Breaking the Rules: Confession and Revelation

Someone recently summed me up when I revealed my Catholic encrusted childhood. That knowledge muddies the waters in any relationship carrying with it preconceived notions of stereotypical neuroses. Guilt is one. Sexual addiction is another. Together they form their own twisted helix of desire and denial. Totally not me. Really.

The question at hand is Breaking the Rules, which for both Catholics and Buddhists segues into confession and revelation. The former lets you off easy, the latter involves learning something about yourself.

My family is sprinkled with sociopaths. Mom taught me how to peek at presents before Christmas and Dad told me the next time Jackie Jan beat me up, I should pick up a brick and hit her on the head. The priest wouldn't give Mom communion when she divorced. She joined the line to the altar anyway and knelt before the priest. He placed the wafer on her tongue. Parish nuns told my aunt it was a sin to take birth control, even when the infant she bore every year had increasingly disturbing problems. Mom drove her to a clinic for birth control. Too afraid of God to accept the medication, my aunt consumed heavy doses of alcohol instead. She drank to the point that my uncle lost interest in bedding her and the babies stopped. Footnote: she became sexually abstinent but my Uncle Benny didn't.

My last confession was when I was twelve. Went with a group of girls and when it was my turn I confessed to playing a kissing game with the boys on my baseball team. I was the only girl on the team. We played baseball everyday, and the kissing was a new and exciting after game activity. I wasn't exactly clear on whether or not it was a sin, but with confession it's better to be safe than sorry. I expected to have to say lots of rosaries, and get on with my day, it being perfect baseball weather. The games lasted until we couldn't see the ball and/or we took an afternoon break and hung out in whoever's house was empty of adults. Revelation: I had a typical Catholic's understanding of the machinery of confession since I had every intention of kissing my team again.

The priest on the other side of the confessional screen had different ideas. He asked me questions about tongues and probing hands in panties. We didn't kiss with tongues. There were no roaming hands. The priest's breath was halting and heavy, too, kind of trembly in an unpriestlike way. Waves of damp heat swept to my side of the confessional. I wasn't sure what was happening. It felt scary, kind of like I was in the bad-man-candy-from-strangers danger zone. I wanted out of there.

Worst of all is I knew it was taking way too long and people were going to start to wonder about Sandra and her Sins. Finally I told him I was feeling sick and he dismissed me in a sad, resigned way with only three Our Fathers and three Hail Mary's. My girlfriends gave me the what the heck squint when I came out. It was so embarrassing.

Confession implies guilt and censorship, but also forgiveness. This confession made me feel guilty. Not for what I'd confessed but for what I had aroused in him. He sinned. I did not.

I lost respect for him. He made me lose faith, not just in adults but in adult religious men.

Revelation involves sharing and openness, and should flow in a natural exchange of thoughts, philosophies, and experiences where unfinished people learn something about each other and themselves.

My last official confession was when I was twelve. Revelation is an ongoing process.


A short story:  Against the Rules

May in the Summer

           

                Sometimes a journey “home” is an encounter with oneself. May in the Summer (release August 22) tells the story of a young, sophisticated woman who lives in New York and whose first novel was a success. She’s engaged and travels home to visit her mother and plan her wedding. While there she must deal with the usual travails of familial discontinuity, a tale that has been told countless times. The difference here is that May’s home is in Amman Jordan. Her mother is a Palestinian who married an American. May and her sisters were raised in the U.S.

                Wait, there’s more. Her mother is a fundamentalist Christian and May’s fiancé is Muslim. Yikes! Amman is not Gaza, but you can see Palestine across the water from a Western style beach resort as you float in the Dead Sea. Oh, and there are not too many women in jogging shorts for the local men to ogle. Only one: May. These dislocations serve as much needed reminders that even though May and her sisters are pop culture savvy and are not just Westernized-they’re as American as apple pie served at a NY deli. All of which adds up to an old story told and set in a new world.

                Diversity is a word I embrace and May in the Summer displays all its nuances in an engrossing and even affectionate manner. The script is good and the acting is outstanding. May encounters more familial secrets which I won’t reveal here. It’s a new twist on an old tale well worth viewing.

