katyn massacre and the deportation of two million Poles to Siberia. It was very good although natually very depressing. I was curious about the voice given to the actress reading the memoirs of filmmaker's Polish-Chicago grandmother; it sounded neither Polish nor Chicago. It was also political, but at least it wasn't a cheap ploy to get the Poles living in Scotland to vote against the Union (which is not, IMHO) in their economic or political interests AT ALL. No, the film is 100% anti-Soviet and 99.99% anti-current Russian regime, which--given the events described by the film--is fair enough.
Then there was a concert in the main hall by Polish folk singers, which was very loud and reminded me that, although I am a huge fan of Polish pop music of the interwar--and war--period, and have a soft spot for the 1950s stuff (condemned by Polish Pretend Son as Stalinist forced cheer), and enjoy Disco Polo and other modern Polish stuff (and Chopin), I do not like village stuff. I really do not like Polish village stuff. I dislike it so much, I wrote a note to remind myself because every time I think I will like it this time, I do not. And as the room was very crowded with enthusiastic Polish folk music lovers, and I already stuck out like a sore victory roll, I couldn't escape. Oh dear. But at least that wasn't anti-British either. And when it was done, I tied a scarf around my head, like your great-grandmothers, and went out into the outside world for coffee.
My self-confidence improved drastically an hour or so later when I put on my 1940s gear in the Summerhall toilet reserved for the disabled. I had proper 1940s corsetry (squeeeeeze) and tights with lines down the back. I had a long black dress that could have been from the 1940s, black gloves and shoes of a rather 1940s-looking design. I had chunky rhinestone jewellery. Above all, I had brown eyeshadow with which to 1940sfy my eyebrows and super-dark red lipstick. And so I no longer looked simply peculiar but like a 40-something woman in 1940.
The reason many of us all think we look young for our age is because nothing was as aging to our grandmothers and great-grandmothers as the great divide between Maidens' Clothes and Matrons' Clothes. Once upon a time, once you were of a certain age, you HAD to stop dressing like a young woman. And, lo, if you were over thirty in 1940 you might have looked like this:
My mother says I looked magnificent and my hair is just like that of my grandmother in a photo my mother keeps on her mirror, but she has not offered it to my view as proof. Frankly, I thought I was not going to make a very good wingwoman for my Single pal after all, for surely the male reaction to my hair would be to fall about laughing.
But no. After supper and the Katy Carr concert, there was a swing dance, and at this dance I was suddenly SEIZED by a Polish Pretend Pilot (out of uniform) of about 60 and made to swing-dance all over the floor. He had a huge grey moustache and was delicately scented with tobacco and was reluctant to speak in either Polish or English, but I thought I would introduced him to my Single pal anyway. At first she did not look happy with this, for although our saviour from wallflowerdom was an excellent dancer, he was also familiarly affectionate, as if we were his long-lost grand-daughters.
Personally, I expect to be squeezed just a little too much and kissed soundly on the cheek or forehead by slightly tipsy cigarette smokers I have never met before on the dance floor. It is the price one pays for partner dancing. Indeed, I bet generations of women would agree with me, although nobody would admit it. However, my pal is a little more fastidious, so she looked rather irked, but she is also endlessly forgiving, so she may have forgotten about the over-squeezing and face-kissing already.
So after we had both been rescued from wallflowerdom, we went to the bar fashioned out of a room across the hall. The Scots barman had three bottles of vodka behind him, but he literally thought I was joking when I asked for mine straight. He even laughed. "They told me this one goes with apple juice," he said, so I had my zubrowka with apple juice, and it was actually very good. It also gave me the courage for my next wingwoman manoeuvre, so pay attention.
"We must dance with younger men," said I to my Single Pal. She agreed and bewailed the new male tendency not to ask women they don't know to dance. Primed with vodka, I looked around the room for anyone I knew, even slightly. But the only person I knew was Kasia, who looked great, by the way. However, I did recognize one of the men as someone who goes to various of Kasia's Polish poetry events, so I carted my Single Pal along to where he was talking to another youngish man, and I said, "Hey! I know you! You're a friend of Kasia's!"
This of course flies in the face of "The Rules", but I did not care because, being married, I am not interested in male strangers at parties as anyone other than men who might ask my Single Pals to dance. If great cosmic punishment falls upon those who talk to strange men at parties, it will fall on me, not on my innocent Single Pals. Perhaps this is one reason why Single Girls should have Married Pal friends. The caveat is that the Married Pal shouldn't look too obviously married and as if she were merely trying to marry off her Single friend. No, no, no. The Married Pal must look interested in whomever for himself, so that if he shrinks from her brazenness, her friend will look better by comparison. If he recoils with maidenly disgust, the really Single friend can roll her eyes in sympathy and apology and thus create a BOND of shared feeling with the cute stranger.
"Which Kasia?" asked the Polish guy, smirking. "I have two friends here named Kasia."
Oooh. Polish surnames. You know, I see them on Facebook, but it is years before I actually sound them out to myself, let alone memorize them. Faking your way through them is not really an option but...
"Kasia Kokosanka", I claimed.
The Polish guy laughed and well he might, for kokosanka, I have since discovered, means coconut cake.
"That's not her name," he said, chortling away.
"So what is it?" I asked, and as he could not remember, I said he had a lot of nerve laughing at me in that case. I then introduced him to my Single Pal, and eventually he asked her to dance. Ta-dah! (Victory roll.)
I then talked to his non-Polish pal, and eventually asked him to dance, as I cannot resist Irving Berlin songs, and had a marvelous time. My Single Pal may have helpfully corrected any potential misunderstandings by mentioning, when the non-Polish pal made inquiries, that I was married. I think I was back in the arms of Mr Squeezy Moustache at the time.
At 11:15 or so, the crowd had thinned out a bit, and my Single Pal and I rushed off to our respective buses which, conveniently, came to the same stop almost simultaneously. And so I was safely home by midnight, and instead of facing dismay that his wife had run about town with attention-getting hair, Benedict Ambrose took a lot of photos.
"Did that really only cost forty pounds?" he asked, which as you may discover, is one of the nicest things a husband can say, combining flattery about your looks with the assertion that they didn't cost you that much. (Second victory roll!)
*Poles resident in Scotland can vote for or against the Union in September's Scottish so-called "independence" referendum. No-one living in any other part of the UK, including those born in Scotland of Scottish parentage, can vote. Four million people, including 16 year olds and people not born anywhere in the UK (including me), get to make a decision that will potentially worsen the lives of sixty-two million people. Nice, eh? Before the SNP got into power, "independence", never mind Scottish republicanism, was a fringe interest. IMHO this whole stramash is a vanity project for Scottish politicians without the talent or clout to get anywhere in the Union as a whole. As I said, at least seven Scots have been Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, a major first world power. Why we're going to chuck this in... Oh well. If the economy collapes, B.A. and I can always go to Canada, and the Poles can always go back to Poland or to England, which I hope would weather the storm.
Wednesday, 11 June 2014
The Untold London Story
"You should," said B.A. "It's a good story."
So now I'm going to tell you the story about Benedict Ambrose and the London Bobby, not only because it's a good story but because it is illustrative of one of the great realities of married life, which is that sometimes your spouse will drive you nuts.
Naturally, though, I will have to preface this with a hymn to the greatness of B.A. so you don't get the idea that I'm oppressed or downtrodden. When I calculated that our London jaunt cost us approximately 678 squid, he didn't get mad or huffy. He just said, "That's all right, darling. It was a WONDERFUL fortnight."
"Ha, ha, ha," I said sourly as he snickered away, but I was vastly comforted that he thought the high price of our weekend amusing and not some horrific fault that I will never, ever atone for and that I will have to hear about it until Kingdom Come. Some husbands are like that. Not mine, thank heavens.
Whenever possible, B.A. will choose to joke rather than complain. The one exception is when some real injustice has been done by one person to another. However, when it comes to the weather, economic circumstance, airport layovers, illness, etc., they are just more fodder for jokes. And puns. B.A. loves puns. If he ever falls silent, it is because he is working out a pun, and no matter how bad it is, he will lob it at all hearers.
Female hearers are wont to say, "Oh, that's terrible. How can you stand it, Seraphic?" And I smile in a pale, long-suffering way although sometimes the puns are so good I write them down and embarrass B.A. with them years later. And if I make a pun, everyone around says it's on account of being married to B.A., so he gets the blame.
The loud and frequent throat-clearing is much more annoying, but I reflect that if I am ever a widow, I would give my remaining teeth to hear that characteristic khhhhhhuuuuhhhh again.
And then there is the television commentary, which reaches fever pitch when we watch "Master Chef". B.A., who taught philosophy at the university level for many years, sits before the television making positive statements for which he has no evidence whatsoever.
Contestant (presents dish to Greg, quivers): I hope you enjoy it.
B.A.: Oh, it's going to be awful. It's tough. It's stringy. It's completely under seasoned.
Greg (tastes dish): Cor blimey, mate. That is absolutely DELICIOUS! It's tender. It's juicy. And the seasoning! Perfection!
In short, B.A. makes a lot of noise. The noise increases according to emotional circumstances, but particularly when B.A. is excited and happy. And this is why--revelation!--I get so cranky when we travel together. When I am in a new place, especially where English is not the first language, I need quiet to adjust, think, locate the exits, summon the remnants of my foreign languages, and write down any instructions I have managed to wring from officials in my pidgin French/Italian/Polish.
B.A., on the other hand, needs to talk. "We need to go there! Oh! No, we don't. And we need to buy this ticket! Wait! No, we don't." What makes it worse is that after making two incorrect statements, thus dashing my faith in his judgement, he is right the third time, which makes me feel like a disloyal, unreasonable ass.
B.A. will also read me the inscriptions on plinths. The English inscriptions. I believe many husbands do this, and surely it is not because they believe their wives have suddenly been struck illiterate. It could be their joy and excitement. As when watching "Master Chef."
I suppose there have been times (Italy) when I have wished a policeman to rescue me from B.A.'s torrent of happy, instructive chatter, but Saturday afternoon was not one of them. We had just had a splendid meal at Ognisko (my choice) and we were on our way to sell my book (my childhood dream). The sun was shining; it was delightfully warm; Hyde Park was to our left; stately embassies were to our right. B.A. may have been talking; I do not recall. I was wrapped in a blissful post-prandial cardigan of joy.
Then we spotted a crowd of demonstrators, mostly of Middle Eastern appearance, to our left, across the street. And we noted a number of policemen on our side of the street. The demonstrators were apparently aiming their protest at one of the embassies to our right.
"They're protesting Iraq," said B.A. "No, Lebanon. Syria."
We squinted at the plaque beside the door of the embassy as we passed.
"Syria!" shouted B.A., oblivious to my contradictory murmurs. "That's it! That must be the Syrian embassy!"
"Excuse me, sir," said a London bobby, turning. "That's the Libyan embassy."
B.A. was momentarily struck dumb.
"Oh," he managed to say. "Thank you very much, officer."
Afterwards, B.A. told Polish Pretend Son this story three times, and Polish Pretend Son enjoyed each telling.
B.A. loves jokes so much, he relishes even the ones against himself. Which is why, thank heavens, I will get away with this post.
Update: "No!" said B.A., at home to get lunch. "I keel you! I keel you!"
Friday, 9 May 2014
Five Years of Marriage
He snores, which wakes me up. I toss and turn, which wakes him up. Housework bores me, and I resent that it eats into my writing time; he hates an untidy house and tidies noisily, slamming cupboard doors.
He loves to chat his way through problems; I need silence. He is used to being the leader of expeditions; I spend the first three days of our Continental holidays in a very bad, irrationally nasty, mood.
He does most of the cooking. I do most of the laundry. He puts off taking out the garbage. I put off washing the kitchen floor. Oh, Lord. I really must wash the kitchen floor.
We both gained weight. (That said, I have recently lost it all.) He clears his throat one thousand times a day. I have a mood disorder. ("Did you take your pill?" "Arrrghhhhhh! I forgot.") He almost never finds stuff I lose, and I lose stuff all the time. (I even lost my wallet on the way to the airport to Poland.) He is nice to books; I am... improving!
He is a much-valued member of my parish, and when he can't get to the 11:30 Mass, his tenor is much missed. I still survey my ruined theological career and wonder what is the earthly use of a Roman Catholic M.Div. degree to a laywoman--a trad laywoman at that--in Scotland. He complains if I spend too much time studying Polish; I dream of finishing my theology PhD at the Jagiellonian.
He has got a good job right here with fantastic benefits, which I share. I return from trips to Canada and Poland, having enjoyed speaking engagements or interviews or book launches, and marvel, "Here I am a total unknown." But it feels so good to hand B.A. a royalty cheque or an honorarium. He gives me so much, it's fantastic when I can give him something I earned myself.
God decided not to bless us with children. B.A. is sorry that I am sad about it, but he seems very sanguine. What the head doesn't know, the heart doesn't sigh for, I think. He thinks I feel the way I do because I am a woman and women are like this. I wonder if he would think that if he hadn't been an only child or had been brought up Catholic. This, of course, can lead to a convert vs cradle debate; at dinner parties I am usually outnumbered by protesting ex-Anglican converts and appeal to any Poles, my natural fellow cradle Catholic allies.
But as God has decided to bless us with a lot of friends instead, we have agreed to blur the lines between home and church. Domestic Church means that if young parishioners or friends are in trouble, they can stay with us. Domestic Church means Sunday Lunches for the choir, servers and their principal fans. Domestic Church means a rather stringent Lent but a blow-out Christmas Eve (Wigilia) supper. Domestic Church means B.A. saying he will go to bed at midnight whether or not the rest of the Schola has left, and me shutting the door behind the Schola after 1 AM, bless their little hearts.
