Perfectly Normal Weirdo
Dear Friends,
In Macon, Georgia, the twin spires of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church tower over the skyline. Inside it’s all marble and stained glass, pomp and circumstance. And when, in the middle of a wedding, a baby cries, the sound carries upward and fills the space.
Above the priest’s homily, above the cantor’s soaring soprano, the smallest humans in the room make their presence known.
The mothers scurry. They power walk down the aisles to the back. They lean their bodies against the doors and retreat to the open air. They shhh and bounce. One mother slings her baby’s covered carseat back and forth like the Pharaoh’s Fury boat ride at the fair. And when all is quiet, they return to their seats to dole out peppermints and admonishments to their older children. They return their attention to mass, to God and everything.
Each mom seems alone in her attempt to get her small, unruly human through a formal celebration. And yet there is so much overlap. The mothers wear the same style of tiered spring dress. Their feet move through the church and the reception hall in the same frantic rhythm. Their children call to be heard as if with one voice. Being other is human, as is the desire to belong.
To me, the south, especially, will always be about the friction between standing out and homogeneity.
Though I try not to spend too much energy worrying about fitting in in Georgia anymore (after all, I’m no longer in high school and don’t even live there), I’ll admit my mom and I spend a moderate amount of time hand-wringing over what to wear to this wedding. Cocktail attire. But a daytime wedding. But an evening reception. But my mom’s old friends. But half the attendees dance in a professional ballet company. But my fat body. But my resistance to the tiered dress. But who’s going to be looking at me anyway?
We look just fine, a couple of weirdos blending right in. We even make new friends.
The day after the wedding, my mom and I visit with my Grandmom, who lives in a senior living community built in what used to be my dad’s elementary school.
“Everybody’s always asking me if I saw the Braves game,” she says, “and I say no, and they ask what I’m watching, and I say British mystery shows. Everybody here thinks I’m weird.”
We go to lunch at Fresh Air BBQ with Grandmom and my dad’s childhood friend Arnold. He’s telling us about decorating his man cave when we get a text from my mom’s friend Beth.
“Y’all come on over–we’re sitting in the carport watching traffic go by like a bunch of rednecks.”
We go, and spend the most peaceful few hours with Beth and her partner Margie. The breeze blows through the carport carrying the scent of gardenias and magnolias. Sure, there’s the view of the traffic, but more importantly, the view of Beth’s pond, where I spot a giant grass carp gliding through the water. I can feel my blood pressure dropping.
Nothing feels more like home to me than these beloved Macon people-–living exactly how and where they want to live, purely as themselves.
On the plane home from Georgia, I watch the new HBO documentary Bama Rush. Capitalizing on the viral TikTok sensation of women trying to get into sororities at the University of Alabama, the documentary follows several “potential new members” (PNMs) as they prepare everything from their outfits to their personalities.
For me, the documentary is a flop–it’s clear that it set out to be some sort of tell-all exposé, but got shut down hard by the powerful forces behind the university’s Greek system. And instead of admitting, “yeah, you got us, we failed to sneak microphones inside Tri Delt,” the director bats her sleepy eyes at the camera and pretends that was never her intention in the first place. More and more of her interview subjects quit the documentary or the rush process, and we’re left with one blonde from California being interviewed in a remote lake at dusk, far from the prying eyes of the Greek machine.
"Being in a sorority will help me figure out who I want to be," the California PNM tells the camera."I've always needed a thing to be a part of as part of my identity. It's been hard for me to find a sense of self-worth because I don't really know who I am."
Throughout the documentary, several of the PNMs meet with “rush consultants,” women in their 30s and 40s who coach them through the process. You want to stand out, but not too much, seems to be the through-line. You want to fit in. Have the right outfit, shoes, hair, interview answers, and smile. But, you know, be yourself.
The footage of bid day shows an army of near-identical women: mostly white, mostly blonde, mostly with long hair, all thin, all wearing the same clothes, all running down the path to their new sisters.
British author and philosopher Alain de Botton writes, “The only people we can think of as normal are those we don’t know very well.”
When we don’t yet know ourselves, we fear we’re abnormal. Adolescence seems cursed by this state: we aren’t yet self-actualized or confident in our true selves, so we’re terrified we must be weird. (Read more on how teens have it hard these days in Adele and Matt’s piece this week in The Alexandria Times).
