Yesterday I offered the message during chapel services on campus. I'd been asked to do this in my official capacity as director of the Center for Women's Studies, because the student who's interning with the Center this semester is also very involved with Campus Ministries. I would have said no if I'd thought I could get away with it--but, alas, I knew I couldn't.
I stand up in front of people and talk for a living, so it's not performance anxiety that was freaking me out yesterday morning--I lecture in class, I give readings of my fiction, I give talks on the writing process. But I don't talk about my faith very often. The truth is, I feel like a bit of a faith phony. I grew up going to church, but I never liked going. In fact, I really hated church. I had to get up early on Sunday morning and dress well and act nice; I had to listen to things that didn't make sense to me, and then I had to pretend that I believed them. Faith felt completely irrelevant to my life, and no one really seemed to care--as long as I was getting up and going to church on Sunday morning.
I stopped going to church as soon as I'd left home, and I didn't go back again until I was almost forty years old. I've actually enjoyed church as an adult--mostly because of wonderful colleagues in the Theology department at my university, people who've encouraged me to understand that my faith is personal, that it involves both what I believe in my heart and what I know in my head. I can get on board with the idea of an intellectually respectable faith. I even enjoy Bible study, which now seems like a natural offshoot of what I do as a literature professor.
So yesterday, when I was asked to speak in chapel, I brought the two together. I talked about a poem by W.H. Auden, "As I Walked Out One Evening," and I tied it to our scripture reading on the greatest commandment. (The full text of the poem is available here.)
Here's the text of my talk:
"A few weeks ago, my good friend Dr. Metereau reminded me of a poem I’d read many years ago and forgotten. It’s a poem I love—W.H. Auden’s “As I Walked Out One Evening.” It’s a pretty long poem, so I’m not going to read you the whole thing today, though I do hope you’ll look it up. Basically, it’s about a person who goes out for a walk one evening and overhears someone singing of undying love for a partner—telling this partner, among other things, “I’ll love you till the ocean/is folded and hung up to dry/And the seven stars go squawking/Like geese about the sky.”
But not long after this, the speaker of the poem hears another song, as “all the clocks in the city/began to whir and chime,” and their song is much less optimistic: the clocks sing, “O let not Time deceive you;/you cannot conquer Time.”
The clocks continue this song, encouraging the lover to acknowledge their much greater power and to understand that no human being will ever win this battle: human love, unlike time, will come to an end. When it does, it will leave us with a feeling of emptiness—of empty time—where that love used to be. I’m sure we’ve all had that feeling at one point or another. It’s the feeling of loss that makes us question whether love is even worth our while.
The clocks in this poem offer three images of that kind of despair. They say “' . . . plunge your hands in water, /Plunge them in up to the wrist;/Stare, stare in the basin/ And wonder what you've missed.” And then: “'. . . look in the mirror,/ O look in your distress:/ Life remains a blessing/ Although you cannot bless.” And lastly: ". . . stand at the window /As the tears scald and start;/You shall love your crooked neighbour/ With your crooked heart.’”
Those last lines are my favorite. I think it’s interesting that Auden doesn’t say “You must love your crooked neighbor”—that would be a commandment. Nor does he say “You should love your crooked neighbor”—which would suggest that we don’t, and we need to get busy. Instead, Auden just says “You shall love your crooked neighbor.” It’s a statement of fact. It recognizes a very simple truth: human beings can’t avoid connecting with each other, even though we know that imperfect human love is going to leave us wanting.
Of course, Auden also points out that we’re going to love our crooked neighbors with crooked hearts. So what we have in common with one another, it seems, is our imperfection. And maybe that’s why we can’t avoid loving each other—because to love an imperfect person is to prove that you, as another imperfect person, are also worthy of being loved. Maybe we use our connections with each other to escape from the fact of our shortcomings.
The scripture reading for today tells us that we are to love our neighbors in the same way we love ourselves—but we all know that loving ourselves isn’t always an easy job. We live in a culture that’s devoted to pointing out our shortcomings. Women, in particular, are constantly being convinced that they need products that will make their imperfections less noticeable to others—which will make them more beautiful and, by extension, more loveable.
We also live in a culture that views some kinds of love as less perfect than others. Auden himself was a gay man, and a Christian, and he struggled to reconcile his faith and his personal identity, because he’d been taught that this kind of love was sinful—and yet, no matter how hard he tried to change his heart, that kind of love was what he found there.
I don’t think it’s an accident that, in contemporary culture, to be heterosexual is to be called “straight”; we used the word “crooked” to describe a person who is dishonest or immoral. But maybe, if we understand the “crookedness” Auden is talking about in this poem to be symbolic, not of immorality, but of the path that each of us walks through life—sometimes headed toward God, sometimes headed away from God—then we can begin to understand how crookedness is something we all share, no matter who we love.
In fact, sometimes the people we love the most—our friends, even our family—are the ones who lead us away from God. They do this by offering negative assessments of us, and they often claim to do this for our own good. Sometimes, our self-image is so warped by the negative messages we’ve taken in that they become a part of us: we honestly can’t imagine how anyone, even God, could love us. Our hearts move toward those negative assessments rather than toward God’s love of our glorious imperfection.
When we get to that place of self-loathing, we often lead ourselves even farther away from God. Auden, for instance, declared himself an atheist—but his poetry shows a consistent devotion to Christian faith, and he did eventually turn back to God and reconcile with the church.
Here’s a more contemporary example: in light of the recent decisions made by the ELCA’s church-wide assembly, many members of my congregation have simply stopped worshiping with our church family. They’ve just walked away. Before those decisions were made, I thought a lot about what I would do if I disagreed with the outcome of the church-wide assembly, and I thought I might leave the church. But I couldn’t get around the fact that we walk away from God anytime we’re too confident in our understanding of anything.
The truth is, I don’t know if the church-wide assembly made the right decision. I believe they did—I believe they acted out of love for their neighbors. But I don’t know. And I try to remember that I don’t know (which is hard for me, because I’m a professor, and I’m used to being the person in the room who knows things) so I’m not compelled to act unkindly toward my neighbors who disagree, because I’m called to love them, too.
What I do know is this: our imperfect human love is the best thing we have to offer each other, and it’s the only way we have to fulfill the greatest commandment: Love the Lord, love your neighbor, love yourself. None of these things are easy, but Auden seems to believe they’re inevitable. You will love your crooked neighbor, he says. Only remember that, when you do, you love with an equally crooked heart."