And it is all great fun. I never thought I would describe marriage as fun, but I must say that the past five years have been fun. I think this may be because we had already grown up and learned from our faults and failings and had done a lot of hard work to become the people God wanted us to become. We already knew, when we met, aged 36 and 37, that a person is responsible for his or her own happiness. We already knew that we can't have all the great material things in life--we have to choose what is most important to us, and stick with that. Like my Scottish-Canadian grandparents, we choose travel. Unique to ourselves, we also choose dinner parties. Our money goes on dinner parties and travel. And my Polish classes. Must...have...Polish...classes.
Travel may sound trivial, but it means seeing my family in Canada, my work in Poland, and B.A. getting away from the Historical House--which is his work as well as his home--at least once, but preferably twice, a year. Although, inexplicably, I am an utter witch for the first three days of our Italian holidays, I am adamant: Whatever it takes, B.A. must go to the beach.
I will never be a fashion queen. B.A. is unlikely ever to have a state-of-the-art entertainment system. Pedigree pets will be out, even if we do ever buy a home we could put one in. As Catholics, we didn't even have to decide to forgo expensive, immoral, dangerous and over-hyped IVF. Our current circumstances make fostering and adoption out of the question.
We don't run a car. We ride buses with the poor and the "socially excluded", which is PC jargon for demoralized ethnic Scots and Irish-Scots crushed by the collapse of Scottish industry, the erosion of both Scottish Christianity and, its alternative, the Scottish Communist Party, and the rise of heroin and drunken grrrl power. Trainspotting makes for a great read, but for a really lousy bus ride. Cars are the tanks of the so-called upper- and middle-classes, protecting us from Begbie. And we don't have one.
That said, I'd rather take the Rough Bus with B.A. than a limousine with anyone else, and I imagine that only great love of and loyalty to her husband gets Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge through her day. Personally, I could not imagine being married to young balding William, but Her Royal Highness could probably not imagine being married to middle-aged bearded B.A. And, really, marriage comes down to a concrete relationship a concrete person and all the people and circumstances he or she comes with. Of all my friends' husbands, there's only one that I might have had a crush on: the super-cute lawyer. Can I say that? No, but seriously. And his wife is my very best married friend, so I can say that. They are both extremely good-looking, by the way. If I were a guy, I would have had a crush on her. Okay, I'm going to stop taking about this now.
Anyway, what I am trying to say, keeping in mind that this is a blog for Singles, is that marriage is about two concrete people in concrete circumstances, in a world still suffering from the effects of Original Sin and yet blessed with the Incarnation and the sacraments that stem from the Incarnation. Marriage can be a terrible, fiery experience, especially between immature or foolish people who are not rooted in reality. But it can be a wonderful way of life, especially for older people who are delighted to have found such an amazing spouse despite years of flailing about in a social or spiritual wilderness.
Again, I am sorry we have not had children, and the top of our wedding cake--saved for the baptism of our firstborn--will never be eaten. But I am comforted that this is not because of any personal sin, even neglect of health, but merely because God willed it so. Some women are able to conceive at 37, 39, 40, 42; I was not. But we are given other opportunities to fulfill the fatherhood and motherhood to which every adult is called.
So I can say with all my heart that this is a very happy fifth wedding anniversary for me, and I wish B.A. a very happy fifth wedding anniversary, too. I am sorry for all the tossing and turning this morning, and maybe the next time we go to Italy, I should go a day or two before you.
Update: Thanks to the Aged Ps for the walnut shoe rack! They are terribly good about wedding anniversaries, following the traditional list (although substituting crystal for leather) with enthusiasm.
Update 2: And I am remembering in a special way A., a young (to me) divorced Polish woman who spoke to me at the Brave Women conference, and her son L. The burden of a chaste divorced woman who at least sometimes misses her husband is a heavy one. Saint Monica, mother of Saint Augustine and wife of abusive Patricius, pray for them and for us all.
He loves to chat his way through problems; I need silence. He is used to being the leader of expeditions; I spend the first three days of our Continental holidays in a very bad, irrationally nasty, mood.
He does most of the cooking. I do most of the laundry. He puts off taking out the garbage. I put off washing the kitchen floor. Oh, Lord. I really must wash the kitchen floor.
We both gained weight. (That said, I have recently lost it all.) He clears his throat one thousand times a day. I have a mood disorder. ("Did you take your pill?" "Arrrghhhhhh! I forgot.") He almost never finds stuff I lose, and I lose stuff all the time. (I even lost my wallet on the way to the airport to Poland.) He is nice to books; I am... improving!
He is a much-valued member of my parish, and when he can't get to the 11:30 Mass, his tenor is much missed. I still survey my ruined theological career and wonder what is the earthly use of a Roman Catholic M.Div. degree to a laywoman--a trad laywoman at that--in Scotland. He complains if I spend too much time studying Polish; I dream of finishing my theology PhD at the Jagiellonian.
He has got a good job right here with fantastic benefits, which I share. I return from trips to Canada and Poland, having enjoyed speaking engagements or interviews or book launches, and marvel, "Here I am a total unknown." But it feels so good to hand B.A. a royalty cheque or an honorarium. He gives me so much, it's fantastic when I can give him something I earned myself.
God decided not to bless us with children. B.A. is sorry that I am sad about it, but he seems very sanguine. What the head doesn't know, the heart doesn't sigh for, I think. He thinks I feel the way I do because I am a woman and women are like this. I wonder if he would think that if he hadn't been an only child or had been brought up Catholic. This, of course, can lead to a convert vs cradle debate; at dinner parties I am usually outnumbered by protesting ex-Anglican converts and appeal to any Poles, my natural fellow cradle Catholic allies.
But as God has decided to bless us with a lot of friends instead, we have agreed to blur the lines between home and church. Domestic Church means that if young parishioners or friends are in trouble, they can stay with us. Domestic Church means Sunday Lunches for the choir, servers and their principal fans. Domestic Church means a rather stringent Lent but a blow-out Christmas Eve (Wigilia) supper. Domestic Church means B.A. saying he will go to bed at midnight whether or not the rest of the Schola has left, and me shutting the door behind the Schola after 1 AM, bless their little hearts.
And it is all great fun. I never thought I would describe marriage as fun, but I must say that the past five years have been fun. I think this may be because we had already grown up and learned from our faults and failings and had done a lot of hard work to become the people God wanted us to become. We already knew, when we met, aged 36 and 37, that a person is responsible for his or her own happiness. We already knew that we can't have all the great material things in life--we have to choose what is most important to us, and stick with that. Like my Scottish-Canadian grandparents, we choose travel. Unique to ourselves, we also choose dinner parties. Our money goes on dinner parties and travel. And my Polish classes. Must...have...Polish...classes.
Travel may sound trivial, but it means seeing my family in Canada, my work in Poland, and B.A. getting away from the Historical House--which is his work as well as his home--at least once, but preferably twice, a year. Although, inexplicably, I am an utter witch for the first three days of our Italian holidays, I am adamant: Whatever it takes, B.A. must go to the beach.
I will never be a fashion queen. B.A. is unlikely ever to have a state-of-the-art entertainment system. Pedigree pets will be out, even if we do ever buy a home we could put one in. As Catholics, we didn't even have to decide to forgo expensive, immoral, dangerous and over-hyped IVF. Our current circumstances make fostering and adoption out of the question.
We don't run a car. We ride buses with the poor and the "socially excluded", which is PC jargon for demoralized ethnic Scots and Irish-Scots crushed by the collapse of Scottish industry, the erosion of both Scottish Christianity and, its alternative, the Scottish Communist Party, and the rise of heroin and drunken grrrl power. Trainspotting makes for a great read, but for a really lousy bus ride. Cars are the tanks of the so-called upper- and middle-classes, protecting us from Begbie. And we don't have one.
That said, I'd rather take the Rough Bus with B.A. than a limousine with anyone else, and I imagine that only great love of and loyalty to her husband gets Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge through her day. Personally, I could not imagine being married to young balding William, but Her Royal Highness could probably not imagine being married to middle-aged bearded B.A. And, really, marriage comes down to a concrete relationship a concrete person and all the people and circumstances he or she comes with. Of all my friends' husbands, there's only one that I might have had a crush on: the super-cute lawyer. Can I say that? No, but seriously. And his wife is my very best married friend, so I can say that. They are both extremely good-looking, by the way. If I were a guy, I would have had a crush on her. Okay, I'm going to stop taking about this now.
Anyway, what I am trying to say, keeping in mind that this is a blog for Singles, is that marriage is about two concrete people in concrete circumstances, in a world still suffering from the effects of Original Sin and yet blessed with the Incarnation and the sacraments that stem from the Incarnation. Marriage can be a terrible, fiery experience, especially between immature or foolish people who are not rooted in reality. But it can be a wonderful way of life, especially for older people who are delighted to have found such an amazing spouse despite years of flailing about in a social or spiritual wilderness.
Again, I am sorry we have not had children, and the top of our wedding cake--saved for the baptism of our firstborn--will never be eaten. But I am comforted that this is not because of any personal sin, even neglect of health, but merely because God willed it so. Some women are able to conceive at 37, 39, 40, 42; I was not. But we are given other opportunities to fulfill the fatherhood and motherhood to which every adult is called.
So I can say with all my heart that this is a very happy fifth wedding anniversary for me, and I wish B.A. a very happy fifth wedding anniversary, too. I am sorry for all the tossing and turning this morning, and maybe the next time we go to Italy, I should go a day or two before you.
Update: Thanks to the Aged Ps for the walnut shoe rack! They are terribly good about wedding anniversaries, following the traditional list (although substituting crystal for leather) with enthusiasm.
Update 2: And I am remembering in a special way A., a young (to me) divorced Polish woman who spoke to me at the Brave Women conference, and her son L. The burden of a chaste divorced woman who at least sometimes misses her husband is a heavy one. Saint Monica, mother of Saint Augustine and wife of abusive Patricius, pray for them and for us all.
Tuesday, 8 April 2014
Spousal Loyalty vs Tag-team Bullying
My aside yesterday about the "trashcan of my affections" inspired a squeak of protest from a Reader who has recently been bullied by a married couple. That's not her analysis: it's mine. In short, she called out a colleague, he complained to his wife, his wife sent her a nasty email, and so not only did the Reader have to patch up things with her colleague, she had to patch things up with his wife. But husband and wife see nothing wrong with his wife getting involved in the collegial dispute. They are One, etc.
I call shenanigans on this one. And here's why.
First, husband and wife are not One, except in a mysterious spiritual sense which means that when you hurt yourself, you hurt your spouse, and when you hurt your spouse, you hurt yourself. Your reputations are linked, too, so if your spouse behaves like an ass in public, people will pity you or blame you for not exerting more control over your spouse.
For example, I was once verbally attacked outside Mass by a married lady in one of the many countries in which I have attended Mass. She took exception to something I wrote years ago which she remembered imperfectly, to say the least, and accused me of nasty and even obscene speculations about her. I thought the church steps were the wrong place for this conversation, and said so. However, she persisted, so I said I had had enough and walked away.
"Wow. Just wow," she said loudly, and at once consulted her husband, who began bellowing after me. And suddenly I was hemmed in by two righteously angry people accusing me of x-year old (and fictional) nasty behaviour, all in earshot of other church-going married couples and their children. It was extremely embarrassing, and although mutual friends had praised the man, whom I barely knew, he plummeted in my estimation. Not only would MY husband never make a scene in public, let alone outside a church he would never stand by and let ME make a scene in public, let alone outside a church.
And the character of Benedict Ambrose is key to what I said yesterday. B.A. is an adult man with women colleagues and occasionally women superiors. Thus, he is used to women fighting their own battles. He is also used to women fighting battles with him with dirty tricks, e.g. bad-tempered tears. Benedict Ambrose is a very kind-hearted and good-natured man, but he is not moved by any old female tears. And it would never occur to him to fight my battles for me, which is a very good thing, as I write op. eds and so annoy people.
It also would not occur to me to fight B.A.'s battles for him because he is...how to put it...a MAN, a real man, an old-fashioned man, a manly man. He would never hide behind a woman's skirts, and he would not thank the woman who threw her skirts in front of him. He is not a baby boy, and he would not appreciate being treated like one. He would feel like a fool, and he does not like feeling like a fool, and he doesn't relish being thought of as having married one, either, which is why he would never let me make a scene in public. I can just imagine the subsequent scene in private. Erg.
If B.A. has a problem with someone annoying enough that he tells me about it, I do my spousal job, which is to listen and say, "How dreadful, darling. You don't deserve that. I'm glad/I hope you stand up to him/her." And I remind him that he is marvellous, which is easy to do because he actually is. He doesn't pick fights with people and will put up with a lot--not everything, he's no coward--for "a quiet life." And this is why if any of my friends or acquaintances pick fights with B.A., I quietly drop them into the trashcan of my affections. But his relationships with his work colleagues, his church colleagues, his old college pals are not really my business.
The other day he was having lunch with two female colleagues and I dropped in with my shopping. I like both colleagues very much. One is older, one is younger, and they are both Single. The younger one shares an office with B.A., and at some point she complained that he whistles, hums, coughs, sings and generally makes noises all day. And I was edified to discover that he does this at work, too. Instead of getting mad, I felt a strong sense of anti-whistling sisterhood. It would never have occurred to me in a million years to brood and send her an email defending B.A.'s humming, whistling, etc. and HOW INAPPROPRIATE OF HER blah blah blah bargle bargle. And if I--being bored or a born troublemaker or secretly jealous or whatever--had done something so stupid, B.A. would have been horribly embarrassed and felt utterly betrayed.
