Just Wondering

An email exchange between me & Jeff Sharlet at KillingtheBuddha.com:

(Me) Can we talk about what we talk about when we talk about Christmas to our children? Much obliged.

On Nov 8, 2009, Jeff Sharlet wrote:
I'm the only active KtB editor with a kid, and my daughter is seven months old, so we really don't know the answer to this question. What do you talk about when you talk about Christmas to your children?

On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 8:14 PM, NYCAlice wrote:
I suppose it's just part of the bigger question: how will I talk to my daughter, who's now three, about God? I got religion through total immersion. I went to Catholic school and stuck dried palms behind the crucifix over my bed until I left home to go to a Jesuit university. The Father, Son & Holy Spirit were family, the fabric of my every day.

On the one hand, bringing my daughter up in the Catholic tradition is unthinkable. Yet as damaging as I believe it was for me, I feel uncomfortable keeping her ignorant of its undeniable richness. Trotting out God for Christmas and possibly Easter just feels icky to me. And then there is faith ... and belief ... by ignoring religion now, am I denying her the roots of something more profound? Obviously she'll find spirituality without me. But I think I might feel almost superstitious about closing the door on what was absolutely a way of life for the generations that came before me.

Growing up, my brothers and I were required to attend mass every Sunday (or Saturday night) and Holy Day of Obligation. When I was 18, on the Feast of the Assumption I was badly, tragically hung over. There was no way I was going to make it through that mass without throwing up. So I took a stand and refused to go. It was the worst fight my mother and I ever had. I was seething; my relationship with god was my business, not hers. She said looked me dead in the eye and said, "Don't turn your back on your faith. It's the only thing you ever really have."

What I want to know is, how can I give my daughter the foundations of faith without fucking her up with religion?

On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 9:56 AM, Jeff Sharlet wrote:

Dear Alice,

The only thing I think I can contribute is the idea that "religion," so widely despised these days -- even the fundamentalists I mainly write about say they are not religious -- is what's worth remembering, if not necessarily holding on to. I don't think you can give anyone faith; anyone who took it unquestioningly would be dangerously gullible. But "religion" is simply history, not faith but facts. And not facts about the afterlife or virgin births, but facts about human institutions, organizations, ideas, convictions, and arguments. Faith denies doubt; religion is nothing but doubt, not least because so much of it is plainly horseshit. At KtB, we're more interested in religion -- the things people do or don't do because they believe or don't believe or give loyalty or refuse it -- than the vast vagueness sheltered from questioning by the term faith. I'll go one step further, though I'm not speaking for KtB here: I think faith may be the opposite of stories. But the great story you tell so perfectly below? That's some true religion.

Best,
Jeff

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Fearless

I recently went shadow shopping. That is not a metaphor. I felt I had to have new eye shadow, so I shopped for it. I do have some; good Bobbi Brown product that I bought for the wedding. Four years ago. But it's all neutrals: the dark shade for my eye crease, the shimmery light shade for my brow bone, and a middle-of-the-road for the lid. I don't have much in the way of an eyelid, by the way. There's just not much acreage there. Which is why I have almost never bothered with shadow. It always makes me look like the urchin in the poster for "Les Miserables." And now, more accurately, that same urchin at seventy. Oh I do envy a good eyelid. Ms. Winslet, I'm talking to you.

I was going to an event, and I was determined to attend with a dramatic eye. It was imperative: I was going to finally break out the black strapless dress that's been hanging unworn, tags and all, in my various closets for the past twenty years (locations include: Blair Road (Washington, DC); South Maple Avenue (Westport, Connecticut); West 46th Street (NY, NY); East 64th Street (NY, NY); West 20th Street (NY, NY); Gold Street (Brooklyn); Butler Street (Brooklyn); East 3rd Street (NY, NY); East 6th Street (NY, NY); Court Street (Brooklyn); Third Street (Brooklyn); West 11th Street (Manhattan). Plus various sojourns at Chelsea Mini-Storage on the West Side Highway. Yes, I do move a lot. It runs in the family.).

The black strapless. It's velvet, it's to the ankle, and it's slim. Very slim, with a daringly long slit up the back. I must have been drunk when I bought it. It's rather like Saran Wrap but merciful. You see, it has bones; bones are essential. I bought it, yes, over twenty years ago and never wore it, not once. The lesser reason is that I don't get invited to black strapless events all that often. The more substantial reason is that I never felt comfortable in it. I have mentioned before that I'm the type who melts down when my bra strap is exposed. How could I show up at a dignified event such as this, all shoulders and decollete, flashing miles of pale, freckled skin? The thought was alarming.

More alarming, however, was the idea of buying a new dress. Shopping for it, fretting over it, spending money I do not have. So I snuck the black strapless out of the pitch black recesses of the closet. I dimmed the lights and slipped it on. I would turn the lights back up if in the dark it seemed like people might not suppress giggles or throw up a little in their mouths when they saw me in it. And so it seemed. And I turned up the lights. Still not offensive. So I tried it on again the next night, and the next. Then let Peter see me in it. He liked it. He insisted I wear it. I decided to grow up and wear the f'ing thing. There was a reason I hadn't dropped it at the Salvation Army.

And henceforth I made an appointment with myself to go to the Mac Store (not the Apple Store. Totally different store.). I would go early on a Tuesday morning, when they first opened, when there would be no one there. I imagined entrusting myself to a sympathetic, delicate-boned boy who looked like a more-androgynous Robert Pattinson in pale pancake. He would listen with a sympathetic ear to the travails of a girl with a diminutive eyelid. Then we'd discuss my deepest anxieties about being seen. How could I be both dramatic and subtle at the same time? Both a diva and a supernumerary? Could he integrate my splintered psyche for me? If so, I'd probably buy a lip gloss, too.

But alas, I was met with a young lady who wanted me to make all the decisions. The shade, the shimmer level, the density of application. It was a disappointment. I'd have ride the rails on my own. Such are the laws of self-transformation.

And so I did. I wore the black strapless. I wore a deep, dusty blue on my lids. I wore jewelry. I wore red lipstick. And left my anxiety with the babysitter. It was just for the night.