DIRECTOR(S): Cherien Dabis SCREENWRITER(S): Cherien Dabis CAST: Cherien Dabis, Hiam Abbass, Alia Shawkat, Bill Pullman, Nadine Malouf, Elie Mitri, Alexander SiddigDISTRIBUTOR: Cohen Media Group 

BULLY: The Unwritten Social Contract to Grow Some Balls

          I saw Lee Hirsch’s documentary Bully Thursday night with a group of fellow volunteers from WriteGirl. We mentor teenaged girls through their writing. After the movie we sat in the lounge and talked. We all agreed that the parents and school officials in the movie were often clueless when dealing with bullies, and that this most likely mimicked real life.

          The implication is that failure to stand up to the bullies is, well, failure. The bullied know it and so do all the bullies and the multitude of youthful bystanders who are just grateful to stay under the bully radar. In movies, we root for the underdog who finally finds his courage and his fist (Crispin Glover in Back to the Future; Carrie; Mean Creek; Heathers). The victim’s predicament is summed up in homilies: kids will be kids; water seeks its own level; the pecking order; dog-eat-dog.  It’s the predominant philosophy rampant in not only the families, but especially the Vice-principal and the school counselor in Bully. Even the best friend of a victim who resorted to suicide says on camera that he was bullied until he challenged his torturer.

          This happened to my son when he was four: He came home from a small, private pre-school with a huge bruise on his shoulder blade. Over the next few days, more bruises appeared. I talked to the head teacher/administrator at the school. The kids were learning their alphabet and each student was assigned a letter according to their name. My son’s letter was “E” for Eric. Turns out another student named Edward didn’t want to share the letter, so he was pinching my kid on a daily basis. The teacher said she’d talk to Edward about it. The bruising continued. I talked to the teacher again and she pointed out Edward’s father, who was dropping him off. I approached him figuring he’d tell his son to cut it out, you know, share. Be nice. Edward’s dad showed no emotion when he told me that my son should learn to stand up for himself. The term “grow some balls” remains vivid in my memory. I moved my child to another school.

          Most people don’t have this option and find it difficult to deal with school officials. The scene in the movie where the vice-principal essentially shuts down the parents who have come to her for help in protecting their son is infuriating. One can only assume that this experience is pervasive in the communities that these schools serve. But it’s not limited to just rural towns in the South and Midwest.

          A Darwinian survival of the fittest mentality pervades much of American society and the solution offered by Bully is to teach our children not to meekly stand by and allow a fellow student to be bullied. Will this make the defender(s) a target? Yes. That’s why the emphasis is that they organize and act as a group. Is the movie enough to make a change in the schools?

          Bully’s message will positively affect a few students, but it’s their parents who need to hear it and embrace it. Only if the parents model and reinforce non-bullying behavior in their offspring will this problem be eliminated in our schools and in our society. In the movie, the school officials said the behavior was normal and that “nothing is gonna change.” If the parents are not involved, I couldn’t agree more. Think about when and if you’ve ever advised your child not to get involved. And then think again.

Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.  ~Maya Angelou

 Bullying and the media here.

The Valentine's Waltz

Art by Kelly Boyle

Stay.


Lydia’s parents danced a slow waltz in the smoky honky-tonk for Valentine’s. They held her easily between them, even though at five she was no skinny waif. Lydia felt their heat, the thump of their hearts and the low growl of her mother’s hum as she led them, her body swaying, her face in rapture. Lydia’s father lowered his head and her parents kissed, still moving with the music. Their hearts realigned in tempo, pounding hard at Lydia from two sides. The music swirled around them, and wrapped in their love, she almost felt their kiss.



Skip ahead.


She led her husband around the bedroom in a marijuana-soaked haze, forcing his hips to follow hers, the better to feel the music. He’d do anything she wanted. She kissed him, but it wasn’t the same. Her parent’s dance could not be matched.


Turn back.

A double-date jaunt to a small Mexican beach resort. The two older women were drinkers, the two younger women pot smokers. They breached the generation gap and indulged in it all. In a secluded nightclub frequented by honeymooners on a budget, Lydia and her lover swayed in a tight synchronous circle. She leaned her head back, and Karen tongued the hollow of her throat. When they kissed, Lydia tasted the memory of the valentine’s waltz.