Cognizance

"You look so much like your father!'

Ugh. Please, lady. Stop. I do not look like my father. At all. 

I remember when I was in middle school, newly pubescent and angry, my political and social ideologies still in those nascent stages of indignant ignorance with the dew of virgin childhood still fresh on me. I was a reformer! A fighter for the liberal causes of equality and justice! A proud and unapologetic atheist! I imagined myself to be part of some advanced, intellectual society that my parents were too old-fashioned, too incapable of joining. This internal pugnacity birthed a kind of war between my father and I that always existed in the household, a result not only of our completely differing views on whatever, but also our striking similarities in personality.

I suppose there has always been a sort of unspoken competition between my father and I. We are both so very alike, but any similarities that exist are only manifest to me now. My father came to America as a medical student. He had served in a residency in Korea for a while, but after his arrival in America, he had to learn English and relearn his dusty medical textbooks in order to take the USMLE. I remember myself as a five-year-old, sitting beside stacks of physiology and pathology textbooks, whose laminated covers were titled with acronyms and foreign words I could barely comprehend as I perfected my blooming skills in drawing. I suppose, in that way, we were--are--both students of the West. 

However, we were the angry students of the West. I grew up loving America, relishing in it, staunchly ready to defend the country I flourished in. My father, however, came to despise certain elements of it. Thus, our household, occupied with two pugnacious debaters, would go to war over aspects of this society that I loved and he hated. 

We argued over organized religion and the existence of a higher power and American social programs and racism and finding one's cultural identity and loads of other stuff I can't even recall and probably had no right to be debating on. 

Now, as Manning put it, I am no longer a "rebel in the household, trying to impress him with my education or my view on religion", no longer fighting a dictatorial enemy that never really existed to begin with. I wish I could take back all the hurtful words I flung at my him, all those oddly tense nights filled with a silence that would break any father's heart.

I've come to accept the stark differences that we share. Or perhaps my attitude has not yet fully developed into acceptance because whenever he makes some comment that I completely disagree with, I fall into a state of resignation, but that fire, that justice! that used to occupy my psyche is gone. Now, when people say that I look so much like my father, I'm happy. I'm proud, and I'll look back at my dad and sheepishly chuckle at those nights when I'd be screaming into a mirror, an older, wiser, more foreign, male version of myself. 

Mea culpa. 

John Singer Sargent

(Unfortunately, I do not remember where I found this painting, nor do I recall its title.)

By John Singer Sargent

The soft lamp of his room barely illuminates while
My boy reads in the soft shadow.
I don't mind. I steal glances.
I enjoy this time together, us
Just reading in the dim lighting
Investing in some wild and terrific secret that we ought
Not to discuss right now--
Just enjoy this time together, us.

I want to adjust the candle
To better illustrate my dreams
Perhaps make them reality.
To notice the thinly veiled streams on his hand, pale fingers
Twitch slightly, as he brings them up to turn the page
The nails of which stained a blue and black after a day.
Wish they would come up to me,
Hold me as dearly as he turns the page.

The room is dark.
That's quite alright, I'm used to it.
Shouldn't we turn on the other lamp?
No, really. I like it like this.
Fine.

I steal glances.
The light, a warm, buttery flicker
That softens the edges, blurs the lines, blurs any distinction
Between dreams and reality
That spills lazily over him, barely affording me
Any accurate observations.
It is a fluid, a watery substance that cannot be willed
Any more than its physics.

The kind of light that softens the irregularity,
Smooths the rough planes of loneliness
That, like jagged rocks painted on an empty canvas of sky,
Are only exacerbated by its obnubilating effects.

But I don't mind.
Because if he is not my boy,
I would still enjoy this time together, us.
To better illustrate my dreams. 

Stork Theory: Grade A: The Market for a Yale Woman's Eggs

This article was, quite simply, very strange. Very strange.

The whole manner and process in which David and Michelle, even the original author, discussed "eggs" left me feeling very uncomfortable. For the purposes of full disclosure, I was a bit thrown off—okay, very thrown off—by the very mechanical and businesslike style in which they handled their potential child.

This is supposed to be the spontaneous and beautiful miracle of life! Full of surprises and unimagined complexity. How could they even hope for perfection?

I remember how pregnancy and such things seemed to me as a child. When I was in the 4th grade (ish?) I picked up a Newsweek magazine, and, wanting to feel smart and mature for my age, flipped to a random article and forced myself to read the whole thing.

This article was on infertility and its effects on couples. Yippee!

The article never directly mentioned sex or how the whole pregnancy thing worked, but, from this, I was able to make the following conclusions:

·      Most women eventually end up pregnant.

·      If you want a child, you must be married and just wish really hard until it finally happens.

·      Even when married though, some women face the possibility of not becoming pregnant.

·       The older you get, the fewer chances you have of becoming pregnant.

·       Women have eggs. (Whatever that means.)

·       The stork theory is pure rubbish.

But from Grade A, it seems as though the whole "perfect child" theory is also rubbish, an insincere and pretentious attempt at confirming the supposition of an ideal reality, manifested in the impossible expectations and hopes for an inconceivable (pun intended) child.

In fact, the whole vagueness of the piece reflects how alien the whole process seemed to me, and no doubt overwhelming to the author as well. David's refusal to reveal anything about himself and his situation left me feeling very confused and with a bad impression of this "disturbing" man (I'm sorry, but he sounds like an asshole). It also left me thinking: what are the motives for David and Michelle? The very businesslike and ambiguous manner made it seem as though they weren't doing this because they had no other method of conception—to actually have a child—but instead to create an inhumane set of selective genes. A sort of trophy, one on an endless list of accomplishments to parade around town for others to envy.

"As a cripple, I swagger."

If you type "define cripple" into the Google search engine, you will read this at the top of the page:

crip·ple

ˈkripəl/

noun

1. 1.

   datedoffensive

   a person who is unable to walk or move properly because of disability or injury to their back or legs.

After Googling this woman, Nancy Mairs, I stumbled upon another jewel of a piece, On Being A Cripple. Despite being allowed only a small excerpt, I also found her candid and unapologetic honesty in addressing disability with a blunt "take it or leave it" attitude.

Upon an initial reading, I wondered why she had to label herself a cripple at all. Aren't we supposed to avoid labelling? Haven't we been warned of the self-detrimental effects of labelling and categorization of people?

However, upon some reflection, I realized that the word "cripple" does not serve as a label or a modifier, but instead as a small adjective, the kind that everyone must use to describe themselves in some way or another.

With the word cripple, Mairs accomplishes two things:

1. Cripple is actually less of a 'labelling' word than handicapped or disabled, as those two words imply some permanent or all-encompassing disadvantage to her situation and serve only a superficial euphemistic purpose in describing her condition. And the word cripple also has a unique "accuracy with which it describes [her] condition: [she has] lost full use of [her] limbs."

2. With the word cripple, Mairs chooses to call only herself this because "society is no readier to accept crippledness than to accept death, war, sex, sweat, or wrinkles."

"Perhaps I want them to wince."