Girl Jungle

Humility, thy name is Kathy

Ah, the mind's eye. The little reality gyroscope that tells us whether life's glass is half empty or half full. For some of us, (the rose colored glasses set, that is) daily observations reveal what our optimistic natures perceive: people as good, other drivers as patient, fruit as ripe. You get the idea. It never occurs to us that there might be something rotten in Denmark. Just couldn't be. Not on our watch.

We expect things to turn out, we see the bright side, (sometimes with such obvious naivete as to provoke guffaws from our more taciturn companions.) In the name of positive thinking, we occasionally fool ourselves into a state of affairs that belies both truth and belief. We look in the mirror and see what we want (or maybe need) to see: youth, health, beauty. (Not to mention saintly goodness, generosity and a gentleness of spirit that perhaps, has never really existed.)

But when does a sense of relentless optimism and a slightly fuzzy mind's eye cloud important truth? When does positive thinking pervert honest appraisal?

I learned recently that a friend had described me to someone as lots of nice things AND a dead ringer for Kathy Bates. BLAM. Full Stop. Kathy Bates? Really? Oh dear. That's not what I see in the mirror. How could this be?

I compulsively googled Kathy Bates trying desperately to find an image of her that matched my own self perception. Surely, there was at least one picture of her that resembled Rene Russo in the Thomas Crown Affair. No luck. Kathy Bates is a great actress, an interesting woman and fine American but Rene Russo she ain't.

Now to be fair, Ms. Bates is a little older than me, but still, there ain't no denying it. There is a resemblance. We're both, er, not waif-like, rather full of face and with a certain determination in our expression that, well, is what it is.

It took me a while to wrestle with the though of resembling a character actress who plays crazy Stephen King spinsters, hot tub deperados and lesbian political operatives. And while I've never played any of these roles in my actual life, it doesn't give one great confidence to be compared to an actress who so convincingly conjurs such creatures.

But after a while I came to the conclusion that looking like Kathy Bates is no shame. While neither of us is model beautiful, we are reflective of a whole lot of real women whose beauty (and more importantly, whose value) comes not just from what we look like but also from what we do, who we are and how we serve our world.

If a dose of unvarnished reality is good for the soul, (and maybe an incentive to pep up the old exercise program) so is self-acceptance. So there.

Life List

Birthdays tend to make one stop and ponder. Every year in July since I can't remember when I've used my birthday on the 28th as a marking point from which to take stock, make plans, reconsider and dream. A lot of folks I know keep track of stuff, like personal encounters with the songbird population on something called a "life list."

At the ripe old age of 48 I figure I'm more than than half there (gak.) where ever that is... and so it might be time to take stock of the prospective, in this case, life list. So given that raising a good child, staying reasonably healthy and financially solvent are sorta given, and that curing cancer and solving world hunger rather out of reach, (at least for an art major) here are my top ten:

1. Shake hands with the President (done in 1994 at the White House Council on Small Business)
2. Start a business (done in 1988)
3. Write a book (Okay, so I wrote the outline and I'm well on the way to actually starting it.)
4. Speak another language fluently (Restaurant French doesn't qualify....)
5. Get a graduate degree (ALMOST! Just need to finish the thesis)
6. Play damned good golf (Ug. Haven't hit a ball since I got new clubs three years ago.)
7. Learn to really play the piano (Oh dear... no progress here 'tho I do have a piano in my office.)
8. Sing professionally (Nothing here.)
9. Live abroad (Not yet)
10. Serve in the US Congress (Almost, but gave up after visiting with the Hitler Youth (er... young Republican house staffers in D.C.) And if it stays as mean spirited as it is right at the moment, this one might never get done.)

So out of ten, I guess I have accoumplished 2.75. Not bad, I suppose if you figure the starting a business part is probably more difficult then learning to play the piano. Nevertheless, it's good to keep one's eye on the prize.

I'll keep at it. Maybe by age 50 I'll have 4 or 5 under my belt. Better get crackin'

Fore!

Members Only

In the early 80's when I first started working in the bastion of male Waspy-ness that was Portland, Maine, my well-meaning employers used to hold business meetings at the Cumberland Club. They were trying to be nice, of course, hosting off-site meetings at an impressive brick edifice with richly appointed surroundings, but they just didn't realize how it made some of us feel.

See, old aristo gentlemen's clubs, like the Cumberland had rules. And regulations. Girls entered through the side door, for example, and no "unseemly" characters (gays, blacks, jews or any combination therein) needed apply.

But as the years passed and new, more diverse individuals began populating the upper rungs of business and the professions, organizations like the Cumberland Club fell on lean years. Seems the white boys couldn't make things happen quite the same way they had in the past. Times changed, and miraculously, so did they.

So fast forward to a new century where women (and some of those afore mentioned "unsavories") abound in both leadership and membership at private clubs around the nation, including my own Cumberland. Around the board of directors table sits a wide variety of folk (of many flavors) all sharing the goal of fellowship and social discourse made possible by the club institution.

There's still a curious box on the mantlepiece of the directors room that holds black and white balls, a reminder of the old days and old ways, but the lively chatter from the dining and social rooms is decidedly mixed.

Meat and potatoes have made way for "world cuisine" and we all walk in the front door, because we can.