But even in private life married people have no business ganging up on Singles. Marrieds are in a position of social power, and not just because there are two of them. If a Single woman is making a sexual play for a married man, then I can see the married woman taking her aside and telling her to cut it out--simply because the sexual realm is the one place were most men are weaker than most women. And if a married woman's Single friend is nasty to her husband, than I can see the married woman having a private word with the Single friend to tell her to shape up or ship out--or, if the insult is the straw that breaks the camel's back, bringing the friendship to a swift and quiet close. (If the Single woman was the husband's friend before the marriage, though, the wife should expect her husband to deal with the problem, confining her activities to saying "How dreadful, daring. You don't deserve that," etc.) But, in general, two-against-one is totally unfair.
My idea of spousal loyalty is sticking with your spouse when he or she has a run of bad luck, or makes stupid (but non-violent) mistakes he or she regrets, or falls desperately ill, or goes to prison, plus not making an ass of/insulting him or her in company, plus choosing him or her over your own friends and family. It's not about starting or exacerbating fights with his or her colleagues or friends. It's about contributing to people thinking well of him or her; fighting his or her battles doesn't help.
I call shenanigans on this one. And here's why.
First, husband and wife are not One, except in a mysterious spiritual sense which means that when you hurt yourself, you hurt your spouse, and when you hurt your spouse, you hurt yourself. Your reputations are linked, too, so if your spouse behaves like an ass in public, people will pity you or blame you for not exerting more control over your spouse.
For example, I was once verbally attacked outside Mass by a married lady in one of the many countries in which I have attended Mass. She took exception to something I wrote years ago which she remembered imperfectly, to say the least, and accused me of nasty and even obscene speculations about her. I thought the church steps were the wrong place for this conversation, and said so. However, she persisted, so I said I had had enough and walked away.
"Wow. Just wow," she said loudly, and at once consulted her husband, who began bellowing after me. And suddenly I was hemmed in by two righteously angry people accusing me of x-year old (and fictional) nasty behaviour, all in earshot of other church-going married couples and their children. It was extremely embarrassing, and although mutual friends had praised the man, whom I barely knew, he plummeted in my estimation. Not only would MY husband never make a scene in public, let alone outside a church he would never stand by and let ME make a scene in public, let alone outside a church.
And the character of Benedict Ambrose is key to what I said yesterday. B.A. is an adult man with women colleagues and occasionally women superiors. Thus, he is used to women fighting their own battles. He is also used to women fighting battles with him with dirty tricks, e.g. bad-tempered tears. Benedict Ambrose is a very kind-hearted and good-natured man, but he is not moved by any old female tears. And it would never occur to him to fight my battles for me, which is a very good thing, as I write op. eds and so annoy people.
It also would not occur to me to fight B.A.'s battles for him because he is...how to put it...a MAN, a real man, an old-fashioned man, a manly man. He would never hide behind a woman's skirts, and he would not thank the woman who threw her skirts in front of him. He is not a baby boy, and he would not appreciate being treated like one. He would feel like a fool, and he does not like feeling like a fool, and he doesn't relish being thought of as having married one, either, which is why he would never let me make a scene in public. I can just imagine the subsequent scene in private. Erg.
If B.A. has a problem with someone annoying enough that he tells me about it, I do my spousal job, which is to listen and say, "How dreadful, darling. You don't deserve that. I'm glad/I hope you stand up to him/her." And I remind him that he is marvellous, which is easy to do because he actually is. He doesn't pick fights with people and will put up with a lot--not everything, he's no coward--for "a quiet life." And this is why if any of my friends or acquaintances pick fights with B.A., I quietly drop them into the trashcan of my affections. But his relationships with his work colleagues, his church colleagues, his old college pals are not really my business.
The other day he was having lunch with two female colleagues and I dropped in with my shopping. I like both colleagues very much. One is older, one is younger, and they are both Single. The younger one shares an office with B.A., and at some point she complained that he whistles, hums, coughs, sings and generally makes noises all day. And I was edified to discover that he does this at work, too. Instead of getting mad, I felt a strong sense of anti-whistling sisterhood. It would never have occurred to me in a million years to brood and send her an email defending B.A.'s humming, whistling, etc. and HOW INAPPROPRIATE OF HER blah blah blah bargle bargle. And if I--being bored or a born troublemaker or secretly jealous or whatever--had done something so stupid, B.A. would have been horribly embarrassed and felt utterly betrayed.
But even in private life married people have no business ganging up on Singles. Marrieds are in a position of social power, and not just because there are two of them. If a Single woman is making a sexual play for a married man, then I can see the married woman taking her aside and telling her to cut it out--simply because the sexual realm is the one place were most men are weaker than most women. And if a married woman's Single friend is nasty to her husband, than I can see the married woman having a private word with the Single friend to tell her to shape up or ship out--or, if the insult is the straw that breaks the camel's back, bringing the friendship to a swift and quiet close. (If the Single woman was the husband's friend before the marriage, though, the wife should expect her husband to deal with the problem, confining her activities to saying "How dreadful, daring. You don't deserve that," etc.) But, in general, two-against-one is totally unfair.
My idea of spousal loyalty is sticking with your spouse when he or she has a run of bad luck, or makes stupid (but non-violent) mistakes he or she regrets, or falls desperately ill, or goes to prison, plus not making an ass of/insulting him or her in company, plus choosing him or her over your own friends and family. It's not about starting or exacerbating fights with his or her colleagues or friends. It's about contributing to people thinking well of him or her; fighting his or her battles doesn't help.
Friday, 4 April 2014
Everybody Loves B.A.
SCENE OF DOMESTIC LIFE IN THE HISTORICAL HOUSE
Seraphic (standing on toes): This is what I would look like if I were 5'4".
B.A.: You're fine at 5'2". Why do you want to be 5'4"?
Seraphic: I don't really. But I would like to decompress my spine. Apparently all you need is five minutes a day on an inversion table.
B.A.: What is an inversion table?
Seraphic: Oh, it's really neat. It's a sort of board and you strap yourself into it and then you flip it over and hang upside down by your ankles.
B.A. (seeing where this is going, i.e. wallet): We don't need an inversion table.
Seraphic: Wah! But I want to decompress my spine!
B.A.: Well, what else can you do to decompress your spine?
Seraphic: Well, I suppose you could hold me upside down by my ankles. Let's try!
B.A.: You're mental. I can't hold you upside down by your ankles.
Seraphic: Why not? I weigh only one-hundred-and-thirty-three pounds.
B.A. Because it is physically impossible.
Seraphic: But you're a MAN. A big, strong MAN.
B.A.: Yes, but I would have to hold my arms up HERE. I could only hold a sack of potatoes from up HERE. And I would hurt my back.
Seraphic (abashed) : Oh! I don't want you to hurt your back. Maybe I could do a headstand or a handstand?
B.A.: But that wouldn't decompress your spine. Gravity would just compress your spine into your neck.
Seraphic: So hanging from my ankles is the only way?
B.A.: Yes.
Seraphic (dubiously): I wonder if I can even do a handstand.
(Seraphic turns her back on B.A. and attempts to do a handstand. Without warning, B.A. grabs her flailing ankles and pulls upward.)
Seraphic: AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
(B.A. drops Seraphic. Seraphic giggles uncontrollably.)
B.A.: I really don't understand why you want to be taller.
Seraphic: I don't want to be taller. I want to decompress my SPIIIIIINE!
***
My column responding to the deacon who wrote a letter saying I put down the "new Mass" and suggesting I want it banned has appeared online for free. (I guess it's my week for the free-view column.) Here it is.
I suppose the only thing to add is that he was responding to my column (behind a firewall, alas) about how the most beautiful Mass in Toronto is Solemn High Mass at Holy Family Church on Sunday mornings. The point of that column was to alert people who long for beauty at Mass to this Mass, so they would know where to go. As in Toronto you can go to German Mass, Polish Mass, Italian Mass, Chinese Mass, Vietnamese Mass--all kinds of Masses catering to your preferred language or ethnic group--and even a Praise and Worship Music Mass, it seemed fair to me to publicize a Mass that is characterized by the highest possible beauty and solemnity.
I made no claims that it was anyone's dearest Mass, using the analogy of a mother. When you are five, you are convinced that your own mother is the best and most beautiful mother in the world, and so I suppose many, many Catholics feel the same about their own parish mass, and that is good. But naturally Zhang Ziyi and Aishwaryi Rai Bachchan beat old Mum hollow when it comes to objective feminine beauty, as you realize when you grow up. Not that you care. You love your mother because she is your mother while cheerfully acknowledging that she's not as stunning as the brightest stars of the silver screen, and feeling no guilt when you revel in their beauty.
To tell the truth about the Extraordinary Form is not to trash the Ordinary Form any more than to say that my Temporary Pretend Polish Daughter is the reigning beauty of the Historical House is to say I'm a wrinkled old hag. (And, indeed, I said the Holy Family EF is more beautiful than the Edinburgh EF, though naturally I am fonder of the Edinburgh EF.) I know that some liturgists have serious theological objections to the Ordinary Form, but I am not yet convinced this means the N.O. must go. (Can you imagine the confusion and dismay if it did?!) Cardinal Stickler wrote about the "Latin language [acting] like a reverent curtain against profanation" and I find that German, Italian and Polish work like that for me. And Cardinal Stickler points out that when the Novus Ordo is said by the book--he cites the Novus Ordo as said by popes--there is nothing amiss.
***
There are still many copies of Seraphic Singles available for sale, as my Canadian publisher informs me. If you have not read my first book, why not buy a copy and gladden hearts at Novalis? If you want to buy a copy for a Polish friend, the edition you want is the rather more celebrated Anielskie Single.
***
If you live in Canada (especially Toronto), why not get a copy of Catholic Insight magazine and read my latest interview about Ceremony of Innocence? Apparently there's a review, too, which I am dying to read.
Seraphic (standing on toes): This is what I would look like if I were 5'4".
B.A.: You're fine at 5'2". Why do you want to be 5'4"?
Seraphic: I don't really. But I would like to decompress my spine. Apparently all you need is five minutes a day on an inversion table.
B.A.: What is an inversion table?
Seraphic: Oh, it's really neat. It's a sort of board and you strap yourself into it and then you flip it over and hang upside down by your ankles.
B.A. (seeing where this is going, i.e. wallet): We don't need an inversion table.
Seraphic: Wah! But I want to decompress my spine!
B.A.: Well, what else can you do to decompress your spine?
Seraphic: Well, I suppose you could hold me upside down by my ankles. Let's try!
B.A.: You're mental. I can't hold you upside down by your ankles.
Seraphic: Why not? I weigh only one-hundred-and-thirty-three pounds.
B.A. Because it is physically impossible.
Seraphic: But you're a MAN. A big, strong MAN.
B.A.: Yes, but I would have to hold my arms up HERE. I could only hold a sack of potatoes from up HERE. And I would hurt my back.
Seraphic (abashed) : Oh! I don't want you to hurt your back. Maybe I could do a headstand or a handstand?
B.A.: But that wouldn't decompress your spine. Gravity would just compress your spine into your neck.
Seraphic: So hanging from my ankles is the only way?
B.A.: Yes.
Seraphic (dubiously): I wonder if I can even do a handstand.
(Seraphic turns her back on B.A. and attempts to do a handstand. Without warning, B.A. grabs her flailing ankles and pulls upward.)
Seraphic: AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
(B.A. drops Seraphic. Seraphic giggles uncontrollably.)
B.A.: I really don't understand why you want to be taller.
Seraphic: I don't want to be taller. I want to decompress my SPIIIIIINE!
***
My column responding to the deacon who wrote a letter saying I put down the "new Mass" and suggesting I want it banned has appeared online for free. (I guess it's my week for the free-view column.) Here it is.
I suppose the only thing to add is that he was responding to my column (behind a firewall, alas) about how the most beautiful Mass in Toronto is Solemn High Mass at Holy Family Church on Sunday mornings. The point of that column was to alert people who long for beauty at Mass to this Mass, so they would know where to go. As in Toronto you can go to German Mass, Polish Mass, Italian Mass, Chinese Mass, Vietnamese Mass--all kinds of Masses catering to your preferred language or ethnic group--and even a Praise and Worship Music Mass, it seemed fair to me to publicize a Mass that is characterized by the highest possible beauty and solemnity.
I made no claims that it was anyone's dearest Mass, using the analogy of a mother. When you are five, you are convinced that your own mother is the best and most beautiful mother in the world, and so I suppose many, many Catholics feel the same about their own parish mass, and that is good. But naturally Zhang Ziyi and Aishwaryi Rai Bachchan beat old Mum hollow when it comes to objective feminine beauty, as you realize when you grow up. Not that you care. You love your mother because she is your mother while cheerfully acknowledging that she's not as stunning as the brightest stars of the silver screen, and feeling no guilt when you revel in their beauty.
To tell the truth about the Extraordinary Form is not to trash the Ordinary Form any more than to say that my Temporary Pretend Polish Daughter is the reigning beauty of the Historical House is to say I'm a wrinkled old hag. (And, indeed, I said the Holy Family EF is more beautiful than the Edinburgh EF, though naturally I am fonder of the Edinburgh EF.) I know that some liturgists have serious theological objections to the Ordinary Form, but I am not yet convinced this means the N.O. must go. (Can you imagine the confusion and dismay if it did?!) Cardinal Stickler wrote about the "Latin language [acting] like a reverent curtain against profanation" and I find that German, Italian and Polish work like that for me. And Cardinal Stickler points out that when the Novus Ordo is said by the book--he cites the Novus Ordo as said by popes--there is nothing amiss.
