It’s Right Under Your Nose

My son is losing his first tooth.  It’s an arduous process. This tooth is on its last hinge.  I ask him if he wants me to pull it out.  I can see the new one behind it… “Please let me pull it out… it will only hurt for a second.”  Nope.  He clamps his mouth shut.  He’s holding on to that sucker until the bitter end. 

“Bud, the new one is behind there.  I can see it.  Just let me pull it.  It will be over fast…” 

He shakes his head defiantly.  No way am I getting my fingers in there.  I fear I’ve lost my viewing privileges too.  My kid is as stubborn as his loose bottom tooth. 

I think this describes how many of us approach life.  Some of us just pull the loose tooth out, bear the pain for a minute, let it bleed and get on with it.  The rest of us like to wiggle that darn loose tooth around and hold onto it until it finally falls out and the new one is half grown in. 

My grandfather was the kind to “get on with it.”  He would tell a story that it was easy to get a loose tooth out.  All you had to do was tie a string around the tooth and tie that string to a nearby door and slam the door.  This story was passed on to me by my mother and now I find myself repeating it to my son.  His eyeballs almost pop out.  “Who did he do that to?” he whispers.   

This makes me wonder… which way is better?  The tooth still grows in regardless.  But, is holding onto something that we no longer need the healthiest way to live?

I watch my son wiggle that tooth around with his tongue… completely preoccupied.  Lord knows he could be working on the next loose one by now. 

Do we let ourselves be preoccupied by things that should have been pulled out of our lives already?  Does this prevent us from exploring the new thing that might be growing right underneath our nose?  Possibly the old thing that is loose is covering up the new thing we cannot yet see. 

I had to look behind my son’s baby tooth to see the new one.  He didn’t even know it was there.  Like six year olds, we clamp our mouths closed and refuse to let someone look inside of us for new growth. 

I think it’s safe to say that if something is loose in your life, it’s ready to go.  If it just doesn’t feel right, preoccupies your time, has no purpose or function, it’s time to pull it out.  Because chances are there’s a new thing that will be more functional right behind it.  But, it takes trust and a little bit of guts. 

It might even take some string and a door. 

As Women, Do we Rule the World?

As women, do we rule the world?  Or does it rule us?  Sometimes I wonder, because we seem to be tethered to a fast paced world of working, quotas, and pressure.  It's like a tightrope.  Hold your breath and don't look down.  We wanted this, right?  As American women, we are proud of our accomplishments and equality to men. 

Interestingly, I am reading about women who walked a different tightrope.  They did not have equality.  To deal with their injustices, they developed a secret language.  Out of all the known languages, this is the only one that is written and spoken by only women.  This language is Nu shu and was created by Chinese women struggling to find themselves in a male dominated world.  It's in a  a book titled, "Snow Flower and the Fan" by Lisa See.  It documents women who have their feet tightly bound and broken at childhood for their future husbands and how they accept this torture as fate. 

To express themselves, they create a language that only other women knew how to decipher.  Nu shu was their one outlet of freedom and self expression in a society that wrote them off as worthless.  In Chinese life there was an "outer world" where the men lived and an "inner world" where the women lived.  Women were expected to stay in women chambers and do work like embroidery and cooking. 

Today, roles and expectations have changed. 

Though American women walk boldly into the "outer world" and take on the same challenges as men everyday - in fact we scoff at doing only "women's work" - I wonder if we are missing out on a "secret language" like nu shu.  And who would we say it to?  Chinese women had lifelong, chosen relationships with other women from other tribes called laotong relationships.  They communicated through nu shu and called each other "old same."  This was the only relationship that Chinese women could express their true feelings. 

I think we American women try to do it all - be in the inner and outer worlds and be masters at it all.  We want to do the expected and unexpected.  We have more options than the Chinese women.  Society opens its arms wide to our ideas, opinions, and work ethic.  We are not relagated to the upstairs women's chamber, but we are still out to prove ourselves and accomplish it all.  While we try to be superheroes everyday, we may miss out on the extras in the ordinary.    

We miss out on our laotong relationships, our "old sames" and our nu shu language.  Instead of expressing our thoughts in a language perfectly clear to those most like us, we suppress our real feelings and put on our superhero suits for the next big fight. 

Maybe we should take some cues from the Chinese women.  Yes, they had their feet bound and freedoms restricted.  But, they became strong, intelligent women through the only outlet left to them - their own language. 

Ironically, with all of our freedoms, maybe we are binding ourselves, leaving no time for outlets of self expression.  We suffer from a different kind of bondage...the bondage of performance syndrome and perfectionism.

As we try to do it all, we cannot lose our voice and be left with nothing important to say.  We cannot continue to go on like superheros and miss the special things in ordinary life.