Contemplating My Navel (Personal Blog)

Enamored With Enamel (August 14, 2012)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

smile

 

 

When I was six years old, I was involved in a controversial radiator accident that remains the stuff of family legend. While engaging in a spirited Sesame Street dance routine with my younger sister Jenny, was I pushed into my grandmother’s low-rising living room metal unit or did I accidentally trip and fall? I am sure you can guess who stands on which side of the issue and it is unlikely to be definitively settled. This was 1984 and my Italian granny’s Chicago apartment was not wired with surveillance equipment. Regardless of the impetus the immediate result was that my mouth was destroyed.

Over the next 18 months, I lost nearly all of my baby teeth, dislodged as they were by the blunt force trauma of the accident. As the adult teeth took their time growing, there was very little in my gums to anchor them. The end result was a hot, discombobulated mess that left me ashamed to smile for the rest of my maturation. This was compounded by lax parenting and a certain level of poverty that left orthodontic care out of reach.

I have many complaints about my former marriage but one kudo I will grant my ex-husband is that he understood the source of misery that was my smile, or lack thereof, the awful taunting I had endured at the hands of peers. For the better part of 25 years, you could label any display of pleasure more of a wry grimace. I developed a habit of placing my right hand over my mouth when I giggled that stubbornly persists to this day. Nearly every photo, except for the rare snap that caught me unawares, found my chompers firmly hidden behind frozen lips. My upper canines were particularly unsightly and there is a snap in my wedding album, one that otherwise conveys bliss, that brings stinging tears of shame to my eyes whenever viewed. It embodies everything ugly and unsightly that greeted me in the mirror from the second grade until I was a grown woman of 31 years old.

I started a tremendously painful, time consuming and expensive assortment of dental work that involved oral surgery, deep cleaning, cavity filling, and partial tooth replacement, culminating in three years of brace wearing, orthodontic adjustment and permanent retainers. Six years and $14,000 later, I was quite literally a new woman. As I found myself glued to the looking glass, in love with the replacement image like the Narcissus of legend, I wondered if maybe I ought to be ashamed of the price I paid for pride. Ultimately I decided that the time and money spent was not in the quest of self-love but a reprieve from self-hate, funds that had to be well-spent if the production of a camera at friend and family events no longer had me fleeing the scene. So many recorded, shared memories from which I had been formerly absent in mind and body….

But there’s been a repercussion I never anticipated. I am addicted to over the counter whitening products, jonesing like a heroin addict for the ultimate pearly grin. I can’t stop using them. I have sampled every brand, every sub-variety and am now a one-woman Consumer Reports listing of the merits, demerits, strengths and weaknesses of strips, trays, drops, pastes and powders. Unless I have a scheduled dental cleaning in sight, I am rarely without my aesthetic weapon of choice and I figure like any other good habit done in overkill, I am going to pay an eventual price.

My enamel is in great shape as are my gums, so say the professionals. It’s rather ironic however that the pendulum swung from absolute disregard for the state of my teeth, appalled as I was by their appearance for so long, to an obsessive compulsion for their pristine good looks.

Desert Rose (August 9, 2012)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

Desert Rose

 

 

I am not a botanist. I possess the opposite of a green thumb. I can kill the most resilient of houseplants like cacti and bamboo while meaning them no harm. This woman just doesn’t speak their language.

I am also the proud resident of a concrete jungle. On a 4:30 am run yesterday morning, I made a semi-serious game of jogging a wide berth around scurrying creatures of the night that I could only hope were rabbits and squirrels foraging for pre-dawn meals. I can’t imagine a vacation less relaxing than camping.

I am generally indifferent toward the natural world, yet I can’t help but foster a begrudging admiration for this purple flowering plant in my apartment building’s courtyard, species unknown. It’s been an evil summer in the Midwest – sweltering daytime highs, precious little rain. Yet it seems like the less nourishment it receives the stronger and more beautiful it grows. Each evening when I return home, its colorful buds are just a little taller and fuller, just a little brighter, the stalk reaching ever so slightly higher even as surrounding weeds and dry brush would have it strangled.

This persevering little beauty reminds me of my own journey as a writer, an expedition far from complete. It’s a grueling campaign that began with a loud internal thumping, a warning that I was on the wrong path, a crash course with unhappiness predicated upon a willful disregard of personal truth.

This voice was in charge: “You can’t be a scribbler. There’s no future in it. Climb the corporate ladder. Make that money and your husband and family proud. Writing is selfish, maybe even destructive.” That was the sand added to the cement mix provided by my immediate support system at the time. This foundation was almost, but not quite enough to choke the sapling, the murmur that countered, “But you have ideas and thoughts you have to share, even if no one reads them. You are growing weaker and sicker from the effort of pretending to be that which you are not.”