***
There are still many copies of Seraphic Singles available for sale, as my Canadian publisher informs me. If you have not read my first book, why not buy a copy and gladden hearts at Novalis? If you want to buy a copy for a Polish friend, the edition you want is the rather more celebrated Anielskie Single.
***
If you live in Canada (especially Toronto), why not get a copy of Catholic Insight magazine and read my latest interview about Ceremony of Innocence? Apparently there's a review, too, which I am dying to read.
Monday, 3 March 2014
Apart and Together
This is Monday, the beginning of my new writing-and-homemaking work week. There will be some changes to my blogging schedule although naturally I do not want to neglect my loyal readers or the whole knotty subject of Single Life. I am more than ever convinced that Singles need a lot more pastoral attention, by priests and older married laypeople, than they currently get. Yes, of course, children and married people need care, too. But Singles seem to me at such a disadvantage when it comes to modern life.
I recently read a novel, a very well-written novel by a woman I know, called "Confessions of a Reluctant Cougar" It is not a Catholic novel or a good novel for the unmarried to read, and it unwittingly illustrates how Single men and women, especially ones who have strong religious beliefs, are marks for shallow, sex-obsessed thrill-seekers, particularly those titillated by conquering the scruples of Christians. I would have given it four stars for writing on Goodreads, but then removed a star for its creepiness about Christians and younger men, but I know the author, so decided to say nothing on Goodreads at all. Great writing--except for the pornographic bits, which I skipped so can't judge. Scary protagonist, who wails at men's perversions but utterly fails to see her own.
Worries about the luggage scale at the airport meant I had to leave C of a RC at home and explain to my mother why I had it in the first place. Thus the slim volume will not trouble the chaste precincts of the Historical House's ex-linen closet, which is now B.A.'s and my library. I cannot imagine what B.A. would think of C of a RC; perhaps he would condemn it as unfair to men over 40 while being comforted that I had bought it on sale.
To be frank, I was not thinking of B.A. when I bought it, but of the author, whom I remember fondly wrapped in leopard print and leather at various Toronto poetry events. Thus I was delighted to find her novel on sale, although (as mentioned above) later troubled by the creepy hot-young-Christian-men stuff. As I traveled about Toronto visiting friends and having a lot of fun, I did not think about B.A. all that much, except at Mass, or in conversations with married friends about marriage, or when tempted to spend money, or when looking at art. I cancelled my plan to visit the Hamilton Art Gallery because I felt very guilty that I had already seen so much glorious Canadian art that B.A. hadn't. It just seemed unfair.
This is not to say that I felt at all "Single." I certainly did not. When I was Single, I felt a great sense of restlessness and uncertainty about the future and what it held. As a married lady spending four weeks away from my husband, I knew that a plane trip back to Glasgow was in my future, soon to be followed by Laundry Day--unless the plane crashed, which it didn't. And, lo, a load of washing is swishing around in the cellar as I write. Also, of course, I could feel that irreplaceable benevolent masculine presence across the ocean.
Still, coming together after being apart for four weeks is eye-opening because there are marked contrasts between living with a husband and not living with a husband. The first is that in Toronto I almost always travel on public transit alone, especially to Mass, counting out the change for my fare as the bus looms into sight. Although I am usually travelling to meet someone, I live the half-hour to hour (or more) in self-contained silence, making snap judgments about where to sit, etc. But in Edinburgh, I often travel with B.A., who pays for the tickets and tells me where to sit, like so: "You sit there." I find this startling.
The second is that in Toronto my father begins Grace before supper, and we all chime in at "...the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit..." In Edinburgh my husband is used to saying Grace aloud all by himself, and I wonder how that came about. True, at Catholic dinner parties, Grace is often read from the Collect of the day, but I don't remember when why I decided just to let B.A. say ordinary Grace Before Meals without my contribution. Maybe he was still saying the Scottish Piskie one, which I still don't know, when we met. All the same, curious.
The third is that in Toronto I generally do not bring my family with me to events with friends and so say whatever I want to say without worrying whether my nearest and dearest will cringe. The two big exceptions to this were my book launches, and I gave my sister a present after the first one, although my mum and brother had to lump the second one unrewarded. (The amusing thing about the second one was that I declared that writers must not be afraid but say controversial things no matter what the personal cost, but when Reader Margaret noticed that I had managed to avoid "Seraphic Singles moments" [i.e. blunt remarks about sexuality] I said "I'm not reading that stuff in front of my mum! )
However, in Edinburgh I generally accompany B.A. to events with friends, and when I say whatever I want to say, in a blunt womanly Canadian fashion, he sometimes winces. He winces, and I see the wince, and I get mad, because in Canada husbands don't wince. In Canada when your spouse says something you don't like, you don't cringe: you go glassy-eyed or you gently change the subject. Spouses are never wrong until you both get home, and I don't know what happens then because I have heard my parents quarrel only twice my whole life long, and not since 1992, and not about words. Still, it could be that because of British sensibilities, I would hurt a lot of British feelings and lose some British friends if B.A. didn't try to keep a lid on my Canadian forthrightness. That said, in common with the Poles, I really hate the British tendency towards [censored].
The fourth is that B.A. is very tidy at home--much tidier than I am by nature--and so I strive to become as tidy as he is and try to stop myself in the act of littering the flat with coffee cups.
And there are a few other revelations, too, about bad habits I fall into in Scotland, and bad habits I fall out of in Scotland. The bad habits I fall into are eating too much, drinking too much, complaining too much, staying indoors too much watching too much TV and growing terribly isolated. The bad habits I fall out of in Scotland are, primarily, sins of untidiness and uncharity. I have many many uncharitable thoughts when I am in Toronto, usually because public transit has grown too squashy. I feel like a rat living with too many other rats and am tempted to bite them to death. I don't think B.A. is ever tempted to bite anyone to death; he is too kindhearted.
Ceremony of Innocence update: I got a royalties cheque and sales are mounting up. I am absolutely delighted! Most books do not break a thousand sales, and Ceremony broke the thousand mark in fewer than twelve weeks. Bless all readers who bought copies, whether online or in book form.
Also, I enjoyed this review very much. I noted in the combox the joy of a lady who found Ceremony in her public library. If you want to read Ceremony, but can't find it at your library, I believe libraries take requests. So go ahead and ask a librarian how to ask the library to buy it. I do not at all mind the idea of cash-strapped readers just borrowing Ceremony from the library. If every library in the USA alone carried Ceremony, Ignatius Press and I would be very happy little pumpkins. This reminds me, once again, I really enjoyed Fiorella de Maria's Do No Harm, and although it really is a must-read for British fiction lovers, readers from other countries will love it, too.
I recently read a novel, a very well-written novel by a woman I know, called "Confessions of a Reluctant Cougar" It is not a Catholic novel or a good novel for the unmarried to read, and it unwittingly illustrates how Single men and women, especially ones who have strong religious beliefs, are marks for shallow, sex-obsessed thrill-seekers, particularly those titillated by conquering the scruples of Christians. I would have given it four stars for writing on Goodreads, but then removed a star for its creepiness about Christians and younger men, but I know the author, so decided to say nothing on Goodreads at all. Great writing--except for the pornographic bits, which I skipped so can't judge. Scary protagonist, who wails at men's perversions but utterly fails to see her own.
Worries about the luggage scale at the airport meant I had to leave C of a RC at home and explain to my mother why I had it in the first place. Thus the slim volume will not trouble the chaste precincts of the Historical House's ex-linen closet, which is now B.A.'s and my library. I cannot imagine what B.A. would think of C of a RC; perhaps he would condemn it as unfair to men over 40 while being comforted that I had bought it on sale.
To be frank, I was not thinking of B.A. when I bought it, but of the author, whom I remember fondly wrapped in leopard print and leather at various Toronto poetry events. Thus I was delighted to find her novel on sale, although (as mentioned above) later troubled by the creepy hot-young-Christian-men stuff. As I traveled about Toronto visiting friends and having a lot of fun, I did not think about B.A. all that much, except at Mass, or in conversations with married friends about marriage, or when tempted to spend money, or when looking at art. I cancelled my plan to visit the Hamilton Art Gallery because I felt very guilty that I had already seen so much glorious Canadian art that B.A. hadn't. It just seemed unfair.
This is not to say that I felt at all "Single." I certainly did not. When I was Single, I felt a great sense of restlessness and uncertainty about the future and what it held. As a married lady spending four weeks away from my husband, I knew that a plane trip back to Glasgow was in my future, soon to be followed by Laundry Day--unless the plane crashed, which it didn't. And, lo, a load of washing is swishing around in the cellar as I write. Also, of course, I could feel that irreplaceable benevolent masculine presence across the ocean.
Still, coming together after being apart for four weeks is eye-opening because there are marked contrasts between living with a husband and not living with a husband. The first is that in Toronto I almost always travel on public transit alone, especially to Mass, counting out the change for my fare as the bus looms into sight. Although I am usually travelling to meet someone, I live the half-hour to hour (or more) in self-contained silence, making snap judgments about where to sit, etc. But in Edinburgh, I often travel with B.A., who pays for the tickets and tells me where to sit, like so: "You sit there." I find this startling.
The second is that in Toronto my father begins Grace before supper, and we all chime in at "...the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit..." In Edinburgh my husband is used to saying Grace aloud all by himself, and I wonder how that came about. True, at Catholic dinner parties, Grace is often read from the Collect of the day, but I don't remember when why I decided just to let B.A. say ordinary Grace Before Meals without my contribution. Maybe he was still saying the Scottish Piskie one, which I still don't know, when we met. All the same, curious.
The third is that in Toronto I generally do not bring my family with me to events with friends and so say whatever I want to say without worrying whether my nearest and dearest will cringe. The two big exceptions to this were my book launches, and I gave my sister a present after the first one, although my mum and brother had to lump the second one unrewarded. (The amusing thing about the second one was that I declared that writers must not be afraid but say controversial things no matter what the personal cost, but when Reader Margaret noticed that I had managed to avoid "Seraphic Singles moments" [i.e. blunt remarks about sexuality] I said "I'm not reading that stuff in front of my mum! )
However, in Edinburgh I generally accompany B.A. to events with friends, and when I say whatever I want to say, in a blunt womanly Canadian fashion, he sometimes winces. He winces, and I see the wince, and I get mad, because in Canada husbands don't wince. In Canada when your spouse says something you don't like, you don't cringe: you go glassy-eyed or you gently change the subject. Spouses are never wrong until you both get home, and I don't know what happens then because I have heard my parents quarrel only twice my whole life long, and not since 1992, and not about words. Still, it could be that because of British sensibilities, I would hurt a lot of British feelings and lose some British friends if B.A. didn't try to keep a lid on my Canadian forthrightness. That said, in common with the Poles, I really hate the British tendency towards [censored].
The fourth is that B.A. is very tidy at home--much tidier than I am by nature--and so I strive to become as tidy as he is and try to stop myself in the act of littering the flat with coffee cups.
And there are a few other revelations, too, about bad habits I fall into in Scotland, and bad habits I fall out of in Scotland. The bad habits I fall into are eating too much, drinking too much, complaining too much, staying indoors too much watching too much TV and growing terribly isolated. The bad habits I fall out of in Scotland are, primarily, sins of untidiness and uncharity. I have many many uncharitable thoughts when I am in Toronto, usually because public transit has grown too squashy. I feel like a rat living with too many other rats and am tempted to bite them to death. I don't think B.A. is ever tempted to bite anyone to death; he is too kindhearted.
Ceremony of Innocence update: I got a royalties cheque and sales are mounting up. I am absolutely delighted! Most books do not break a thousand sales, and Ceremony broke the thousand mark in fewer than twelve weeks. Bless all readers who bought copies, whether online or in book form.
Also, I enjoyed this review very much. I noted in the combox the joy of a lady who found Ceremony in her public library. If you want to read Ceremony, but can't find it at your library, I believe libraries take requests. So go ahead and ask a librarian how to ask the library to buy it. I do not at all mind the idea of cash-strapped readers just borrowing Ceremony from the library. If every library in the USA alone carried Ceremony, Ignatius Press and I would be very happy little pumpkins. This reminds me, once again, I really enjoyed Fiorella de Maria's Do No Harm, and although it really is a must-read for British fiction lovers, readers from other countries will love it, too.
Tuesday, 28 January 2014
We Dwell Too Much on Luv
Even a married lady like me gets annoyed by Valentine's Day spam. This spam advertised a combination fitness centre and dating service. Personally, I cannot imagine combining a gym workout with dating. I'm the lady what got the male attendant banned from the University of Toronto Athletic Centre weight room during Women-Only Hour. (The whole point of Women-Only Hour was to prevent men from staring at women while we worked out, but the worst offender was actually that attendant.) Incidentally, I had a big old argument with a prof about Women's Only Hour. He thought it was unfair to men, but meanwhile my Dad was horrified a Jesuit was working out in a public gym in the first place. It made him (Dad) feel nostalgic for the 1950s. Meanwhile, my shock when the tremendously handsome, muscular man at the chest press put on his glasses and was thereby revealed to be my prof---!
Let's just say that I am still a big fan of Women Only Hours at gyms.
Anyway, the annoying ad reminded me that it is time I reasserted my solidarity with Singles readers by agreeing that Valentine's Day is annoying when you're Single and very often when you are not Single but male. And hordes of girlfriends and wives are disappointed on Valentine's Day because they think of it as a Big Deal and think their boyfriends and husbands should too.
