Of course no one does. Including me. But rather than descending into crankiness, I decided on my last trip away from home to give it a try. So here goes:
Loving Growth: I used to shop when I was in Kentucky at a rather large Whole Foods, planted in the suburbs. Now it has doubled in size and it is thronged with hundreds, if not thousands of shoppers, since it is the only Whole Foods between Louisville, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio. So I am faced with pushing around a shopping cart with a flag that reads “BEGINNING CUSTOMER” to arouse compassion rather than irritation as I slowly make my way through endless aisles thronged with hundreds of choices. Since the ingredients are listed in such small print, I really don’t know which breakfast cereal has the most sugar. So, hurrah for sugar! Maybe the cereal will taste better and a few grams of sugar won’t kill me.
A corollary is Loving Traffic, a hard one. The six-lane throughways that roam the old potato fields around Louisville are heavily traveled at all hours of the day and night, and I remember reading that since most car errands cover distances of less than a mile, it seems that some of us might get out of our cars and walk. But wait! Stalled, I glance to my left and see, high above me, the long calm face of the long haul truck driver in his cab. This is his life, with brief respites here and there. I begin a new short story…
Loving the Passage of Time: I see it in my own face, and in the faces of friends and relatives, a dramatic reminder of how soon our race will be run. But wait! In my grown grandchildren, I now see more clearly their resemblances to their fathers; earlier, softer faces seemed to resemble mainly their mothers. There’s nothing wrong with that—they are all estimable women—but at least in the case of my departed son Will, the marked resemblance emerging in his son’s and daughter’s faces as they reach their late twenties is consoling.
Loving Airports: another tough one. Much conversation among the always-traveling ancients hinges on the discomforts of mass travel by air—the delays, the cruelly congested airport “lounges” where no one lounges, the loss of perhaps too familiar status in these anonymous-making crowds.
But wait! Monday in the Dallas airport where thousands of travelers congregate because of missed flights and other annoyances, I sat down in an eatery next to a plump couple, the man carrying an 18-month-old boy comfortably and casually in the crook of his arm—and it does seems that fathers, at least in public, are shouldering more of the responsibility. This baby fixed his large black eyes on me; I’ve seldom been flattered by such a long stare, an appraisal, it seemed, that came straight from pure curiosity—what is that sitting next to me?—with no hint of judgment. This was not a smiling baby, but a morsel of humanity aminated by the drive to find out that keeps our world turning.
Which brings me to the last: Loving Fat People. This has become essential because of the mysterious enlargement of a large portion of the U.S. population, at least of a certain class: the class definition of fatness must make us all question our bias. No critic can claim that this is just a question of health; and do we care so much, anyway, about the health of
strangers?
The big women, the even enormous women I see all around me remind me of one of our great efforts, as feminists, to stop fat blaming. Now, a large woman wears tight, very short shorts; a pregnant woman sports a belly-defining sheath-and all women seem to walk the streets (and the airport lounges) as though we have the right to be there and to weigh whatever we want to weigh.
You won’t see many fat women at country club parties and their ilk. We of that class are still girdled by the old prejudice. And we can afford healthy food: the fast food chains feed the truly hungry.
Outside my studio, a bronze statue, stark naked, of a pueblo girl stands planted on broad feet. I greet her every day with, “Hello, my girl.” The sculptor, Roxanne Swentzell, has for years made large sculptures of the women of her pueblo, who are often fat and squat. (No, don’t use those adjectives!) Neither she nor I find anything to dislike in their robustness or in the space they confidently take up on the face of this earth.
So now, dear readers, examine your own attitudes towards change of various kinds as it manifests in your lives and, with a touch of humor and a big portion of self-compassion, ask, “Do I have to feel this way this way?”
Living in Louisville off Highway 42, loving traffic is probably not going to happen to me. I have been stopped at the Zachery Taylor Cemetery long enough to count every grave site in there. I am girding my loins to get ready for the opening of the VA hospital. I’m reminding myself, I’m 80 years old and retired so no need to be in a hurry. Really enjoyed this article.
Good question! My ‘Do I Have to Feel This Way?’ has to do with myself, like I am never quite ready, good enough, prepared to do [blank], however brave and adventuresome I am in some ways. What I think is, however I feel, if the evidence would satisfy me were it someone else, then let it be enough for me, and make myself do what I am fearing to do.
“Do I have to feel this way this way?” Yes, kind of.