Macbeth, MacDuff, social/political context, and being a man

I love to teach Macbeth to high school students because it is just packed full of so much humanity, and even though it is hundreds of years old, it is written in such a way that it is eternally relevant. 

My copy of Macbeth.

The other night a friend and I went to see a parking lot performance of the play (which was just brilliant for making theater happen safely for audiences during a pandemic). Even though I have read the play numerous times and seen the play performed numerous times, I was struck by how much the play relates to something I've seen being discussed lately in modern politics: 

What makes a man?

There seems to be a juxtaposition between Donald Trump as a "manly man" and Joe Biden as not because of showing affection to his son. I realize social media is not real life, but there seems to be this idea of a man as either 

1--physically strong, macho, won't back down, won't take no for an answer, grab 'em by the pussy

OR

2--affectionate with kids and dogs and therefore able to be taken advantage of. Rather than grabbing others by the pussy, this version of a man is that he is the pussy. 

A writer/professor I follow on Twitter recently wrote an article about this exact topic. 

I'm just going to acknowledge that it is stupid to have these polarities because manliness can be a lot of different things just as being a woman can be many things. A woman doesn't have to be maternal, just as a man doesn't have to be a clone of John Wayne. The context of the moment, though, is that there are two different men running for president who have drastically different "what a man is" personas. 

This is a central focus in Macbeth. Lady Macbeth gives her husband hell about having the balls to kill the king. "Be a man!" she more or less says to him. And so Macbeth becomes that "manly man" who ravages those around him, although after his first murder he does his killing mercilessly from a distance--he hires his murders out to others. He becomes paranoid and chaotic. 

On the other side, we have Macduff, whose wife and children Macbeth has someone else murder. When Macduff is told to "Dispute [their deaths] like a man," his reply shows the other option of what it means to be a man:

"I shall do so; But I must also feel it as a man, I cannot but remember such things were that were most precious to me." 

The entire play is a drama about the choices men make----to put ambition before everything else; to listen to others (in this case a lady) who insult them and badger them into "acting as a man" even when they know it is the wrong thing to do; to continue on the evil rampage because they've already gone too far and it's not worth it to turn back. 

It is always intellectually stimulating (those emotionally exhausting) when modern politics and Shakespeare's writing converge. 

I'm starting to feel differently about death

I have always been fascinated by death, and I doubt that will ever change. I have also always been terrified of death, although that bit seems to be changing. And yet, I've always understood suicide--the need/desire to end it all, to just be free of consciousness forever. 

The actual physicality of dying and decay is intriguing. 

This past summer I read Mary Roach's book Stiff, and I couldn't read it fast enough. I didn't know this place existed until I read this book. I regularly tell G that he should be a forensic doctor because he loves to poke at dead things or cut into preserved corpses (of worms, fish, etc). N has an interest in forensics, too. M gets "sicky" easily, so he will be the one who opts out of anything remotely related to blood and bone.

I have been reading the kids the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman for the past several months. I read this series probably 20 years ago before I had children, so I had forgotten a TON. 

The other night, though, we got to the point in The Amber Spyglass, where Lyra meets her Death, and I loved the idea that from the moment a person is born, their death essentially hangs with them through every experience, ready when the time comes to take their hand and gently escort them into the great beyond. Essentially, the death functions similarly to the soul. In this book, both are personified. 

I don't know what I believe about death...what happens after, although my biggest sense is nothing. You simply don't exist anymore. Just as my consciousness of life didn't happen at the moment of my birth, and I remember nothing of the "before" or my birth or the several years after my birth, I think death will be the same. 

A while back I listened to an audiobook by Barbara Ehrenreich titled Natural Causes, and there was a part that struck me:

"You can think of death as a tragic interruption of your life... or, more realistically, you can think of life as an interruption of an eternity of personal nonexistence, and see it as a brief opportunity to observe and interact with the living, ever-surprising world around us."

I think it is pretty normal to feel scared of death when you're young, but the older I get, the more I understand that death can begin to feel like a relief. This doesn't mean you don't want to live anymore, but it means that due to the physical burdens of living (fatigue, disease, aging bones and muscles, etc.), you are tired. There is a point when many people if they live long enough are simply exhausted. They don't actively wish to die but they are okay with the prospect of eternal "sleep" and rest. 

And yet, I also understand the desire to not exist anymore as a young person due to the confusion and the angst and the general unmoored feelings that a person can have when they are still raging at figuring things out or if depression has taken hold of them. 