Inevitably, an ingrained need to please and maintain the status quo lost to a force much more powerful but there was oh so much collateral damage: a foundered marriage, a splintered family, isolation, depression, fear, regret, cruel words and actions that can never be recanted. So many times I wondered if perhaps writing was too damned selfish and costly. When he said, “I never should have let you,” I bristled at the presumption but wondered if I had secretly logged my name amongst the misguided with a “big idea” that proved too expensive.

Marooned, thirsty and malnourished, this plant looked for sunlight and a healthy place to grow with the support of sundry friends and family who believed in the effort no matter how foolish and risky it appeared. And with every little nibble of success – a published piece here, an award there, a reinforcing compliment from a fellow writer – the roots of certainty dug themselves in the sand a little more stubbornly. I am not Gail Collins, David Sedaris or Garrison Keillor yet. I may never have the career of those esteemed wordsmiths and I can live that with it. But I have a career nonetheless. I gave up almost everything I knew to strive for it too – and it didn’t kill me.

Like my friend the little purple shoot, I will keep growing and changing, with or without the common elements of growth too often taken for granted. Thankfully as I evolve and learn to believe, the love and sustenance craved is organically materializing. The purple plant, my own desert rose, clearly doesn’t need my help, but I seek to pay tribute to her inspiration with a prosaic rain dance.

Vaudeville and Ramen Noodles (July 31, 2012)

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marx-duck-soup-dvd

 

 

I have legitimate stressors. For the past two months, my hair has been falling out and I’ve been suffering intermittent migraines with attacks of vomiting that seem impervious to mitigation. My symptoms defy logic, appearing at random times of day, regardless of whether I have eaten, slept, exercised, consumed alcohol or feel anxious. I have an appointment with a fancy downtown neurologist next month and in the interim, I ingest three daily medications that lower my heart rate and blood pressure, making exercise and other strenuous activities a challenge, especially in record-setting Chicago heat.

For the third time in 15 months, the ceiling in my third floor walk-up, studio apartment is literally crashing in. The irony is that after months of drought, two days of heavy rains were more than the roof of a century-old building could bear and so once again, I brought out the thirsty towels and called the superintendent. Only this time he uttered the words “structurally unsound” and I may be looking for a new abode less than halfway into my current lease.

I miss parts of my family. The 1-2 punch of divorce and cancer in 2011 and confrontation with historical coping mechanisms that no longer proved effective, led us to a late-year estrangement that was initially necessary but now feels like a pointless, lonely standoff from which I no longer recognize how to disengage. It takes two to tango but only one to hold out an olive branch.

Most likely due to some combination of all of the above, I’m lately plagued with garish, confusing nightmares that represent different stages and elements of my past that converge, overpowering a variety of sleep aids, to rouse me from slumber in cold sweats.

However stubbornly and defiantly, in the midst of so much uncertainty and turmoil, and where in the past, I would have succumbed to inertia and depression, I am energized and upbeat. Why? In a word: love. It’s all vaudeville and ramen noodles in my world, all dancing, comedy and ease.

Romney’s Latest Scandal: Twittergate? (July 24, 2012)

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romney-followers-3098-20120722-90

 

 

During the 2008 Presidential race, then-candidate Obama showed his competitors how to leverage the Internet and a variety of social media platforms to reinvigorate the notion of a grassroots campaign for the 21st Century. It was largely upon the shoulders of individuals who reposted and retweeted his messages that the POTUS was carried to victory – by small donors who contributed their last $100, those who believed that the nation could ill-afford another four years of Republican top-down cynicism disguised as patriotism, morally and fiscally bankrupting the nation. Don’t like continued tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy during a time of war? Then the terrorists win!

It is a savvy marketing template that ensuing candidates from both parties have sought to emulate, with varying levels of success. Former Maverick John McCain captured the public imagination however momentarily with his selection of social media darling Sarah Palin as his running mate, unfortunately learning the hard way that stupidity is no more appealing in the digital age, but we can never take that moment of cultural zeitgeist away from the Republican ticket. All credit goes to the Obama team for forcing all walks of political dinosaur into accepting new media as part of the deal. It does not matter if one appreciates the value of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and the like. They are modern campaign tools that one must utilize in order to compete. We can never turn back the clock.

And as social media strategy becomes synonymous with campaign activity, reports of potential misuse become a common feature of the news cycle. For example, this morning Yahoo News ran a story via Mashable: “Mitt Romney Sees Sudden Unexplained Spike in Twitter Followers.” At first glance this appears to be an unlikely tale of crashing bore Romney enjoying unexpected appeal in the Twitterverse. Could it be that dull messaging is somehow inverted when permitted only 140 characters?