It turns out that the “normal” people are almost always weird. And, on the flip side, the people we think of as “other” are often just selves we haven’t yet become.
When I was living in Saudi Arabia, there was a group of women I found intimidating and very other. I didn’t yet have kids. They did, and were fiercely vocal about advocating for them. They were loud about their dissatisfaction for everything from preschool options to the Embassy holiday party. They had a group chat that was always exploding with drama. The cohort was impenetrable–no matter how many friendships I made with individuals in the group, I would never be invited in, childless as I then was. Several of us on the outside jokingly (reverently?) referred to them as “The Mommy Mafia.”
Six years, two countries, and one kid later, I’m beginning to get it.
“Elizabeth and I are going to start a playgroup,” I tell my husband. “We’ve got some moms in mind–I think we’re going to do a group text to announce the plans each week this summer.”
“Oh my god,” he says. “Are you the Mommy Mafia mob boss?”
At first I deny it–this isn’t anything like that. Or is it?
Whether the goal is enacting social change or just getting through a summer without childcare, moms need each other. The Mommy Mafia is necessary to survive the isolation of being at home with small children. It’s necessary for community, for validation, for advice, for the village. For combatting the injustices that still exist, from the lack of postpartum infrastructure to how trite we’re still made to feel at a party when we mention our children.
What I once saw as other, I’ve now become. And, you know what? It feels pretty good to be a mob boss.
Was the otherness I applied to the Mommy Mafia just about me, wanting to fit in, and feeling left out? Was I the weirdo all along?
Maybe we never really know whether we’re standing out or fitting in. Our identities can shift. We can be in and out at the same time.
One thing Adele often talks about in her work with clients is setting a goal of living authentically. This can take on so many lines of personal inquiry. Are you othering yourself, putting yourself into a role that isn’t true to what you actually want? Are you taking on too much, saying yes to too much? Is there a power imbalance or religious or cultural tradition in your family preventing you from being your true self? Are you honoring your creative side? Are you feeling resentful about how others are living because you long to be included?
Whether you’re looking for community to help you find a sense of self-worth or blazing your own weirdo trail, know that both of these are deeply human paths. And who knows. Maybe you, too, will see time and circumstance shift your identity. I think we’re all just looking for our own carport, in the end. Somewhere to feel the breeze and decide what to do today. Drive into the busy road, or push the canoe out onto the quiet water.
Take good care,
Dot
News & Updates
Local friends, pick up a copy of this week’s Alexandria Times to find an article by Matthew Brooks and Adele Stuckey. This issues is focused on kids and teens, and we’re offering advice for adolescents on how to cope with anxiety and pressure in a post-COVID world. We’ll link to the full article if it appears online, but for now, you can read it below.
Alexandria Art Therapy is now offering virtual art therapy for clients outside the Northern Virginia area. If you’ve been intrigued by art therapy for yourself or your child but haven’t found a practice near you, let us know. Openings are now available for telehealth sessions for clients in applicable states.
Art therapy through telehealth is not available for clients located in CT, DE, KY, MD, MS, NJ, NM, NY, OR, PA, TN, TX, AZ, UT, or WI due to licensing requirements.
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Blog Posts
When you become a parent, you know your world is about to change. There’s so much to learn. How do I feed the baby? How do I wrap a swaddle? Should we sleep train? But a major world-change that rarely comes up in the parenting books is sensory overwhelm. The crying, the battery-powered toys, the smell of milk, the visual clutter of baby accessories filling your house. Being “touched out." In our latest blog, Adele Stuckey and Dot Dannenberg write about how to take care of your sensory needs while caring for a newborn or a toddler.
Links We Like
“Like plants, we need water, sunlight, nutrients, and room to grow. But you can’t always water yourself.”
Sleep, creep, leap: Austin Kleon on when gardening metaphors apply to creativity.
Favorite art whimsy of the week.
Brilliant and worth some self-reflection–Haley Nahman’s newsletter on how we use headphones to hide and avoid experiences of being in the real world. Also of note, her recent letter on TTC pregnancy forums.
Because this is also a wellness newsletter, it turns out that drinking 8 glasses of water a day is…excessive and getting 10,000 steps a day is just a marketing strategy.
Fitting-in goals. Photo by Jonathan S. Blair taken in Saint Petersburg, Florida, 1973. Via City of Ladies:
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