Jennifer Killpack-KnutsenWe live in interesting times
I had a time warp experience yesterday. My husband, younger daughter and I all had lunch at Lamb’s Cafe downtown. Lamb’s Cafe is the oldest restaurant in Salt Lake City, established in 1919. I love eating there because the dark and heavy interior, combined with the old-fashioned booths and tablecloths and even the rack of lifesavers and gum by the register make me feel as if I’m visiting another time.
This feeling was further heightened by our waitress’ appearance. She was probably born sometime in the late 80s but had a hair and makeup style that reminded me of the late 50s or early 60s — okay, reminded me of pictures and films from that time period. I wasn’t born until late 1969.
And then I noticed a female patron at a nearby table who wore a long wool grayish skirt and maroon turtleneck sweater and had bang-less, long hair with a little flip to it — the complete look straight out of the early 1970s. I got a weird feeling and started to look closely at the other patrons to try to make sure that I wasn’t in a time warp , but couldn’t see any further evidence that I wasn’t in the 21st century. I was a little disappointed.
I’m a big fan of history, and I love books and movies that tackle the subject, or even better, feature time travel with a modern person experiencing the excitment of discovering another time first hand.
I was completely glued to my T.V. screen when KUED showed it’s original documentary a few years ago about Salt Lake City once upon a time. A huge part of me inexplicably felt very nostalgic for a time period long before I was born.
I wouldn’t want to live in another time permanently — I just want to visit for a while. I wouldn’t be able to, as I remarked to my husband during lunch, have lived as a woman in any era other than now. I couldn’t handle the repression and lack of control over my own destiny. I would go crazy if I were forced into the drudgery of endless childbearing, childraising, and housekeeping. I would resent the inability to pursue my inner world and the lack of time to develop my mind. I would chafe at the lack of opportunities for education and career that would be denied me.
I’d probably even be climbing the walls being a grown woman 25 or 30 years ago, which while not as extreme as far early times, were difficult enough for women. Those were the early days of transition from a male-centered world to one that looked to be heading toward equality, and the backlash could be intense, especially in the wilds of the work force.
My husband made a good point that there are women in many parts of the world that still don’t have the lives that women here in the U.S. and most of the 1st world countries do. I have a lot of people to thank for the freedom in my life — my foremothers in the suffragette movement, those feminist pioneers who challenged the traditional roles, those that fought for my reproductive rights — and the men that supported them.
I want to thank all those who have made the life I’ve had possible. Thank you, with all my being. I hope that I can continue to work towards these things for others that come after me and for those who are denied them even in these modern times.
I want to put my gratitude out there now, because it seems to me that we are on the brink of a cultural war in this country. I hope I’m wrong, I hope I’m mistaken in my reading of current events. If I’m right, on the one hand of this cultural war will be those who want to move the human race forward, to continue our evolution to an equality based society, a more humane and just society, a society that is much more sane and nurturing of others and the planet that sustains us; on the other hand will be those that want to take us back to a time when human roles were limited and narrowly confined on the basis skin color or type of genitalia, a time when superstition and greed ruled. Not all of those people are bad people, many of them are probably just afraid to make the changes they’ll have to make if we move forward and find it a lot easier to fight to keep things the same or the way they used to be.
I think we can win this cultural war if we have enough time and will to do it. I’ve seen a lot in the past few years to make me optimistic that we have what it takes.
One thing is certain, this is an interesting time to live. It’s a lot like that first paragraph in “A Tale of Two Cities” :
“IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair . . .”
February 4th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Jennifer, I understand. My fantasy is similar, except my time is the future (rather my ideal of what we might become), and when I harken back to NOW, I wonder how we ever withstood the meanness and stupidity of the present. Witness the legislature.
When it’s all said and done, in that far-off future, the planet, perhaps the whole solar system will have ‘evolved’ way past this life we know, however many rallies we attend. Look out.. there’s a black hole some light years straight ahead.
I like the phrase heard rescently…”We are the people we have been waiting for.” Or something like that, that suggests our responsibility to govern / behave with grown-up / loving sensiblities. You have it. Thanks.
February 4th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Jenn, thank you for those reflections. My own Mother was one of those women who paved the way. So I grew up thinking womenwere equals.
I remember being surprised to discover that still at the community college where she taught for 25 years, that sexism was still pervasive among the faculty. This was in the late seventies!
We still have a ways to go.
February 4th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Thank you Ms. Jenni, your generosity of spirit and love of wisdom draw me back to the flame agian, but please, don’t hold back, tell us what your really thinking.
February 4th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
“Culture war” was actually declared years ago by Bill O’Reilly, Fox News (remember “Put Christ Back into Christmas?”), Ann Coulter, Michael Medved, etc. It’s their effort to distract Americans from issues that really affect us like health care, the environment, and education, by inventing issues like abortion, Hollywood, flag-burning, prayer in schools, and intelligent design, and exploiting issues like terrorism, gay marriage, racism and immigration to forward their pro-Pentagon and anti-minority agendae. In fact, independent-thinking Americans are winning the “culture war” as evidenced by resistence to the Iraq War, the 2006 elections, the Terri Schiavo fiasco, the Internet, defeat of anti-evolution school boards and the change in policy toward climate change by corporations like BP, WalMart and Ford. The “culture war” has been and always will be a right-wing-manufactured campaign that is as un-American as it is unwinnable.
February 4th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Caveat - “Witness the legislature.” — the legislature is the main thing that inspired this particular piece.
Ken, the anti-choice legislation, the continued attacks on gays in our legislature, the “survival of the richest” mentality as evidenced by the passage of the school vouchers by our legislature, and above all the growing fundamentalist religiosity in this country has got me thinking a lot about the idea of evolving as a human race vs. those who want to go back to the dark ages. They haven’t exactly not been effective. Our state is just one example of those who are playing for keeps.
Cliff — “So I grew up thinking womenwere equals.” I had nearly the opposite experience. I grew up in a religion that taught me that I was less than because of my gender — it was one of the things that helped me to sever my ties to it, though. I remember sitting through church and thinking that there was no way that the teenage male creeps in my church youth group were superior to me and would be spending eternity making planets while I would just pop out spirit baby after spirit baby along with my celestial sister-wives for eternity. They always tried to ease the blow by saying that we were more spiritual and that’s the reason that the boys got all the power, but it didn’t seem like a fair trade.
But the lessons of inferiority (church and society) didn’t shed for some time. It wasn’t until I was well into my 30s that I started to find my voice and power as an independent woman, and I still have a ways to go before I’ve caught back up to the self-confident, creative, powerful person that I was at 11 years old.
February 5th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Speaking of the culture wars, check out my post today about KTVX and Divine Strake. This is a big deal. It indicates a greater willingness among corporate media (particularly TV) to take stands they know are right but are afraid to take because they risk losing zillions in ad revenue from their sponsors who are usually right-wing fat cats and use that power to control public opinion. Trust me, I know. I dealt with these bozos for 30 years. Notch another one for the good guys.