I got through my talk and hoped I hadn't made a fool of myself--that was really the only goal I had in mind. The adrenaline I'd built up left me shaking for a good half hour afterward. I got lots of hugs and pats on the back from my students and colleagues, but friends will say you've done well just because they know they should. It's what friends do.
But then, after I'd headed off to class, I thought I heard someone call my name. I turned around, but I didn't see anyone I recognized. A young woman was walking toward me--but because I wasn't sure I'd heard my name, I wasn't sure if she was just walking in my direction or walking up to me. I must have looked very confused, because she said "It's okay, you don't know me." She introduced herself, then said, "I just wanted to tell you that I really like what you said in chapel. It got to me." She was all choked up as she said this. I thanked her and patted her shoulder, and then we parted ways.
That young woman is the person who let me know I'd done more than just get through my chapel talk. I'd touched the heart of a complete stranger--someone who didn't know me at all, who had no reason to feel compelled to say anything kind. She gave me hope that my words make a difference in the world. And she can't possibly know how much her words meant to me.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Gentle Giants
I went to the movies with my son yesterday--we saw Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze's interpretation of the book by Maurice Sendak. I don't know what I expected from the film, exactly, but what I took from it was much different (and much more profound) than anything I could have anticipated.
People who haven't liked the film, as far as I can tell, went in expecting a lighthearted adventure fantasy. I'm not sure why anyone would expect that--at least, not anyone who's read the book. The monsters in Sendak's story were enormous, scary creatures who gnashed their teeth and bared their claws and rolled their eyes. They were the creation of an angry little boy, Max, who'd been sent to his room for misbehaving. Why would they be cuddly, fun-loving friends? Max isn't looking for someone to play with; he's looking for a place where he can finally call the shots. That can't happen in the human world, where big people boss the little people around, so it has to happen in an imaginary world where small people rule. And the occupants of that world might as well be big and scary, to illustrate just how powerful the small people are.
The film version of this story deals more with the psychology of Max's experience (and of being a child, in general) than with monsters or wild rumpus. The movie begins with several scenes of Max acting like a boy of eight or nine--first chasing his dog, then building a snow fort of which he's particularly proud, then trying to get his big sister Claire's attention so he can show off the fort. Her conscious decision to ignore him in these scenes obviously hurts Max, as does the fact that Claire and her friends don't care about his pain when the snow fort is destroyed during a snowball fight gone awry. Jonze is careful to show that the big kids, especially Claire, see exactly what they've done and choose to walk away from it without apology or concern. Max is just a little kid, after all. He has no power to shape the behavior of older people. He does, however, have enough power to trash his sister's bedroom--so he does. He pays particular attention to destroying a gift he made for her some time ago. And then he regrets that decision, as we all regret things we've done in anger.
There's a casual mention, in this early scene, of Max and his sister spending the weekend with their dad. So later, when Max's mother is entertaining a male friend, we're not entirely surprised to see Max throw a tantrum--once again, he has no power to change what's happening around him, to stop the gradual unraveling of his family. This time, though, the frustration of being put in that position leads him to run away from his mother and sail off to the island of the Wild Things, where some smooth storytelling skills help him to establish himself as the king.
The problem with being the king, of course, is that people expect you to fix their problems. To talk about everything that happens on the island would take far too long, and the events of that experience aren't really the point anyway--suffice it to say that Max's imaginary world is similar to the real world in meaningful ways. He meets a monster who's very much like himself; when Max arrives, Carol is throwing a tantrum. Carol is frustrated by situations he can't control, too, including his rejection by another monster, KW. Carol and KW have been romantic partners at some point in the past, it seems, but KW's lank hair and big eyes are also reminiscent of Claire's. KW just doesn't feel about Carol the way she used to--she has new, more interesting friends to hang out with--and Carol doesn't understand why this is happening, and KW can't really put her feelings into words. Maybe there are no words for what she feels. She just knows that she doesn't want to hang around Carol anymore.
At one point, Carol shows Max a model world he's created, a world in which he and KW ride a canoe together down a lazy river. Some time after this--after Max has to admit that he's not a king, just a regular boy who lacks the power to shield the world from sadness, as he promised he would--Max discovers that Carol has destroyed his model in another fit of anger. And Max knows what this means: Carol has given up on thinking things in his life will ever be okay again. He worries that Carol will turn that anger against him, as well. So in the rubble of that imaginary utopia, Max leaves Carol a sign that he loves him and hopes that will make a difference.
And it does, of course. Small acts of love are the only thing that can bring us back to each other those moments of intense frustration and anger. The end of the movie, when Max leaves the island to head back home and Carol watches him leave, weeping openly, is simply heartbreaking. Max has to go back--he's just a little boy, after all, and he misses his mom. But he doesn't want to hurt Carol. He knows how painful it is to be abandoned. Still, Max has learned that you can't rely on someone else to fix your problems, and you can't run away from them either. Sometimes, lacking the power to change a situation, you just have to live with things the way they are.
Any movie that's honest about childhood has to be sad. Both my son and I were crying our eyes out by the end of the film. Many people like to romanticize childhood as a carefree and magical time in our lives, but the truth is that it's the time when we learn the hardest lessons: Human beings are often unkind to each other for no real reason. There is no magic for solving the world's problems. There is only love--and love, sadly, can disappear without warning.
Like I said, I don't know what I expected from this film. What I got was a beautiful reminder of how scary it is to be a child, powerless in a world where small acts of caring are the only defense against the Wild Things that threaten to eat us up.
People who haven't liked the film, as far as I can tell, went in expecting a lighthearted adventure fantasy. I'm not sure why anyone would expect that--at least, not anyone who's read the book. The monsters in Sendak's story were enormous, scary creatures who gnashed their teeth and bared their claws and rolled their eyes. They were the creation of an angry little boy, Max, who'd been sent to his room for misbehaving. Why would they be cuddly, fun-loving friends? Max isn't looking for someone to play with; he's looking for a place where he can finally call the shots. That can't happen in the human world, where big people boss the little people around, so it has to happen in an imaginary world where small people rule. And the occupants of that world might as well be big and scary, to illustrate just how powerful the small people are.
