Fabulous Friday

Ha! I made it! My first Fabulous Friday post in what seems like ages. The lady to the left is Winifred Anna Cavendish-Bentinck (née Dallas-Yorke), 6th Duchess of Portland, painted 1912 by de Laszlo. I adore her magenta cape. Every girl needs one of those!


I have to tell you I'm more than a little relieved that I didn't anger anyone with my last post. A previous boss used to scold me for being idealistic, and while I understand that he worried I was being naive, I still feel that having ideals and striving for them is important. We are admonished to love God with all our strength and our neighbords as ourselves. God is easy to love; God is Love. That guy sitting next to you in traffic flashing vulgar hand signs and spewing venom at the elderly lady in front of him - he is harder to love.

I hope you all have wonderful weekends. The Good Doctor has ordered me back to the hospital on Monday for four more fun days with toxic cocktails (a.k.a. 2nd round of chemo). I've got to get my little bag of entertainment packed. I thought I would leave you, gentle readers, with a couple snippets of my own fiction so look for that to go up on Sunday. The really good news though: not a single evil nurse nightmare. That, ladies and jellyspoons, is called improvement.

Fear of Other

Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations is one of my favorite television shows. The idea being that you can learn a lot about other cultures by how and what they eat. This week the crew travelled to Saudi Arabia at the invitation of a viewer, a woman by the name of Danya Alhamrani. A show filmed in a country that places very strict limitations on the travel of women seemed doomed to failure, but quite the contrary it was a fascinating look into a rarely seen culture. Danya was an amazing hostess and did an excellent job of giving the audience a look into everyday life in Saudi Arabia.

Growing up, my parents both painted and there were National Geographics all over the house. I could barely wait for the new one to arrive in the mail. From a very early age I wanted to learn more about how people all over the world lived their lives. Heck for awhile I wanted to become a National Geographic photographer (until the realities of mosquitoes and limited bathing set in). That being said, I was born in one of the most xenophobic regions of the U.S.A. The Ozark Mountain region is notorious for not exactly welcoming outsiders with open arms. Even I, who was born but did not grow up in the Ozarks, must answer the ubiquitous "Whose your family?" question before thawing the chilly facade.

Since the attack on the World Trade Towers I have noticed a shift in the U. S. in how "others" are viewed that is much more like the attitudes in my hometown. We, as a nation, have become distrustful of people who do not look and sound like we do and ever more willing to marginalize their rights to make Us feel safer. You can see it in changing immigration policy and in the way we treat and talk about Others. You hear so many more comments about "Those people" and "Them" and the every growing list of racial and ethnic slurs. While I can sympathize with the fear from which these attitudes spring, I do not approve of the manifestations it has taken. Fear is never a wise position from which to make decisions.

Ironically, we are a nation of Other. The English, Irish, German, Italians, Russians, Africans, etc. - none of these are the indigenous peoples of the Americas. In fact, if there was ever a better case for xenophobia it would be in the treatment of the Maya, Navajo, Cherokee, Inuit, and hundreds of other tribes by European settlers on this continent. So this idea that somehow it's Us against Them is pretty ridiculous. We are, all of us, Them.

Am I offended that women in Saudi Arabia can't drive cars, can't vote, and must be completely covered in public? Sure I am. I'm also offended that the sport of bullfighting still continues in Spain and Mexico. I am offended that female infants are sometimes killed in India and China because male children are preferred. Nor do I wish to participate in the African Masai tribe's tradition of drinking cows' blood.

But here's the trick, you don't have to agree with every aspect of a culture to learn about it, appreciate it or maybe find beauty in it.

Beauty

It probably isn't hard to guess that I'm a huge Pre-Raphaelite fan. As my darling Algernon Swinburne once said, "To have read the greatest works of any great poet, to have beheld or heard the greatest works of any great painter or musician, is a possession added to the best things of life." The concept of "art for art's sake" and the fragile and fleeting nature of beauty inspire me.

So, when I was sorting through my hope chest and ran across a beautiful set of demitasse that I had been given as a wedding gift (10 years ago!), I was embarrassed. What a waste to have these delicate confections languishing in storage!

I think we all have items like these, fine jewelry or family china, that we don't use or leave locked away for fear of breaking or losing them. But beautiful things were never meant to be hidden, and beauty, in all its incarnations, only lasts a short while.

So, I unwrapped my gilt treasures and put them in the cabinet and whether it is common hot chocolate or fine cappuccino, they will be used and admired.