What does it all
mean? On the surface, the aforementioned activities are always described with
pride: “Our community knows how to put on a wedding.” “The entire community comes
together”. “The community invests all its resources”. “Members toil day and
night”. But what are we saying when we allow entire teams (landscaping,
maintenance, dates) to be commandeered toward this objective? What’s the
message conveyed when we’re admonished not to park our bikes – in the bike
racks provided for that very purpose – or when neighbors start to dictate what’s
visually acceptable for a particular event?
I theorize that the
frenzied preparations and their pleasing result fulfill some peoples’ –
overwhelmingly women’s – fantasy-for-a-day that we actually live in suburbia –
clipped, manicured, homogenous, sterile of any human activity – and not in an
alternative community in the desert.
And, notice that it’s
always the women’s responsibility to produce the appearance thereof, to remove
any evidence of actual human activity, from menstrual blood, to brooms concealed
in a broom closet or outdoors, to bicycles banished from the landscape. Sure, the
men are working. They’re out there leveling uneven terrain, setting up traffic
barricades, removing anything deemed unsightly…but they’re doing it at women’s
behest, and as per women’s instructions. The women are carrying out their
gender’s implicitly assigned job of eliminating all evidence of human activity;
the men are delegated to do the (literal) heavy lifting toward that end.
The above was borne
of a conversation I was having with a friend. He asked me what it is that
bothers me about Ketura wedding frenzy. I had to dig deep to discover
what it is that bothers me and why. After all, what could be bad about sprucing
up the community in honor of a community-raised child’s wedding? “After all,” I’ve
been reminded, “When it’s your turn, won’t you want the place to look nice? When
it’s your child getting married, you’ll feel differently.”
It’s called a tradeoff
Look, I can’t predict
how I’ll feel at a hypothetical event; no one can. But what I do know is that I didn’t sign up to live
in suburbia, and that decision, like all our decisions, comes with a price: It
means living in close quarters with other human beings who actually ride bikes
and produce waste. It means trees that provide shade but that also shed their
leaves and needles. It means that back porches contain furniture, and yes,
toys, drying laundry, and other evidence that – as the sign said on the safe house
in the film In the Name of the Father – People Live Here.