The film version of this story deals more with the psychology of Max's experience (and of being a child, in general) than with monsters or wild rumpus. The movie begins with several scenes of Max acting like a boy of eight or nine--first chasing his dog, then building a snow fort of which he's particularly proud, then trying to get his big sister Claire's attention so he can show off the fort. Her conscious decision to ignore him in these scenes obviously hurts Max, as does the fact that Claire and her friends don't care about his pain when the snow fort is destroyed during a snowball fight gone awry. Jonze is careful to show that the big kids, especially Claire, see exactly what they've done and choose to walk away from it without apology or concern. Max is just a little kid, after all. He has no power to shape the behavior of older people. He does, however, have enough power to trash his sister's bedroom--so he does. He pays particular attention to destroying a gift he made for her some time ago. And then he regrets that decision, as we all regret things we've done in anger.
There's a casual mention, in this early scene, of Max and his sister spending the weekend with their dad. So later, when Max's mother is entertaining a male friend, we're not entirely surprised to see Max throw a tantrum--once again, he has no power to change what's happening around him, to stop the gradual unraveling of his family. This time, though, the frustration of being put in that position leads him to run away from his mother and sail off to the island of the Wild Things, where some smooth storytelling skills help him to establish himself as the king.
The problem with being the king, of course, is that people expect you to fix their problems. To talk about everything that happens on the island would take far too long, and the events of that experience aren't really the point anyway--suffice it to say that Max's imaginary world is similar to the real world in meaningful ways. He meets a monster who's very much like himself; when Max arrives, Carol is throwing a tantrum. Carol is frustrated by situations he can't control, too, including his rejection by another monster, KW. Carol and KW have been romantic partners at some point in the past, it seems, but KW's lank hair and big eyes are also reminiscent of Claire's. KW just doesn't feel about Carol the way she used to--she has new, more interesting friends to hang out with--and Carol doesn't understand why this is happening, and KW can't really put her feelings into words. Maybe there are no words for what she feels. She just knows that she doesn't want to hang around Carol anymore.
At one point, Carol shows Max a model world he's created, a world in which he and KW ride a canoe together down a lazy river. Some time after this--after Max has to admit that he's not a king, just a regular boy who lacks the power to shield the world from sadness, as he promised he would--Max discovers that Carol has destroyed his model in another fit of anger. And Max knows what this means: Carol has given up on thinking things in his life will ever be okay again. He worries that Carol will turn that anger against him, as well. So in the rubble of that imaginary utopia, Max leaves Carol a sign that he loves him and hopes that will make a difference.
And it does, of course. Small acts of love are the only thing that can bring us back to each other those moments of intense frustration and anger. The end of the movie, when Max leaves the island to head back home and Carol watches him leave, weeping openly, is simply heartbreaking. Max has to go back--he's just a little boy, after all, and he misses his mom. But he doesn't want to hurt Carol. He knows how painful it is to be abandoned. Still, Max has learned that you can't rely on someone else to fix your problems, and you can't run away from them either. Sometimes, lacking the power to change a situation, you just have to live with things the way they are.
Any movie that's honest about childhood has to be sad. Both my son and I were crying our eyes out by the end of the film. Many people like to romanticize childhood as a carefree and magical time in our lives, but the truth is that it's the time when we learn the hardest lessons: Human beings are often unkind to each other for no real reason. There is no magic for solving the world's problems. There is only love--and love, sadly, can disappear without warning.
Like I said, I don't know what I expected from this film. What I got was a beautiful reminder of how scary it is to be a child, powerless in a world where small acts of caring are the only defense against the Wild Things that threaten to eat us up.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
A Meditation on Gratitude
This morning the whole family got up early, packed into the car and headed downtown to St. Vincent de Paul, a shelter for the homeless. We went as part of a group from our church; my daughter had done this twice before, with her youth group, but it was the first time for me, my husband and our son. I kept expecting my daughter to back out at the last minute--she has an insanely hard class schedule this year, and a crazy practice schedule with marching band--but she never once suggested that she was too tired to get up and go. In fact, she was up before my son this morning (and I'm fairly certain that's a first.)
We arrived about 10:30 and got busy preparing lunch. My job was to cut up cakes and pies, all of them donated by a local grocery store chain. The desserts were only one day past their sell-by date, but looking at them--soggy, crumbling pie crusts, cakes with sprinkles bleeding into frosting that peeled away from the layers--I couldn't help but think that these were things my kids would just refuse to eat. They have that luxury. I stood over trays full of broken pie and disintegrating cake and thought, "We can't give people food that looks like this."
But when people made their way through the line, no one complained about the condition of the desserts. Most people, in fact, marveled at the selection. The chocolate cake went first; lemon meringue pie was a big hit, too. When I brought out a tray full of pumpkin pie slices, one woman rolled her eyes in disbelief. "You have no idea how I've been craving pumpkin pie this week," she said. "I saw it on a sign at Bill Miller."
I thought, then, about the pumpkin pie I'd baked for my daughter's birthday a week ago--because pumpkin pie is her favorite thing, and easy to make. I almost bought one from Costco, thinking myself too busy with the work of an ordinary week, but at the last minute I decided to drive to the store and get the ingredients to bake a pie instead. My daughter wanted pumpkin pie for her birthday, so that's what she would have; there was no question whether wanting would lead to having. That's just the way our life works, most of the time.
Not long after that, a little girl came through the line with her mother. "Hello, sweet girl," I said. "What would you like?"
She eyed the dessert tray, clearly overwhelmed by her choices. "Hurry up and pick," her mother said. "You're holding up the line."
"I can't decide," she said. "I want one of those football rings, but they're in the chocolate cupcakes. I want the vanilla cupcake with the red balloon on top."
The solution to this problem seemed obvious: I pulled a plastic football ring out of a chocolate cupcake and handed it to her, along with a white cupcake. The little girl looked up at me as though I'd just performed a miracle--no water turning into wine, to be sure, but wanting had suddenly been transformed into having. This was clearly not the way her life worked.
Her mother thanked me before they moved on and found a place to sit. A little later, a young man asked me for a piece of chocolate cake--but after I'd put it on his tray, he said "Oh, no . . . I didn't see that pumpkin pie you got there."
"You want the pumpkin pie?" I asked. He nodded, so I put a slice on his tray. He paused for a moment, apparently waiting for me take back the cake. "It's all right," I said. "Just take them both."
He gave me a look that indicated this was not the usual procedure, but I shrugged. What the heck. Plenty of people had passed by the dessert trays altogether--I was only letting him have what they hadn't wanted.
