The word for today is FLASHBACK. A FLASHBACK can be a device in a story that includes an incident that happened before the present time of the narrative; a FLASHBACK can be a spontaneous hallucination induced by drug use; a FLASHBACK can be a recurring image of an old traumatic experience. The local classic rock station uses the term FLASHBACK to label a chunk of programming devoted to music from a particular year. I'm at the tail end of the baby boom, so the musical FLASHBACKS I listen to go all the way from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. The Beatles to Pearl Jam--that pretty much sums up my reference points for pop music.
Whenever I go into the Whole Foods, the soundtrack is full of musical FLASHBACKS. Their marketing department must figure that customers will buy more products if they're grooving to a particularly fine musical FLASHBACK.
Sometimes I tell people that once upon a time I was a lawyer. Once upon a time I was a lot of different things, but lawyer is a very difficult identity to shed. I remember (a memory, not a FLASHBACK), my father and other relatives telling me that in law school you learn how to think, as if all the other forms of higher education taught something not quite as valuable.
Recently, I met a man who is a trial attorney. He invited me to come to a deposition with him, and out of a combination of curiosity, intrigue and (yes I will admit it) interest in this man, I went. I had not been to a deposition in almost 20 years. I got dressed up in lawyer clothes, heels, pantyhose, a dress and a linen jacket. I heard myself clip clop along the cement sidewalks, trying to keep up with my friend, trying to be with it. We got to the deposition (he was deposing the defendant's expert witness) and he introduced me as his partner, assistant, or colleague (I really cannot remember).
My friend is a middle-aged white man, the opposing attorney was a middle-aged white man, the expert witness was a middle-aged white man. The only other woman in the room was the court reporter. I flashed back to my time as a young associate at an insurance defense firm. I flashed back to all the times I sat in the name partner's office waiting to discuss my research on a case, while he took phone calls from his colleagues and recounted his son's feats as a hockey star at Boston College. I flashed back to the performance review another partner conducted with me in the car as we drove back from a deposition in Boston--the only time he could spare. I flashed back to the horrible degradation I felt, to my inability to function in the male lawyer world, for my inability to know myself, be myself, speak up for myself. All I could think to do was leave. Within two years I did. I left the firm before the firm could ask me to leave. I landed some part-time work with a legal services organization; later I used my skills in social services.
When I am with my lawyer friend I FLASHBACK. I FLASHBACK to a time when I did not know who I was. Then I come back. At the deposition I realized that I am no longer a 30-year-old junior associate; I am a 50-year-old woman, who has had some real accomplishments in the professional world, who has spent an enormous amount of time and energy learning to understand and live my values. I am no longer intimidated by white men in suits.
I am even thinking of taking the bar exam next winter. I'm thinking of how I can use my dormant legal skills to advance my values. I'm thinking of how I can live in the present, move forward, and not be detained by the power of a FLASHBACK.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Date
The word for today is DATE. DATE can mean many things, a small dark fruit that grows on a tree, a specific moment in time and space--the time when food will perish, someone will graduate, retire, get married, celebrate his or her birth. A DATE can refer to an appointment between two people, colleagues can have a lunch DATE, Barack and Michelle (our POTUS and FLOTUS) have DATE night. This is the kind of DATE I'm thinking of.
I had a DATE on Saturday night. I knew it was a DATE because the man, who is also a neighbor, kissed me on the cheek and said "I can kiss you because we are on a DATE." When we arrived at the restaurant for dinner he said, "this is our first DATE." We had taken long walks and gone to a baseball game together, but I guess those didn't qualify.
I've gone out to dinner with male friends on weekend nights, but it's been a long time since any one of them specifically called what we were doing a DATE. In fact, I'm more accustomed to my friend who makes it clear to me that we are not on a DATE, we are just two friends having dinner together. Even the men I've known who have been interested in getting physical, didn't want to use the word dating; they were even more emphatic about not using the word relationship.
I had fun on the DATE. The man I went out with isn't like most of the people I spend time with. He's pretty straightforward and uncomplicated; he doesn't analyze or overanalyze his emotions. He said right away, "I'm not looking for anything serious, I'm dating a lot of people."
So now I am challenged. Can I adhere to casual dating etiquette? Since I know I am not the only woman this man is dating, there are lots and lots of things that I will not do with him, there are lots of feelings that I will not let myself have. I can go out for dinner, I can go to a ball game, I can go sailing or hiking, I guess I can even have some fun. I hope we have another DATE.