Several years ago I spoke to a mom whose son was having suicidal thoughts, and she had never had those herself. She couldn't wrap her head around the idea, and so I explained to her that I had sort of always had suicidal thoughts. It was as strange to me to imagine a person never having such thoughts as it was to her to imagine someone having them at all. 

My dad's diagnosis with face/neck cancer this summer and his current chemotherapy (which is preventative since his cancer has not metastasized) has me tuned into mortality. For this to coincide with a pandemic that has taken over 200,000 lives makes it even scarier. 

I don't like to think of my parents dying, and yet being forced to reckon with it provides a silver lining. Last year when Dad had his open-heart surgery to repair a valve and was still in the hospital, I helped him out of bed one day and bathed his back while my mom went home to shower. I am not a sentimental person, but this was a profoundly important experience for me (and why are my eyes getting bleary right now.) 

Sorry. Needed a tissue. 

Helping my dad in that moment was one of the most meaningful experiences in my life, right up there with marrying and having children. Seeing my dad vulnerable was a gift. 

Damn. More tissues. 

Seeing my dad vulnerable then was a gift. Seeing my dad vulnerable now during his cancer is a gift.

It is not a gift I expected or want at all. AT ALL.

But to see it only as a burden and sadness misses a large part of the picture of what it means to be human and have a meaningful life. 

Nothing rhymes with 11

Dear M,

My bonus baby monkey boy is 11 now, and that is hard to believe. 

You've have changed a lot in the past year. 

Not only did your braces (Phase I) come off, you have finally, FINALLY been separating yourself a bit from your brother. You are no longer ruled so much by "Same thing as G" as you once were.

Your snark is definitely developing which is frequently hilarious for all of us. 

You continue to be the one person in the family who mispronounces words in your own unique way, usually putting accents on unique syllables. When we saw the movie "Gemini Man" listed on Netflix, you said "Gem-een-nee." We still laugh at the way you called a neighborhood dog Mur-reeeee a couple years ago (Murray). 

Like other 11-year-old boys, you are way into farting. Fortunately, you have not yet entered the "stinking from all areas and orifices" stage. You still pretty willingly take baths. 

Your 5th-grade year certainly looks different with doing virtual school, but you have been so responsible and attentive to your work which makes me proud. I'm not sure what you'll be when you grow up, but based on how much I have to tug things out of you, I'm not certain writing will be your top career prospect. And we know you get sicky from all things blood, bruise, and wound-oriented so nursing or doctoring are out. 

One day when we walked to the new construction in the back of the neighborhood, you said it might be fun to build houses. We will see, I guess.

You continue to be the cat whisperer in the house, at least to the one with white paws. She will follow you anywhere and everywhere. Up the stairs, down the stairs; it doesn't matter. She often sleeps at the end of your bed or lies on your desk to keep you company. 

You've discovered how fun it is to take pics on my phone and you regularly go without a shirt, no matter the weather. Often you do both at the same time.

I hope you have a good year even though coming up to 11 has been all pandemic(y) and not super great. Fortunately, you've got a positive attitude and sense of humor which will help you manage whatever life throws at you. 

I love you bunches, my favorite ear twiddler.

Momma

He's mostly unclean, and now he's 13

 Dear G,

You are now in the greasy stage of your life. 

Thirteen years ago, you were in what I call the "wormy" stage of life when you just wiggled and slept and didn't do anything to make me think you were a vertebrate. 

You were a worm, but a cute and chubby one. 

Anyway, now at 13 (officially) your hair is literally so greasy that I refuse to hug you some days until or unless you take a bath and wash it. 

You are approximately 2 inches shorter than me now when barefooted and you are rock solid. I know this because when you sometimes come downstairs in the morning and sit on my lap, it is like a gigantic boulder of butt muscle has planted itself on my thighs.  I know this will only get worse the bigger and taller you get. 

But it will one day make for some hilarious photo recreations. 

You are more and more a young man. (With nice hair, I must say.)

Last week you got braces, which you wanted to go ahead and get done because as you said, "7th grade sucks anyway."

The older you get, the more like your dad you become.

Like the pandemic and online school has totally been NBD for you. You and your dad are both like, "What? Talk to people? Like....in real life?" Staying at home and playing video games is what you were born to do. 

The pandemic did put a huge kink in all the work you had done with your OCD therapy, but you are doing ok. The two of us went out to buy you new shoes last weekend and we finished in 30 minutes. And neither of us yelled or came out bloody. It was a miracle!

