Songs of Experience

Something happened this week-end when I watched the USA T&F national championships on TV.
I was fast-forwarding through Stacy Dragilla like I always do (my husband thinks the pole vault should be classified as a gymnastics event: bars, vault, beam, floor ex., and pole vault), eating pretzels and cream cheese, ignoring Larry Rawson’s commentary (because he actually mentioned one woman’s “bronze California tan�), when I saw this amazing animal streak across my television screen. No, I hadn’t switched channels to horse-racing … but I did think of Secretariat, the once-in-a-century thoroughbred who destroyed his competition when he won the Triple Crown back in 1973.
It was Shalane Flanagan. Beautiful, powerful, willful, possessed. Everyone remembers Steve Prefontaine for his gutsy front-running and his self-proclaimed artistic expression; well, I think Shalane is a female version of Pre. I watched her do some 400’s last month at Carolina’s track (at the end of a hard tempo run, her coach [Mike Whittelsy] informed me) and what I perceived as a relaxed, effortless 5:00 pace … she was way too smooth to be running any faster … turned out to be 66’s, not 75’s … when I checked my watch. And she was running alone. No one to push or pull her along, just like she did at Nationals, just like – I suspect – she has always done. How I pray that the drugs in our sport will be cleaned up in time for Shalane to wear her rightful crown on the world stage.

After pondering the electronic exchanges I had with Eric (in the comments section of “The New Mystique”), I am reminded of a poem by Eavan Boland – my favorite living poet, by the way – which describes the daughter-grown moment perfectly:

The Necessity for Irony
by, Eavan Boland

On Sundays,
when the rain held off,
after lunch or later,
I would go with my twelve year old
daughter into town,
and put down the time
at junk sales, antique fairs.

There I would
lean over tables,
absorbed by
place, wooden frames,
glass. My daughter stood
at the other end of the room,
her flame-coloured hair
obvious whenever-
which was not often-

I turned around.
I turned around.
She was gone.

Grown. No longer ready
to come with me, whenever
a dry Sunday
held out its promises
of small histories. Endings.

When I was young
I studied styles: their use
and origin. Which age
was known for which
ornament: and was always drawn
to a lyric speech, a civil tone.
But never thought
I would have the need,
as I do now, for a darker one:

Spirit of irony,
my caustic author
of the past, of memory,-
and of its pain, which returns
hurts, stings-reproach me now,
remind me
that I was in those rooms,
with my child,
with my back turned to her,
searching-oh irony!-
for beautiful things.

How many of you out there have ever heard of “The Feminine Mystique“?

-from wikipedia:
“The Feminine Mystique is a book written by Betty Friedan, published in 1963.

Most women in her class indicated a general unease with their lives. Through her findings, Friedan hypothesized that women are victims of a false belief system that requires them to find identity and meaning in their lives through their husbands and children.”

Although women have come a long way (baby) since 1963, I would like to suggest that we are now living in an era of The New Mystique. It’s true, women no longer find their identity and meaning strictly through their husbands and children … but, if you have children you KNOW that your life’s energy is devoted to them (either by working in the home taking care of them, or working outside the home to pay for someone else to take care of them). I believe the new mystique we are all operating under is the “false belief system” that parenthood is supposed to be easier – and more fulfilling – now that we’re all so liberated and enlightened (husbands and fathers, too). Well, sister, this ain’t the case. Parenthood is harder than it was in 1963 because those VERY women who were of the generation that responded to Betty Friedan’s questionnaire have decided to forego the responsiblilties of grandmothering. We modern mothers are raising our children alone because our mothers have “BTDT” (been there, done that) and want no part of that “general unease” again.
It takes a village to raise a child because Grandma’s out finding herself.