On Sunday I had tickets to a concert. I had asked a friend, a man I do not DATE, to go with me. At first he accepted, but then he changed his mind. Sunday came and I did not have anyone to go to the concert with. I did not have a DATE. I asked a series of friends, but we've been having a cold spell here in Chicago and the idea of going to an outdoor evening concert did not appeal to anyone I approached.
Once again, I would have to go on a DATE with myself. I got in the car and drove to Ravinia, where the concert was being held. I tried to breathe deeply and make that small lump in my heart and throat go away. I didn't want to feel sorry for myself; I just wanted to go and enjoy the music. As I was about to enter the concert grounds the friend who'd cancelled on me called. He'd just received a call from another friend of his who was at the concert. "Call her," he urged me, "she said you should join her and her group of friends on the lawn."
I called the woman and navigated my way towards her party via cell phone instructions. Soon she said, "you're wearing sunglasses" to me over the phone, and I knew I'd found her on the Ravinia lawn. Her friends had gone to enter a drawing for indoor pavillion seats. They won and we packed up the food and blankets they'd set out on the lawn and took the seats of our good fortune.
I didn't have a DATE. I had the company of a warm and welcoming group of women. I had wonderful seats. I listened to Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Patti Griffin and Buddy Miller. I remembered listening to the music of the three female artists over the last 20 years, through a lot of heartbreak, loneliness and hope. I remembered that I once had the kind of female friendship that exists among the women I had just met. I looked at the faces of the women next to me and I saw closed-eye contentment, satisfied smiles, authentic tears. I was in the right place at the right time. It was a very different kind of DATE than the one I'd had the night before. But I was just as glad to be there.
Link: The artists performed this song as the encore last night. Here's a version they performed in Roanoke, VA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Rx6DcEly0
I had a DATE on Saturday night. I knew it was a DATE because the man, who is also a neighbor, kissed me on the cheek and said "I can kiss you because we are on a DATE." When we arrived at the restaurant for dinner he said, "this is our first DATE." We had taken long walks and gone to a baseball game together, but I guess those didn't qualify.
I've gone out to dinner with male friends on weekend nights, but it's been a long time since any one of them specifically called what we were doing a DATE. In fact, I'm more accustomed to my friend who makes it clear to me that we are not on a DATE, we are just two friends having dinner together. Even the men I've known who have been interested in getting physical, didn't want to use the word dating; they were even more emphatic about not using the word relationship.
I had fun on the DATE. The man I went out with isn't like most of the people I spend time with. He's pretty straightforward and uncomplicated; he doesn't analyze or overanalyze his emotions. He said right away, "I'm not looking for anything serious, I'm dating a lot of people."
So now I am challenged. Can I adhere to casual dating etiquette? Since I know I am not the only woman this man is dating, there are lots and lots of things that I will not do with him, there are lots of feelings that I will not let myself have. I can go out for dinner, I can go to a ball game, I can go sailing or hiking, I guess I can even have some fun. I hope we have another DATE.
On Sunday I had tickets to a concert. I had asked a friend, a man I do not DATE, to go with me. At first he accepted, but then he changed his mind. Sunday came and I did not have anyone to go to the concert with. I did not have a DATE. I asked a series of friends, but we've been having a cold spell here in Chicago and the idea of going to an outdoor evening concert did not appeal to anyone I approached.
Once again, I would have to go on a DATE with myself. I got in the car and drove to Ravinia, where the concert was being held. I tried to breathe deeply and make that small lump in my heart and throat go away. I didn't want to feel sorry for myself; I just wanted to go and enjoy the music. As I was about to enter the concert grounds the friend who'd cancelled on me called. He'd just received a call from another friend of his who was at the concert. "Call her," he urged me, "she said you should join her and her group of friends on the lawn."
I called the woman and navigated my way towards her party via cell phone instructions. Soon she said, "you're wearing sunglasses" to me over the phone, and I knew I'd found her on the Ravinia lawn. Her friends had gone to enter a drawing for indoor pavillion seats. They won and we packed up the food and blankets they'd set out on the lawn and took the seats of our good fortune.
I didn't have a DATE. I had the company of a warm and welcoming group of women. I had wonderful seats. I listened to Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Patti Griffin and Buddy Miller. I remembered listening to the music of the three female artists over the last 20 years, through a lot of heartbreak, loneliness and hope. I remembered that I once had the kind of female friendship that exists among the women I had just met. I looked at the faces of the women next to me and I saw closed-eye contentment, satisfied smiles, authentic tears. I was in the right place at the right time. It was a very different kind of DATE than the one I'd had the night before. But I was just as glad to be there.
Link: The artists performed this song as the encore last night. Here's a version they performed in Roanoke, VA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Rx6DcEly0