We are every one of those 50 shades of grey…

Yes, I’ve seen the movie and bought and read all the books. I am 50 Shades of Grey literate. I watched the live debut in London yesterday afternoon, on the internet, complete with the red carpet walk, and interviews with the producer and the writer who said she never dreamed she would be at a debut of a movie made from her books.

I thought the movie would not live up to the books, such as they are.  Regardless of the success, or not, of the movie, the success of the books cannot be denied – if you judge success on books sold and money made.  100 million women anticipated to have read it.  The formula these days seems to be in writing trilogies and in something that lends itself well to images, blogs, and social media – to hype the hype.  50 Shades has all of this.  The book – as in any book – brings images to mind. Images that are as private as the image of each of us reading the book – in our easy chairs, in bed, late at night, on our computers, or ipads, hidden in our offices, or even reading on our cell phones, if we didn’t want to have the book in the house.

As the movie has come closer to opening, we hear a variety of words – anticipatory giggles, “when are you going”, “are you going with your husband”, “…with your boyfriend”, or “with the girls”?  We hear angry words, mainly from women.  Women talking about violence towards women, disrespect, abuse, and challenging each other to boycott the movie on behalf of the cause of feminism.  Or we hear psychologists talk about the damage it will cause to young girls.  We hear little from men.  They say it’s a chick flick. And they don’t know what it’s about.

The Valentine’s Day opening was moved to the 13th, so ladies could go with their lady friends and still have their date nights on the 14th.  Would couples attend together?  Would there be giggles?  Shifting in one’s seat?  Sighs of mutual acknowledgement? Nods to each other when we leave the theater?  Rushes to our cars?  Would we post our thoughts on Facebook? Or would we be as quiet as we were in the private time when we read the book?  Alone with our thoughts.  With our ponderings. With a smattering of confusion.The theater was filled.  Mainly women, but a few with male dates, too.  We began with quiet applause, as if we had all been waiting a very long time in our lives.  Popcorn at the ready, we snuggle down.  Women in sweat pants and comfy clothes, no dress-up needed. There is humor in this film.  Mainly it is comedic timing and natural instinct by Dakota Johnson.  Jamie Dornan does not meet our expectations of Mr. Grey as neatly.  How could any actor meet what each of us had imagined and created in our own minds?  A little too slim.  Curling up of the upper lip makes him always appear as about to giggle. Shoulders not broad enough. Though his hands are striking, and brought about an audible gasp from the audience as he clasped a table edge.

In my opinion, the movie is not about BDSM or violence against women.  Or degradation. Or disrespect.  It simply isn’t about any of that.  It is about the fantasy.  The fantasy of what women – mainly older women – might think about – sometimes.  Maybe it’s even an offering of a fantastical thought, should the woman have run fresh out of them. The exploitations that may roll around in one’s mind, while the reality of acting upon any of it would equal the chagrin of a couple watching mid-core porn in a hotel room. Really, honey? But we might think about it. We might.

So, just what is the appeal of all of this experimental sex?  What were the sexiest moments?  Were they the riding crop, or were they by the piano listening to him play a haunting melody?  Were they the necktie around her wrists, or were they taking her up on an air glider, a day completely planned by him, from beginning to end?

As I sit writing this I am listening to some “national expert” talking about the grave damage this movie will do to young girls….and I think about Bill Clinton and his declaration of “I did not have sex with that woman”.  I think about how oral sex replaced intercourse by definition for young girls in an instant.  And how a “goodnight, I had a nice time” with a kiss, became lost to the acceptable act of quick oral sex.  One sided, I would add.  How has HPV been spread exponentially?  By young people – men & women – believing an STD could not be spread this way. Because this is not sex.  The president said so.  Talk to young women today.  The sexual act, for many of them, is about their performance with their man.  Not about receiving pleasure, or sexual skill of their partner.  It is yet another giving act – much like making dinner, and doing the laundry. And if the money equation is tipped on the male’s side, even more.