Just before closing time, the kitchen manager called seconds and several people came back through the line to load up their trays again. A teenage boy came by to ask for another piece of chocolate cake; he reminded me of my son, shy and soft-spoken, with thick hair and dark eyes.
"You want mine too?" his mother asked.
"You don't want it?"
"I don't need cake," she said, and then she looked at me. "Is that okay? Can he have my piece of cake?"
I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded before I gave him the two biggest pieces on my tray. Then I noticed the cupcake girl lingering near the drink station, showing off her football ring. I gave her a wink and a thumbs-up, and she flashed me a smile before she ran back to her mother.
After the dining room had closed, we cut up desserts for the evening meal. We loaded nine trays with cakes and pies, wrapped them in plastic and left them for this evening's volunteers. Then we wiped down the counters and turned in our aprons. The kitchen manager gave each of my kids a bottle of Yoohoo, to thank them for helping out, and we all walked out the back door and into our regular lives. We drove home in our air-conditioned car, hot and sweaty and tired but knowing we were headed for showers in our own bathrooms and a lunch of our own choosing.
Tonight I will sleep in my own bed, in a house that I'm buying, between sheets I chose for myself, surrounded by walls painted a color I picked out. My life belongs to me in a way many people will never have the chance to experience. This is a fact I may have acknowledged for the first time today. I owe a debt of gratitude to that little girl with the football ring--to all the people at that shelter, really--for showing me that having follows wanting for only a lucky few of us, and I am lucky beyond all reason.
We arrived about 10:30 and got busy preparing lunch. My job was to cut up cakes and pies, all of them donated by a local grocery store chain. The desserts were only one day past their sell-by date, but looking at them--soggy, crumbling pie crusts, cakes with sprinkles bleeding into frosting that peeled away from the layers--I couldn't help but think that these were things my kids would just refuse to eat. They have that luxury. I stood over trays full of broken pie and disintegrating cake and thought, "We can't give people food that looks like this."
But when people made their way through the line, no one complained about the condition of the desserts. Most people, in fact, marveled at the selection. The chocolate cake went first; lemon meringue pie was a big hit, too. When I brought out a tray full of pumpkin pie slices, one woman rolled her eyes in disbelief. "You have no idea how I've been craving pumpkin pie this week," she said. "I saw it on a sign at Bill Miller."
I thought, then, about the pumpkin pie I'd baked for my daughter's birthday a week ago--because pumpkin pie is her favorite thing, and easy to make. I almost bought one from Costco, thinking myself too busy with the work of an ordinary week, but at the last minute I decided to drive to the store and get the ingredients to bake a pie instead. My daughter wanted pumpkin pie for her birthday, so that's what she would have; there was no question whether wanting would lead to having. That's just the way our life works, most of the time.
Not long after that, a little girl came through the line with her mother. "Hello, sweet girl," I said. "What would you like?"
She eyed the dessert tray, clearly overwhelmed by her choices. "Hurry up and pick," her mother said. "You're holding up the line."
"I can't decide," she said. "I want one of those football rings, but they're in the chocolate cupcakes. I want the vanilla cupcake with the red balloon on top."
The solution to this problem seemed obvious: I pulled a plastic football ring out of a chocolate cupcake and handed it to her, along with a white cupcake. The little girl looked up at me as though I'd just performed a miracle--no water turning into wine, to be sure, but wanting had suddenly been transformed into having. This was clearly not the way her life worked.
Her mother thanked me before they moved on and found a place to sit. A little later, a young man asked me for a piece of chocolate cake--but after I'd put it on his tray, he said "Oh, no . . . I didn't see that pumpkin pie you got there."
"You want the pumpkin pie?" I asked. He nodded, so I put a slice on his tray. He paused for a moment, apparently waiting for me take back the cake. "It's all right," I said. "Just take them both."
He gave me a look that indicated this was not the usual procedure, but I shrugged. What the heck. Plenty of people had passed by the dessert trays altogether--I was only letting him have what they hadn't wanted.
Just before closing time, the kitchen manager called seconds and several people came back through the line to load up their trays again. A teenage boy came by to ask for another piece of chocolate cake; he reminded me of my son, shy and soft-spoken, with thick hair and dark eyes.
"You want mine too?" his mother asked.
"You don't want it?"
"I don't need cake," she said, and then she looked at me. "Is that okay? Can he have my piece of cake?"
I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded before I gave him the two biggest pieces on my tray. Then I noticed the cupcake girl lingering near the drink station, showing off her football ring. I gave her a wink and a thumbs-up, and she flashed me a smile before she ran back to her mother.
After the dining room had closed, we cut up desserts for the evening meal. We loaded nine trays with cakes and pies, wrapped them in plastic and left them for this evening's volunteers. Then we wiped down the counters and turned in our aprons. The kitchen manager gave each of my kids a bottle of Yoohoo, to thank them for helping out, and we all walked out the back door and into our regular lives. We drove home in our air-conditioned car, hot and sweaty and tired but knowing we were headed for showers in our own bathrooms and a lunch of our own choosing.
Tonight I will sleep in my own bed, in a house that I'm buying, between sheets I chose for myself, surrounded by walls painted a color I picked out. My life belongs to me in a way many people will never have the chance to experience. This is a fact I may have acknowledged for the first time today. I owe a debt of gratitude to that little girl with the football ring--to all the people at that shelter, really--for showing me that having follows wanting for only a lucky few of us, and I am lucky beyond all reason.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
100 Yards From the Trailer Park
Let me just say right up front that I waste way too much time on Facebook. My husband and I used to say that we'd love to have videotapes of our old friends' lives, so we could see what they were up to at the present moment--and now we have Facebook, which is pretty close to the same thing. Except you get daily updates, which is even better. Or worse, depending on how you look at it--see my confession about wasted time.
Lately, though, I've been noticing how many of my Facebook friends seem to be comfortable with the phrase "white trash." One of them recently moved to a new city and announced she had "discovered the land of whiny children and their white trash mothers." (Or something like that--I'm paraphrasing, but I know I got the relevant two words right.) Another took one of the millions of silly face book quizzes in order to discover her "white trash name." Those are just two examples, but I've seen or heard those words far too often in the last month or so.