Well, I love my husband, but I usually go home to Canada in mid-February, so no V-Day for us. We must have had some V-Days together, though, as I recall that his traditional V-Day present is a handful of snowdrops from the woods. In my opinion, this is the cheapest and yet most romantic V-Day gift in the world.
The idea of fitness + dating epitomizes for me the reduction of love to Luv, love being a real, time-built relationship between a man or woman and his or her family, his or her country or people, his or her best friends, his or her patron saints, his or her God. Luv is the heady rush of infatuation that either calms down into marriage or burns out, leaving ashes. I am grateful for the stage of marital love called Luv, for it transformed my life and set B.A. and me in the right direction. However, I hate how it utterly drowns out the rest of romantic love and the other loves. The airwaves and television are obsessed with sex and treat family life as a carnival sideshow or opportunity for adverts.
One of the wonderful things about marriage is that it transforms the person you are crazy about into a member of your family--as far as you are concerned, the most important member of your family. This makes him or her just as loveable and nearly as annoying as other members of your family. I am sure that when B.A. saw me sitting demurely on a sofa in the New Town, politely dabbing at my nose with a tissue, he did not foresee me this morning, running around yelling "Where the H*** are my KEYS?" Any member of my current family could have warned him, but fortunately they were not there.
I had an email today--I haven't answered it yet--and it is from someone who is dreading going on a first date. She doesn't like going on dates, and I am not surprised. Dates are like going to the dentist. You don't enjoy going, but you have a vague sense that something might be wrong if you don't. The difference is that you really should go to the dentist. Your teeth won't fall out if you refuse to go on dates.
My advice will be to think of dates not as a way of meeting future boyfriends but a way of meeting future male friends. I'm not much of a networker on my own behalf (too shy), but I enjoy introducing friends and acquaintances to other friends and acquaintances I think they should know. It's good to have new people over for supper, and to bring this or that person--especially younger ones--into the old gang.
I think friendship is a place where Luv is just that more likely to mature into Love--either marital love or the love of friends. The relationship does not begin with the artificiality of a cafe, or the frank carnality of a bar or (ye saints above!) exercise studio.
O tempores, o mores! How I wish we could return to the days of variety in love--with popular songs about Mother and Home and Land of Hope and Glory and the Old School and the Regiment. Sure, some of it was sentimental and false, but it gave a truer and more generous picture of human emotion than the sludge on the radio of today. I'd like to add to the list Grandma, Grandpa, Teacher, Mentor, Dear Old Auntie and Kind Mr Contini at the Ice Cream Shop.
It was my birthday recently, and look away now if you don't want to read sappy married people stuff. Sappy married people stuff ahead. Okay, so B.A. and I have two standard squabbles. They are A) the state of the kitchen and B) the hours I spend studying Polish. The kitchen alone is worth hours of traditional marital discord. The Polish adds an exciting international note, plus drama when I weep because compared to my parents and brothers and sisters I am really bad at languages. So it was particularly kindly of B.A. to wash all the dishes from my birthday lunch, even though he cooked the birthday lunch, and really very generous when I opened my new it-bag and found a volume of Polish poetry.
Wah. If I should perish early, don't kill each other in your battle to win B.A. for yourselves.
***
OPERATION VALENTINUS: Okay, you know the drill. If you are Single, pick three to five Single friends to whom to send valentines and chocolate. This way, even if you get nothing, you will have given three to five deserving people a lift. I will soon put out a sign-up feature. Meanwhile, on the theme of love (as opposed to luv), please mention below the most thoughtful gift you have ever received. It can be from a parent, teacher, priest, friend, sibling, cousin, uncle, aunt, grandparent, fiancé, spouse. Anyone you love and who loves you in a REAL, lasting way.
Let's just say that I am still a big fan of Women Only Hours at gyms.
Anyway, the annoying ad reminded me that it is time I reasserted my solidarity with Singles readers by agreeing that Valentine's Day is annoying when you're Single and very often when you are not Single but male. And hordes of girlfriends and wives are disappointed on Valentine's Day because they think of it as a Big Deal and think their boyfriends and husbands should too.
Well, I love my husband, but I usually go home to Canada in mid-February, so no V-Day for us. We must have had some V-Days together, though, as I recall that his traditional V-Day present is a handful of snowdrops from the woods. In my opinion, this is the cheapest and yet most romantic V-Day gift in the world.
The idea of fitness + dating epitomizes for me the reduction of love to Luv, love being a real, time-built relationship between a man or woman and his or her family, his or her country or people, his or her best friends, his or her patron saints, his or her God. Luv is the heady rush of infatuation that either calms down into marriage or burns out, leaving ashes. I am grateful for the stage of marital love called Luv, for it transformed my life and set B.A. and me in the right direction. However, I hate how it utterly drowns out the rest of romantic love and the other loves. The airwaves and television are obsessed with sex and treat family life as a carnival sideshow or opportunity for adverts.
One of the wonderful things about marriage is that it transforms the person you are crazy about into a member of your family--as far as you are concerned, the most important member of your family. This makes him or her just as loveable and nearly as annoying as other members of your family. I am sure that when B.A. saw me sitting demurely on a sofa in the New Town, politely dabbing at my nose with a tissue, he did not foresee me this morning, running around yelling "Where the H*** are my KEYS?" Any member of my current family could have warned him, but fortunately they were not there.
I had an email today--I haven't answered it yet--and it is from someone who is dreading going on a first date. She doesn't like going on dates, and I am not surprised. Dates are like going to the dentist. You don't enjoy going, but you have a vague sense that something might be wrong if you don't. The difference is that you really should go to the dentist. Your teeth won't fall out if you refuse to go on dates.
My advice will be to think of dates not as a way of meeting future boyfriends but a way of meeting future male friends. I'm not much of a networker on my own behalf (too shy), but I enjoy introducing friends and acquaintances to other friends and acquaintances I think they should know. It's good to have new people over for supper, and to bring this or that person--especially younger ones--into the old gang.
I think friendship is a place where Luv is just that more likely to mature into Love--either marital love or the love of friends. The relationship does not begin with the artificiality of a cafe, or the frank carnality of a bar or (ye saints above!) exercise studio.
O tempores, o mores! How I wish we could return to the days of variety in love--with popular songs about Mother and Home and Land of Hope and Glory and the Old School and the Regiment. Sure, some of it was sentimental and false, but it gave a truer and more generous picture of human emotion than the sludge on the radio of today. I'd like to add to the list Grandma, Grandpa, Teacher, Mentor, Dear Old Auntie and Kind Mr Contini at the Ice Cream Shop.
It was my birthday recently, and look away now if you don't want to read sappy married people stuff. Sappy married people stuff ahead. Okay, so B.A. and I have two standard squabbles. They are A) the state of the kitchen and B) the hours I spend studying Polish. The kitchen alone is worth hours of traditional marital discord. The Polish adds an exciting international note, plus drama when I weep because compared to my parents and brothers and sisters I am really bad at languages. So it was particularly kindly of B.A. to wash all the dishes from my birthday lunch, even though he cooked the birthday lunch, and really very generous when I opened my new it-bag and found a volume of Polish poetry.
Wah. If I should perish early, don't kill each other in your battle to win B.A. for yourselves.
***
OPERATION VALENTINUS: Okay, you know the drill. If you are Single, pick three to five Single friends to whom to send valentines and chocolate. This way, even if you get nothing, you will have given three to five deserving people a lift. I will soon put out a sign-up feature. Meanwhile, on the theme of love (as opposed to luv), please mention below the most thoughtful gift you have ever received. It can be from a parent, teacher, priest, friend, sibling, cousin, uncle, aunt, grandparent, fiancé, spouse. Anyone you love and who loves you in a REAL, lasting way.
Wednesday, 27 November 2013
Cultural Stuff
Okay, so TOMORROW is American Thanksgiving Day. Thanks to my fellow non-Americans for your greetings to the Americans, to the married Americans' votes of support for the Single Americans and to the Single Americans who signed up for the annual Singles Thanksgiving Survival Game. Make sure you get your tallies to me either just before you go to bed tomorrow night or first thing on Friday morning, so I can post them before I go to bed on Friday night. (I'm on Greenwich Mean Time.) If you play the Orthogals' Single Clichés Bingo, too, take a photo of your card and send it in. Don't forget: the more your relations comment on your single state, the greater your chance of winning. But no cheating by wearing a grey tracksuit to dinner, etc. If a remark is addressed to all the Singles at the table, every participating Single gets a point.
If you manage to write down the more amusing of the comments word-for-word (keep pen, paper and bingo board hidden in the nearest bathroom), that would be awesome, too.
Thoughts of American Thanksgiving and its centrality in American life, even in these days of Obamacare and support for mass illegal immigration and the "Knock Out Game" and all kinds of hair-raising things that are none of my Canadian business, lead to thoughts about the importance of shared cultural stuff in marriage.
For some people, national or ethnic traditions are not a core value. As I live in the UK, I do not celebrate any Canadian holidays except Hallowe'en, which I recognize by carving a pumpkin and putting it in the window. I used to have a Hallowe'en party (with Canadian Thanksgiving food), but this proved impractical and led to squabbles with my Scottish husband, who could not understand my attachment to the most suspect of my national holidays when I gave up Dominion Day without turning a hair. The annual squabble ended, though, last year when we were in Poland, where the priests all think Hallowe'en is satanic and the people have much nicer, totally Catholic All Saints celebrations. So now I just carve a pumpkin (or squash) because if I didn't I would DIE.
My ethnic Christmas traditions are just as important as Mr. Jack O'Lantern, and every year I rise from my couch and bake the Christmas cake and wrap it in brandy-soaked cheesecloth because what kind of woman would I be if I didn't, eh? Three weeks later I get off the couch again and start baking Christmas cookies according to my mother's recipes and then on Christmas Eve itself, I am on the phone to my mother to review the Traditional Christmas Morning Bun situation. Then on Christmas Day I make exactly the same dinner my mother does and afterwards collapse, half-dead, into bed.
B.A., whose ideal Christmas would involve Midnight Mass and then a romantic getaway in the snowy Highland countryside, watches all this activity in trepidation and keeps his head down because although I saw reason about Hallowe'en, I will never, ever see reason about Christmas baking, which must be done or I am a failure as a woman and Christmas will be ruined.
Fortunately it has not escaped his notice that English Christmas conquered Scotland a long time ago, and the shops are full of Christmas cake, and the mammies or grannies of his fellow Brits make Christmas cake or Christmas pudding, and bake endless cookies, and cook ginormous Christmas dinners. Christmas food obsession is very British, so my attitude, if rather noisy-colonial, is also British and therefore normal.
Meanwhile, my mother's mother, her mother, her mother, and her mother, stretching back through the centuries, were all Scots of the east coast (very different from the west coast), and B.A.'s mother, her mother, her mother, and so on, were also all Scots of the east coast. Which seems to mean that I automatically make all the right remarks to all the east coast Scottish platitudes and understand that it is sinful to pay £80 for a dress in the High Street when I can get one for £8 in the charity shop. I'm told people on the west coast think it a matter of pride to spend a lot of money on something, but this is surely just anti-Glasgow propaganda.
What is the point of all this navel-gazing? Well, I am pondering the fact that even though I married a fellow across the ocean, we seem to be culturally compatible because although we don't share the same NATIONAL culture, we share the same ethnic culture. If B.A. gets all very Scottish patriarch, I recall stories of my grandfather behaving like that. Naturally it makes me cranky to think that I have married my grandfather (or, somtimes, his father), but at least it feels familiar and [east coast Scottish platitude].
The poor old Canadian parish priest we bullied savagely during our pre-marriage interviews warned us that we might experience some cultural clashes, and he turned out to be right. Fourth generation Canadians of British descent are as American as we are British, a sort of hybrid, like our spelling. However, despite our arguments about self-promotion (e.g. sneaky British self-deprecation versus honest American boasting), B.A. and I understand each other pretty well. Of course it's more important that we share the same core values of Christ and His Church, but on the other hand, when it comes to the little things of daily life, the social interactions, the shopping, the cup of tea for the visitor, the farewell to the bus driver, the shared unspoken assumptions mean a lot, too.
If you manage to write down the more amusing of the comments word-for-word (keep pen, paper and bingo board hidden in the nearest bathroom), that would be awesome, too.
Thoughts of American Thanksgiving and its centrality in American life, even in these days of Obamacare and support for mass illegal immigration and the "Knock Out Game" and all kinds of hair-raising things that are none of my Canadian business, lead to thoughts about the importance of shared cultural stuff in marriage.
For some people, national or ethnic traditions are not a core value. As I live in the UK, I do not celebrate any Canadian holidays except Hallowe'en, which I recognize by carving a pumpkin and putting it in the window. I used to have a Hallowe'en party (with Canadian Thanksgiving food), but this proved impractical and led to squabbles with my Scottish husband, who could not understand my attachment to the most suspect of my national holidays when I gave up Dominion Day without turning a hair. The annual squabble ended, though, last year when we were in Poland, where the priests all think Hallowe'en is satanic and the people have much nicer, totally Catholic All Saints celebrations. So now I just carve a pumpkin (or squash) because if I didn't I would DIE.
My ethnic Christmas traditions are just as important as Mr. Jack O'Lantern, and every year I rise from my couch and bake the Christmas cake and wrap it in brandy-soaked cheesecloth because what kind of woman would I be if I didn't, eh? Three weeks later I get off the couch again and start baking Christmas cookies according to my mother's recipes and then on Christmas Eve itself, I am on the phone to my mother to review the Traditional Christmas Morning Bun situation. Then on Christmas Day I make exactly the same dinner my mother does and afterwards collapse, half-dead, into bed.