50 Shades of Grey is fantasy.  Speaking as a feminist, I believe men probably don’t get it (nor will they take the time to read or watch), so we need to tell them how we are feeling about it.  It is not the black and white of sexual pleasure.  It is the grey of our lives, of our minds, of our exhaustion.  It is the grey of our feelings – of what might be, or could have been.  It is a lifetime of fairy princesses and handsome princes, with broken promises for our lives, watched when we were very young. To be followed next by Donna Reed and Lucy and Laura & Dick Van Dyke. We have the ‘right’ to equal pay and our careers.  Yet our “before” lives and responsibilities remain largely intact, too; just with more stacked upon it, very little removed or replaced. Many of us do all of this while also being the sandwiched caretakers of our aging parents. And still we hear we aren’t doing enough and that we need to “lean in” and do more. Be more.

The fantasy is freedom. It is putting our shoulders down and not worrying about what is for dinner or the buying and cooking of it, or where we will go if we go out (pick the restaurant, arrange for the babysitter, get the concert tickets, call the friends).  It’s not worrying about buying our own car, or servicing it. Or paying all the bills.  It’s not even thinking about what we will wear.  It’s about looking good, being fit, being healthy, being taken care of. It is a fantasy of release.

But as the books and the movies are clear to reveal, the control in this fantasy is always the woman’s.  She realizes it herself, half way through. Nothing is done to her she has not consented to, or actually asked for.  Her inquisitiveness did take her a little too far, but sometimes that happens with a safe situation and a mind free to wander.

This movie is not for the young, and certainly not for tweens.  Much damage has already been done by an ex-President, and what we watch on our televisions every day. Sex mixed with violence is power.  Not sex.  50 Shades of Grey is none of those things.  It is mature content, for a mature life.  It is a gentle, ‘what if’. It is not a blonde princess spinning on the ice singing about her true love. It is, however, fodder for conversation between couples about that private part of their lives.

The fact that this movie is about to enjoy success at a time when the popular movies are showing some of our more famous female actresses at their worst – no makeup, abused, beaten, raped, going through physical challenges, etc. is an interesting coincidence.  This time, we seem to want another fantasy. In the yin and yang of life, this time we want to be the woman offered an easier life, love, and consensually great sex (and of course we want control).  But sometimes we also want to be seen as the woman who has been torn to the ground and has risen again, scathed and damaged, but alive, and the wiser for it, too. A survivor.

We are a complicated hot mess. We are not black and white.  We’ve earned every one of those fifty shades of grey.

5 o’clock in the Rainbow Room

It could be a sound, a scent, a photo.  Music.  Memories flood.  At unexpected times.

As an occasional professional fundraiser, I get acceptance into a world that I don’t live in, and I don’t come from. Yes, there are beautiful homes, and cars. Shoes to glance at.  Amazing jewelry – new or heirloom – I wonder. It is a world I have great respect for. I see the dedication of time – the sacrifice it takes – to maintain that.  I hear their thoughts about ‘legacy’.  It usually comes when children are grown, educated, getting married. Before they become grandparents. It’s a time when ‘how will we be remembered’ is all important. A time when their contribution to a cause will be life changing for people they will almost never meet.

They depend on someone like me to make the right partnerships for their interests. Do they want a naming opportunity, where their family name will be emblazoned on a building or a brick in a wall?  Sometimes they want anonymity completely. My work, moreso years ago than today, took me to meetings in beautiful lunch clubs (used to be men’s clubs), and the occasional trip for a particularly important planned giving opportunity.

Today I do little of that. But the other day, as I sat in my home office, working in slippers with my cat by my side, I saw the first flakes of snow falling.  And a story about the concert series at The Rainbow Room.  So attuned to sensory cues, it only took that visual, a snippet of music, and the memories flooded.

 

A cold winter’s night. In New York City. Early dinner. Top of the world at Rockefeller Center. The Rainbow Room. Round parquet dance floor with small dinner tables surrounding it. Floor to ceiling windows. A grand piano.  We’ve stepped into a movie.

So quiet so early. I wonder if they are really open. It’s only 5 o’clock. We’re seated to one side. The candle is lit in this always dim-to-dark room. Our napkins are gingerly laid in our laps. It’s business, but we’ve let ourselves have time for enjoying a little bit of the town, as I obliged the request. “Surely we can have dinner in a nice place; and maybe Radio City?”  “Thank you, whatever you like. Yes, we should have some time off.”