My father grew up in a family that no doubt was referred to as white trash: absent father, numerous children raised in abject poverty. No one was paying attention to what he did, so my father did whatever he wanted to do and, as a result, got himself into lots of trouble. My mother grew up poor, but her family went to church and owned a farm and a home--they were probably a few rungs above what would have been called white trash, but they watched people slip back down the ladder during the Great Depression. My mother knew just exactly how easy it would be to lose everything, including her precarious just-above-the-bottom social status.
As adults, both of my parents lived in terror of being thought "trashy." I know this because I was cautioned against trashy behavior, clothing and talk throughout the years I lived at home. Being trashy meant many different things, but among those things were promiscuity (or even the suggestion of it, in either clothing or speech or behavior), cursing, and leaving the house without "fixing yourself up." That meant presentable clothing, good shoes, and make-up. (But not too much, lest you should veer into trashy territory again.) Not having money wasn't shameful, as far as my parents were concerned. Acting like you didn't care what people thought of you--well, that was beyond shameful. That was "trashy".
My mother used to say "As long I'm at least 100 yards from the trailer park, I know I'm doing all right." I don't think I knew what she meant by that, when I was younger; I'm pretty sure I thought she just didn't like the idea of living in a trailer. Now, though, it's clear my mom and dad were keeping an eye on class markers: As long as we stay on this side of the line, we know we're okay. My dad had pulled himself out of poverty on his own, with a career in the Army, and he was determined not to backslide into "white trash" territory. My mom had seen just exactly how easy that kind of slipping could be. They raised three kids on one very modest income, which couldn't have been easy, even all those years ago.
But I didn't know my family lacked money. I thought my parents were frugal--not incapable of buying me the clothes I wanted, just reluctant to spend that much money on a pair of jeans. They were frugal, of course, but out of necessity. Credit was harder to come by, for one thing, but debt was a one-way ticket straight back into the trailer park--not an option. So I wore my one pair of brand-name jeans to school every single day and scowled at my mother, thinking she was cheap. When I was old enough to get a job, it didn't occur to me that my parents encouraged it to ease the financial strain on our family; I thought they wanted me to learn responsibility. And they did, of course, but I can see now that this desire was probably secondary to the need to loosen up the family budget.
My parents would want me to be very clear about this: I did not grow up poor. We owned a house that was definitely more than 100 yards from the nearest trailer park. That house needed serious repairs when we moved in, but over time my dad made those repairs himself. He remodeled the basement so my brother and I would have a play room. He kept a huge garden in the adjacent lot, purchased with our house, until his back gave out and he had to sell it. My mother spent days canning produce so we'd have fruits and vegetables to eat throughout the winter. My dad went hunting so we'd have meat. Nobody ever went to bed hungry. If I claimed, now, to have grown up poor, my mother would say "You don't know what poor is," and she'd be right. My parents made very sure I didn't know what it meant to live in poverty, because they knew how people who live in poverty are viewed. They're trash. They're useless. They're disposable.
Over dinner last night, my husband and I were pointing out to our kids that the goal of families is to help each generation do a little better than the last. I have more education than either of my parents would have imagined was possible for one of their children. Together, my husband and I make three times what my father made in salary. We're paying off student loans and other debts we accumulated during graduate school, so a lot of our money isn't available for spending--money is tight, to say the least--but we live in a very nice house, in a very nice neighborhood. There's no trailer park in sight. And I know that's the way my parents wanted it for me. They worked hard to get me here.
So forgive me if I'm a little sensitive to the term "white trash," if I don't find it all that amusing when people play at being queen of the trailer park or make a disparaging comment about the woman at Wal-Mart, the one with the bratty kids. A few generations ago, at a local store somewhere in Iowa, that woman was my grandmother. One of those kids was my father. And if he was misbehaving, that's probably because he was starving. Or frustrated at hearing his mother tell him, again, No, you can't have that. Or very, very tired after a long walk into town.
Lately, though, I've been noticing how many of my Facebook friends seem to be comfortable with the phrase "white trash." One of them recently moved to a new city and announced she had "discovered the land of whiny children and their white trash mothers." (Or something like that--I'm paraphrasing, but I know I got the relevant two words right.) Another took one of the millions of silly face book quizzes in order to discover her "white trash name." Those are just two examples, but I've seen or heard those words far too often in the last month or so.
My father grew up in a family that no doubt was referred to as white trash: absent father, numerous children raised in abject poverty. No one was paying attention to what he did, so my father did whatever he wanted to do and, as a result, got himself into lots of trouble. My mother grew up poor, but her family went to church and owned a farm and a home--they were probably a few rungs above what would have been called white trash, but they watched people slip back down the ladder during the Great Depression. My mother knew just exactly how easy it would be to lose everything, including her precarious just-above-the-bottom social status.
As adults, both of my parents lived in terror of being thought "trashy." I know this because I was cautioned against trashy behavior, clothing and talk throughout the years I lived at home. Being trashy meant many different things, but among those things were promiscuity (or even the suggestion of it, in either clothing or speech or behavior), cursing, and leaving the house without "fixing yourself up." That meant presentable clothing, good shoes, and make-up. (But not too much, lest you should veer into trashy territory again.) Not having money wasn't shameful, as far as my parents were concerned. Acting like you didn't care what people thought of you--well, that was beyond shameful. That was "trashy".
My mother used to say "As long I'm at least 100 yards from the trailer park, I know I'm doing all right." I don't think I knew what she meant by that, when I was younger; I'm pretty sure I thought she just didn't like the idea of living in a trailer. Now, though, it's clear my mom and dad were keeping an eye on class markers: As long as we stay on this side of the line, we know we're okay. My dad had pulled himself out of poverty on his own, with a career in the Army, and he was determined not to backslide into "white trash" territory. My mom had seen just exactly how easy that kind of slipping could be. They raised three kids on one very modest income, which couldn't have been easy, even all those years ago.
But I didn't know my family lacked money. I thought my parents were frugal--not incapable of buying me the clothes I wanted, just reluctant to spend that much money on a pair of jeans. They were frugal, of course, but out of necessity. Credit was harder to come by, for one thing, but debt was a one-way ticket straight back into the trailer park--not an option. So I wore my one pair of brand-name jeans to school every single day and scowled at my mother, thinking she was cheap. When I was old enough to get a job, it didn't occur to me that my parents encouraged it to ease the financial strain on our family; I thought they wanted me to learn responsibility. And they did, of course, but I can see now that this desire was probably secondary to the need to loosen up the family budget.
