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| For the Love of Carrots |
| 09.18.04 (10:16 pm) [edit] |
|
FOR THE LOVE OF CARROTS... To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ~e.e. cummings My battle for individuality began in the 4th grade when I refused to wear snow pants to school. I knew that it would be a bloody battle against a foe with a long history of germ phobias and an arsenal of motherly sayings. But, one snowy winter morning, with the determination of one willing to die for a cause larger than ones self, I walked out the front door, sans snow pants, screaming my immortal words, "Yes, mom, I do want to be the only fourth grader who freezes to death on the playground"! That was the first of many turbulent battles. It was followed soon after by my final stand against the atrocity of cooked carrots. For years I had been presenting well-articulated arguments against this nightmare of a vegetable; including one particularly devastating monologue on why I was certain that they were a tool of the devil. Despite this, my father did not acquiesce on his refusal to let me leave the table unless I cleaned my plate. The conflict came to an abrupt end one summer evening as I shoved the last carrot into my mouth and proceeded to throw up all over the dinner table. In one involuntary reflex I was victorious, dismissed from the table, but clearly victorious. Had I known that this would be my big gun I would have saved the tool of the devil argument for something really meaningful like Brussel sprouts. Parents mean well; but we are hopelessly flawed by two desires. One is to raise better children than our parents did and the other is to live our unlived lives through them. Small, helpless creatures whose clean, unblemished slate elicits in us an overwhelming temptation to take this empty vessel and fill it with ideas and activities that bring us happiness and puts us in a favorable light with those around us. We clothe them in tutus before they can walk and put them in the outfield in preschool where we shockingly find them laying on the grass looking up at airplanes as the ball rolls quietly past them. I am by no means untainted. When Megan was in the 5th grade I bought her a new book, as I often did. This time, however, instead of placing it on the shelf where it would gather dust under a pile of Disney videos I handed it directly to her. "You will enjoy this Megan", I said optimistically. "Probably not, " she said, "I don't like to read, mom" "I'm not sure that I understand you Megan, of course you like to read. I loved to read when I was your age". "I'm obviously not you mom, because I hate to read". Crueler words have never been spoken. My mind raced. Had my years of reading them Goodnight Moon all been in vain? Had they been feigning enjoyment each time that we followed Edmund and Lucy through the wardrobe? How would she ever get into college? I wondered, lovingly caressing my copy of Sense and Sensibility. Could I sleep at night knowing that she would never experience the joy and excitement of Nancy Drew, the Outsiders, or the books of Judy Blume? Panic immediately ensued. "Megan!" I screamed up the stairs, "you do so like to read"! There, I had won. Well meaning friends, parents, spouses, co-workers, the people next to us in the pew and fellow members of the PTA; magazines, movies and television commercials, all chipping away at us innocently like water on a rock. One day I looked into the mirror and found no one looking back, no one recognizable anyway. There was a responsible looking woman in clothes that didn't suit her and a complacency that bore no resemblance to the little girl who was willing to die over a pair of snow pants. Somewhere along the line, we get the message that someone else's way of thinking is more accurate than our own; that others know us better than we know ourselves. Perhaps it is when people cease to actually listen or our mother insists that we love to read and we decide not to argue. Once upon a time I knew who I was and I am beginning to recognize my reflection in the mirror once again. I see sparks of the irreverent, opinionated and wild girl from East Toledo who knew that snow pants were hideous, that it was not such a bad thing for a girl to be smart and that she quite simply and quite vehemently hated cooked carrots. How glorious it would have been to have someone trust her with that fact instead of having to demonstrate it quite vividly at the dinner table. The battle to be nobody but yourself in the world. Never stop fighting, brother. |
posted by: Laina (reply)
post date: 09.18.04 (8:30 pm)
hey you have a cool blog check out mine leave a comment if you want! :D
posted by: blog spider (reply)
post date: 09.19.04 (2:07 pm)
a woman who thinks, what do you look like?
posted by: Wolverine (reply)
post date: 09.19.04 (2:08 pm)
You seem like a pretty cool lady, as long as you are not a Buckeye fan.
Grace, beauty, humor, strength.
Alison Haley Cloud
Nov. 16, 1987-March 1, 2005