B.A., whose ideal Christmas would involve Midnight Mass and then a romantic getaway in the snowy Highland countryside, watches all this activity in trepidation and keeps his head down because although I saw reason about Hallowe'en, I will never, ever see reason about Christmas baking, which must be done or I am a failure as a woman and Christmas will be ruined.
Fortunately it has not escaped his notice that English Christmas conquered Scotland a long time ago, and the shops are full of Christmas cake, and the mammies or grannies of his fellow Brits make Christmas cake or Christmas pudding, and bake endless cookies, and cook ginormous Christmas dinners. Christmas food obsession is very British, so my attitude, if rather noisy-colonial, is also British and therefore normal.
Meanwhile, my mother's mother, her mother, her mother, and her mother, stretching back through the centuries, were all Scots of the east coast (very different from the west coast), and B.A.'s mother, her mother, her mother, and so on, were also all Scots of the east coast. Which seems to mean that I automatically make all the right remarks to all the east coast Scottish platitudes and understand that it is sinful to pay £80 for a dress in the High Street when I can get one for £8 in the charity shop. I'm told people on the west coast think it a matter of pride to spend a lot of money on something, but this is surely just anti-Glasgow propaganda.
What is the point of all this navel-gazing? Well, I am pondering the fact that even though I married a fellow across the ocean, we seem to be culturally compatible because although we don't share the same NATIONAL culture, we share the same ethnic culture. If B.A. gets all very Scottish patriarch, I recall stories of my grandfather behaving like that. Naturally it makes me cranky to think that I have married my grandfather (or, somtimes, his father), but at least it feels familiar and [east coast Scottish platitude].
The poor old Canadian parish priest we bullied savagely during our pre-marriage interviews warned us that we might experience some cultural clashes, and he turned out to be right. Fourth generation Canadians of British descent are as American as we are British, a sort of hybrid, like our spelling. However, despite our arguments about self-promotion (e.g. sneaky British self-deprecation versus honest American boasting), B.A. and I understand each other pretty well. Of course it's more important that we share the same core values of Christ and His Church, but on the other hand, when it comes to the little things of daily life, the social interactions, the shopping, the cup of tea for the visitor, the farewell to the bus driver, the shared unspoken assumptions mean a lot, too.
Thursday, 7 November 2013
"An American Bride in Kabul"
Phyllis Chesler is an American old-school feminist whose name I associate more with resistance to Islamism. Some feminists roll right over on their backs when confronted by Islamism because they are terrified critique of Islamism (or Islam itself) is a form of racism. But not Phyllis.
And it turns out that this is because as a Jewish American college student in New York, Phyllis married a son of a very rich Afghan and went with him to Kabul, where her passport was taken away. This was in 1960, and Phyllis knew very little about Afghanistan. She didn't even know that she had, through marriage and surrendering her passport, traded her American citizenship for Afghan citizenship. When she eventually banged on the door of the American Embassy, the American Embassy wouldn't help her.
Phyllis was full of daydreams about the EXOTIC EAST--and as a matter of fact, she still is, although she hasn't set foot in Afghanistan since her escape. Her memoir An American Bride in Kabul is full of descriptions of majestic mountains, camel caravans, lavish silks, carved wood, gorgeous carpets, glittering jewels and luscious food. She describes her welcoming banquet thusly:
The parade of platters is impressive and never-ending. There is shish kebob, which, I learn, is rarely served at home but can be bought all over Kabul. There are maybe six different kinds of white and yellow and brown rice dishes. Hidden in one pilau one might find a whole boiled chicken, a roasted duck--even a goose. Some dishes are flavored with fried onions and topped with almonds and grapes. There are platters of fried eggplant served with rich gobs of sour cream; juicy fat stuffed cabbage; kofte (meatballs) served with spicy salads; stuffed dumplings.
For dessert we have the most delicious fruit I have ever tasted: luscious grapes, hybrid melons, lemon-oranges, all of which are accompanied by cups of sweet custard topped with floating rose petals. Baklava, French pastries, and soft, sweet, and sticky candies end the meal.
And still, after all this, fresh offerings of pistachios are served, more tea is called for. We are also offered cold fruit juices.
This passage resonates with me because I am from Toronto, city-state of seven thousand ethnic restaurants, but I suspect Phyllis remembers it in so much detail after 50+ years because it was the last time in her marriage that she ate a decent meal. The chef had been hired, and he cooked with vegetable oil (or whatever Crisco is made from). The family chef cooks with ghee, i.e. clarified butter, and it is left out to go rancid. Afghans love rancid butter; it makes non-Afghans vomit. Phyllis is not allowed to cook for herself, and her family refuses to tell the servants to make ghee-free meals for her. She lives on bread, yoghurt and pistachio nuts, becoming hungrier and hungrier, weaker and weaker and, like so many laughably "weak" Westerners, gets terribly ill. But even this does not inspire her shrugging new family to find her food. In one harrowing scene, she crawls downstairs to look for something to eat, and finds her one English-speaking brother-in-law. She begs him for food: a plain cooked potato or bread.
Slowly Reza puts on his leather gloves.
"I have no time now, I'm already late." Reza pauses. He says: "I don't understand how Abdul-Kareem could have brought you here. I've told him that many time." And he walks out leaving me in a huddled heap on the carpeted floor.
You may well be asking, "Where the heck was her husband?" And that's a good question, one Phyllis asks herself many times as she goes stir-crazy spending whole days with his female relations doing nothing, not even able to read. In the USA Abdul-Kareem was an amazingly cultured and loving fellow--completely crazy about her, American and European art films, American and European literature. He wasn't religious, and he had plans for modernizing his native country. Phyllis "lost her virginity" to him, and he loved her, so naturally (for an honourable Afghan) he married her and took her home.
But once home, Abdul-Kareem was no longer interested in Phyllis's well-being, but only in his position in insanely patriarchal Afghan society, which entirely depended on the goodwill of his father and other older ruling-class men. Phyllis's inability to eat ghee-soaked food made him look ridiculous. Phyllis's wanting to leave the house made him look ridiculous. Phyllis's dark-haired looks, which didn't play to Afghan male fantasies about what American women look like, made him look ridiculous. He had already taken a huge risk by falling in love with Phyllis, marrying and bringing her home. He didn't have the time or energy to deal with her ridiculous need for food, freedom, language lessons, time alone with him, medical care, etc., etc.
The fascinating thing about this book is that although she suffered a lot at their hands, Phyllis managed to be friends with this man and his family for the rest of her life. Although her mother-in-law was astonishingly cruel, and probably crazy, Phyllis surmises why this was. One of the problems with a system in which women and children have less value than camels is that the women with any privilege kick around (literally, in the case of servants) women with less or no privilege. And younger men lord it over their wives in part because they have to grovel to older or richer men--for which reason Phyllis forgives her ex-husband (who considers her the first of his two wives, since the divorce wasn't his idea). It is very interesting watching her grapple with her attitude towards him for the next fifty years, he having fled to the USA after the Russian invasion. It's almost poignant how he manages to hang onto the idea that he is all that and a bag of chips even after losing all his rich Afghan privilege.
I dated an Afghan who fled to Canada after the Russian invasion. He asked me to marry him, but I broke up with him because I was tired of having to give The Speech every time I saw him. (Possibly my passionate delivery of The Speech, which grew as florid and dramatic as Phyllis Chesler's prose, is what prompted the marriage proposal.) I was only 18 and a big intellectual snob, so marrying an Afghan refugee who worked in a hotel and thought women were dumber than men because the Koran said so was not something I would have contemplated for a moment. I would have been so bored, and my parents horrified. Still, I think my own brush with Afghan romance is what inspired me to lay down £17 for An American Bride in Kabul.
One lessons of the book, whether or not this is what Chesler intended, is that if you are contemplating marrying a foreigner and returning with him to his native land, you should go with him to his native land FIRST and see what life is like there BEFORE you trust him (his family and his culture) enough to marry him. In my experience, men behave one way in the exotic foreign country (e.g. your country) they are studying, working or holidaying in and another back home. When I was studying in Germany, I used to pal around with English-speaking Girlfriends of Germans, and how they complained. In England and elsewhere, their German boyfriends were fantastic and normal. But in Germany they were just so....so German. One longed to get her boyfriend back to England where he belonged; the other was seriously thinking twice about marrying hers. We lost touch, so I'll never know if she married him, or if she'll ever know I stole her flat to give to Dennis and Catriona.
In my own case, B.A. is different in Canada than he is in Europe. In Canada he is positively docile and always trusts that I know what I am doing and follows me about like a lamb. He is not like that in the UK, and he is most definitely not like that on the Continent, where we do most of our fighting, since I think I own Italy and Poland and he thinks he owns Italy and Poland. (We don't fight in Spain, for he took Spanish in high school and therefore clearly owns Spain.) Fortunately, I met B.A. on his home turf, so the fact that he is lamb-like in Canada is a nice surprise, as opposed to false advertising.
And it turns out that this is because as a Jewish American college student in New York, Phyllis married a son of a very rich Afghan and went with him to Kabul, where her passport was taken away. This was in 1960, and Phyllis knew very little about Afghanistan. She didn't even know that she had, through marriage and surrendering her passport, traded her American citizenship for Afghan citizenship. When she eventually banged on the door of the American Embassy, the American Embassy wouldn't help her.
Phyllis was full of daydreams about the EXOTIC EAST--and as a matter of fact, she still is, although she hasn't set foot in Afghanistan since her escape. Her memoir An American Bride in Kabul is full of descriptions of majestic mountains, camel caravans, lavish silks, carved wood, gorgeous carpets, glittering jewels and luscious food. She describes her welcoming banquet thusly:
The parade of platters is impressive and never-ending. There is shish kebob, which, I learn, is rarely served at home but can be bought all over Kabul. There are maybe six different kinds of white and yellow and brown rice dishes. Hidden in one pilau one might find a whole boiled chicken, a roasted duck--even a goose. Some dishes are flavored with fried onions and topped with almonds and grapes. There are platters of fried eggplant served with rich gobs of sour cream; juicy fat stuffed cabbage; kofte (meatballs) served with spicy salads; stuffed dumplings.
For dessert we have the most delicious fruit I have ever tasted: luscious grapes, hybrid melons, lemon-oranges, all of which are accompanied by cups of sweet custard topped with floating rose petals. Baklava, French pastries, and soft, sweet, and sticky candies end the meal.
And still, after all this, fresh offerings of pistachios are served, more tea is called for. We are also offered cold fruit juices.
This passage resonates with me because I am from Toronto, city-state of seven thousand ethnic restaurants, but I suspect Phyllis remembers it in so much detail after 50+ years because it was the last time in her marriage that she ate a decent meal. The chef had been hired, and he cooked with vegetable oil (or whatever Crisco is made from). The family chef cooks with ghee, i.e. clarified butter, and it is left out to go rancid. Afghans love rancid butter; it makes non-Afghans vomit. Phyllis is not allowed to cook for herself, and her family refuses to tell the servants to make ghee-free meals for her. She lives on bread, yoghurt and pistachio nuts, becoming hungrier and hungrier, weaker and weaker and, like so many laughably "weak" Westerners, gets terribly ill. But even this does not inspire her shrugging new family to find her food. In one harrowing scene, she crawls downstairs to look for something to eat, and finds her one English-speaking brother-in-law. She begs him for food: a plain cooked potato or bread.
Slowly Reza puts on his leather gloves.
"I have no time now, I'm already late." Reza pauses. He says: "I don't understand how Abdul-Kareem could have brought you here. I've told him that many time." And he walks out leaving me in a huddled heap on the carpeted floor.
You may well be asking, "Where the heck was her husband?" And that's a good question, one Phyllis asks herself many times as she goes stir-crazy spending whole days with his female relations doing nothing, not even able to read. In the USA Abdul-Kareem was an amazingly cultured and loving fellow--completely crazy about her, American and European art films, American and European literature. He wasn't religious, and he had plans for modernizing his native country. Phyllis "lost her virginity" to him, and he loved her, so naturally (for an honourable Afghan) he married her and took her home.
But once home, Abdul-Kareem was no longer interested in Phyllis's well-being, but only in his position in insanely patriarchal Afghan society, which entirely depended on the goodwill of his father and other older ruling-class men. Phyllis's inability to eat ghee-soaked food made him look ridiculous. Phyllis's wanting to leave the house made him look ridiculous. Phyllis's dark-haired looks, which didn't play to Afghan male fantasies about what American women look like, made him look ridiculous. He had already taken a huge risk by falling in love with Phyllis, marrying and bringing her home. He didn't have the time or energy to deal with her ridiculous need for food, freedom, language lessons, time alone with him, medical care, etc., etc.
The fascinating thing about this book is that although she suffered a lot at their hands, Phyllis managed to be friends with this man and his family for the rest of her life. Although her mother-in-law was astonishingly cruel, and probably crazy, Phyllis surmises why this was. One of the problems with a system in which women and children have less value than camels is that the women with any privilege kick around (literally, in the case of servants) women with less or no privilege. And younger men lord it over their wives in part because they have to grovel to older or richer men--for which reason Phyllis forgives her ex-husband (who considers her the first of his two wives, since the divorce wasn't his idea). It is very interesting watching her grapple with her attitude towards him for the next fifty years, he having fled to the USA after the Russian invasion. It's almost poignant how he manages to hang onto the idea that he is all that and a bag of chips even after losing all his rich Afghan privilege.