My parents would want me to be very clear about this: I did not grow up poor. We owned a house that was definitely more than 100 yards from the nearest trailer park. That house needed serious repairs when we moved in, but over time my dad made those repairs himself. He remodeled the basement so my brother and I would have a play room. He kept a huge garden in the adjacent lot, purchased with our house, until his back gave out and he had to sell it. My mother spent days canning produce so we'd have fruits and vegetables to eat throughout the winter. My dad went hunting so we'd have meat. Nobody ever went to bed hungry. If I claimed, now, to have grown up poor, my mother would say "You don't know what poor is," and she'd be right. My parents made very sure I didn't know what it meant to live in poverty, because they knew how people who live in poverty are viewed. They're trash. They're useless. They're disposable.
Over dinner last night, my husband and I were pointing out to our kids that the goal of families is to help each generation do a little better than the last. I have more education than either of my parents would have imagined was possible for one of their children. Together, my husband and I make three times what my father made in salary. We're paying off student loans and other debts we accumulated during graduate school, so a lot of our money isn't available for spending--money is tight, to say the least--but we live in a very nice house, in a very nice neighborhood. There's no trailer park in sight. And I know that's the way my parents wanted it for me. They worked hard to get me here.
So forgive me if I'm a little sensitive to the term "white trash," if I don't find it all that amusing when people play at being queen of the trailer park or make a disparaging comment about the woman at Wal-Mart, the one with the bratty kids. A few generations ago, at a local store somewhere in Iowa, that woman was my grandmother. One of those kids was my father. And if he was misbehaving, that's probably because he was starving. Or frustrated at hearing his mother tell him, again, No, you can't have that. Or very, very tired after a long walk into town.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sometimes You Blog About Idaho
I've been feeling nostalgic for the Northwest here of late--probably because it's been so blazing hot in Texas this summer. (My mom tells me it's been hot in Boise, too, but I'm betting it doesn't feel as hot as 35 days of temperatures over 100.) My mom, sister and older niece went on a church retreat in an area near the Sawtooths last weekend. One of my nieces now lives in Montana. The pictures they've all been posting on Facebook make me want to just sit down and weep.
Which is interesting, because I was explaining to a friend just a few days ago that the Northwest doesn't really feel like my home anymore. Why, then, do I keep checking the Chronicle's job listings, hoping to see a job opening in Idaho? Or Montana? Or Washington? Or Oregon? Or even Colorado?
I've already written about the weirdly conflicted relationship I have with Boise--I know moving back there probably wouldn't be a good idea. Much as I'd like to be closer to my parents, especially now that my dad's health is failing and my mom needs all the help she can get, it's easier for me to be the person I am now when I keep some space between the me that was and the me that is. Last time I visited my parents, my dad said "I'm still surprised that you're a college English professor--I always thought you'd go into teaching the deaf. You were always reading books about that Helen Keller."
Yes, I was. When I was ten years old.
Another good friend of mine, a theology professor, recently wrote a blog entry about Mark 6:4, the Bible passage in which we're told that even prophets have trouble earning respect when they go home--back to the people who knew them as children tromping through the flowerbeds, terrorizing the cat, procrastinating on completing their chores. I suppose even Jesus's neighbors wondered if he'd ever amount to anything. I know it's hard for my family to see me as something other than a loudmouth teenager with lots of uninformed opinions--that's who I was the last time I lived at home. When I talk about growing up with my dad, sometimes my husband just shakes his head in disbelief. "That doesn't even sound like the same person I know," he says. And of course, it's not.
So I don't feel at home in Boise, in the sense of feeling like that's where I can be my honest self--but the Northwest is definitely a place I'm connected to. There's something about a horizon ridged with mountains that puts a big lump in my throat. Something about the smell of pine trees does the same thing. I often hear people talk about the smells they associate with their grandmothers' houses, but I didn't know my grandparents when I was growing up--it's the smell of the forest that catapults me back into my childhood, back into the camper with my parents and my brother. Sometimes, that kind of emotional response can get confused with the need to take some action, to make a change.
But just this morning my husband and I were talking about whether we'd really want to move farther north, out of the Texas heat, if we had the chance. We both agree that the Midwest is a place we don't feel compelled to return to--we've lived in Kansas, Iowa and Missouri, and none of those places has a hold on either of us. The Northeast might be a possibility; we've never lived there, so it would be a new adventure.
And the Northwest? Maybe.
"At this point,I just think I'm more of a live oak guy than a pine tree guy," my husband said.
I don't know if I'd get choked up over a picture of a live oak tree, but I do know that I'd miss the live oaks and their beautiful bonsai shapes if we left Texas. And the wildflowers growing by the roadsides every spring. And the great big storms with thunder loud enough to rattle the windows--those used to scare me, but now I find myself outside with the neighbors, watching the clouds roll in, welcoming the drama.
I suppose I may never feel about Texas the way I feel about Idaho, but I'm not sure I need to feel that way in order for this to be my home. Maybe what I'm responding to when I see a photo of mountains and pine trees isn't the Idaho landscape at all, but what it helps me understand: the enormity of creation, its ability to remind us of how small and insignificant we are in the greater scheme of things.
Which is interesting, because I was explaining to a friend just a few days ago that the Northwest doesn't really feel like my home anymore. Why, then, do I keep checking the Chronicle's job listings, hoping to see a job opening in Idaho? Or Montana? Or Washington? Or Oregon? Or even Colorado?
I've already written about the weirdly conflicted relationship I have with Boise--I know moving back there probably wouldn't be a good idea. Much as I'd like to be closer to my parents, especially now that my dad's health is failing and my mom needs all the help she can get, it's easier for me to be the person I am now when I keep some space between the me that was and the me that is. Last time I visited my parents, my dad said "I'm still surprised that you're a college English professor--I always thought you'd go into teaching the deaf. You were always reading books about that Helen Keller."
Yes, I was. When I was ten years old.
Another good friend of mine, a theology professor, recently wrote a blog entry about Mark 6:4, the Bible passage in which we're told that even prophets have trouble earning respect when they go home--back to the people who knew them as children tromping through the flowerbeds, terrorizing the cat, procrastinating on completing their chores. I suppose even Jesus's neighbors wondered if he'd ever amount to anything. I know it's hard for my family to see me as something other than a loudmouth teenager with lots of uninformed opinions--that's who I was the last time I lived at home. When I talk about growing up with my dad, sometimes my husband just shakes his head in disbelief. "That doesn't even sound like the same person I know," he says. And of course, it's not.
