Make it Work!
July 22, 2010
The summer proceeds in its lazy, frantic way. I remember having time to be bored in the summer, so by the time the fall came, I thought I wanted to go back to school. There isn’t much time to be bored for our youngest. Soccer, theater workshops, trips and friends- each minute seems to be full. And, if nothing is going on, there is still the constant drone of the “text” alert on her phone.
I am beginning to think that humans are undergoing a genetic mutation. Anyone under 25 is automatically destined to become a cyber-techno! Every new gadget we get, our daughter knows how to use sight unseen- I mean every single feature! For a fifty-something, I’m not bad, but she’s still my go-to person when I get stuck.
Of course, I have to prepare for the inevitable “tsk” of the lips, possibly accompanied by the eye roll, and, if I’ve already irritated her that day, an “oh, mommmmm.” Sometimes it’s worth it, to watch her click a few buttons, competent and sure, taking me where I need to go or fixing what I did wrong. I may not actually learn how to do it myself- her fingers move at lightning speed over whatever keyboard is in play- but I’ll know it CAN be done.
It makes me remember all the things I thought I knew and I thought my parents didn’t. These were of a more sociological nature. I knew we needed to undergo a sexual revolution, that old ideas about gender were antiquated, that not everyone was straight. What I didn’t realize was that every option I had in my life, all the thoughts I was allowed to think, had been won because my parents DID know something about what needed to change. They had gay friends, my father supported my mother to have a career. He did the dishes and played with me. They laid the groundwork for me to go further. But, in order to go as far as I did, I had to believe that what I was doing was entirely new- that I had invented change.
My mother told me a story recently about visiting her grandmother as a little girl. There was still no running water, everyone had an outhouse, and her grandparents taught her how to well witch (i.e.find water with a stick) out in their field. This was not a casual occupation- they needed the water! My mother commented that, in her one lifetime, an unbelievable amount of ground had been covered! Sometimes it staggers my mind to think of what the changes will be by the time I’m 80. I have lost the sureness that I will be able to keep up!
If I can’t, I know I’m going to hear about it, “it’s so easy mom, what’s the problem.” But then, one of those beautiful kids, or their friends or spouses, will probably touch a view dials and make it work. How lucky am I!?