I dated an Afghan who fled to Canada after the Russian invasion. He asked me to marry him, but I broke up with him because I was tired of having to give The Speech every time I saw him. (Possibly my passionate delivery of The Speech, which grew as florid and dramatic as Phyllis Chesler's prose, is what prompted the marriage proposal.) I was only 18 and a big intellectual snob, so marrying an Afghan refugee who worked in a hotel and thought women were dumber than men because the Koran said so was not something I would have contemplated for a moment. I would have been so bored, and my parents horrified. Still, I think my own brush with Afghan romance is what inspired me to lay down £17 for An American Bride in Kabul.
One lessons of the book, whether or not this is what Chesler intended, is that if you are contemplating marrying a foreigner and returning with him to his native land, you should go with him to his native land FIRST and see what life is like there BEFORE you trust him (his family and his culture) enough to marry him. In my experience, men behave one way in the exotic foreign country (e.g. your country) they are studying, working or holidaying in and another back home. When I was studying in Germany, I used to pal around with English-speaking Girlfriends of Germans, and how they complained. In England and elsewhere, their German boyfriends were fantastic and normal. But in Germany they were just so....so German. One longed to get her boyfriend back to England where he belonged; the other was seriously thinking twice about marrying hers. We lost touch, so I'll never know if she married him, or if she'll ever know I stole her flat to give to Dennis and Catriona.
In my own case, B.A. is different in Canada than he is in Europe. In Canada he is positively docile and always trusts that I know what I am doing and follows me about like a lamb. He is not like that in the UK, and he is most definitely not like that on the Continent, where we do most of our fighting, since I think I own Italy and Poland and he thinks he owns Italy and Poland. (We don't fight in Spain, for he took Spanish in high school and therefore clearly owns Spain.) Fortunately, I met B.A. on his home turf, so the fact that he is lamb-like in Canada is a nice surprise, as opposed to false advertising.
Friday, 18 October 2013
Prayers, Please, For a 39+ Bride
For some reason, I am permanently angry at some Eavesdropping blogger who said that Auntie Seraphic's poppets never seem to get married. Well, that was a big fat lie on his part.
If God called you all to be Single and you all thought that was a fantastic way to live your entire earthly life, I would not give a whoop what he said. However, I know a lot of you want to get married, so Mr Sneery saying that you never do rankled in my cranky soul.
So guess what? Your fellow reader Katy, who is 39+ and has been reading for a couple of years, is getting married tomorrow!
Normally I do not announce readers' weddings because I do not want the vast majority of you to bang your head on your computer keyboards wailing "When will it be my turn?" But I LOVE to mention the weddings of those OVER 35, especially those OVER 39+, to prove that sometimes it's just a case of TIME. And it would be super-fantastic if some of you teens and 20-somethings asked yourself, "Say, if I KNEW that I wasn't getting married until I was 39+, what interesting things could I do with my life right now?"
Anyway, best wishes to Katy and congratulations to her groom, and here's hoping it does not hail on their wedding day.
(It hailed on MY wedding day.)
If God called you all to be Single and you all thought that was a fantastic way to live your entire earthly life, I would not give a whoop what he said. However, I know a lot of you want to get married, so Mr Sneery saying that you never do rankled in my cranky soul.
So guess what? Your fellow reader Katy, who is 39+ and has been reading for a couple of years, is getting married tomorrow!
Normally I do not announce readers' weddings because I do not want the vast majority of you to bang your head on your computer keyboards wailing "When will it be my turn?" But I LOVE to mention the weddings of those OVER 35, especially those OVER 39+, to prove that sometimes it's just a case of TIME. And it would be super-fantastic if some of you teens and 20-somethings asked yourself, "Say, if I KNEW that I wasn't getting married until I was 39+, what interesting things could I do with my life right now?"
Anyway, best wishes to Katy and congratulations to her groom, and here's hoping it does not hail on their wedding day.
(It hailed on MY wedding day.)
Friday, 26 July 2013
Auntie Seraphic & the Reader Who Dreams of Happiness in Marriage
Poppets! Never forget that I am not an expert on marriage. I am rather more well-known for having been Single for a long time and not having forgotten what it's like. I'm kind of new on marriage stuff. Meanwhile, I can't just write whatever I think about marriage because (A) if I write that it is absolute bliss, I risk rubbing my Single readers noses in it and (B) if I write that I want to wallop my husband with a frying pan, he (and his friends) will read it and feel sad.
MEANWHILE, whenever I write about how fabulous female friendships are, and how girls rule, and how life is not worth living without female companionship, consider that I live four thousand miles away from most of my female friends and relations. I work from home, and I go to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass which is, incidentally, where all the boys are. I have no children. My only pet is a basil plant named Paweł, and he's looking rather peaky.
ALSO, I have been married for 4.5 years, and therefore see marriage rather differently than Single readers, or readers who have been married for 6 months, or readers who have been married for 45 years, or Alice von Hildebrand and other widows.
You must keep all these things in mind, and if you ever feel really lousy after reading one of my posts, I recommend snorting, "Ah! What does she know?" and finding a cute kitten video at once.
Dear Reader Who Dreams of Happiness in Marriage,
MEANWHILE, whenever I write about how fabulous female friendships are, and how girls rule, and how life is not worth living without female companionship, consider that I live four thousand miles away from most of my female friends and relations. I work from home, and I go to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass which is, incidentally, where all the boys are. I have no children. My only pet is a basil plant named Paweł, and he's looking rather peaky.
ALSO, I have been married for 4.5 years, and therefore see marriage rather differently than Single readers, or readers who have been married for 6 months, or readers who have been married for 45 years, or Alice von Hildebrand and other widows.
You must keep all these things in mind, and if you ever feel really lousy after reading one of my posts, I recommend snorting, "Ah! What does she know?" and finding a cute kitten video at once.
Dear Auntie Seraphic,
Thank you for running this blog. It has a lot of good advice. This email originally started out as a comment, but once I realized that it was turning into a depressing monologue, I decided to Ctrl + C and post it into a good old-fashioned e-mail. :-)
May I say that I become increasingly sad (I am usually sad to begin with) whenever I read one of your posts on men & women, ESPECIALLY in marriage?
Frankly speaking, I have never witnessed a happy marriage. However, the little fairy-tale loving section of my soul just will not die, and I continue to hope that there IS such a thing as a happy, passionate, understanding marriage.
I don't think you *intend* to do this, but you are slowly but surely convincing me that there is not such a thing. To clarify, I know that love is not the way it's portrayed in Taylor Swift songs. I know that emotions come and go. But you have shown me that: The passionate feelings experienced within the first couple years of a relationship will go away - and not come back. A man will never understand you. This one BREAKS. MY. HEART. As an emotionally abandoned/abused child, all I've ever wanted in my life is to be understood. Also, I watched my parents "misunderstand" each other for 25 years.
I do not know what to think. I am so sad. :-(
Reader Who Dreams of Happiness in Marriage
Dear Reader Who Dreams of Happiness in Marriage,
Don't be sad. Well, you can be sad, but there is no real NEED to be sad. The complete and total joyful understanding that you long for is available.
The thing is, it comes from God. Your heart will be restless until it rests in Him, i.e. after you die. [Actually, some saints manage to be perfectly content with Him in this life, too.]
A good husband is a wonderful creature and a very great gift from God, but at the end of the day he is just another fallible human being and no husband (or wife) can fill the God-shaped hole in any human heart. Still, there's a reason we use "husband" as an analogy for God and "bride" as the analogy for Church, although I have to admit that these are problematic from a woman's point of view. (It helps that male mystics talk about even their souls being female.)
There are happy marriages, indeed! And as for understanding, understanding is built over time. But this understanding is not just "a feeling"or an understanding of a spouse's good points, but a deep understanding of his or her faults, too, and ultimately a coming to peace with the faults, or a noticing that the faults have gone away with work or time. Honestly, this takes TIME [and patience, humility, courage, patience, humility and courage. And patience. Also humility. And patience.]
As for "passion", the honeymoon craziness does wear off, but it flares up here and there, and anyway, it usually [with God's Grace, I should have said] leaves behind a kind of spiritual glue. The spiritual glue gets stronger and stronger. I think the reason why sometimes widows or widowers just turn over and die a week or so after their spouses die is this spiritual glue. Don't think this spiritual glue is less important than "passion." No way, Hosea.
Meanwhile, if B.A. still acted and felt the way he did when we were engaged, he would probably starve to death: every time I went away on a trip, he would stop eating. And every time I went on a trip, I would cry and live for his phone calls and get nose bleeds, etc. Although that may sound romantic, eight months [actually, two years] of that was really enough.
Crying for the passion of the early years of a marriage is like crying because it is June, not the first gloriously sunny day in April. For everything there is a season, even the passion of newlyweds. And in fact it is dangerous to think that passion is the be-all and end-all of a happy marriage because people who do tend to get divorced or run around until they realize that it is not. It is necessary to kick-start a marriage (a western marriage, anyway), including the sexual side of marriage, which continues with enjoyment, good-will and jokes, even if without the breathless passion everyone writes about in songs.
I hope this is helpful. I like marriage very much, and I love my husband very much. I still think he is the perfect man for me, although I know that he is not perfect, and he most definitely knows I am not perfect either. If I sound rather more cranky than I should about the inadequacy of men to be more than just "a part of this complete breakfast", it may be because most of my female friends and relations are far, far away most of the time.
Grace and peace,
Seraphic
I hope I got across the "spiritual glue" part. Passion is like a basil plant; it springs up and it dies (and you can get more). But love is like in the Song of Solomon: "strong as death." That's the spiritual glue.
Thursday, 25 July 2013
A Man is Not a Substitute for All Women
Last night I watched a made-for-TV movie called Housewife, 49. It was sweet but predictable. A plump, ground-down middle-aged married woman with a grouchy carpenter husband is recruited in the early days of the Second World War to the Women's Volunteer Services, even though her husband tells her she won't fit in. And indeed at first she does not, because the other women are all madly middle-class, and one or two are snooty, but then the most patriotic social maven takes her under her wing, and our heroine feels she can ignore both her disapproving husband and the the norms of the class system.
So at 49 she begins to blossom and when the Germans bomb the Lake District and her grey-moustached husband admits, from the uncertain shelter of their Morrison (which turns out to be a big cage you set up in your house), that she is "everything" to him, she looks as bored and irritated as you can look when Jerry is dropping jolly big bombs on you.
In short, the happier Housewife, 49 gets, and the more she enjoys the company of her women friends, the more contemptuous she is of her husband. (I have to admit, I didn't much fancy him myself.) There's a sense that she is feeling rather a cut above him, now that... Hmm, now I see why he told her she wouldn't fit in. It might have been because he was afraid she would.
I don't think this sent a good message to the men of Britain, so I hope they didn't watch it. Frankly, I was quite relieved that Housewife didn't leave her husband. Almost completely demoralized, the poor old ex-king of his bombed working-class castle says he hopes she'll continue "to put up with" him. She says, "Well, why not? You have to put up with me." A very good point. All the same, it's quite clear that she doesn't realize that men are scarce and many a war widow wouldn't scoff at a nice carpenter with a home of his own, even if he had to pay alimony to his social-climbing frump of a first wife.
Oooh la la. That is not 1945 thinking! Is even Auntie Seraphic a product of post-1963 decadence? No doubt. Because divorce is just too easy these days, and therefore you must not be contemptuous of your husband, if you have one and want to keep him. Possibly you can be rude occasionally if you apologize within a reasonable time frame. But you may not be contemptuous.
One way not to be contemptuous of your husband or, indeed, of any man whose company you enjoy, is not to think he is a substitute for all women friends. Demanding that your husband be both a man and a woman is really too much. You can remind him that you yourself are not a man and therefore should not be expected to deny your feminine genius (e.g. crying when there's something worth crying about), but you cannot expect him to be a genius at listening and commiserating the way women are. You can ask him to try, of course, but you cannot expect him to be just like your female friends.
I think this follows for boyfriend and other men friends, too. And this is why it is such a good idea, among other reasons, not to neglect your female pals when you fall in love or "start a [romantic] relationship" with a man. You'll need them.
So at 49 she begins to blossom and when the Germans bomb the Lake District and her grey-moustached husband admits, from the uncertain shelter of their Morrison (which turns out to be a big cage you set up in your house), that she is "everything" to him, she looks as bored and irritated as you can look when Jerry is dropping jolly big bombs on you.
In short, the happier Housewife, 49 gets, and the more she enjoys the company of her women friends, the more contemptuous she is of her husband. (I have to admit, I didn't much fancy him myself.) There's a sense that she is feeling rather a cut above him, now that... Hmm, now I see why he told her she wouldn't fit in. It might have been because he was afraid she would.
I don't think this sent a good message to the men of Britain, so I hope they didn't watch it. Frankly, I was quite relieved that Housewife didn't leave her husband. Almost completely demoralized, the poor old ex-king of his bombed working-class castle says he hopes she'll continue "to put up with" him. She says, "Well, why not? You have to put up with me." A very good point. All the same, it's quite clear that she doesn't realize that men are scarce and many a war widow wouldn't scoff at a nice carpenter with a home of his own, even if he had to pay alimony to his social-climbing frump of a first wife.
Oooh la la. That is not 1945 thinking! Is even Auntie Seraphic a product of post-1963 decadence? No doubt. Because divorce is just too easy these days, and therefore you must not be contemptuous of your husband, if you have one and want to keep him. Possibly you can be rude occasionally if you apologize within a reasonable time frame. But you may not be contemptuous.