So I don't feel at home in Boise, in the sense of feeling like that's where I can be my honest self--but the Northwest is definitely a place I'm connected to. There's something about a horizon ridged with mountains that puts a big lump in my throat. Something about the smell of pine trees does the same thing. I often hear people talk about the smells they associate with their grandmothers' houses, but I didn't know my grandparents when I was growing up--it's the smell of the forest that catapults me back into my childhood, back into the camper with my parents and my brother. Sometimes, that kind of emotional response can get confused with the need to take some action, to make a change.
But just this morning my husband and I were talking about whether we'd really want to move farther north, out of the Texas heat, if we had the chance. We both agree that the Midwest is a place we don't feel compelled to return to--we've lived in Kansas, Iowa and Missouri, and none of those places has a hold on either of us. The Northeast might be a possibility; we've never lived there, so it would be a new adventure.
And the Northwest? Maybe.
"At this point,I just think I'm more of a live oak guy than a pine tree guy," my husband said.
I don't know if I'd get choked up over a picture of a live oak tree, but I do know that I'd miss the live oaks and their beautiful bonsai shapes if we left Texas. And the wildflowers growing by the roadsides every spring. And the great big storms with thunder loud enough to rattle the windows--those used to scare me, but now I find myself outside with the neighbors, watching the clouds roll in, welcoming the drama.
I suppose I may never feel about Texas the way I feel about Idaho, but I'm not sure I need to feel that way in order for this to be my home. Maybe what I'm responding to when I see a photo of mountains and pine trees isn't the Idaho landscape at all, but what it helps me understand: the enormity of creation, its ability to remind us of how small and insignificant we are in the greater scheme of things.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
What is the story of my Jeopardy audition?
I flew to Kansas City last Thursday to audition for Jeopardy. I was really surprised to receive an email invitation to the audition in May—the online test had been way back in January, and I’d long since given up on hoping that I’d hear from them. Plus, I really didn’t think I did that well on the test. But I did well enough, apparently.
I’ll admit that I felt pretty silly flying all the way to Kansas City. It was an expense my family really couldn’t afford, but my husband had encouraged me to go anyway. I was afraid that everyone at the audition would have driven in from suburban KC, maybe mid-Kansas or Missouri; I was afraid of looking like the ridiculous woman who’s so desperate to prove her intellect that she’ll travel BY PLANE to an audition that provides her with a 10% chance of being on a quiz show.
I needn’t have worried. My audition group comprised several people from Dallas and Austin, as well as a guy from Denver and another from New Mexico. I don’t think I would have won the prize for Longest Trip to the Audition. Several members of the group had already been through the audition process more than once. The woman who sat next to me at my table said she’d been invited to appear on the show in the 70’s, but turned down the offer because she was planning her wedding. “Turning down that invitation was the second biggest mistake of my life,” she said. I waited a moment, wondering if I should ask the obvious question. Then she added, “The biggest mistake was getting married to that guy.”
“I was going to ask,” I said, “but I thought, ‘That would be really rude, if I were wrong.’”
Our group met in a small ballroom in the lobby of a nice hotel on the Country Club Plaza. As soon as each of us entered the room, a contestant coordinator took a Polaroid picture for our files. I was dreading the photo as I watched it develop--Polaroids make everyone look pasty, and I really don’t need help in that department--but as the picture emerged, I was pleased to see that I looked pretty good. Certainly not the worst picture I’ve ever taken, in any case. (That honor is still reserved for what a former boyfriend called the Eyes Without a Face photo, featured on my military dependent ID.)
We filled out some general paperwork—no, I don’t know anyone who works for Jeopardy; no, I’ve never been convicted of a felony—and then we were welcomed by the Jeopardy crew, all of whom were very friendly and upbeat and encouraged us to be the same. They talked us through a sample game, during which we raised our hands to answer sample questions. Then we took a written test, similar to the online test we’d taken back in January, except this time we had only 8 seconds to come up with a response. Clues appeared on a video screen and were read aloud by a member of the Clue Crew. Some I absolutely knew; some I absolutely didn’t. Studying world geography for the last few weeks earned me one correct answer that I never would have known otherwise. We’d been encouraged to guess, since incorrect answers weren’t counted against our scores, so I did that when I could. When I couldn’t, I let it go and moved on.
While the J-Crew went outside to grade our tests, we all compared notes on our answers. Of course, as soon as people provided the answers I couldn’t come up with on my own, they seemed completely obvious and I was annoyed with myself for missing them. I’ve read in other blogs that the written test is mostly used to verify that you are, in fact, the person who took the online test—that you weren’t one of a group of ten people collaborating on the answers, or a super-fast Googler—so I hope that’s true, and I hope I did well enough to confirm my identity.
After the written test, the real fun began: we were called to the front of the room, three at a time, to play a mock round of Jeopardy complete with buzzers. Let me just say, I ruled the buzzer. I was first to ring in several times, got all my questions right, and on two occasions I rang in after the first-place person had given an incorrect response.
After the mock game, we introduced ourselves and did a little Q and A with the J-Crew. I’m assuming this part of the audition is to assess how well you can speak in front of a group—which is where being a professor comes in handy, since I do that for a living. Some of the people in my group had no sense of when a story had gone on far too long. Others thought their stories were much more interesting than they actually were. I tried to keep it short, sweet, and mildly amusing.
And then we were done. After so many weeks of studying and looking forward to the audition, I was a little sad to walk out of the room knowing it was over—and a little relieved. The last month has been vaguely reminiscent of the weeks leading up to my doctoral exams, when taking a moment to relax felt like a decision I might regret later. When I mentioned this to a friend, he laughed and said “What’s the big deal? It’s not like your career is riding on this.”
“No,” I said. “But my hardwood floors are.”
I’ll admit that I felt pretty silly flying all the way to Kansas City. It was an expense my family really couldn’t afford, but my husband had encouraged me to go anyway. I was afraid that everyone at the audition would have driven in from suburban KC, maybe mid-Kansas or Missouri; I was afraid of looking like the ridiculous woman who’s so desperate to prove her intellect that she’ll travel BY PLANE to an audition that provides her with a 10% chance of being on a quiz show.
