The Annointed Fig

My cat is 2.5 years old.  In cat years…let’s round it to 20.

Masha is a purebred.  Top of the line Traditional Siamese.  Seven generations of her ancestors have documented pedigrees.  Her mom’s a breed standard, check the Wiki.  And no, this isn’t a cat personals post — though considering she will soon be going back in heat…  Hmm, hold that thought.

Cattus Interruptus

But for now, where I was going is this.  She’s my baby — who will need to be bred.  It’s just good sense, healthwise.  But boy, am I not ready to be a grandmother!

Sure, there are youthful grandmas, but by and large, the stereotype is still the apple-crisp-baking church-going dog-walking Thanksgiving-feast-whipping Paula Dean (without the line of cookware to supplement her dwindling retirement income).  And that just doesn’t seem fair, not when we’re contemplating being measured against that particular yardstick.

Can we live up to it?  Will we?  Why, in our age of post-feminism, would anyone want to excel at something so…Christmas Carol?

And what about the 40, 36, 32-year old grandmothers?  Are they having it all?  Are we, as a culture, as individuals too used to our own Paula clones shrewdly sizing us up from inside flowerette-studded picture frames proclaiming, “Love, Grandma”?  Can we accept seeming youth (only to become more apparent as our lifespans increase) being mature enough to offer the young mothers of our generation the guidance they received from their own?

My own mom is 60, looks between 50 and 55, and nearly the day my son was born, she started calling herself “old woman”.  What do 40-year olds with children all of 13 begetting their own living dolls call themselves?  What would I, once Masha pushes out her kittens?  (Yes, I AM still contemplating that cat personals ad, don’t hurry me along, will you?!)  I asked her, but I’m still not sure how Mom is handling her new role — which has nothing to do with what my son calls her (Grandma, Mimi, Maman, Lisa – I never understood that fear of being named what you really are — doesn’t it STILL amount to the same thing? And no, my mom is perfectly OK with that part.), and has everything to do with how she sees herself.

I wonder, do we immediately assume a persona we feel is inherent to any role we take on — voluntarily (when we find a new job, get engaged, leave a bad marriage) or through no conscious action (get called to jury duty, drafted, canned, become grandparents)?  Are we so preconditioned to losing our sense of self that we must play to what we we see as everyone’s expectations?  Or is it our own?

And are these very expectations responsible for letting ourselves go?  Heeding unneeded advice?  Committing atrocities in what we think is the name of our country?  Our Lord?  And would either of those really want that?

Do we have to act in the certain way just because generations before us have?  But if we had, where would have all the progress come from?  And if we are able to shed preconceptions when it comes to literature, and medicine, and atomic bombs in place of chariot combat, then perhaps it just might be time to accept that we, as human species, as a civilization have changed sufficiently in the past handful of decades that we might start viewing ourselves through just ours, just today’s perceptions?

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