Ah but no. To delve deeper into writer Alex Fitzpatrick’s story is to uncover a common feature of new Republicanism: if you can’t engender love the old-fashioned way through sound policy and dynamic personality, just go out and buy it. After Romney’s Twitter feed gained a plethora of new followers over the weekend – 23,926 on Friday, 93,054 on Saturday and 25,432 on Sunday – Zach Green of 140elect.com, a blog which monitors Twitter trends relative to the presidential election, couldn’t help but notice per the Mashable piece that, “analysis indicates that Romney hasn’t seen a noticeable uptick in other metrics, such as mentions, which would suggest Romney was getting these followers organically.”

In other words, there are no more people interacting with he of the slick hair on Twitter than before. Well then, what’s the dilly yo? Do we really believe that nearly 150,000 individuals suddenly couldn’t resist the bon mots of the Romneybot on a weekend when campaign activity was suspended? Sometimes the easiest answer is the right one. For whatever reason, the campaign bought the followers, in a wrongheaded, simplistic attempt to make Mittens appear beloved. As the Mashable piece highlights:

“Zac Moffatt, the Romney campaign’s digital director, has denied buying Twitter followers. Moffatt has in the past stressed that his strategy revolves around targeted engagement and not simply accumulating massive numbers of new followers. Buying fake followers doesn’t mesh well with that approach (plus, follower totals mean very little for politicians if real voters aren’t interacting with the message being sent).”

So the Romney campaign has flip-flopped on a previously stated position? The hell you say! Now granted this is not the type of scandal for which a Congressional investigation must be called. It is merely another example of how very out of touch Team Romney is with reality. Did they think no one would notice this latest shell game? Hide your tax returns! Change your tune on health care reform! Buy some Twitter followers! But all the money in the world can’t make you a real, relatable homo sapiens Mittens. The human touch can’t be purchased.

The Reflex (July 17, 2012)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

“Every little thing the reflex does
Leaves you answered with a question mark”

– Duran Duran

On Sunday evening, my boyfriend and I were walking back from a quick dinner at the local Wendy’s franchise. It was t-minus two hours until the Season 5 premiere of Breaking Bad, an event I had been anticipating for several months. I was sipping on a Strawberry Frosty Shake he’d gotten “for himself,” knowing full well he doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth and I’d be likely to consume it. Acquainted with me for years, he intuitively understands that a second hand dessert somehow leaves behind fewer traces of guilt.

We crossed the street, he with a firm grip on my left hand, when we heard the familiar sound of squealing tires. We both rotated just in time to see the pickup truck and SUV collide in the middle of the intersection, a sequence of events that couldn’t have taken more than a second. But I can’t report on the denouement because like a mother sparrow whose nest was under attack, he used my left arm to whip me around behind him protectively. Then, with a display of Gumby-like dexterity, he moved one hand to shield my face while manipulating the other to retrieve a cigarette from the pack in his front pocket.

Moments is too long a duration to describe how quickly events moved, but as the iconic pop band Duran Duran concluded for us in the 1980s, my boyfriend’s reflexes left me answered with a question mark. Of all the options his fight or flight response could have chosen, my safety and smoking a cigarette were the two deemed most critical.

The accident occurred at least 50 feet from where we stood rooted to the pavement with other passerby. But it wasn’t until the adrenaline simmered and we saw a dog and a small girl emerge from the wrecked pickup unharmed that I began to reflect on what it all meant for us. We were never in danger, or to put it more succinctly, I never was, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

Time was I didn’t think I was the traditional type. I didn’t want or need a man to hold open a door for me or pull out a chair or even pay the bill. I’m an independent woman and can take care of myself. But was that my genuine ideology or simply a response to a lack of kindly treatment? It’s often easier when starved to simply go with a claim to not being hungry.

As the sirens began to wail and emergency vehicles arrived on the scene, I met his eyes and found myself speechless with gratitude. Without thinking I said “thank you.” He returned my gaze, perplexed, smoke wafting from his now relaxed right hand and asked “What for baby?”

“I can’t ignore what I just saw. You mean what you say. You’ll take care of me, without waiting for more information or consent. Thank you. You’ve told me to judge your love based on empirical evidence (he’s a scientist by profession) and you just gave me some.”

As we finished the walk to his apartment, I wrestled with the usual existential questions: Why? Do I deserve that kind of instinctual care? Would I have behaved the same way? Until it occurred to me that his reflexes just are. Whatever answers my neurotic mind could spit out are rendered meaningless. Whatever I think of myself, I can’t control what his synapses decide is most worth defending.