He selects the wine. We wait for it to be served. I feel some motion in the room and I look out the window where skyscraper tops meet my eye. I see that it’s snowing. But it wasn’t snowing on the ride over. It was cold. But not cold enough for snow. When our waiter comes back with the wine he comments on our conversation. “Yes, it’s snow.  But it’s only snowing up here – on the 65th floor.  If you took the elevator down right now it would not be snowing at all at ground level. The snow evaporates on its way down to the street.”  Even more special, we have a private snowstorm, and I wonder if it was ordered for the occasion.

There is another couple in the distance, across the dance floor. They lean in to each other across the small cocktail table. She’s wearing winter white. He’s almost imperceptible in the dark, except for the sparkle from his cuff link, when it catches the light reflecting off the crystal chandelier.

It’s the 90s. I work too hard. Travel too infrequently. Relax in elegant settings so rarely.

My meal is selected for me. I think nothing of it. I am doing nothing; responsible for nothing. I make no decisions, or recommendations.  I absorb. My shoulders come down and I settle in.  I could be in Paris, or Istanbul, or Shanghai, I think.  But I’m only in New York. On the 65th floor. In the snow.

While we wait, a dark man enters towards the piano. He is wearing tuxedo and tails with a white crisp shirt. His hair is as black as the black of his suit. He skillfully moves the piano bench without making a sound. He slips in front of it and does that little flourish to kick out the tails, and sits down. He has no sheet music. He simply sits. Still.

I feel a little dizzy by it all. And then I realize that the floor is rotating – the very slowest rotating floor I’ve ever seen.  One that the waiter can comfortably walk across to serve the food. And I wonder if he ever loses a table.  But then he just has to count “four tables to the left of the piano” and it would be right where he left it.

The piano man’s fingers are placed on the keyboard and he flutters out some pleasant notes, and then begins to play – quietly, ever so subtly. He closes his eyes. I find I’m soon closing mine, too.

I sigh, and catch myself, wondering if that was loud enough to hear. My dinner partner and I exchange looks and words as our minds compete to find the memory box first. What is the tune being played for us? Pretty soon, one of us comes up with it – it is the theme from Prince of Tides. From the movie by that name whose closing scene was filmed right where we are. I know so many versions of that music.  But the piano makes me think of Lori Line. And it is so beautiful. There comes a moment when ‘something’ is called for – applause? a smile? a laugh? a tear? – we look at each other again. And he asks. Would you like to dance? I wonder if the man with the cuff link across the room can see the spark(le) from this man’s eye. Yes, yes, that would be what one should do, I think – and say.

He formally takes my hands, in proper position, and we dance.  I breathe in the cologne, close to me now, the scent I’ve smelled so many times across a board room, driving to a meeting, passing me by. We dance slowly, in proper cadence and position. Until the moment when he pulls me closer and wraps his arms around me, like a woman my age might dance with a man my age. It is all right I tell myself. It is, just about, perfect, I say over and over in my mind.

The piano player plays the long form, and it goes on and on. I wonder if he’s doing that just for us.  Yet, as it comes to a close, we both know that it was much too short.  Much too brief. Much too quickly did the door open and close.

Our dinner is waiting for us and we notice that the waiter has quietly placed covers on our food and refilled our wine.  As we walk to the table he comes by to uncover what we are here for – to eat. A quick glance up at me, a not-quite smile. He does not look at the gentleman at all. My napkin is placed once again in my lap. And I pick up my fork.

We eat quietly, as if something very special has happened here on this night of work, with a little time off for pleasure. I drink more wine and notice the couple across the floor has left. And it’s not snowing anymore. I can’t see the spires on the tops of the buildings. It’s all misty and foggy now.

The pianist has finished playing something else that was lovely, I’m sure. And taken his break. The floor no longer turns. It is only 7 o’clock.

The gentleman pays the bill though I don’t see a bill presented or payment made. We walk across the dance(d) floor. My coat is placed on my shoulders as we walk to our waiting elevator for two. My ears pop as we go slowly from 65 to ground. We say nothing. He looks down. I pull on my leather gloves. He does the same. I see the sparkle of his cufflink, and notice the lines on his face. Suddenly he looks very tired. His cologne surrounds me. I breathe it in very deeply.  In a moment the doors open to a blast of cold winter air.

