Category Archives: sectarian Fundamentalism

Single Inflection.

Christianity, classical music, classical musicians, psychology, relationships, sectarian Fundamentalism, social behavior, sociology, travelogues, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

[ final edit. ]

 

Single — def.

  • not having, or including, another ; only one.

 

Defining words in any language is an exercise in understanding culture. This is unavoidable. So said the Swiss woman, at the head of the dinner table around which were seated: a younger, blonde French-Swiss woman; a middle aged, married couple from Kent, England, she with her brown hair rolled up away from her neck; a tall, good-looking, traveling salesman from Stuttgart; a young, bespectacled Scottish girl enrolled at university; and, one American woman of about twenty seven years; in 1984.

(There were no indigenous French represented at table, during that meal. Had there been, perhaps the conversation would have taken a decided turn.)

These had all convened around a common theme: one annual Bible Conference for the purpose of intensive study of the Word of God, held in a Zurich high school, complete with headsets and translators for those who had come from countries not fluent in Swiss-German.

I was the American woman.

That year, having embarked on my maiden voyage to Europe by way of Scotland, I was alone; meaning: nobody I knew personally had accompanied me on my trip.

Yes; according to a definition established by Merriam and Webster in the initial year of their copyright, I was a single woman. I knew it, most acutely, seated beside the two boys from Princeton on the flight to Frankfurt; the sassiest, plugged in to Purple Rain on his earphones, turned off to me as soon as I declined the gin. Failing the Test of Immediate Compatibility, here was a sure sign that I would be proceeding solo.

Not that I had any inclination to attach myself to either of the Princeton boys. I simply never figured in the equation established long ago by the Ivy League; their blood was blue, mine was too but, to them, a critical – if colorless – social component was missing .

The Swiss woman was dogmatic; the only way to truly know a people was through their language. One had to experience them in dialogue, to derive any understanding of their way of life. Inflection, the Swiss woman insisted, was the bearer of meaning.

(A decade hence, I would return to this table, after hearing a Japanese maestro articulate the meaning of his own name in his native language; he’d pointed out, none too subtley from the concert podium, that pronouncing his first name with the emphasis on the wrong syllable would render him nothing short of a hemorrhoid.)

I recall sitting and looking around that table at each guest, wondering, in my American English silence. Try as I might, I could not name a single descriptive adjective, noun, or verb in the language of my birth which, when pronounced differently, rendered a completely distinct meaning. I was able to call up several words, however, which had dual connotations but no alteration in their pronunciation. There were also words which were pronounced the same, but spelled differently according to their meanings.

With this realization came the sensation that singled me out: how could an American understand anybody from another country? Even the Brits, with their occasional syllabic de-emphasis, were a challenge to a fledgling on foreign soil. Here I was, singularly alone, and obviously about to make absolutely no connection whatsoever with any of the people in the room.

But, I had left a boy at home.

Long having moved on to pursue another skirt he had, however, managed to create a scandal in his wake. Here, in Switzerland, the home of his mother’s birth, I was supping with associates of the American employer she’d embezzled. Yes. I may have arrived alone, but there were those my presence represented who, after my departure, would remain; I had carried both of them with me, all the way to Europe, into a household diningroom of Christians in Zurich.

And, it didn’t matter to anybody that I wasn’t married to his mother. He would follow me for years thereafter, like a lurking shadow in the mirror, beginning the moment I left the premises. No one among any of those in attendance at the Zurich Conference, whether known to me or not, would be able to think of me in any terms thereafter without his name entering the conversation. Criminal behavior knew no cultural boundaries. No matter the country of origin; no matter the language spoken.

Recently, I became reacquainted with somebody I had only known in passing decades ago. A well and world-traveled American, he calls himself “single”. But, I beg to differ; his attributes draw the curious, the needy, the broken, the unfinished, the yearning. He works in the healing arts. His life has incredible, unmeasurable meaning in those of countless others. By the definition of any culture, he does not exist outside of their realm. He is, rather, spectacularly singular – part of the great Singularity.

None of us travels alone. We are never single, lest we attempt breath in a vacuum. If we do, we’ll be crying for help. And, we had better get the inflection j.u.s.t.right.

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© 3/25/16 Ruth Ann Scanzillo    All rights those of the author, whose story it is, and whose name appears above this line. Thank you for your respect.

littlebarefeetblog.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Sight.

