Faith

The Wild Woman

I’ve been thinking a lot about my Grandmother recently. While I’m grateful for the many inspiring women in my world, one of the qualities I admired most about my Mother’s Mother was her ability to have fun. Of course, I know my Grandmother endured all manner of life-altering challenges – she was not immune from life’s weathering ways. But she was made of an especially tough mettle. In fact, I wonder if her mettle wasn’t forged from her ability to enjoy life when the opportunities for doing so emerged. For as many sad times as she survived, boy did she also enjoy some awesome wild times. My Grandmother was, in fact, a Wild Woman.

When my Grandmother and her best friend went to Europe together in the summer of 1929 they based themselves in Paris. In the fall, they made their way to Italy, where they ditched the chaperone and went to Algiers. During this excursion, news of the American stock market crash finally reached them and in response they made their way to a bank to acquire either some cold hard cash or a letter of credit. While there, the story goes, my Grandmother’s friend Hubbard had a fortuitous meeting with a family friend who helped facilitate the letter of credit. Letter of credit in hand, they found passage back to Europe on a steamer loaded with cattle. The story never mentions whether they got up to no good without the watchful eye of the chaperone, nor whether they endured any kind of punishment when they returned to Paris. But the assumption was that they were Wild Women. Which they were, in a kind of ladylike way. I found several years back a picture of my Grandmother and Hubbard atop camels, confirming the veracity of this story. My Grandmother was rarely the teller of that tale, but she never disavowed it either.

Decades later, the adventures I enjoyed with my Grandmother were perhaps less exotic, but in retrospect I think they confirmed her wild heart. Once, when my big sister and I wrote yet another smarmy play (our greatest theatrical victory was titled “The Romero Diamonds” – we specialized in dramas of the criminal variety), we asked our Grandmother if she would be willing to play a part. Without hesitation, she said “yes!” and even when we informed her that we needed her to play The Dirty Old Man she didn’t miss a beat. She sported one of our Grandfather’s less stylish suits, perched a fedora at a cockeyed angle on top of her soft, silver curls and smeared her face with coal dust (to accommodate her character’s “Dirty” qualities). This woman knew how to throw herself into a moment.

For some time, I assumed that my Grandmother had sublimated her Wild Woman ways to settle into a more domestic life. Was the woman who performed in her grand-daughters’ plays the same rebel who in 1929 spent mornings on horseback in the Bois de Boulogne? Was she the same woman who in her youth wore trousers and went fishing in the wilds of Maine? So, when she looked back on her life I feared that she might miss her younger self and her wilder ways. But of course I was missing the point. She had remained every ounce and inch the Wild Woman. She had just applied her wild spirit to more tame amusements.

And perhaps that’s why I’ve been thinking about her recently. I am equally inspired by the image of the young woman of 1929 Paris as I am by the Grandmother who entertained her grandchildren as a gender-bending, disreputable character with coal dust smeared across her otherwise pristine skin. I want that gusto. I want to throw myself into every single moment – even the gruesome ones – with that kind of total commitment. I know I have some Wild Woman in me.

But these days seem to be weighted down. Current events tell a brutal story. And it’s easy to be distracted by boring, crazy, stupid, necessary, numbing stuff -- such as money, plans for the future and the proper balance of nutrient in one’s diet. I suppose the trick is to learn to see the wild colors that reside right next to this beige, gray, boring, stupid necessary stuff. And that’s why I revisit these stories. Perhaps I just need to apply the lessons of the Wild Woman to the tasks that either daunt or dull me. Some occasions might call for the spirit of the young woman on camel back – rebellious, oblivious and resourceful. Others might require the resurrection of the Dirty Old Man – she yields, she laughs, she buys into her grandchildren’s questionable theatrical vision. But she yields. I think I’m needing to summon The Dirty Old Man today. Today I’ll yield. I’ll follow someone else’s lead – someone else’s vision – but I’ll make every step my own. I wonder how I’ll look in my jaunty fedora and coal dust.