The Prince of Tides was released on Christmas Day in 1991

It starred Barbara Streisand and Nick Nolte

The movie was based on a novel by Pat Conroy published in 1986

The Stalling Time…

Another treatise on women lacking confidence has come out and met with the usual national PR splash.  Put it in on the shelf next to the one that says we aren’t leaning in.  The lacking confidence one is by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman in The Atlantic’s May 2014 cover story, called “The Confidence Gap”.  Kay and Shipman write that, despite being just as qualified as men, women often hold themselves back.

Well, let’s look at that for a moment, as a truth.  Why would that be?  Is there a reason we would hold ourselves back?  Back from the tippy-top positions.  The ones that require you to be super-glued to your job, working 12 hour days, being a bit ruthless to succeed, and for a time, putting everything – family, spouse, and self – on the back burner.

A colleague of mine who is, by any measure, at the very top of her field, has written a book – “Sweet as Pie, Tough as Nails”.  She has had personal sacrifice to be there, at the top, some of which I wouldn’t write about, but which would not settle well in my sense of success, balance, life.

In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg examines why women’s progress in achieving leadership roles has stalled.  Stalled!  Now that is an interesting word choice.  And I would agree.  We have “stalled”.  But I believe it is a deliberate and intentional stall. And a healthy one. Men should try it.

When men tell women what they lack or how they should change or do something differently, it comes with a certain “oh, well, they don’t really know us” – but when women receive accolades and get interviewed on national talk shows because they are “eating their own”, telling other women that yes, we don’t lean in enough; we don’t reach for the very top, we aren’t equal, we lack confidence, women perhaps rush to buy the book, rush to be better, to work harder, to read advice columns on how to ask for a raise, or how to lead, or how to get less sleep, and fit more hours in the day.

We once again measure women’s process and accomplishments against the “gold standard” of the same for men. I don’t suppose it’s very popular for women to write books for men with titles such as, “Think Before You Reach” and “Hard as Steel, all the way through….”.  When do you see women advising men on public talk shows that they should think a little bit more before they act – and try aiming to do the right thing, not just any thing.

What is disheartening is that it is accomplished women telling ‘us’ we fall short, once again.  But, are we going to buy that message?  WHY have we stalled?  What are we waiting for?  What are we doing while we are stalling?  In all this equality, perhaps we are thinking – a little “too much” some might say.  We are thinking about success.  What measures our personal success?  What is it we want to accomplish?  That will be different for a 20-something and a 50-something.  For some, yes, we want that tippy-top position, we want it all, and I’ll be the first to stand up and cheer for those who get it.  Ladies who do?  Remember to be kind to those behind you.  Remember to offer a hand to them, to help them up the rungs.  Not turn away as you fear losing your spot to someone younger, more educated, more connected, and heaven forbid, prettier.  Yes, it is still a factor in today’s modern workaday world.

As we sit here in our “stalling time”, let’s think about our success.  I won’t attempt to define it here.  Because that would be as wrong as telling us what we need to do.  For each one of us it will be different. For some it will be family, children, and being there for a period of time to fully participate in it all.  For others it will be years and years of education and then – a role as a doctor or researcher who will quietly save lives every single day, without time to think if she’s leaned in or not.

As the pendulum of home – work – home – work continues to sway, we seek equilibrium, most of us.  We seek balance and energy.  To walk through our lives energized, and not exhausted.  To not need Ambien to sleep and drown ourselves in coffee, or worse, to get on with our day.

As I look back at my 50-something advice to my 20-something daughters I say, go ahead and stall.  Now’s a good time.  You’ve got the education and the path is before you.  Stall, just for a while.  Watch your path.  Measure your life.  Lean in one way – or lean in the other way. Or lean a little bit in both.  Think of your tombstone and read the obituaries.  How would you like yours to read?  Think of, gulp, me.  Where do I fall short – and why?  What choices did I not have freedom to make?  What would the choices have been if I was free to make them?

Stall.  Define yourself.  Lean in for no one. Have the confidence to stand still and think. When you put your foot forward on your path, you might know more about where you want it to go, rather than jumping on for a ride you may not want to go on.

Think about balance.  Think about pendulums.  Think about standing still.  Being quiet.  Look at the ocean.  Write your 5 year plan.  Write your obituary.  Write mine.  Stall as long as you want.  And remember, you can always come back and stall – again.