Christian fundamentalism, creative writing, family history, Fundamentalism, grief, human behavior, nostalgia, psychology, relationships, sectarian Fundamentalism, social behavior, sociology, , , , , , , ,
“Married At First Sight” on FYI fascinates me. Two psychologists and a sexologist pair up single, independents who have failed to sustain a committed relationship. They meet at the altar, and we watch the rest. After 8 weeks, the couples must choose either to remain together, or to divorce – their climactic, camera-captured conclusion a life lived in fast forward.
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Take a rewind.
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 I used to have a friend. Her grandmother found an eligible young man in Scotland, and arranged for them to meet. A brief courtship ensued, largely from a distance. He proposed, they married, I sang and played at the wedding, everybody ate caramelized bacon and a full sit down, and then the happy pair flew off for the Isle of Skye.
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By the end of the first year, they were already welcoming the first of three sons and a daughter. My three visits – separated by a year, a decade, and seven, respectively – provided me limited, if memorable, observable data. I could only draw conclusions based upon the crystallized aspects of my friend’s personality. Somewhere between the children, the Abbeys, Selkirk, the rare highland walk, and the Edinburgh Fringe, that’s exactly what I did.
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By all accounts, 32 years this October, the two of them are still together. That’s the least surprising fact. In a culture virtually dictated by one David Hume*, maintaining a public protocol of refinement and propriety is paramount. It’s the very fiber of the society. In turn, fidelity and commitment to the institution, let alone the sacrament, of marriage goes without saying. So, staying married is pretty much the given.
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Oh; and, even as recently as 30 years ago, there were still Scots to whom the clan was the Word. This potential husband was none other than a third cousin, once removed, or some version of said descriptor. Yes; blood relatives. Proof? Her youngest brother was already carrying her new surname – in between his first and last. To my knowledge, he’s never left Buffalo.
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Yes; in spite of my three attempts to nurture what had begun in childhood by the only means available during the pre-Internet age – traveling across the ocean – her marriage would prove more durable than any relationship she’d ever had with me.
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Strangely, we had also been introduced by a third party. Our parents were all members of the same non-denominational Christian sect and, although separated from the world at large by strict dogma, were only separated from each other by a few miles and one state border.
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But, because each assembly of said Fundamentalists was characteristically small in number, there was an unspoken intention to generate continuity among its young by bringing them together in as many ways as could be contrived.
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Our earliest visits, for me, were really special. Those from my small city were working class and, while my parents were among its most well respected, her family were merchants well into the second generation and held a pre-eminent place in their small, New York town. In addition, trained well to be of superior hospitality, when they opened their home to my parents it were as if the Queen of England had deigned a major reception.
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I can’t pinpoint when we became each other’s friend, per se. She had multiple siblings and, apart from the brother who was born the same year as I but who almost never spoke audibly, were closest in age. Their house was always buzzing and bustling with laughter, gourmet food preparation, and wide-ranging conversation. They asked all the questions and my family, starved for this kind of welcoming attention, held forth for hours on end, oblivious of any agenda.
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As time passed, our social encounters increased. They lived on the private drive of a country club, overlooking the same lake which provided us a state park peninsula of free beaches across the border. Swimming and chicken fights, bonfires and s’mores were their offerings throughout the summer and, when travel permitted, tobogganing and real hot chocolate in winter. My eldest brother, old enough to be married, created a Hallowe’en haunted barn and hayride on his wife’s farm, a titillating event we would anticipate every year thereafter – in the dark, on the haywagon, she and I, my younger brother and her older sister and all her strapping, handsome brothers none of whom had the slightest time of day for me beyond a jostle against the bales. I had a transparent crush on her eldest, hers on my younger expertly veiled, neither of us ever realizing our longings for either brother but, reaching our teens, crowning it all by taking on the moniker of becoming roommates at the annual Eastern Bible Conference at Grove City College.
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In our miniature subculture, these were the parameters which defined friendship. There were no dances, no illicit parties. The boys were rumored gadabouts, but this was their birthright; as a girl, I never knew much choice, when it came to traits in others which I would grow to appreciate or to which I might recognize myself drawn. In fact, should I become attracted to anyone outside of this realm, assimilation was nigh impossible. Adding the element of proper English Romance novels, the dimension of fantasy easily beckoned, and my submission was all too willing.
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Somewhere between the second and third visit “across”, life experience finally having made its indelible mark on decades of escape, realization began to gel. Perhaps it was the wedding gift, arduous hours of handiwork producing two full color, framed renderings of myself and another mutual friend, so casually misplaced and then practically thrown in my face as I lay cowering under the bedcovers in forced penitence for even raising the subject; perhaps the invitation to perform a Chopin Nocturne for visiting friends, its final pianissimo chord truncated by her loud and mood-hijacking assertions; perhaps it was the toddling along, as a fully fledged adult, being introduced to stable barons and architects and then promptly ignored as if the role were to be that of stray hoping for scraps. Perhaps it was the little flat in the center of town, for which I’d expressed both interest and capital, and a willingness to time share, which was curiously prevented by the local bank. Whichever. The awareness dawned far too slowly, and expensively, in the end; no amount of childhood generosities returned or desire to create greater proximity for both myself and her family could, apparently, sustain something that did not, in fact, exist at all. I had been some enforced presence, possibly a burden borne for too many years of trained tolerance. I was nothing more than a starling, planted in her path by loving and earnest parents, intended to teach the art of acceptance, patience, and charity. She had outgrown me, and I would be the last to know.
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There were whisperings, in the kitchen, that ceased when I entered. There were references to her husband not being “keen” on my visits, my reminding him of another “teacher” friend who would bore. It was August of 2001, and I would head home to arrive on American soil a scant two weeks before 9/11 – but, not before my own warning about terrorism being the most looming threat to our safeties having been met with remote, eye rolling reticence. Ironically, I would be able to use fear of air travel, and its inevitable profiling, as excuse never to return.
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*****
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Rumor has it, social status is still important in her corner of the planet. The marriage, and the family which is now busily producing its next generation, has deliberately endured. All are within walking distance of most of life’s essentials. Money, an object in the past, has returned to its proper place of casual deference. Both patriarchs have passed on, their widowed matriarchs enjoying the fruits and her marriage having taken its rightful throne.
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Arranged, contrived, calculated, constructed; refined, buffed and polished, lives carefully chosen for only their finest attributes, somewhere between a rocky, ocean crag’s gooseberry patch, a tenement row, and a grande cobblestone the world’s tiniest notion of civilization waits for no stranger. I’ve said my “goodbyes”, long ago, to that which only existed just beyond my alleged entitlement. The reality show camera will roll on, sure as the hills of bonnie Scotland, to find its next version of the untold truth.
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(* Yeah. I wrote a paper. Ivy league-generated Professor Jeremy L. Smith has it in his stash.)
© 2/3/16 Ruth Ann Scanzillo
All rights, in part or whole, those of the author, whose story it is and whose name appears above. Thank you for respecting fantasy, the stuff of unrealized dreams.
littlebarefeetblog.com