YULE LETTER 2009

Dear All; 12/21/09

Fall semester marked a first for me here at Lakeland. The parking lot was full to capacity the first day of school. I had to park on the grass next to the soccer field because quite literally, it was the only way I could be anywhere near my classes. The only legitimate parking remaining was across the street in the old Smokey Bones parking lot. Between graduating high school seniors trying to save a few bucks by spending their first two years at a C.C. and older students, like me, looking to add a few credits to their resumes learning seems to be the buzzword born from this economic depression. (Let's call it what it is, shall we?)
I am in part, like the mini-majorettes with their windshields awash in “09 Forever!”, trying to stave off the impending fact that KSU will inevitably cost three times as much as Lakeland but no one can argue that a B.A. in this or any economy is my only hope of real gainful employment beyond my beloved little hometown dollar store.
And then it hits me. As I search for a seat in my (!!!!!!!) 8AM (!!!!!!!) algebra class, the difference between the forty something students and the mini-majorettes becomes alarmingly palpable. In those moments before the professors arrival, I am bombarded on all sides by pony-tailed cheerleaders and baseball scholarship hopefuls all infecting my under-caffeinated senses with the push button sound of texting. What could possibly be more important than a venti quad soy caramel macchiato at 7:58 in the morning?
In my head, I immediately launch into an acrid, resentment filled diatribe about how phones used to plug into walls and people used to know how to properly spell out “Oh My God” and “Too Much Information!”and I realized amidst another yawn that this is all emblematic of a generation gap. The cheerleaders may have LOL, WTF? TMI, and OMG! But I have a cornucopia of pop culture catchphrases forty years in the making; catch phrases that can sum up whole philosophical concepts these baseball stars and majorettes are still decades away from embracing.
My generation had LiveAid, Rock the Vote, and Artists Against Apartied, and although pride in this is debatable, we also had FRANKIE SAYS RELAX (spelled out in full thank you) and lest we forget 1982's “Gag me with a Spoon”.(Thank you, Moon & Frank)
With LiveAid, we, the pastey white, Reebock wearing suburban Roxy Music fans got to remind those Reagan loving drones that in fact Africa did exist and that feeding it's inhabitants mattered. Rock the Vote got me to vote for Dukakas and Clinton and pissed my father off to no end.(which of course, delighted me until he lost his job due to Clinton's defense budget cuts)
But as I approached my thirties I wanted something I was sure could never be encapsulated in a catchphrase. Amazingly however, even massage school was aflurry in new age buzzwords. “Yes” summed up the harrnessing of a client's Craniosacral rhythm. “Five Element Theory” was a new way to summarize the totality of a client's health picture and “Archetypes” held my hand and led me on a path through my dreams that at least started me on my way out of my darkness. How is it that concepts so complex as Craniosacral theory, Eastern medicine and Jungian Psychology landed in the buzz word cauldron? Is this systemic of the learning process? Or are buzzwords how we shrink wrap and mass produce concepts? I don't know.
Last May, I was told that I have less than a 10% chance of ever getting pregnant. I cried for a few days but after that, the news seemed almost like a weight lifted off of my shoulders. I've spent my whole life waiting to be a Mom. In the interim, I've managed to lead a colorful and fascinating life. Should I sit around and continue to wait for my life to happen? Do I care anymore about some one other than myself completing me?

... no ... this was accompanied by no feeling what so ever.

Mom came out, as mothers will do in times of emotional crisis, and I expressed this feelinglessness to her. I felt obligated to mourn a time when I felt for men with great intensity. As certain as I am of my love for Michael, there's no pang in my chest when I look at him. There's no pang in my chest over anything anymore. Mom explained that I had finally reached the age of understanding. I was coming into Nirvana. As is always the case when your mother is an anthropologist, Mom's answer left me with more questions than it answered. Is this my new buzzword? My new catchphrase?

Nirvana: a state of perfect blessedness achieved by the extinction of individual existence and by the absorption of the soul into the supreme spirit, or by the extinction of all desires and passions.

I don't care anymore. Is that it? Is that the key? I don't care that I don't make fifty grand a year anymore. I don't care that I'm not skinny anymore. I don't care that I don't live in the capital of the world anymore. Or to quote Lennon, (he who inspired me to write in the first place) “I don't believe in Tarot. I don't believe in Buddha. I don't believe in Yoga ... I just believe in me ... And that's reality” The dream is over and I don't care anymore whether or not I ever become a mom. But for the first time in my life I care about whether or not I become a writer.

... so we go to school and we take classes ...

...even parenting classes (prerequisites for adoption)

I'm still meditating on the definition of Nirvana. Like it or not, she's right. Mom is always right; even if it takes me a couple of years to fully adsorb whatever concept she's just laid on me. Would the extinction of my individual existence happen by my becoming a foster mom? Or would my soul be absorbed into the supreme spirit if I was to become fully absorbed by a child's life? Have I fully extinguished all my desires and passions?

No. Because I want to write more than I want anything else ... even children.

I don't have an answer yet. I don't even have a catch phrase. But I am still willing to learn.

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.

Wouldn't you know it? You can't sum up life in a catch phrase after all.

OMG!


Blessings,




Gabby