Post Dated (No More)

This is an entry I didn’t post the day I wrote it. My resolution this year is to post.

From November 25, 2006.

This morning I finished reading “A Drinking Life” by Pete Hamill. I thoroughly enjoyed it, burning through most of it this weekend. I love memoirs and biographies of artists, writers, and observers. For reasons I can’t fully comprehend, I love personal history and the sense of connectedness I feel through my own experiences. I almost always see my parents in these books. When Pete Hamill explains his epic childhood searches for ‘Bomba books’, consoles a friend by sharing comics, or is awed witnessing the sky above Brooklyn roaring with hundreds of B-17 bombers, I think of my dad.

I think of my mom when Pete Hamill writes as compassionately and as plainly as the McCourt brothers in describing the stifling effect of the ‘sin of pride’ and it’s climax in Roman Catholic homes of the early to mid 20th century -and its influence on women.

“…the assumption that if you rise above an acceptable level of mediocrity, you were guilty of the sin of pride. You were to accept your place and stay in it for the rest of your life; the true rewards would be given to you in heaven, after you were dead. There was ferocious pressure to conform, to avoid breaking out of the pack; self-denial was the supreme virtue. …The boy who chose another road was accused of being Full of Himself; he was isolated, assigned a place outside the tribe. Be ordinary was the message, maintain anonymity; tamp down desires or wild dreams. Some boys withered. And the girls were smothered worse than the boys. They could be nuns or wives, or Brides of Christ or mothers of us all. There were almost no other possibilities...”

In high and perfect contrast to my weekend reading was watching Madonna’s “The Confession Tour; London” on NBC the night before Thanksgiving with friends. Madonna must truly be the final answer to the Bride of Christ. She is female pride perfected and incarnate.

http://www.petehamill.com/

http://www.confessionstour.com/