Marriage and the Tribe

I recently read an excerpt of Committed, the new book by Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat Pray Love) on how a laughing Hmong grandmother made her question her expectation of marriage and its ability to single-handedly fulfil you and offer you everything you need in life.

I liked it very much, but I’m not going to quote her verbatim (because now I can’t find the damn thing!!). Basically, whilst contemplating her second marriage, she asked other women about their marriages. She just happened to be in a Hmong village in northern Vietnam, where life is lived in pretty much the same tribal fashion as thousands of years ago. You know, the way our brains are still programmed to think.

So she began questioning a group of women, particularly a lovely grandmother, on their marriages, and when they knew that their husbands were the love of their life. As they were laughing their heads off at her, Elizabeth had an epiphany. Perhaps, whilst their marriages were an important part of their lives, these women relied on more than just one relationship for happiness. Marriages in this part of the world are far more practical than romantic. Maybe they had their need for connection, fulfilment, support, commiseration, empathy, and child-rearing assistance met in other ways... by each other perhaps. By their tribe.

I am a big believer in this. Whilst I love my husband, and he is a great partner, father, provider etc., I don’t rely on him to fulfil every facet of my life. My happiness is not solely his burden. Apart from the responsibility we must take for ourselves to be happy, I do think human connections are essential for happiness, at least for me. But how can we possibly rely on one person, no matter how wonderful (and usually of a different gender no less), to single-handedly raise us up? So I have a wide circle of family and friends who all offer their gifts. Don't get me wrong, my marriage is very important to me, but it's not the sole source of my happiness.

Then I read Thea’s latest post at Do I Really Wanna Blog about friendships and the different styles of friendship different people have to offer. This too resonated with me. The individuals in my group of friends, not to mention my family, differ wildly. There are introverts, extroverts, religious, spiritual, atheist, drinkers, teetotallers, parents, smug married, singles, real, imaginary, 2-D , old, young, in-between, country, city, gay, straight, bubbly, melancholy, optimist, pessimist and everything else you could think of.

Each have something different to offer to me and their other friends. Different styles of friendship as Thea puts it. The thoughtful, always-calls type, the do-anything-you-need type, the fun-to-go-get-loaded-with type, the wise one you take your problems to, the ones who inspire you, hell, even the ones who kick your butt and get you back on track. All different, all just as valuable as the others.

I think it’s like this – people need a tribe; a big group of people around you, partner if you have one, family, friends and especially girlfriends to give you all the aspects you need – you don’t expect your husband to spend hours trawling the shops and drooling over the men of Desperate Housewives do you??

Fashion Faux-Ga

OK, so I'm feeling a bit better today, well enough to be sitting stuck at home, bored, grumpy and watching Ellen.

And who does she have on today? None other than my favourite fruit-loop, Lady Gaga. Now I know I have blogged before about little miss oh-no-I'm-an-artiste and I don't want to cover old ground... but I'm gunna!

So she whacked on some latex and sang whilst sitting astride some poor backup dancer stuck hanging upside down.

Poor lass. I hope she got paid in more than sequinned undies and latex formalwear.

Anyhoo, after this song, she sat with Ellen for her "interview". What a stunted, awkward thing that was. Can we get some PR training to table 5, pronto?!

During this chat, Ellen asked her about her outfits and what makes her choose such out-there looks for her performances. Lady Gaga said she felt like she didn't fit in at high school (as an aside, does anyone feel like they did? Isn't that the whole point of high school?) and felt like an outsider, a freak. So she wears these outfits to let her fans have a safe place to let their inner freak flags fly, to let them know it's okay to be different.

Uh-huh.

This is obviously what all the little misfits have been doing wrong. Instead of trying to copy the cool kids and not quite pulling it off, thus consigning themselves to the nuclear wasteland of uncooldom forever (well, at least a couple of years), they should instead be like Lady. Just superglue your entire body, pour the contents of your feather quilt over said self, grab some ornaments off your Christmas tree and suspend them from your genitalia and you're good to go!

Wait til the cool kids see you now!

"Wow, Abigail, we can totally like see now, that you are totally like just a tortured artist, and we like totally get that now. Please, oh please, oh PLEASE will you be our super-best friend?? By the way, we are totally like sorry about the whole gaffer-taping you naked to the flagpole thing, but hey, looking at you now, maybe that's your thing. Like okay?"

Yuh-huh, I'm sure that's totally how it would go. Gimme a break.

One of the Gang

Don't you hate when you join a class and you're clearly the newbie? Everybody else knows all the moves, chats amongst themsleves and barely looks in your direction.

It doesn't seem to matter what sort of group it is, if I join it, guaranteed it's full of a tight knit group who've all been going for ages. Some are lovely and include me like I've been there the whole time, like my Mothers Group, some are clique-y and exclusive, like the book club where two people kept talking over the top of me . I started an aerobics class yonks ago, and the instructor didn't even bother announcing what they were doing next, the whole class moved like a school of fish, with me the bumbling Dory banging into everyone.

I joined a pilates class when GG was about 6 months old and left after a few months, because not only was it not helping my bad pelvis (thanks GG, you lump of a fetus to carry!), but not one woman had said anything other than a casual Hi to me, with no follow up anything.

Well, it appears this unfortunate talent is hereditary. GG started swimming lessons today, and because of a cock-up where the front desk woman sent me to the wrong place, we ended up having to join the next class. One that was, of course, full of kids who knew all the moves, sang all the songs, and left their Mums to go with the instructor with no dramas. Sigh.

Luckily, GG is happy and confident in the water, and I'm sure once she gets to know the instructor she'll be fine. The Mums seems nice and friendly and one little girl was holding GG's hand as they sat on the edge kicking their legs. Plus the instructor actually took time to explain to me what we needed to do for each section of the class.

Hopefully GG won't be a newbie for too much longer.

Friends (not the TV show)

Don't you just love how kids can make friends?

Image from here

All it takes it seems is to in the general vicinity of a kid roughly your age, and voila!

GG joined me on a coffee date this morning, and met A for the first time. GG is 2, A is 3. Their eyes met shyly over babycinos, then 5 minutes later, there were bolting off to the horsey ride together. In the car on the way home, GG announced, "A my friend, my nice friend." Awww.

I've always been kind of funny about making friends. I like to think I'm a good friend, I still have friends I met in primary school, I'm a typical Capricorn, very loyal, but once you've crossed me, you're done. I find it hard to make new friends as a grown up though. Since we've moved to the Gold Coast (well, moved back - I grew up here), I've kinda wanted to expand my group of local friends. I've got plenty of lovely friends, but they're all kind of scattered, and I'd like some more available to catch up with (it's all about me, obviously). The few friends I have still on the Coast from last time I lived here are lovely, but there's like 3 of them. Where do I go? It's not like there's a playground I can skulk around the edges of and see who I like the look of, like when you start a new school.

Plus, it seems a bit weird and sad and clinical to be "friend-hunting", doesn't it. Which makes it bizarre and tragic that I'm publicly talking about it! Hmmmm...

I have met a few of people who've become very dear friends through the usual work, ante-natal class etc., and it's been easy as pie. I wonder if that's because I wasn't actually looking for a friend. Now I sometimes feel like a Bridget Jones-esque single, strategising where to meet suitable friends, how to approach them. In short, overanalysing like I always do.

Maybe I should take a leaf out of GG's book and just chill. "Hey! You like parks too? Let's be friends!". Yeah, I'm sure that'll keep me out of the loony bin...