Rite of Passage

Dan and I finally broke down and got Eiledon a cell phone. She’d first started asking for one when she was ten and we looked at one on another, incredulous, and laughed out loud. What on earth did a ten-year-old need with a cell phone? Sixteen, we told her. When she started driving, a cell phone would qualify as emergency equipment, like an escape hammer or a spare tire.

“Other kids in my class have cell phones.” Fifth graders? You’ve got to be kidding me. I guess that’s what you get for accidentally moving into a wealthy suburb. The argument didn’t carry any weight with me, of course. When I was a kid it was that everyone else had cable or a VCR or a television that wasn’t a hand-me-down from their grandparents. And I turned out just fine. In fact, I think it gave me a better sense of what’s really important. No dice, I told her.

“But I need one,” she insisted, and I used a tactic I’d heard from another mom. “Give me an example of when you would need to use it,” I said. Of course she couldn’t come up with a single situation where she wouldn’t have access to a landline, and she finally dropped it. For a little while.

It came up continually through fifth grade and sixth grade, the announcements of “I really want a cell phone,” coming more frequently. We blew her off, mostly, sticking to our original statement that she had to be sixteen, but I could tell it was really distressing her, as more and more of her peers acquired this totem of growing up.

I had heard horror stories: sixth graders sitting around a table texting each other rather than having an actual conversation, teachers despairing at their students’ atrocious spelling, pediatricians and other experts warning about increased screen time, higher levels of distraction and decreased intelligence. And there still seemed no real need for the stupid thing!

The first crack in my conviction came several weeks ago, when my Girl Scout troop had piled into my friend Rachel’s van for a field trip. Not long after we set out, my daughter’s voice sailed over the chatter from the back seat. “Mom! I’m the only girl in the troop who doesn’t have a cell phone!” Surely not, I thought. At least, not Rachel's daughter, Megan! I was pretty sure Rachel and I shared the same sentiment when it came to cell phones. I looked at her, mouth open. Rachel didn’t take her eyes off the road. She only grimaced slightly and said, “I’m so sorry, Rebekah,” and I laughed out loud. I didn’t argue. I didn’t ask for an explanation. I have profound respect for my friend and co-leader and just accepted her judgment.

Which, of course, caused me to question mine. Not that I’m so easily swayed. It’s just that I’m more willing to listen than I used to be, to consider more than just my own knee-jerk reactions. So I started listening.

And then my father-in-law—my father-in-law!—told Dan that he understood how important it was for kids to feel like they fit in. That if it were Dan who had been asking for a phone, his dad would have gotten him one. Well, color me surprised! I still don’t hold with that logic, but that doesn’t mean I’m right.

In the end, it came down to pure self-interest on my part. Eiledon now goes to school in downtown Minneapolis and we live way out in the southwest suburbs. In the past year, on more than one occasion, she has either taken the bus home when I was supposed to pick her up, or forgotten to take the bus home when I wasn’t going to pick her up as usual. In a few cases, she has been able to borrow a friend’s cell phone on the bus and let me know she’d made a mistake and not to come get her. But once I slogged through the afternoon rush hour, only to find when I got to her school that she was already on her way home. And more recently, she called me saying she hadn't taken the bus because she'd forgotten she was supposed to, and I realized that if she'd had a cell phone, I could have called or texted to remind her. Instead, I had to go get her and we were late to a commitment that evening.

So the realities of a disorganized child and the high price of gasoline tapped the last nail into the coffin of my convictions. I finally had concrete proof that she really did need a cell phone. That I needed her to have one.

It came in the mail yesterday and Eiledon loves it. It’s not a smartphone, but it’s has a touch screen and it can text and take pictures and play music. She walked around the house with it all evening, stopping now and then at the mirror and holding it up to her ear, exclaiming at how it makes her look like a teenager. The teenager she almost is, I thought. And I was genuinely happy for her.

Forty

I am forty, now, and hesitant. Overwhelmed by everything I haven’t read, seen, done. After years of convincing myself I simply didn’t have the time, I have begun reading again, tentatively. Afraid each page will confirm what I already know, that I have nothing to say that hasn’t already been said, and said better than I could ever hope to say it. Knowing that I don’t have the necessary tools—education, experience, enough reading—to express what insights I might actually have to a population beyond those friends and family generous enough to visit my blog.

I finally succumbed to the lure of Harry Potter, having resisted irrationally for a decade. I couldn’t bear the thought of J. K. Rowling, who unwittingly set an unattainable standard for successful writing, whose passion for the written word and gift for story has generated unfathomable wealth and a cultural phenomenon. It wasn’t really her success that intimidated me, though. It was hot, shame-filled jealousy that she got to spend a dozen years enmeshed and immersed in a world of her own making, a world full of humor and wonder and unspeakable evil, where of course purity of heart would win over soulless ambition, where beloved characters might die, but there was meaning in their deaths and proof of something after, and she had control over it all.

I have a world like that, too. Not as fanciful or elaborate, and not for children. I want to spend all my time there, like I did when I first wrote my novel in 1995. But I can’t justify it, because I don’t have the tools I need to be self-supporting through it. Not yet. And I’m not willing to live in an unheated apartment, and on welfare in order to get them. I guess I just don’t believe strongly enough.

And the real world compels me, too. I have learned so much in recovery, given up so much emotional and spiritual baggage, come to believe in life and love in ways I didn’t know how to, before. I acknowledge the messiness and pain in the world and feel called to do what little I can to alleviate it. Kerouac said, “I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion,” and in the microcosm of my family, my church and my other small communities, I sometimes think this is enough. That God can use this to motivate others and create good.

