lady-things – it is making me

Word of the Year

{aaaahhhhhhhh!!!}

In January of last year—2021—my lady-friends at church and I got together for a friend’s birthday. The birthday girl requested we come to the gathering with “a word”. A word-of-the-year: apparently, it’s a thing. I immediately went to sarcasm and thought of every children’s television show with their words of the day: would Word Girl greet me mentally every morning, her cape flowing behind her, with a reminder of my word-of-the-year? It was hard not to imagine Pee-Wee Herman screaming in hysterics with giant underwear on his head every time this word-of-the-year would be uttered. That’s where my brain goes, what can I say.

aaahhhhhhhh!!!

But the pop-up image of Pee-Wee Herman wearing giant underwear on his head wasn’t the only turn-off to this exercise. I admittedly have a knee-jerk repulsion to female groupings of any kinds—prayer groups, Bible studies, book clubs—which is objectively unjust and something I’m in the process of examining and hopefully rectifying. That being said, my first reaction to my friend’s request was panic and repulsion. But I simmered-the-hell-down and realized the more appropriate and reasonable response between avoiding the get-together and making up a saccharine and dishonest response, was to politely decline word-choosing and be a good listener.

This lady-friend group continually challenges my repulsion towards lady-groups with their sincerity and generosity of spirit. And this was no exception: as I sat and listened to their honest, and non-saccharine responses, my heart softened. I understood more the purpose of the exercise, and in that moment of emotional receptivity, a word floated into my head: healing.

I was pregnant, due that May, and I had approached and begun this pregnancy with the intention of learning to trust God more fully. There were a lot of knowns and unknowns to fear with this pregnancy. I had been praying for complete and total healing, but also that God would help me trust Him more, whatever the outcome. St. Gianna Molla’s mantra of whatever God wants was purposely on my lips, even though there was fear in my heart.

I swallowed my pride and suspicion and told my friend later that week what my word-of-the-year was. She was a physician, a mother of four, and a recent convert to Catholicism. She explained that she wanted to know her friends’ words so she would know how to pray for each of us. And later that year, she would—unbeknownst to me—begin a novena to St. Gianna Molla towards the end of my pregnancy when things got scary. It would be Gianna’s feast day when I was finally released from the hospital. Only then did my friend let me know about her novena, and it had been the first time she had ever entrusted a prayer to the intercession of a saint.

It is experiences like these when I feel God lighting a loving flame to melt one more hardened, sarcastic piece of my soul. My friend requested vulnerability, which I systemically responded to with suspicion. But through the vulnerability of my friends, my own heart was softened so that I could hear the Holy Spirit whisper, “Healing.” That year—2021—really was a year of healing, but in more ways than I could have anticipated. God needed to prepare me, needed me to have my eyes wide open and my heart attentive. Even though the prayer for healing was already on my lips, I needed to entrust that to the body of Christ, these lady-friends with open hearts.

the art of friendship in a virtual world

Now let me be totally honest and admit that I’ve never been awesome at friendship. I think there’s some understandable reasons for that, but some bad reasons too for which I’m admittedly culpable and through which I’m working. That having been said, even I know that the new social rules and habits that quickly normalized with the coronavirus pandemic suck. They suck real bad.

I live in Oregon, one of the few states that is still mandating mask-wearing. I’m not interested in starting a mask-wearing debate, whatever-I’m-over-it, and it’s common sense that if I sneeze into my mask instead of your face, there is less of a chance I’ll share my germs. Social distancing is also sensible for limiting germ-sharing. I don’t really think these habits are debatable on the grounds of effectiveness. However, are they worth the mental and emotional costs from which our society is clearly suffering? To that, I would have to say no.

I try not to watch the news—I more often listen. But from what I have heard, there’s been much less said about the increase in signs of mental illness in our general population, most disturbingly among teens, than the hospitalized and death count. I’m not a nay-sayer; I know Covid is killing people, and it’s tragic. But I think down the line we’ll suffer further consequences of the social cinching we’ve been pulling through society. I see the effects of it now, the way people are scared to interact: I’ve seen social interactions begin with suspicion and end in aggression; I’ve witnessed social interactions begin shyly, with an awkward thrust of a hand in an offered handshake or halted hug, then end with joyful relief as a real conversation ensues. When I was in labor, when a new nurse entered the room, I would slip my mask on quickly and wait to see how they felt about the mask mandate—either they would smile and encourage me to remove it if I wished, or they would enforce the rule, even correct me in the proper way of wearing it. It made for an added social awkwardness in an already stressful encounter.

And there’s the vomitous mess of social media. It just hits allllll my insecurities. I quit Pinterest after one night when I lost track of the time and realized I had grown more and more dissatisfied with my life seeing all the things I didn’t have and wanted, the beautiful hair and face I wanted but didn’t have, the clean showroom house, etc. I nearly sprang back from the screen in self-disgust, and vowed to leave Pinterest forever. I recently quit Facebook (for a lot of reasons), but I would let it either ruin or make my day, depending on the number of social interactions I’d been granted through their algorithm. If one of my posts was ignored, I felt totally alone in the world. Yuck.

In a neighboring town, there are signs littering yards with encouraging messages like “Don’t Ever Give Up” and “You’re Not Alone”. I hope they’re effective. But these signs with feel-good tropes are like manifested text messages or tweets, leaving their virtual world and joining the real world on real paper in a real yard. The one that always catches my attention is “You Matter”. Do I? Do I matter to you? If I knocked on your door truly in need, would I matter enough for a moment of your time, face-to-face? Or would you, out of fear and suspicion, turn me away? Would you, after you heard my political and religious beliefs, cry ‘hater’ and slam the door in my face? That’s what would happen virtually, and I’m not sure we know how to respond any other way right now. We’ve forgotten what authentic human interaction looks like.

