The other day a friend told me that, these days, Chrissy Evert is wearing a T-shirt that reads ”I forgot to have children.” He made this remark in a conversation concerning prodigy burn-out, that syndrome in which
extraordinarily talented young people get tired of playing their music or sport and succumb to depression, a vague ennui rather like Alexander`s ”There are no more worlds to conquer.”
After I said what I thought, that the idea of prodigy burnout derives from romanticized notions about success, work, completion and the like, I added, to myself, that the same romanticized, one-dimensional thinking generates depression over not having a baby, not getting educated, promoted, married, divorced, whatever. It`s common knowledge these days that Americans are a goal-oriented people. We believe in goals and feel naked without them. We particularly believe that great talent should not only be developed but limitlessly expanded, as though there were, really, a shortage of worlds to conquer. The truth is, there is always something else to do, and it`s not what I do that makes me happy but how I feel about that.
Women have always been more aware of this truth than men, but lately it seems many of us have forgotten what we used to know. Many women now believe, fervently, that they will be happier when they make more money, have a better job, find a husband or get rid of one, have a child or get rid of one; and sometimes a divorce or a child going off to college or work does free us to refocus our energy in a way that is new and wonderful. Nevertheless, it is always how I feel about what I do that, literally, makes it work for me. Because they have been so goal directed for so many centuries, this is a hard truth for men who want more than anything to conquer, achieve, accomplish, even if only vicariously. What, after all, is sports competition about but vicarious, spectator achievement whereby the average man can have his beer and his achievement, too? What is politics about but creating the image of endless change, eternal challenge?
One day as I was chatting with my mother-in-law long distance to Texas, she closed with, ”Well, I`m going to pick up an old lady I know and take her to see the wild flowers.” ”How wonderful,” I said, as I thought about Texas fields, a sea of blue-bonnets. Texas springs are famous beyond the state`s borders, and I was here in a slush-luscious Chicago April, cold, gray, dirty snow still splotching the bare ground, melted patches revealing the ever-present remains of dogs and friends. Still, I thought, here is a woman who knows how to live, who finds her pleasure as she goes, creates it as she needs.
I realized as I mused that I have always associated pleasure and happiness with women and work with men. The reasons are obvious. When I was a child, my mother was always the source of our pleasure. In winter we dressed for the snow in a flurry of ecstasy, rushing to the feel of cold, soft wet, making ”angels,” our bodies outlining shapes in the dark, as we looked up at flakes falling past the street light, drifting softly. We were allowed to remain out after dark only when the snow had fallen, perhaps because my mother felt we could be seen more easily then and would be in less danger; I don`t know, for I never asked. I only know I still feel pleasure when I walk the streets after dark and see the lights come on and wonder at the lives inside the warm yellow circles.
I associate pleasure with books, probably because of all the trips to the library my mother made with my brother and me. The smell of a library and its quiet spaces create comfort in my soul, though these days I don`t spend much time there. And just moving toward the water on a hot summer day, driving to the lake and seeing the land recede, excites my heart, though, again, these days I don`t spend much time in or at Lake Michigan. When I was small, daily trips to the beach and park were essential, for my mother believed firmly in routine, fresh air, excercise, play, and the world she created gave me an intense capacity for pleasure in ordinary life.
Of course, like all good Americans, I grew up into delayed gratification. But as I age, I learn the most valuable lesson of all: To the degree that I can find pleasure in whatever I do, not delay my gratification or tie it to a specific behavior, place or person, I can feel that delight I first learned at mother`s knee anywhere, anytime. Somehow, most of the women I know, my students, colleagues, friends, do the same. It`s the men around us who all look, and feel, so miserable so much of the time. As I walk the streets of the Loop and study their faces in earnest conversation with one another, struggling, planning, making deals (”Whatever does daddy do all day at the office”), I wonder at the pain. I`m not suggesting that women are never tired, pain-filled, depressed. Of course they are. But I am saying we know to have fun wherever we are and take our pleasure as we find it, while most of the men seem driven.
Most of the men I know continue to distinguish firmly between work and fun, and while they may find their work challenging, satisfying, especially when they win, they don`t think of that as pleasure. Advertising knows this when it pitches the beer or the car as fun: ”You`ve earned it–this one`s for you for workin` hard all day.” The politics of delayed gratification and specific need intensify competition and make us run, then make us yearn for what we passed over while we ran, the baby we never had, the love we never made, the time we never spent just living.
I`m glad women can compete everywhere these days and try for most anything for which they have the stomach, but I hope that as we continue to enter the man`s game, even as we win more we don`t forget that the pleasure of the moment is all there is. We ought not to become romantics like men, who seem, mostly, to believe it`s always Eldorado elsewhere. I hope someone shows Chrissy the surveys that say childless women are happy, too. As I told my friend, if we didn`t persude prodigies there`s only one way to achieve, they couldn`t burn out; they`d just finish and move on.
