In the South we have levels of “tacky.” I can’t speak for other parts of the country; I’m just sharing my personal knowledge. Take it for what it’s worth. The lowest and, therefore, semi-acceptable level, allowing for discreet display is “fun.”
No where else in the country is the word “fun” nuanced in such a way, but if you have ever attended any gift-giving occasion in the land of true Southerners, you, my friend, know exactly that of which I speak. Gift opened, and you watch as the receivers eyes glazed slightly, lips pursed a tad, and after the slightest of pauses exclaimed in the sugary sweetest of voices, “Oh, how FUN!”
The second level of “tacky,” is just that – “tacky.” Acceptability at this level and appropriateness of display of “tacky” vary widely unless, of course, you belong to the DAR, Junior League, or Daughters of the Confederacy. I’m pretty sure it’s in the by-laws of these organizations that displays of tacky are barred for all members, and are, in fact, cause for immediate dismissal.
Our third and final level, the level from which there truly is no social redemption or resurrection (even on Easter) is the Heaven forfend, “trashy.” How do we distinguish “trashy” from “tacky?” Think of it like this: if I got a run in the pantyhose that I wore to church, and didn’t have a spare pair tucked away in my purse to change into discreetly in the Ladies’ Room before heading to brunch, that would be a tad tacky. However, if I wore a pair of pantyhose that got a run to Easter Sunday service, then proceeded to pull off those pantyhose while sitting in the front pew as the pastor was delivering his sermon, that, my friends, would be trashy.
Just for reference, it is not only behavior and home goods that can fall on the tacky spectrum. Oh, no. Clothing does – quite often – land here, too. Questions? Okay, now that we’ve got the basics down, I’ll move along to my point. (And you thought I didn’t have one this time…)
When my beautiful, grown up, married love of a niece, K, was an itty-bitty thing, she spent quite a bit of her summertime with me. She doesn’t remember much from those early years, but one of her favorite things to do on her days with me was go to big department stores for “Tacky Lessons;” (I kid you not, and while we’re here in a parenthetical anyway, I’ll just ask you not to be too judge-y, though, even as I type that I do recognize the hypocrisy in that statement. However, everyone has to get her sense of class and style somewhere.) So, there I was, all of 22, pushing a 3-year old in her umbrella stroller through Pentagon City Mall with her pointing out items of clothing she thought fell somewhere on the tacky spectrum (I should probably mention that one rarely finds “fun” clothing, although UVA’s oddly traditional orange corduroy pants embroidered with the blue “fighting scissors” might qualify.) and waiting for confirmation. Fortunately, most of these clothes hung from store racks and not other peoples’ bodies.
As she got older, she’d walk beside me, holding my hand, and spotting her quarry, whisper lowly, “That, Rachael, is just (insert dramatic pause) tacky/trashy.” Her pronouncements were always said with utter sincerity and certainty, and I’d have to hide a smile. How could any 5-year old be that sure of anything?
But then she turned 6, and her mother and stepfather moved, taking her with them, and I saw her less and less. Eventually she forgot those music-box summer days and firefly summer nights that she’d spent with me, and something as amusing as “tacky lessons” became tugs of nostalgia for me.
Today, sitting in church, I watched children in the pews around me squirm through what was truly an amazing sermon – if you were an adult. Watching those fidgeting kids, I remembered years of wiggling through sermons next to my parents with the attendant sit-still-or-I-am-going-to-kill-you-later glares. I smiled as I wondered how much of our childhoods we really carry in our memory vaults, thought about how much of it shapes our interactions with the people we choose to surround ourselves with in the everyday minutiae of life, the choices we make in our careers, the choices we make in our clothes, maybe even the choices we make in our coffee selections. Remember, if you ask my niece, K, she’d tell you she has no memory at all of our summer excursions. Does she really not? Did none of her time with me – mall expeditions at her request, curling up nightly with my cocker spaniel while simultaneously pulling his ears and his tail (That was one very patient dog.), going to the pool at Ft. Belvoir’s officers’ club, or anything else – remain?
I want to believe that something of our time spent in her early life has to have stuck with her, helped shape her, and if K were to ask me what one memory I would wish she had been able to hold onto and not release like a paper lantern into the night sky, it wouldn’t be those “tacky lessons” she loved so much. Instead, it would be this one: she’s five, and unbeknownst to me, staying at my house with me for the last time ever in her childhood. One of my enlisted troops has just had her first baby, a tiny little infant girl named McKenna. My troop and her husband live way out in Solomons Island, MD, but she’s asked me to come, and I’ve agreed.
K loves babies, always has, even when she herself was a baby – as an infant she’d stare at them and coo. So, she’s ecstatic about this visit, and is chattering away as I strap her into the backseat, (It’s the days before you had to be taller than I am now to ride without a car seat.) and we’re off. She falls asleep on the way there, and I have to wake her enough to carry her to the front steps. When I set her down in the sandy front yard, she rubs here eyes fully awake and remembers she’s there to see a baby. She dances to the front door. My troop welcomes us in, instantly takes a shine to K, because, honestly, everyone does. And K is absorbed in McKenna.
When my airman asks K if she wants to hold the baby, K’s enormous blue eyes grow impossibly wider behind her glasses, and she hops up onto the purple couch holding her arms out as if to say, “Put her there.” And my airman does, nestling her baby into the crook of K’s little pale arms. K looks up at me, perfect contentment in her heart shaped face, and my soul couldn’t be more at peace, my girl, happy as could be, just because she is snuggling a newborn – it must be genetic. And then, the best opportunity possible comes along – McKenna needs a bottle.
My troop nods at K, asks if I think it’s all right, and I look at K for a moment and consider. Her big eyes pleading, her little face promising, and I know with both the momma and me there, it will be fine. So, we position McKenna just so in K’s arms, prop the infant up with pillows, place the bottle in the baby’s mouth, then place K’s hand around it. When McKenna starts to suck down that bottle, the look of wonder and delight on my girl’s face is such a joy to behold, my heart is ready to burst, but my joy is nothing compared to the bliss of K.
That memory, that glowing moment of pure awe, peace, and contentment so clearly visible on my 5-year old K’s face is the one I would wish for her to recapture. The rest of them: the hours in Pentagon City Mall, teaching K to make cookies with one of my best friends while little K stood on a chair because she was too small to reach the counters, teaching K basic swimming on our summer trips to Florida, taking snapshot after snapshot of her because, my goodness did that girl love the camera, taking her to the base pool, any and everything else, I’d gladly release if only for her to possess that single memory.
Don’t we all really deserve to have as many of those precious, untarnished, unblemished childhood memories – childhood wonders – as possible that we can pull out of our adult pockets when the world seems just a bit too gritty, just a bit too worn, and sometimes even just a bit too devastating? Don’t we all need those wonders?
Jesus tells us to be as little children because they are as yet uncorrupted by this cynical world. Children still see His world through eyes of awe and mystery. Children hope, trust, believe. Children love unconditionally. Maybe if we all had enough of our moments of wonder tucked into our pockets – even if deep, deep, into our pockets – to pull out when life got hard or dark or aching or sticky or any number of other not so pleasant adjectives, we would all be a little more like those children we left behind lifetimes ago, but really not that many years ago. We’d be more able to see –truly see – the rainbows and glitter and magic, because make no mistake, magic does exist; His name is God, and He loves us passionately, infinitely, and irrevocably (even if we don’t know the difference between “fun”, “tacky”, or “trashy”).
The Unexpected Life 