06/04/2005 - 8:54 a.m.
THE GRAND CANYON OF IOWA
My marriage has always been a mixed marriage. When it began, it was both a mix of religions and backgrounds. I was Jewish, suburban, and a mixture of Midwesterner and Easterner. Mr. Philately was not Christian but had had a Christian upbringing, rural, and rural. Seven years ago, to my great surprise, Mr. Philately converted to Judaism. Contrary to the expectation of many, that change did not end the cultural gap between us. We still occasionally visit the Grand Canyon.
Most of the time, we are barely aware of the canyon. We push it off to the side or detour around it. We emphasize our similarities or attribute our differences to gender or personality, Mr. Philately even more so than I. We rely on our shared values and history. But once in a while, we find ourselves standing each on our side of the Grand Canyon, shouting into the wind.
To grow up Jewish for me has been know that goodwill cannot be assumed and sometimes cannot be earned. More than that, it has been to know that, in some circumstances and to some people, I will never entirely be an individual. I will be a race, a religion, a representative of "my people." For Mr. Philately, it was shocking when, after we became engaged, I informed him that my paternal grandmother was having trouble with the engagement because he was not Jewish. He knows that other people sometimes are evaluated on what they are and not on who they are but him, HE'S an individual.
He does accept that some people do not like Jews. I thought he was going to walk out at a family wedding at which we were told that the only true marriage was through Christ and the only true love was through Christ. I thought he was going to punch the minister in the nose at his youngest brother's funeral when the same minister told us that only Christians truly and properly grieve. Strangely enough, I was the one who stayed relatively calm through that ranting. I long ago decided that if you walk into a church, you take what you get. You (surfacely) accept it or you leave. But Mr. Philately campaigns for truth, justice and the American way. He just has never figured out that, in much of America, prejudice is the American way.
So anyway, there we were in Iowa, the place of his birth, and not in a church. The first episode was in the motel. I long ago accepted (if indeed accepted is the right word) that his grandmother was an anti-semite. But his grandmother is dead so it should be over, right? Right? Of course�.wrong! Once the subject of "Fiddler on the Roof" came up, his mother embarked on a campaign to make me agree that the woman was not anti-semitic but, instead, just "loved Jesus so much" that she had trouble reconciling liking me. I guess my mother-in-law has given up on her campaign to get me to understand that when the family called one of Mr. Philately's great-uncles "Uncle Sheeny" because he had a big nose, her mother did not understand what that was all about. (Which, of course, is why when I was in the room and Gramma was talking about him, she would start to say "Sh�," steal and glance at me and finish with "�Claude. To this day, Mr. Philately and I refer to him in stories as "Shclaude.")
Mind you, I do not believe that my mother-in-law is particularly anti-semitic. This pressure comes from her need to believe her mother was a loveable character. My mother-in-law is what Kat would call a "puppies and rainbows type." Her mother did not drink heavily, she hurt a lot. She was not mean, she had strong opinions. No, I am not so paranoid that I assume my mother-in-law hates Jews. And so, I want credit for recognizing when there is a meanness to ignorance.
But Mr. Philately himself has a bit of the puppies and rainbows. More important, he has had few experiences that make him just a bit careful. So, to him, it was tasteless but innocent (or ignorant) when the high school speaker at the Iowa graduation talked about the time someone or other ended up with something on his head that looked like a (and the word she wanted and did not know was "yalmulke") and it was so funny because he looked Jewish. It was just one girl and, besides, she said a lot of other things about classmates that seemed tasteless. Never mind that the administration and school board continued to beam while she said it. Never mind that saying someone put on something that was like a cross and it was so funny because he looked Christian would never happen.
Which brings us back to the Grand Canyon and how it moved to Iowa, on the lawn of the motel. And how the two of us stood shouting (well, at least one of us was shouting---the one with the unfortunate Jewish temperament that uses gestures, loud words, and a sharp tongue) across the divide. He was logical (or so he believed). I was paranoid and looking for reasons to feel different.
And when it was over, we did what many people in long-standing, basically good and solid marriages do about Grand Canyons: we simply agreed to vacation elsewhere for now.
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Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