But I am reading Anne Lamott, now, and I’m busy not measuring up. Her faith and her politics astound me. She believes what I believe but has treadmarks on her soul I can’t, and wouldn’t want to match: broken home, drug addiction, loss of loved ones. She marches for peace, is brutally honest about motherhood, has beautifully diverse friends, and a quirky, powerful faith. I judge her sometimes for her self-confessed neurotic narcissism, but that honesty is what makes her work compelling. And my honesty may not be that interesting.

So there’s my neurotic, narcissistic reflection for the day, inspired by my trip, an hour ago, to the library, where I picked up God’s Politics, by Jim Wallis, Crooked Little Heart, by Anne Lamott, and a Turning the Mind Into an Ally, a book on meditation. Here’s to acquiring tools.

Naming Names

I scheduled a massage on short notice and my regular therapist wasn’t available, so I went with this guy named Artum. I’m guessing at the spelling, but I think it’s probably pretty close. On the other hand, nowadays it could be spelled F-R-E-D and still be pronounced Artum. And who am I to judge? I named my daughter Eiledon (eye-LEE-dun).

Apparently, Artum is my massage clinic's deep tissue rock star, but I didn’t care one way or another. I was just there for a run-of-the-mill relaxation massage with firm pressure. But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember the guy's name. When I’d booked the appointment they said, “Artum,” and I immediately forgot it. When I checked in, they said, “Who are you seeing today?” and I said, “I’m not sure.” “Oh! You’re seeing Artum. He’s really good.” “Great,” I said, “Artum.” Even repeating it wasn’t enough. By the time he came and got me from the waiting room, I had no recollection of who would soon be whaling on my aching muscles. He introduced himself, “Nice to meet you. I’m Artum.” Fifteen seconds later, my mind was a blank.

So I’m lying on the massage table and the kid is doing a marvelous job of working out the TMJ-disorder-created knots in my back, neck and shoulders and all I can think is, “Now what’s this guy’s name again?” I keep coming up with “Gunter,” but I know that’s not right, because I’ve heard the name Gunter before and I know this guy’s name is brand new to me. I run through a few more. “Hunter. Gunnar. Arthur.” Nothing. “Spencer? Artax? Wait, wasn’t that the horse in Neverending Story?” It’s no use. Some nameless dude is giving me a massage.

My hour is up and after dressing, I meet… this dude… in the hallway where he hands me a glass of water and asks me how I’m feeling. “Great,” I reply. “Thanks.” He walks me to the lobby door, reminding me to drink plenty of fluids and take it easy. Then he’s gone.

I walk to the front desk, very conscious of the fact that I need to leave this guy a tip and I can’t think of his name. Just as the receptionist smiles up at me, I overhear a member of the staff gushing to a new client, “You’re going to be seeing Artum today. He’s our deep tissue specialist. He’s one of the best therapists we have here.”

Oh, thank you God!

“I’d like to leave a tip for Artum,” I say, and then do so. As I schedule my next appointment, the receptionist asks, “Did you want to see Artum again?” And spend the whole time I’m supposed to be relaxing trying to remember his stupid name?!?!? “No, thanks,” I say. “I’d like to see my regular therapist.”

Her name is Kenisha. But I’ve already memorized that one.

A Few of my Favorite Things: Part Five

My Celtic Jewelry

My maiden name was Fergus, solidly Scotch Irish, but the truth is that I’m over half German and the rest is some sort of anglo-mutt. Still, I feel much closer to my Celtic roots than my German, and nowhere is this more evident than in my powerful affinity for the Celtic knot.

While the Celtic knot as we know it didn’t appear in Celtic art until after Christianity reached the British Islands (5th century AD), nor is there any evidence that knotwork or the spiral and geometric patterns that preceded it were assigned a particular meaning, I have developed my own interpretation and the symbol has become an important part of my faith statement.

A Celtic knot has no beginning or end, evokes beauty in simplicity, and depicts interconnectedness. That’s a lot of how I see God.

I started collecting Celtic jewelry in 1997, with this ring I purchased at the Scottish Heritage Festival in St. Paul. It’s still my favorite piece—simple, silver and stunning. In 2000, I used it as the pattern for the piece de resistance of my collection: my permanent anklet. The truth is that I lose things. Lots of things. I even worried when Dan proposed that I would lose the engagement ring (I haven’t yet!) So I thought a tattoo would be the perfect thing for me: jewelry I can’t lose!

The necklace came from Irish on Grand in St. Paul, probably around the same time as the tattoo. Just a couple weeks ago, I met a woman at the Scottish Highland Festival grounds at the Renaissance Fair wearing the identical piece. She didn’t know where hers had come from—it had been a gift.

I bought the barrette in St. Michael, MD, when I visited Sue just after her son was born in 2002, and I wear it more than any other hair accessory I own. It’s the perfect thing for pulling my unruly mop out of my face.

I have several other pieces, now, as friends and family have figured out these are gifts I’m sure to be happy with. Dan brought me a beautiful silver knot necklace in 2005 when he was in Scotland. His parents have given me a delicate, hammered gold Celtic cross, a stone-carved knot on a leather thong, and a large medallion engraved with the name of Manawydan, a character from Welsh mythology.

In all honestly, I’m not really that big on jewelry. I don’t own anything remotely expensive, have no desire for gold or diamonds or anything of the sort. I prefer simple, rugged and meaningful. And when I wear these pieces, I am reminded of my connection to God and that, as much as the jewelry itself, makes me feel just a little more beautiful.