Aunt Erma's Cope Book (11 page)

I remember going to a wedding of the daughter of a friend. The bride wore something old/something new/ something borrowed/something blue and it was the same thing. A pair of jeans. She had met her husband when he was living with her girl friend. I remember the organ played a hymnlike melody that was hauntingly familiar. I couldn't identify it. Then it came to me while they were exchanging their vows. It was “Days of Wine and Roses.”

The next time I went to the library, I asked if there was a book on modern manners and morals and the librarian recommended Contemporary Etiquette That's Awriiite.

In checking over the index, I discovered things had changed since Amy Vanderbilt recommended shaking hands with your gloves on until your engagement had been formally announced.

There was a chapter on dating: how long does a boy keep a girl waiting until he finishes dressing.

Weddings: what to do when the groom is still married.

Entertaining: when to wear shoes and when to carry them.

Grooming: the six occasions in your life when you shave your legs.

Houseguests: explaining “meaningful relationships” to your sixty-five-year-old mother who insists on putting your roommate in a Big Boy recliner for the night.

Getting a job and other obscenities.

Introductions: explaining to a fourth-grade teacher why you have two sets of sons the same age who are related through divorce.

Why wouldn't children be different? Most had been conceived during a commercial break on the late-night movie, weaned on every new concept in education ever devised, nurtured on social change that affected the entire world, and sustained on a diet of sex, violence, realism, and independence.

Who would have thought that I would be sitting in a movie with my high school son and when the sex in the movie reached gasping proportions, he would lean over to me and say, “Why don't you go out for some more popcorn, Mom?”

That was my line when he asked which one of the dwarfs was Snow White's husband.

Who would have guessed after twenty-five years of vitamins, shots, and regular checkups that your children would accuse you of poisoning them with bleached flour, sugar, additives, and butterfat and would sit around telling you in explicit detail how hot dogs are made?

For a while after I leafed through the book I took on a new air. Whenever my son mentioned something that was supposed to shock me I responded with “Really!” or “Awriiite” or “Far out.”

There was nothing that could shake me up. If he related a particularly grim movie to me I shouted, “Go for it.” If he played a record at 97 decibels I yelled, “Could you turn that up? I love the words.”

If he told me he skipped a day at school, I took a deep breath and said, “You're not the only one.”

Finally one day he said he was not going to get a job this summer because he wanted time to get in touch with his feelings and find out where he was coming from.

I changed into a parent right before his eyes.

“I don't know where you're coming from,” I shouted. "But I know where you're headed. The same place you were last summer . . . getting up at the crack of noon. Every time I shook out the bedclothes, there you were. Every time I walked in front of the TV set, there you were. Every time I followed the beam of light from the refrigerator door, you were at the end of it.

"For your information, Peter Pan, you are getting a job this summer. Say it slowly at first. . .let it roll over your tongue and you'll get used to it. . .job. . .JOB . . . JOB. It's an old establishment expression meaning to have some pride in yourself, some productivity, pulling your own weight, having a reason for getting up in the morning and being tired enough to go to sleep at night.

“For someone who abhors materialism, you sure demand a lot of it. . . for someone who is turned off by pollution, you sure contribute to it. For someone who is a pacifist, you sure know how to start an internal family war. So, get off your duff tomorrow and get a job!”

My son didn't say anything for a full minute. He just smiled and shook his head. Then he said, “You talk pretty good.”

“What do you mean by a crack like that?”

“I mean all this time all you ever did was look at me and frown and sigh a lot. I never knew what you were thinking. I just felt rotten.”

“You mean you don't feel rotten now?”

“Yeah, but now I know why I feel rotten. I never knew before.”

“I guess old Jim Preach was right.”

“Are you still plowing through all those self-help books?”

“Don't knock 'em. Someday I'll get it all together.”

“You know what your trouble is,” said my son. “You try too hard. You're going through the old 'Be a winner' routine. When I was younger, I used to think winning was everything. It isn't. Don't sweat it. Just lay back and let it happen. Take life as it comes. The important thing to remember is Be Yourself.”

