Right-Mindedness and Red Dresses
Sep. 28th, 2008 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_pretentiousWhen I first told my sister I intended to go to my high school reunion, she was silent so long I thought her cell phone had cut off. "Well, there's a sentence I thought I'd never hear from you," she said.
My old friend Jay Young tracked me down on Facebook and urged me to go to the reunion. I hadn't even known it was in the works. At first, I thought I might go just to promote my book, on the theory that even people I hadn't always got on well with might buy it out of morbid curiosity. Then, I started making a mental list of all the people I'd be glad to see again, and the process was a constant revelation to me. Every time I considered it, I thought kind thoughts about more people who hadn't crossed my mind in over a decade.
Last week, my mood started oscillating wildly between excitement about meeting the people my classmates had grown up to be, and blinding animal terror at the possibility of interacting with the few people I feared might not have had it in them to grow up.
I spent a lot of energy on mentally rehearsing graceful ways to avoid shaking hands with the harasser who used to corner me in hallways and grope me over my loud and repeated objections (fortunately, he stayed away). Despite the fear that he and his fellow piranhas might show up, I acquired a Stunning Red Dress.
My fabulous sister organized a Gareth-Watching Party, so that my son would be so comprehensively doted on by his Maryland relatives, he wouldn't notice both Dan and I were away from him for the longest period of time yet. While Gareth settled into playing with his cousins, I frantically gussied myself up, make-up first.
I'd managed to learn, some years back, basic competence at a make-up look for scholarly conferences, but evening make-up was a completely alien genre. On Stunning Red Dress Acquisition Day, I'd gone to Sephora for instruction in evening make-up. In my sister's bathroom mirror, it just looked wrong. I staggered out into the living room to poll my family about whether I could get away with it. "I'm intimidated by my own lipstick," I said. "Put on the dress and see," said my mother.
And the Stunning Red Dress made everything all right.
Maybe I should wear the Stunning Red Dress in larger crisis zones to see if it works on other forms of panic. If the stock market recovers, you'll know I wore it to Wall Street.
Anyhow, the reunion itself was a roller coaster. I got to catch up with some people I was unambivalently delighted to see. I got to thank some people I hadn't known well for acts of kindness they didn't remember having committed. For most of us, there were as many Thank goodness you don't remember me, because I don't remember you, either, interactions as any other kind, I think. In fact, those were so common, I got sanguine about admitting it to people when I didn't remember them, and actually upset somebody--but since I still can't reconstruct any memory of interacting with him back in the day, I don't know why.
The human brain keeps its world manageable by culling neural connections it doesn't use. It doesn't ask the mind permission first. Maybe that's a good thing, since we'd all want to be neural pack rats forever. Still, I would really like to be able to remember that guy.
Ah, well. If that's the worst thing that happened at my 20-year high school reunion, then our entire graduating class is probably doing pretty well.
The oddest thing was that it still mattered, decades later, who had gone to which of our high school's feeder elementary schools. The Rock Creek Valley kids and the Lucy Barnsley kids had completely different sets of earliest communal memories. The second oddest thing was that the archetypal high school predicament--who do I sit with to eat?--was alive and well, albeit much changed.
What I wanted was to see them all, without exception, as human beings. Not mythical beauties or monsters or allies, just as people. I wanted to get over myself, particularly the vestigial traces of adolescent self-pity I'd been lugging around all these years. Back then, I was so busy being stuck in my own head, I didn't realize we were all suffering, just not all in the same ways or at the same times. The people I remember as my particular tormentors probably had dozens of targets who felt just as isolated as I did. And the sadists probably learned their sadism the hard way.
I went to search for a little of what the Buddhist monks find when they meditate on Right-Mindedness, on the Eightfold Path. I wanted to study forgiveness. It's a weird world, where the study of forgiveness is catered and requires wearing cocktail attire--I'm still not sure I understand what cocktail attire is--but since the weird world granted me my wish, I'm content.
My old friend Jay Young tracked me down on Facebook and urged me to go to the reunion. I hadn't even known it was in the works. At first, I thought I might go just to promote my book, on the theory that even people I hadn't always got on well with might buy it out of morbid curiosity. Then, I started making a mental list of all the people I'd be glad to see again, and the process was a constant revelation to me. Every time I considered it, I thought kind thoughts about more people who hadn't crossed my mind in over a decade.
Last week, my mood started oscillating wildly between excitement about meeting the people my classmates had grown up to be, and blinding animal terror at the possibility of interacting with the few people I feared might not have had it in them to grow up.
I spent a lot of energy on mentally rehearsing graceful ways to avoid shaking hands with the harasser who used to corner me in hallways and grope me over my loud and repeated objections (fortunately, he stayed away). Despite the fear that he and his fellow piranhas might show up, I acquired a Stunning Red Dress.
My fabulous sister organized a Gareth-Watching Party, so that my son would be so comprehensively doted on by his Maryland relatives, he wouldn't notice both Dan and I were away from him for the longest period of time yet. While Gareth settled into playing with his cousins, I frantically gussied myself up, make-up first.
I'd managed to learn, some years back, basic competence at a make-up look for scholarly conferences, but evening make-up was a completely alien genre. On Stunning Red Dress Acquisition Day, I'd gone to Sephora for instruction in evening make-up. In my sister's bathroom mirror, it just looked wrong. I staggered out into the living room to poll my family about whether I could get away with it. "I'm intimidated by my own lipstick," I said. "Put on the dress and see," said my mother.
