In my stylized, nostalgia-filter version of the 1950s and 60s, around this time of the year, friends and neighbors would gather, perhaps somewhat reluctantly while feigning interest, and partake in buffets of shrimp cocktail, and French onion dip and things encased in jello. Whiskey cocktails drank while wearing wingtip shoes or red lipstick. And the lights would dim, and guests would oooh and ahhh over the Jones’ or the Smiths’ vacation photos, revolving through with the click, click, click of the rotating projector, the occasional slide upside down, so that everyone would lean their necks to the right in a choreographed pantomime to compensate.
Granted, my familiarity with the 1950s and 60s is mostly limited to Mad Men previews and movies like Mr. Holland’s Opus and Catch Me If You Can. So, I could be completely full of it. And I probably am. But based on the adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same, my guess is that while we eat less jello as a rule, we have merely streamlined the party, gotten rid of the bulky projectors and created Facebook albums of our smiling adventures. Outside of these photos, toddlers melt down, and siblings refuse to give up their window seat despite all promises yesterday to the contrary, and spouses absently pass each other, unseeing, in the kitchen.
We live in a world where every photo we take can be immediately tweaked for vibrancy and hue, filters applied. Larger eyes and softer light, smoother skin, fewer wrinkles, backgrounds smudged or expunged altogether. It’s no wonder that we wonder sometimes get lost in the technicolor and forget that most of life is lived in the gray areas, that most people we meet are far more complex than our social media footprint, the smile in passing at the grocery store, or even the persona we legitimately cultivate and own for all but select few people who are our people.
Beyond the whiskey cocktails and whirring projectors of the 1950s, and past the witty Away Messages of our 1990s chat rooms, and right through the carefully edited images we post today, life has no filter. (#nofilter, if you will.) It’s hard to own, sometimes, when everyone else’s life is airbrushed for public consumption, the messy details of our own. In a culture of 5-year and 10-year plans and multi-tasking reverence and the expectation that we are public domain, it’s hard to admit that tomorrow is a bit foggy, that we’re feeling jagged and brittle, or overwhelmed, that my magic 8-ball always shakes to “Reply hazy. Ask again later.”
Charcoal. Granite. Graphite. Flint. It’s all gray. Sometimes a soft dove gray. Sometimes a heavy pewter. But it’s a spectrum, as we are, in constant flux.
Things I know for sure, in black and white: I’m out of daycare lunchbox drinks. There is laundry to do. School starts in 2 ½ weeks. Tennis shoes should be bought. This week should have several pool days.
And after that, we’ll see.
We’ll see. That classic line of adulthood, heard by children everywhere with an impatient sigh. But really, if we could admit that we’re just talking to ourselves, that we’re waiting for the Universe to answer a little more decisively, and in the meantime, day by day, we’ll buy Capri Suns and Nikes, wouldn’t we all sleep a little sounder?