A few hours later he brushed by me in the kitchen. He was wearing his father's tennis shorts, a T-shirt he niched from the school's lost and found, and carried his brother's tennis racket. He grabbed my car keys off the countertop and winked. “Remember what I said. Be yourself!”

18

I don't care what I say I still like me

It HAD BEEN all of three months since I picked up a how-to book.

A lot of people I know eased off reading them gradually, but I knew if I was to kick the habit I'd have to stop reading them cold turkey and live just one day at a time.

It wasn't easy. I was surrounded by social self-help readers who couldn't wait to pick up a volume and offer me one. Tonight would be my first big test.

We were going to a cocktail party at Jill's house. My husband hated cocktail parties. He said people drank too much and it was like talking to a traffic light... a blinking red eye, and in five seconds they sped off to another corner.

I felt pretty wonderful. My daughter was giving up television for Lent this year instead of me. My older son had shaved and no longer looked like a Lincoln penny, and that very day we had just gotten a letter from our younger son at school (Mom was spelled with two o's, but what the heck, he was only a freshman).

The entire family was pleased that I had stopped improving myself and was back to my old ways. I loved everyone else better than me, was insecure about my job, had no idea what I was feeling or why and almost never listened to my body.

There had been withdrawal symptoms after I had stopped reading self-help books. I knew there would be. I was checking out in a supermarket one day when I glanced down at a headline near the checkout stand. The article was topped by IT'S 11 O'CLOCK! DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR ANXIETIES ARE?

My palms became sweaty, my throat dry, and instinctively I dug into my handbag for my glasses. My husband came by just in time, steered me toward the door and said, “You need a drink.”

It was strange standing in the middle of Jill's living room. I couldn't help but reflect this was where it all began . . . exactly one year ago.

A voice at my elbow interrupted my thoughts. “Hi! Have a drink?”

It was Phyllis.

“Of course,” I smiled.

“How about a cheese fluff?”

“Thanks.”

“How about a book on Can You Handle Your Biofeed-back During a Full Moon?”

“Good-bye Phyllis.”

“Wait a minute!” she shouted. “Even the Pope approves biorhythms.”

“I don't care if they're at the top of the charts, I am not going to get involved in another self-help book.”

“As you stand there talking,” said Phyllis, “your frustrations, your tensions, and your conflict translate into specific events taking place inside your body.”

“I am leaving you, Phyllis. You're going to look like a fool standing here talking to yourself.”

“God forbid your biorhythms could be out of sync, but it happens. You could be in one of your critical days. There's always the possibility you could meet with a freak accident.”

“I am just saying good-bye to one.”

“Why are you so sore?” she persisted.

“Because ever since you turned me on to The Sub-Total Woman, my life has not been the same.”

“Then it's true. You are having trouble with your marriage.”

Rita overheard our conversation and said, “Listen, sweetie, Dan and I swear by the Camp of the Close Encounter and Massage Village about fifty miles north of here. It's a wonderful shared experience of personal learning. And you don't have to worry about a wardrobe—if you get my drift.”

“No, really, Rita, our marriage is just fine. The kids have all left home and ...”

“Did I hear you say you're going through the Empty Nest trauma?” asked Natalie. “Some people make the transition smoothly, but you're going to have to be careful. You're a child-geared person. We've always known that. You were always fulfilled by kids . . . baking the funny cakes for their birthdays, buying a bolt of material and dressing them all alike like wallpaper, and you always had a sign in front of your house for as long as I can remember: free kittens. Have you read Nest of Tears: Handling a Child's Rejection?”

“Natalie, listen to me. I am not rejected. At my age it's predictable ...”

“Listen to her,” said Marcia. “At her age. Why, I've got a cookie sheet older than you. Don't be so insecure. You're not all that unattractive. Nothing that reading Look Like a Million Dollars for Only Half That Amount couldn't cure.”

I reached out and grabbed Can You Handle Your Biofeedback During a Full Moon? and ran my hand over the cover. I could feel beads of perspiration on my forehead and my hand shook. Could I stand to have it start all over again?