You also got new shorts and shirts (size men's small) this summer and have worn them without incident.

Sometimes you are a giant pain in the butt, but we realized at some point that without you in the family, we would have like zero memorable stories from vacations and stuff.

If it wasn't for you getting your hand stuck in the lobster statue in Edisto Island, we might not even remember that trip, for example.

If you hadn't thrown yourself dramatically on large rocks in the Rocky Mountains because we made you hike and you were overwhelmed (and also a drama queen), we'd have no hilarious pictures to look at now.  

And this summer you were the only one to catch a big-ass fish when we had our family vacation!

You have always, always forged your own unique path, which has been a lot of a headache and also funny, but usually only when we're past it. 

Except for this which always was and always will be hilarious. 

(Gangnam Style, yo)

Being your mom has made me learn a lot about patience and anxiety and the need to be chill since together we are both very low on chill. 

Being your mom has helped me be a better person, I think. 

I'm so proud of the young man you are becoming, and I hope I can guide you to be genuinely yourself in a world that likes to pigeonhole people. 

I love you, weirdo.

Momma

Captain's log: It's all meh

 It's day "Who Knows" here on the ship.

I'd like to tell the world and Mother Nature that me dealing with perimenopause is a TERRIBLE time to also have a worldwide pandemic meaning I have zero time alone in my house. 

Someone is always around...even if they aren't bothersome. And sometimes just being not bothersome but around is really, really annoying. 

Also sometimes the pre-teen comes upstairs near my former-dining-room-now-office with his headset on yapping at his friend, and it is all I can do not to strangle him because of all the dumb that is seeping out of his mouth and into the air. 

The kids are doing ok with online school. They like sleeping in. They like not being in a school building for 7+ hours. 

I'm ok with online school because it is giving some structure to their days. 

We're not setting the world on fire with genius over here, but we weren't before the pandemic either. 

I have actually been subbing 3 days a week for the past 3 weeks, which is ok. (Although I will not be sad when it is over because, whether it is online or not, it is still subbing. I don't do it for the joy; I do it for the regular paycheck.)

My left eye is red today which may be due to getting a flu shot yesterday, or it may be due to not sleeping well on Sunday night. Sometimes that happens, and it is annoying.

My dermatologist had to cut a spot off the back of my leg. She asked me if that was ok. I told I didn't want it to begin with and she could have it. 

My dad had a big ole cancerous spot cut out of his face last week and has been doing his best impression of an extra on The Pirates of the Caribbean movie (in terms of big slashy scars on the face). While the cancer hasn't spread to lymph nodes or beyond, his doctors want him to do chemo in addition to radiation. While we are happy it hasn't spread and things could be worse, the word chemo just feels heavy even if it is preventative. 

G becomes an actual full-fledged teenager in days, and he is all kinds of almost the same size as me. He is wearing a size 9 wide men's shoe now, which is trippy as heck. 

And N is talking playing field hockey in college which is only like minutes away.

Someone from a recruiting outfit called me and didn't seem to understand that "I don't like sports and haven't videotaped my kid play because that would interfere with the READING I do at her games." 

Yes, I totally said this to him. I'm pretty sure no one has ever said this to him based on his response.

I have a dentist appointment this week.

So life is not bad by a long shot but it feels so, so meh. 

Shit pot stirrer or the person who wants the shit out of the pot and cleaned?

It has occurred to me (and perhaps to some people who know me) that I might be thought of as a person who stirs the shit pot.

However, I don't seek out drama. The reason I have long been Beautification Chairperson at my kids' elementary school is that I hate drama, cliques, and discussing/debating things that aren't gonna matter 5 months from now (such as what kind of cheap Oriental Trading festival prizes to get). 

I am perfectly happy being not-in-the-middle of things.

I am perfectly happy to extend grace to others. 

I don't complain to the manager. I don't leave bad Yelp reviews. 

However, if I see crap going on that is consistently corrupt, unjust, inconsistent, poorly managed, or thoughtless, I may say and/or do something IF such things are likely to matter 5 months from now. 

Unfortunately, I think that for some people, a requirement for being a "team player" means being the type of person who blindly goes along with anyone without thinking and/or making necessary changes. 

I am not a wet-carpet, sure-go-ahead-and-walk-all-over-me type of person. 

Last week, I nominated myself for the SBDM at N's high school. 

If I am elected, great. Maybe I can help make good things better and bad things ok.