I needn’t have worried. My audition group comprised several people from Dallas and Austin, as well as a guy from Denver and another from New Mexico. I don’t think I would have won the prize for Longest Trip to the Audition. Several members of the group had already been through the audition process more than once. The woman who sat next to me at my table said she’d been invited to appear on the show in the 70’s, but turned down the offer because she was planning her wedding. “Turning down that invitation was the second biggest mistake of my life,” she said. I waited a moment, wondering if I should ask the obvious question. Then she added, “The biggest mistake was getting married to that guy.”
“I was going to ask,” I said, “but I thought, ‘That would be really rude, if I were wrong.’”
Our group met in a small ballroom in the lobby of a nice hotel on the Country Club Plaza. As soon as each of us entered the room, a contestant coordinator took a Polaroid picture for our files. I was dreading the photo as I watched it develop--Polaroids make everyone look pasty, and I really don’t need help in that department--but as the picture emerged, I was pleased to see that I looked pretty good. Certainly not the worst picture I’ve ever taken, in any case. (That honor is still reserved for what a former boyfriend called the Eyes Without a Face photo, featured on my military dependent ID.)
We filled out some general paperwork—no, I don’t know anyone who works for Jeopardy; no, I’ve never been convicted of a felony—and then we were welcomed by the Jeopardy crew, all of whom were very friendly and upbeat and encouraged us to be the same. They talked us through a sample game, during which we raised our hands to answer sample questions. Then we took a written test, similar to the online test we’d taken back in January, except this time we had only 8 seconds to come up with a response. Clues appeared on a video screen and were read aloud by a member of the Clue Crew. Some I absolutely knew; some I absolutely didn’t. Studying world geography for the last few weeks earned me one correct answer that I never would have known otherwise. We’d been encouraged to guess, since incorrect answers weren’t counted against our scores, so I did that when I could. When I couldn’t, I let it go and moved on.
While the J-Crew went outside to grade our tests, we all compared notes on our answers. Of course, as soon as people provided the answers I couldn’t come up with on my own, they seemed completely obvious and I was annoyed with myself for missing them. I’ve read in other blogs that the written test is mostly used to verify that you are, in fact, the person who took the online test—that you weren’t one of a group of ten people collaborating on the answers, or a super-fast Googler—so I hope that’s true, and I hope I did well enough to confirm my identity.
After the written test, the real fun began: we were called to the front of the room, three at a time, to play a mock round of Jeopardy complete with buzzers. Let me just say, I ruled the buzzer. I was first to ring in several times, got all my questions right, and on two occasions I rang in after the first-place person had given an incorrect response.
After the mock game, we introduced ourselves and did a little Q and A with the J-Crew. I’m assuming this part of the audition is to assess how well you can speak in front of a group—which is where being a professor comes in handy, since I do that for a living. Some of the people in my group had no sense of when a story had gone on far too long. Others thought their stories were much more interesting than they actually were. I tried to keep it short, sweet, and mildly amusing.
And then we were done. After so many weeks of studying and looking forward to the audition, I was a little sad to walk out of the room knowing it was over—and a little relieved. The last month has been vaguely reminiscent of the weeks leading up to my doctoral exams, when taking a moment to relax felt like a decision I might regret later. When I mentioned this to a friend, he laughed and said “What’s the big deal? It’s not like your career is riding on this.”
“No,” I said. “But my hardwood floors are.”
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Price of Expertise
A former student sent me an email a few months ago, asking how he might go about getting his work published. (I resisted the urge to write back and say "If you'd paid attention during class, you'd already know the answer to that question.") Last week he sent me the opening 50 pages of a novel he's been working on. To his credit, he said all the right things in his email: No rush to respond. I know you're busy. Maybe just read the first few pages, when you have the time.
I'm sure the basis of that presumption rests on the fact that I'm a teacher. It's my job to disseminate information--why wouldn't I continue to do that long after my students have left my classes, or even graduated from the university? Students just don't make that connection between paying tuition and paying my salary. Many of them don't know anyone else who writes fiction or poetry; even fewer know someone who has successfully published creative work. It makes sense that they'd turn to me for advice, since I fit both of those categories.
Which leaves me wondering: is my advice presumed to be free after graduation because educators are notoriously underpaid? Perhaps the logic works this way: If I'm willing to work for so little money, why would I mind working for no money at all?
When I mentioned this to my husband, he was quick to point out that people are always asking for free advice: "Should I get this checked out?" they might ask the doctor who happens to live next door and gets paid much more than I do. In truth, that's not too far removed from "Can you tell me if I'm on the right track here?" It's a sort of pre-diagnosis they're asking for--not an expert opinion, not exactly. You haven't named the problem precisely, just indicated that it might exist.
Of course, if I wrote back to this student and said "No, you're definitely on the wrong track here," he'd want to know where and how he'd gone wrong. Without that information, my opinion isn't worth much of anything. It's just a reaction. As I tell my students, there's a big different between saying "I think this sucks" and "I got really confused after page three because . . . " One response simply indicates that the story didn't work for you; the other demonstrates that you've given some thought to why it didn't work.
As I said earlier, I'll probably read what my student sent me. I'll probably send him a response that is at least somewhat specific. And I'll probably feel better for having done this. Really, the bottom line is what's more important to me: to get paid, or to help bring good books into the world? As long as my answer is the latter, not the former, free expertise is the price I'll pay.
When I mentioned this to my husband, he was quick to point out that people are always asking for free advice: "Should I get this checked out?" they might ask the doctor who happens to live next door and gets paid much more than I do. In truth, that's not too far removed from "Can you tell me if I'm on the right track here?" It's a sort of pre-diagnosis they're asking for--not an expert opinion, not exactly. You haven't named the problem precisely, just indicated that it might exist.
Of course, if I wrote back to this student and said "No, you're definitely on the wrong track here," he'd want to know where and how he'd gone wrong. Without that information, my opinion isn't worth much of anything. It's just a reaction. As I tell my students, there's a big different between saying "I think this sucks" and "I got really confused after page three because . . . " One response simply indicates that the story didn't work for you; the other demonstrates that you've given some thought to why it didn't work.
As I said earlier, I'll probably read what my student sent me. I'll probably send him a response that is at least somewhat specific. And I'll probably feel better for having done this. Really, the bottom line is what's more important to me: to get paid, or to help bring good books into the world? As long as my answer is the latter, not the former, free expertise is the price I'll pay.
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