The raising of my consciousness level seemed so innocent at first I promised myself I could stop raising it anytime I wanted to.

The lies about how many self-help books I was reading a day.

The excuses I made when I sat at the breakfast table and read just a few more pages from How to Get Rich During a Democratic Administration before I could start my housework.

The day my husband found Suppressing My Primal Scream hidden in my hosiery drawer.

The night I had too much to read and embarrassed my family by standing on a coffee table reciting from How to Engage in Perversion as a Hobby.

Did I want to go back to that?

I handed the book back to Phyllis. “Thanks, but no thanks. I am going to be myself.”

“You're kidding,” said Marcia. “Without any help from anyone?”

“That's right.”

“You're going against the tide,” said Natalie. “No one is themselves these days. It just isn't good enough. Everyone is into some kind of a transitional flow.”

“You're copping out,” snapped Phyllis. “Sure, it's easy to sit around and just let things happen, but the bottom line is groping! How can you be happy if you're not miserable?”

Natalie was right about one thing. I was out of the mainstream. There were “color parties” in which everyone in the neighborhood was invited to be analyzed and effective colors were suggested for them to wear and to decorate their homes with. But no one asked me.

A speaker at Town Hall discussed how to survive an audit from the IRS using tranquilizers that you could buy over the counter, but I wasn't invited.

Phyllis even gave a party for all dogs who were born under the Gemini sign. My dog was the only Gemini in the block who wasn't there.

I didn't see any of them until one day in the book department I looked up and there was Phyllis.

She was holding a book called I Don't Care What I Say . . . I Still Like Me. She seemed surprised to see me.

“So how's Polly Perfect? Still handling your own anxiety attacks, struggling with your birth traumas, and treating your neuroses out of your medicine cabinet?”

“I'm doing okay,” I smiled.

“I suppose it's a waste of time to point out that this new book is a brilliant insight into the Id? It tells how through conscientious self-analysis a person can achieve happiness without a lot of inner conflict and mythological mishmash. It facilitates and utilizes an entirely new concept in living experience.”

“That translates to 'be yourself.' Right?”

Phyllis looked surprised. “Right. Did you read it?”

“Phyllis,” I smiled, “I wrote it.”

authors note:

the pursuit of happiness

our FOREFATHERS didn't know what they were laying on us when they penned the Declaration of Independence.

Life and Liberty were pieces of cake compared to the Pursuit of Happiness.

I have lived this book for over a year and never knew how miserable I was until I tried to find out why I was happy. Oh, I knew I was bored, depressed, neurotic, inhibited and unfulfilled, but I figured no one is perfect.

During the last year I have come to grips with mid-life, found inner peace, fought outer flab, interpreted my fantasies, examined my motives for buying, dissected my marriage, charted my astrological stars, and become my best AND ONLY friend. I have brought order to my life, meditated, given up guilt, adjusted to the new morality, and spent every living hour understanding me, interpreting me, and loving me—and you know what? I'm bored to death with me. If I never hear another word about me it will be too soon.

I have no more curiosity about myself. No more drive to make me a better person. No more patience to find out what I am feeling.

If I never see the words “input,” “concept,” “feedback,” or “bottom line,” it will be all right with me.

If I ever say the words “share with you” or “at this point of time in my life,” I hope my saliva runs dry.

After a year of reading sixty-two self-help books and articles, I have discovered something interesting. You don't find happiness. It finds you.

If you are married, you're supposed to be happier than those who are not. If you control your life and have the wherewithal to do it, you're supposed to be happier. If you love and are loved back you're supposed to be happier. Financial security will make you happier (I've suspected that for a long time).

I have discovered something else. We are not permitted to be depressed any more, nor are we allowed to age.

Already people are beginning to wonder where have all the old people gone? They've gone underground be cause we live in a time when we must go through life like a miracle fabric: drip-dry and wrinkle-free. If your hands look as young as your married daughter's, you can get on a commercial. If you are seventy and can do a time step, you get a shot on the Carson show. If you saw the Civil War and can wave a flag, you get a standing ovation.