If I am not elected, great. Then I don't have to listen in on meetings that will almost certainly go on longer than I think is necessary and/or fruitful. 

Last week, I also went to tryouts to help "monitor" the mask-wearing by the girls on the field hockey team. 

I don't actually care if they have a season. 

I have zero  (-200) interest in sports. 

Sure, I would console with N about any sadness/disappointment she would have if the season didn't happen or ends early, but I also think about people during civil wars who give up EVERYTHING for years, and I think a lost season due to a pandemic is relatively small beans. 

I called out some girls who kept pulling down their masks, which I'm sure they didn't appreciate. 

Some people might think this was stirring a shit pot. I look at it as trying to keep the pot COVID-free so these girls can have a season that they (but not I) care about. 

Another way in which I might be considered a shit-pot-stirrer is that I don't do things because someone somewhere decided that this is what a person "should" do. I like to do some actual thinking about why I'm doing whatever I'm doing or not doing. 

If I'm being paid to do or not do something, I consider that. 

If it is illegal to do or not do something, I consider that. 

If it harms or potentially harms another person's body or feelings, I consider that. 

But if it doesn't meet any of those criteria, I may very likely decide I'm gonna do what I want. 

For example, last night at N's game before which the national anthem instrumental was played, I remained seated. 

I wasn't getting paid. I didn't break the law. And I didn't harm anyone. 

I personally think playing the national anthem should be like telling someone you love them. It should be something special, meaningful, carefully selected, and meant when it is done. It makes a little sense for the exception for the national anthem to be played for national leagues (NBA, NFL). I have no problem with the national anthem at special government events/functions. Olympics games....go for it.

But average Tom, Dick, and Harry elementary, middle school, high school, college sporting event? 

C'mon. 

Did my not standing hurt someone's feelings? (And yes, I have thought about that.)

It may have hurt someone's sensibilities, but those are not the same as feelings. 

If all of this aforementioned stuff means I'm a shit-pot stirrer, well, I guess I'll accept the title. 

But I respectfully disagree with that assessment. 

Adjustment to online school during COVID (and what school is and isn't)

Before the district made the decision to go to full online school, I had asked N how she felt about the possibility of going to school in-person.

As the oldest and most social of my children, I felt like she would be the one most impacted by being at home. 

Her response surprised me.

She said she didn't trust fellow students to make smart choices for themselves and others and that going to school in person would cause her anxiety.

I had determined that if the district went back in person I was going to have my kids do online work and resign as a sub. 

Things for these first days have been somewhere between alright and crappy, depending on the moment, which I think sums up the entirety of 2020. 

It's not fantastic; it's not knocking anyone's socks off, but we're hanging in. 

If nothing else, the kids have a routine again.

And there ARE positives to this online school thing, such as not having middle and high school students wake up at 5:30 in the morning in order to be at school by 7:20. 

I'm enjoying not driving all over creation all the time.

I'm glad my kids are not having to do the reams of waiting that is just part of in-school school. Waiting in the gym before they can go to their classes in the morning. Waiting for announcements to begin. Waiting to line up and then waiting in line for the doofuses to get in line or stop talking. Waiting in line at the bathroom. Waiting in line in the cafeteria. Waiting at the end of the day after they've gotten their stuff ready. (I don't think most parents have any clue how much time in school is spent not doing "learning" as they envision it.)

And that's not all the waiting. There is also the waiting that kids do whether they pick up things quickly, in which case they finish up and are told to "read to themselves" which is also known as "waiting." The kids who don't pick up things quickly have to wait for the teacher to move on from another student that needs individual attention.

I'm not saying this to suggest in-school school is bad. What I'm saying is in-school school is imperfect. And just like when someone is deceased (which in a way is what COVID has done to in-person school), many people are making in-person school out to be the GOAT. We've now endowed sainthood on something that really didn't deserve it; we only act this way because we don't have it now. 

I have modified some of my expectations about things I want my kids to know and do mostly because I'm becoming very good at asking the question, "WHO DECIDED?"

Like "Who decided that it is the failing of civilization if kids don't learn cursive, and why am I allowing myself to think this is the case?"

So I'm having the boys practice their full legal names because, really, this is all they will ever need to sign in most cases. 

And if they decide to become scholars of primary source material they will be motivated on their own to figure it out. 

I think COVID can be an opportunity to parents, students, and really, anyone, to have the opportunity to ask "Who decided?" about a lot of things.