Work in Progress

Yesterday, I found out that my grandfather died. There are many ways to describe him: as a marxist, as a man who believed in democracy, as a man who fought for his beliefs and was physically tortured for it, as a father, a grandfather, and a great-grandfather.  He survived two of his own children, and yet he also outlived thirteen dictators.

But, to me, for the most part, he was just an amazing grandfather.  He knew me before I knew myself.  When he lived with us, he understood when I felt alone, and he would come and find me.  We would sit by each other in sympathetic, communicative silence, usually eating dinner together, but sometimes not.  Despite everything he lived through, he always maintained so much joy for life and approached most of life’s setbacks with great humor.  Just before he died, they tell me he was instructing everyone on how to organize his funeral and where to place his body, as though he were going on a trip.  I hope I face my own life and its end with the dignity and grace he did.

I have always admired him, for his courage and his conscientiousness, but now I will just always miss him, for the warmth and the joy he brought into my life.

Most of my life philosophies come from either Emily Post or Star Wars.  I mean, whenever I think I cannot do something, I think “do or do not, there is no try.”  That may sound super cheeseball, but I don’t mind, because Yoda’s got about 800 years more experience on life and the universe than any of us have.  Now, when it comes to Star Wars, I at least have several thousand other nerds across the planet who totally agree with me.  When it comes to Emily Post, I think people are often taken a little aback.

Why? Because for some unknown reason, people think that understanding manners and etiquette makes you snobby (seriously, I’ve had people make fun of the fact that I  own a copy of Etiquette and keep it on my bookshelves).  This type of attitude not only remains pervasive but actually demonstrates a fundamental ignorance about manners.  Manners aren’t actually about how you use your soup spoon, they’re a set of codes so that when you, as a human being, have to share your space with another human being you don’t step on too many toes.  Most manners serve an actual practical function (by the way, the reason you spoon your soup away from yourself is so that you’re less likely to splatter and stain your clothes), and not necessarily a snotty I-know-where-the-lobster-fork-goes function.

I know some people do take manners too far as a sign of social standing, but to me, manners are about recognizing that you are a human being who deserves a certain amount of social respect and so do all of the other human beings around you.  Manners remind me just as much about self-respect as they do communal respect.  And that’s the life lesson I’ve learned from Emily Post: we’re all people sharing the earth together and we all have to try to get along as best we can without angering  or demeaning each other all the time, because that’s no way to live.  We deserve to be treated and treat others with a certain amount of respect and dignity.  And when we mess up, we ought to approach and ameliorate our offenses with as much grace as we can muster.  These aren’t concepts I perform perfectly, but they are ideals I strive to achieve.  

And no, I don’t actually know off the top of my head where you would set the lobster fork.

Today (just a few hours ago actually), I turned in my final thesis.  I have been working on the project for the past nine months, and to see something so massive and overwhelming-feeling to completion, all neatly bound with a proper cover and title page, feels pretty incredible.  This year has been one of the most intellectually and emotionally challenging periods of time I have gone through, but I wouldn’t trade the year of grueling intellectual work and massive introspection for nine months spent on the lovely beaches of L.A. (though, honestly, at moments, quitting to go spend my life having lovely vegan brunches, regular mani-pedis, and weekend beach time felt pretty tempting).  And while I still have two research papers to finish before being able to officially sit around, drink wine, and allow myself to fall into a self-congradulatory stupor, I just had to share how satisfying today has been.

One of the mottos I have tried to live my life by is encompassed in Eleanor Roosevelt’s quotation: “Do the thing you think you cannot do.” Because you never know what you’re capable of until you try.

Oh, The Secret Garden, where do I begin? I love this book, this story, and the amazing 90s film adaptation of this book.  I love the magic that turns a broken place, and broken people, into whole,loved entities.  But even more than my sympathy with Mary Lennox and her resurgent garden, is my love of imagining the story that comes after this story, the epilogue of six to eight years later.

Why is that?  Think about it.  You have a young orphan girl who spent her childhood in India, blossoming into womanhood in the English countryside.  You have her torn between her nobleman cousin and her ladies maid’s younger brother who lives mostly in the wild and communicates with animals.  And then you get the backdrop of the Great War, raging across the Continent. Oh, and the geographic locality of moors, that’s right, the moors of gothic romance fame.  That’s the novel I want to read.  Would either boy enlist? Would Dickon be patriotic or a conscientious objector? How would Mary deal, being torn between the men she loves? Or between her heart and her duty?  I think thats a recipe for a bildungsroman if I ever heard of any. 

So this is my petition.  Someone, please, write this book.  I definitely don’t feel worthy enough to walk in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s footsteps.  But someone ought to.