One way not to be contemptuous of your husband or, indeed, of any man whose company you enjoy, is not to think he is a substitute for all women friends. Demanding that your husband be both a man and a woman is really too much. You can remind him that you yourself are not a man and therefore should not be expected to deny your feminine genius (e.g. crying when there's something worth crying about), but you cannot expect him to be a genius at listening and commiserating the way women are. You can ask him to try, of course, but you cannot expect him to be just like your female friends.
I think this follows for boyfriend and other men friends, too. And this is why it is such a good idea, among other reasons, not to neglect your female pals when you fall in love or "start a [romantic] relationship" with a man. You'll need them.
Monday, 17 June 2013
Ostatnia Nigella
This morning I woke up to terrible headlines about two British celebrities who actually deserve to be celebrities, an important art collector and a beloved television chef. Charles Saatchi is a successful businessman and patron of the arts and Nigella Lawson is a successful businesswoman and daughter of Lord Lawson. We are not talking the sort of accidental celebrities who are made by appearing on reality shows or taking their clothes off for Page 3.
Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson are married, and the former was photographed appearing to throttle the latter and to tweak her nose as they sat outside a restaurant in London, arguing. Well, he was arguing; she apparently was trying to calm him down. And this being the UK, and they being celebrities, every national paper is running the story. Is Saatchi abusing Nigella? As stories go, that's huge. The photos were released to the world on, ironically, Sunday.*
As Kathy Shaidle (don't click to Kathy if you are not a keen freedom-of-speecher) likes to say, the real story is in the comments, so I clicked to the Daily Mail for the vox populi. The vox populi was divided. Comments ranged from "Maybe he was just checking her glands" to "How dare the photographer take photos instead of step in to save the damsel in distress?" to... Actually, now that I think about it, the comments could be divided into "We should mind our own business" and "Saatchi is a wicked wife abuser."
I gave up on the comments before anyone said "If screaming, yelling and getting physical is their thing, they should save it for the bedroom" which was my second thought. My first thought was "Oh, poor Nigella! She's just putting up with it because she loves him and cares about her marriage." But my second thought was definitely in the realm of Choice C: "How awful for the other people at the restaurant."
As long-term readers know, I don't write much about marriage. I didn't like being married the first time, but I like being married now. However, I've only been married for four years, and that doesn't make me any kind of expert. But I do know that marriage depends on loyalty, and so if I get mad at B.A. for something, I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to tell anyone. Well, I'm going to tell B.A., obviously, because I care enough. I'm here for the long haul and that means confrontation and reconciliation.
But the upshot is that I'm not going to write that much about my marriage because it is not just mine, it is B.A's. Also, I might make him look like an ass, and the worst non-criminal thing a wife can do is make her husband look like an ass in public. Meanwhile, the worst non-criminal thing a husband can do is humiliate his wife in public, which is what I think Charles Saatchi has done. The whole of the UK now thinks he thinks his wife is just property he can slap around.
I am confident B.A. would not mind me saying that physical violence does not play a role in our marriage. He might be a tad shocked to know that it plays a role in other people's marriages, and there are married couples out there who slap each other, grapple and occasionally throw things and laugh about it afterwards. And there are even some married couples would would think life would not be worth living if they didn't scream and yell and slap each other from time to time. It takes all kinds to make a world.
This dynamic is not the same thing as domestic abuse although I can imagine it could quickly turn into domestic abuse, and the minute one spouse says they are sick of scream-yell-slap, that should be an end to it.
I am not myself comfortable with violence-as-vehicle-of-sexual-expression, in part because I associate hitting with boxing and boxing with a code of honour. An honourable boxer hits people in the ring, never out of it, unless in self-defense, and you never, ever hita girl a member of the opposite sex. Also, I know it is a supremely bad idea ever to hit someone whose first impulse is to hit back, e.g. a boxer in training, particularly when they are stronger and heavier than you, and men are usually stronger and heavier than you.
However, as I said, some married couples are okay with slapping, grappling and throwing things, and therefore [Update: if that is true], the rest of us should usually butt out---as long as they keep it behind closed doors. [Update: When it is public, then the public may certainly voice its displeasure, as the British public has certainly done today.] Because that kind of consensual violence, cherubs, lurks in the murky shadows of the sexual realm, and not only should the public not see it, neither should the couple's children. [Update: B.A. is throwing all kinds of fits about this paragraph, just so you know.]
I notice that the British newspaper-reading public is always telling female celebrities to divorce their male celebrity husbands. Speaking as a Catholic and a former divorcee, I object to this. I think female celebrities should fight for their marriages and not give David or Wayne a chance to abandon them and their children for whatever brainless hussy managed to so fatally distract them for half an hour. Not only would such a capitulation be bad for the wives and their children, it would be certainly bad for David and Wayne, et alia, who would be eaten alive by brainless hussies until the money was gone and they were just pathetic and rather creepy old men in constant danger of hell. (Oh yeah. Hell.)
Meanwhile, it's up to Nigella to decide what she wants to do. If for whatever reason the shadowy corners of her sexual psyche enjoy the rough stuff meted out by her husband, then she is well in her legal rights to stick with him. If she's sick of it, then it's up to her to lay down the law or start divorce proceedings. But whichever she decides, I hope this couple calls an end to fighting in public. It's not dignified, and it puts other people off their lunch.
*Irony explained: Nigella is almost the Polish word for Sunday, niedziela.
Update: I am much more disturbed by reports that he says he doesn't like her food. The woman is a renowned chef, and spouses can hurt each other very much by belittling each other's proven accomplishments. I cannot see what he would gain from doing so. Surely he is a big enough man without having to diminish the woman in his life to feel even bigger? I mean, he's Charles Saatchi. Hello.
Update 2: Fellow Catholic Cristina Odone weighs in. Normally I don't pay attention to celebrity gossip, but this is sort of the British equivalent of Guggenheim throttling Julia Child.
Update 3: After much vigorous debate, my husband B.A. weighs in here: "I think my major concern is that – prima facie – violence is bad. Even if we can do “play” violence that genuinely causes no harm – because it is implicitly consensual and non-injurious – the default position should still be that violence is dangerous. I can’t imagine any kind of violence in the New Jerusalem: I conclude that violence as such is a post-lapsarian phenomenon. So, when I hear that a man has been publicly violent to his wife and that she subsequently leaves in tears, my instinct is that something bad has happened – something which I might have been inclined to interrupt if I witnessed it. Of course I could be wrong and find myself making a fool of myself by so concluding about any particular case. But I think the default assumption in such a case is that harm is being done. What, if any, mitigating assumptions might be justified – such as that the couple may find this kind of stuff fun in private – should take a back seat. And this is precisely because that we have to have really good reasons to think that any particular case of violence is “alright”. That this was a man being publicly violent to his visibly distressed wife very strongly suggests to me that something was probably wrong."
Update 4: I used to box. For almost a year, I was the only woman who trained at my gym. Men hit me (but usually pulled their punches). I hit them. It was not such a big deal. Therefore, I have a very nuanced philosophy about when physical force is okay and when it is not. I do not have as strong a sense as B.A. that "prima facie--violence is bad." But I agree that it is dangerous.
Update 5: Guardian columnist who thought Saatchi-Lawson event might not have been a case of domestic abuse eats words. I am not a Guardian columnist, so I don't have to worry about angry Guardian readers. I am, however, a Catholic Register columnist and have written a denunciation of Fifty Shades of Grey, of which over 70 million copies have been sold, mostly to women.
Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson are married, and the former was photographed appearing to throttle the latter and to tweak her nose as they sat outside a restaurant in London, arguing. Well, he was arguing; she apparently was trying to calm him down. And this being the UK, and they being celebrities, every national paper is running the story. Is Saatchi abusing Nigella? As stories go, that's huge. The photos were released to the world on, ironically, Sunday.*
As Kathy Shaidle (don't click to Kathy if you are not a keen freedom-of-speecher) likes to say, the real story is in the comments, so I clicked to the Daily Mail for the vox populi. The vox populi was divided. Comments ranged from "Maybe he was just checking her glands" to "How dare the photographer take photos instead of step in to save the damsel in distress?" to... Actually, now that I think about it, the comments could be divided into "We should mind our own business" and "Saatchi is a wicked wife abuser."
I gave up on the comments before anyone said "If screaming, yelling and getting physical is their thing, they should save it for the bedroom" which was my second thought. My first thought was "Oh, poor Nigella! She's just putting up with it because she loves him and cares about her marriage." But my second thought was definitely in the realm of Choice C: "How awful for the other people at the restaurant."
As long-term readers know, I don't write much about marriage. I didn't like being married the first time, but I like being married now. However, I've only been married for four years, and that doesn't make me any kind of expert. But I do know that marriage depends on loyalty, and so if I get mad at B.A. for something, I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to tell anyone. Well, I'm going to tell B.A., obviously, because I care enough. I'm here for the long haul and that means confrontation and reconciliation.
But the upshot is that I'm not going to write that much about my marriage because it is not just mine, it is B.A's. Also, I might make him look like an ass, and the worst non-criminal thing a wife can do is make her husband look like an ass in public. Meanwhile, the worst non-criminal thing a husband can do is humiliate his wife in public, which is what I think Charles Saatchi has done. The whole of the UK now thinks he thinks his wife is just property he can slap around.
I am confident B.A. would not mind me saying that physical violence does not play a role in our marriage. He might be a tad shocked to know that it plays a role in other people's marriages, and there are married couples out there who slap each other, grapple and occasionally throw things and laugh about it afterwards. And there are even some married couples would would think life would not be worth living if they didn't scream and yell and slap each other from time to time. It takes all kinds to make a world.
This dynamic is not the same thing as domestic abuse although I can imagine it could quickly turn into domestic abuse, and the minute one spouse says they are sick of scream-yell-slap, that should be an end to it.
I am not myself comfortable with violence-as-vehicle-of-sexual-expression, in part because I associate hitting with boxing and boxing with a code of honour. An honourable boxer hits people in the ring, never out of it, unless in self-defense, and you never, ever hit
However, as I said, some married couples are okay with slapping, grappling and throwing things, and therefore [Update: if that is true], the rest of us should usually butt out---as long as they keep it behind closed doors. [Update: When it is public, then the public may certainly voice its displeasure, as the British public has certainly done today.] Because that kind of consensual violence, cherubs, lurks in the murky shadows of the sexual realm, and not only should the public not see it, neither should the couple's children. [Update: B.A. is throwing all kinds of fits about this paragraph, just so you know.]
I notice that the British newspaper-reading public is always telling female celebrities to divorce their male celebrity husbands. Speaking as a Catholic and a former divorcee, I object to this. I think female celebrities should fight for their marriages and not give David or Wayne a chance to abandon them and their children for whatever brainless hussy managed to so fatally distract them for half an hour. Not only would such a capitulation be bad for the wives and their children, it would be certainly bad for David and Wayne, et alia, who would be eaten alive by brainless hussies until the money was gone and they were just pathetic and rather creepy old men in constant danger of hell. (Oh yeah. Hell.)
Meanwhile, it's up to Nigella to decide what she wants to do. If for whatever reason the shadowy corners of her sexual psyche enjoy the rough stuff meted out by her husband, then she is well in her legal rights to stick with him. If she's sick of it, then it's up to her to lay down the law or start divorce proceedings. But whichever she decides, I hope this couple calls an end to fighting in public. It's not dignified, and it puts other people off their lunch.
*Irony explained: Nigella is almost the Polish word for Sunday, niedziela.
Update: I am much more disturbed by reports that he says he doesn't like her food. The woman is a renowned chef, and spouses can hurt each other very much by belittling each other's proven accomplishments. I cannot see what he would gain from doing so. Surely he is a big enough man without having to diminish the woman in his life to feel even bigger? I mean, he's Charles Saatchi. Hello.
Update 2: Fellow Catholic Cristina Odone weighs in. Normally I don't pay attention to celebrity gossip, but this is sort of the British equivalent of Guggenheim throttling Julia Child.
Update 3: After much vigorous debate, my husband B.A. weighs in here: "I think my major concern is that – prima facie – violence is bad. Even if we can do “play” violence that genuinely causes no harm – because it is implicitly consensual and non-injurious – the default position should still be that violence is dangerous. I can’t imagine any kind of violence in the New Jerusalem: I conclude that violence as such is a post-lapsarian phenomenon. So, when I hear that a man has been publicly violent to his wife and that she subsequently leaves in tears, my instinct is that something bad has happened – something which I might have been inclined to interrupt if I witnessed it. Of course I could be wrong and find myself making a fool of myself by so concluding about any particular case. But I think the default assumption in such a case is that harm is being done. What, if any, mitigating assumptions might be justified – such as that the couple may find this kind of stuff fun in private – should take a back seat. And this is precisely because that we have to have really good reasons to think that any particular case of violence is “alright”. That this was a man being publicly violent to his visibly distressed wife very strongly suggests to me that something was probably wrong."
Update 4: I used to box. For almost a year, I was the only woman who trained at my gym. Men hit me (but usually pulled their punches). I hit them. It was not such a big deal. Therefore, I have a very nuanced philosophy about when physical force is okay and when it is not. I do not have as strong a sense as B.A. that "prima facie--violence is bad." But I agree that it is dangerous.
Update 5: Guardian columnist who thought Saatchi-Lawson event might not have been a case of domestic abuse eats words. I am not a Guardian columnist, so I don't have to worry about angry Guardian readers. I am, however, a Catholic Register columnist and have written a denunciation of Fifty Shades of Grey, of which over 70 million copies have been sold, mostly to women.
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