We White Women
A 577-word essay on having seen the movie, “Book Club.”
Like many white women of a certain age in this country, I am a book club member. In May 2018, the Sunday matinee of “Book Club” was our meeting. As the final credits were rolling, my friend Carol asked, “What did you think?”
“It’s the movies!” I replied.
“I know,” she said, “but what did you think?”
It would have taken too long to explain what I was thinking in that moment. What I was feeling was for my grandmother. That’s her in the photo. She was born in Globe, Arizona in 1900, had a career as a nurse, took good care of my grandfather (a man she married in 1918 who was 23 years her senior), and raised four daughters.
And she lived as a widow from 1964 to 1983…without ever drinking much wine.
Longsuffering and women have been holding hands for many generations. Entertainments like “Book Club” are made to poke fun, soak up sweat from those palms, inspire laughter, and tighten the grip…or allow good grip on a glass filled with alcohol.
The movie “Book Club” got four big stars out of a certain demographic and used them to earn fewer stars by the critics. But movies are not counted in stars. They’re measured by box office receipts…in this case, those of Baby Boom generation white women who have freedom to spend on books, wine, and matinees. Their money — seventy-seven cents to every dollar earned by a man — is the Spanx that supports this film’s success. (And, where was Oprah, or Geraldine Keams, Caitlin Jenner, or Madhur Jaffrey? They must like to read books and discuss them in the contexts of their lives, too.)
But this is not about me and my generation’s exposure to feminism, post-feminism, all those shades of grey, Millennial daughters and sons, racial diversity and inclusion (EEOC), the Trump administration’s political circus, internet positive-negative, technology and AI, gender identity expansion, #MeToo, and the personal-to-me: “I’m-Over-60-in-2018-What-Now?” sense of “Help-Me-Be-Creative-And-Stay-Positive-Here!”
This is about grandma, and my great desire to communicate with her.
Dear Grandma,
Your world was one I’d love to meet you in…for just one day. I want to perceive what you knew! Then I’d want to move you forward to spend 24 hours with me in 2018. But I think I’d have to give you some sort of medication to bring you up to the energy levels that I’ve experienced in my life up to this point. Yeah, grandma, I’d have to put you on drugs — because you’d probably be shocked. Numbed. You’d wonder what the heck happened to all of us — not just the females, but all the other genders we share Earth with and give our respect and love to. But I wonder what you’d think in the context of all you knew, and I have at least one question.
At the end of your life, Grandma, what had you discovered about love?
You lived for 19 years on the foundation of your family’s love for you, and perhaps your good memories of being with our grandfather (who we remember as being kind, having a good sense of humor, and enduring several years of blindness in his old age).
But love. It is still a mystery, right?
Perhaps is a secret my generation has yet to discover — and not at the movies.
Love,
Mary
She was a wonderful grandmother. Beloved. I’m glad she is where she is now, but I really wish I could mail this letter to her, and get a response.