During the Covid lockdown, one of my more social-media-savvy lady-friends from church started a messaging chat-group and a video-chat. It was a blessing in so many ways. We chatted and prayed through a friend’s delivery of her baby, shared recipes, laughs, and hardship. It was a way to “visit” each other when we couldn’t really visit each other. We’ve continued it even though we are certainly able to see each other face-to-face now. Out of the busy-ness of family life, it’s been an easy excuse to keep it up. Yet I find the same insecurities I experienced via Pinterest and Facebook creeping up even through these seemingly healthy mediums. The big answer is that, yes, I have some friend-wounds to work through. But also, it’s a relief to know I’m human: I find myself craving face-fo-face encounters.

The other day, as I was driving to a friend’s house—to actually sit in her kitchen, have coffee, let our noisy kids play together— I thought of the Visitation. Mary went in haste to see her cousin. She didn’t think twice about it; it was an immediate response to the news that her cousin was in need and vulnerable. This act of service was an outpouring of love and the Holy Spirit’s presence within Mary. And I began to wonder whether I have been listening closely enough to that still, small voice; am I attentive to my brothers and sisters in need of friendship, especially now in this age of isolation?

If I—I, admittedly terrible at friendship, quick to cut my losses and run instead of engaging—find myself craving authentic face-to-face encounters, then how many people out there are starving for friendship? Real friendship. Not the half-engaged, distracted comment-bomb-dropping of social media, or the awkward nods in the grocery store of people peering out from behind their masks, but real friendship that seeks to truly know, understand, and love each other. And with all things like this, I can’t just let this be a thought or idea- like a nice trope floating in cyberspace that people can thumbs-up or ‘heart’ (or poo)- I need to act, in haste.

what to do (and not do) upon encountering a proverbial singing, tap-dancing, ukulele-playing Ann Miller

I had a dream the other night that I was at an audition. Right before my turn, I had to watch a girl audition before me. And she was amazing. I mean, this girl was tap-dancing, singing, AND playing the ukulele (and she bore a strong resemblance to Ann Miller). In my dream, I wanted to back out of the audition, but an even more pervasive feeling was smallness. I felt like I was growing more invisible and inconsequential by the second.

I’ve had stress-theater dreams before where someone tells me I’m in a show and I have to go on stage, but I have none of the lines memorized. Or stress-teacher dreams when I show up at school without a shirt on, or stress-college dreams when I find out I still need five credits to graduate. Or even stress-marriage dreams when I realize we’re still not married even though we have six kids together. But this wasn’t like that. I kind of laughed to myself about it all morning—I mean, that’s pretty funny, a tap-dancing, singing, ukulele-playing Ann Miller—but then I realized: I know where that came from…

I recently felt intimidated by another woman, and it took me by surprise. It’s been a long time since I felt small and inconsequential in someone’s presence. Humbled, sure. Inspired, yes. But suddenly self-conscious and uncomfortable about being me? It’s been awhile. While talking to her, I found myself wondering, “I bet she has a ‘beauty regimen’, whatever that is. I’ve never had a ‘beauty regimen’. Should I start having a ‘beauty regimen’? Buy creams or something?” I had a flash-memory of something I had passed in the store, some kind of skin-boosting de-wrinkling face mask that maybe I should have bought after all.

Then, by an act of the Holy Spirit I’m sure, I realized I was objectifying this person. I was assessing this girl like a virus scanner, looking for ways she was all noise and no substance, only because I felt small in her presence. This is the embryonic state of The Mean Girl. From here, it can only get so much worse. I snapped out of it, hoping I hadn’t caused palpable tension in the room with my laser-beam nasty-probe. Ideally, I wouldn’t have had to enter into the equation at all, except to offer my hand and heart to someone new.

As women, why do we do this? Why do we compare ourselves?

Ironically, I’ve been advising my daughters through similar things. Growing up in public school really was like the scene in Mean Girls when the students are acting like animals in the wild, either on the prowl, on the defensive, or tearing someone to pieces. That was definitely the subtext of my childhood education. When girls meet someone they are intimidated by, they either avoid them, grovel, or become their best friend just to keep them close. I thought by homeschooling my children, they wouldn’t encounter that kind of behavior. While they’re not immersed in it, I’m actually really thankful they get glimpses of it in social situations. It’s interesting to see how they react, how it stabs them to the quick, but how easy it is to fall prey to petty behavior. I’ve seen them leave a social situation and, as though having been in a girl-world-trance, break out of it with shock and confusion about how they acted, or at having been injured by another girl’s behavior. Why and how did that happen? their bewildered faces say. Because you’re a lady-human, I reply. And we have to consciously choose charity every moment of our lives.

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross famously wrote, “The world doesn’t need what women have, it needs what women are.” We nurture and cultivate life, we care for and draw out the individual, we seek out the heart and connect it to all aspects of living. This is certainly true in the reverse: the malice we are capable of on a personal, intimate level can be destructive. It’s the kind of harm that breaks down a person piece by piece from the inside, chipping away little by little. But when we, as women, use our personal insight to encourage and build up a person, the result is truly remarkable. Instead of reading another woman like a Pinterest-board and seeing all the things we aren’t or don’t have, we can thank God that amazing person exists in the world. (Because, honestly, the world would undoubtedly be a better place with more tap-dancing, singing, ukulele-playing Ann Millers.)