And the Stunning Red Dress made everything all right.
Maybe I should wear the Stunning Red Dress in larger crisis zones to see if it works on other forms of panic. If the stock market recovers, you'll know I wore it to Wall Street.
Anyhow, the reunion itself was a roller coaster. I got to catch up with some people I was unambivalently delighted to see. I got to thank some people I hadn't known well for acts of kindness they didn't remember having committed. For most of us, there were as many Thank goodness you don't remember me, because I don't remember you, either, interactions as any other kind, I think. In fact, those were so common, I got sanguine about admitting it to people when I didn't remember them, and actually upset somebody--but since I still can't reconstruct any memory of interacting with him back in the day, I don't know why.
The human brain keeps its world manageable by culling neural connections it doesn't use. It doesn't ask the mind permission first. Maybe that's a good thing, since we'd all want to be neural pack rats forever. Still, I would really like to be able to remember that guy.
Ah, well. If that's the worst thing that happened at my 20-year high school reunion, then our entire graduating class is probably doing pretty well.
The oddest thing was that it still mattered, decades later, who had gone to which of our high school's feeder elementary schools. The Rock Creek Valley kids and the Lucy Barnsley kids had completely different sets of earliest communal memories. The second oddest thing was that the archetypal high school predicament--who do I sit with to eat?--was alive and well, albeit much changed.
What I wanted was to see them all, without exception, as human beings. Not mythical beauties or monsters or allies, just as people. I wanted to get over myself, particularly the vestigial traces of adolescent self-pity I'd been lugging around all these years. Back then, I was so busy being stuck in my own head, I didn't realize we were all suffering, just not all in the same ways or at the same times. The people I remember as my particular tormentors probably had dozens of targets who felt just as isolated as I did. And the sadists probably learned their sadism the hard way.
I went to search for a little of what the Buddhist monks find when they meditate on Right-Mindedness, on the Eightfold Path. I wanted to study forgiveness. It's a weird world, where the study of forgiveness is catered and requires wearing cocktail attire--I'm still not sure I understand what cocktail attire is--but since the weird world granted me my wish, I'm content.
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 06:32 am (UTC)Personally, I think most, but not all, sadists learned their sadism the hard way. Still, I wonder if there isn't a moment when someone too young to have any other choices might make the choice of whether to be a sufferer, a victim, or to be become an abuser, to become what they suffer from. I suspect that at least some of those who learned their sadism the hard way still could have chosen a different path. I'm not saying I cannot forgive them their choice, any more than I cannot forgive someone (such as Ynyr) his or her refusal to be other than a victim. I merely suspect that while Reality may be objective, the Truth is at least somewhat subjective.
Oh, and according to about.com, "Cocktail attire technically means a suit for men, and a cocktail dress for women, which usually means a short dress (preferably not career wear). ... depending on how formal you think the event is, you can glam it up with accessories. Of course you have lots of leniency in what you wear -- a dressy pantsuit, a lovely skirt and top, etc. Everyone interprets the meaning of dress requests differently." Personally, I suspect that slacks, a nice shirt, and a dinner jacket would also be acceptable for men, but apparently there is a distance between the traditional meaning and what is currently acceptable. I suspect the basic theory is "nicer than everyday-wear, and obviously casual (rather than business-formal or wedding-formal). Disclaimer: No one should confuse me with M. Manners.
Reunions
Date: 2008-09-29 11:38 am (UTC)There's an effort afoot to have a reunion here in the "states" for those who couldn't make it back to the island (Guam). I might try to go. I'll look in the year book first.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 04:17 pm (UTC)Heh!
I am glad the event came out right for you.
(I say this as someone for whom adolescent self-pity is a way of life. And I don't own a suit, and I'm pretty sure that a Stunning Red Dress would *not* be my path to everything-being-all-right...)
High school was not that awful a time for me. But the reunion felt like something that would be too much work. ("Most people call that socializing," Eeyore said in chat. Yes, that kind of work.)
I didn't feel that way about the college reunion I saw you at this spring; that was something I looked forward to and then enjoyed. And it *wasn't* a roller-coaster, actually, it was Good. The high school event promised nothing but uncertainty. Maybe it's a matter of when my identity and my (Internet-enabled) grasp of the world got solid.
(Footnote for onlookers: I was in high school with Sarah and then, coincidentally, in college with Dan.)
no subject
Date: 2008-09-30 02:47 am (UTC)I Googled cocktail attire, and most of my hits offered a broad-to-the-point-of-useless definition, followed by when-in-doubt-wear-a-little-black-dress. And indeed, about half the women there looked like they were attending a really sexy funeral.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-30 02:48 am (UTC)Re: Reunions
Date: 2008-09-30 02:51 am (UTC)Maybe Vegas would work for you and your classmates.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-30 02:54 am (UTC)I probably could have worn comfier shoes if I'd tried meditating on universal compassion in a Buddhist monastery, but actually I think I'd make a terrible Buddhist. Still too much in love with the world.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-30 03:54 am (UTC)Would you believe Lori just had triplets? No, seriously. Triplets.
I keep trying to come up with a Stunning Red Dress punchline, but none of my attempts can match the visual you've already put in my head.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-30 05:01 pm (UTC)I'd seen the news about triplets, actually (via a mix of whimsical googling and the fact that my sister is still in touch with Jeannie).
Told you it was Stunning!
no subject
Date: 2008-10-21 05:23 am (UTC)