Z for Zero

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay. My, oh my, what a wonderful day.

We have come to Zed! My zeal for this zany quest through the alphabet zone has reached its final destination.  I can’t say I’ve zoomed through as it’s taken a little over a calendar year from start to finish, but, let’s face it.  It’s a zoo in there in Alphabetland.  All those letters zipping about in infinite combinations can lead to confusion, but I’ve brought a zestfulness to the endeavor that I’ll hope you’ll appreciate. 

Let’s stop the zig-zagging and zero in on our Z word.  That’s it.  Zero, that is. 

What do you think when you think zero?  Temperature-wise, it’s very cold on either scale, Fahrenheit or Celsius, and something I would prefer to avoid. In mathematics, it represents an empty or vacant position – zero, zip, zilch. As an adjective, it’s used to describe something having no measurable quantity or magnitude. In slang, it means to kill something – zero that dessert, we’re full. When used in reference to a person, it’s less than flattering, labeling them as insignificant or meaningless, even a nonentity.

Getting the picture?  Why then, when it comes to women’s clothing, is 0 the new 10?  Seriously, it is. It seems there’s an inverse relationship between the actual underlying measurements and the arbitrary number ascribed to those measurements.

This got me curious so I Googled to find an interesting article by Julia Felsenthal.  It seems that this whole sizing dilemma got started when the ready-to-wear industry began to boom.  Prior to that, wealthy women had their clothes tailor-made and I’m guessing poor women made most of their own clothing.  Men’s clothing was based on chest size – but that didn’t work for women.  The best proportions to use for us gals were height and weight, but that wasn’t going to fly – can you see walking into Nordstrom and announcing your height and weight to find your size?  Yikes!! So an arbitrary numbering system had to be devised – underlying the numbers were actual measurements of bust, hips and thighs, but these individual measurements were sufficiently obscured to avoid discomfort by shoppers. Over time, with no standards for sizing, manufacturers figured out that if they could label a size 10 as a size 8 they could win repeat customers. Every woman, it seems, is encouraged to aspire to be a lower number. 

The following blurb from Ms. Felsenthal’s article explains a bit more.

“The ASTM recommendations have evolved over time to accommodate a very real trend: vanity sizing. Women don’t want to know their real size, so manufacturers re-label bigger sizes with smaller numbers. In 1958, for example, a size 8 corresponded with a bust of 31 inches, a waist of 23.5 inches and a hip girth of 32.5 inches. In ASTM’s 2008 standards, a size 8 had increased by five to six inches in each of those three measurements, becoming the rough equivalent of a size 14 or 16 in 1958. We can see size inflation happening over shorter time spans as well; a size 2 in the 2011 ASTM standard falls between a 1995 standard size 4 and 6. (This may also explain why smaller sizes are constantly invented. The 1958 standard listed 8 as its smallest size. The 1995 ASTM standard listed a size 2. In 2011, ASTM lists a standard for size 00.)”

From a perfect 10 to a double zero.  What is vanity doing to us?  We are not zeroes nor should we aspire to be.  But we’re not perfect 10s either and that’s as senseless an aspiration. Ignore the number. If it makes you feel pretty, it’s comfortable and it’s in your budget, that’s a perfect fit.

Bernard Baruch, a 20^th century philanthropist and political consultant, said that “no man should think himself a zero, and think he can do nothing about the state of the world.”  Make that “no person should think him/herself a zero…” and I would agree. 

We’re not numbers and we’re certainly not zeroes. We’re beyond quantification, simplification, explanation.  We are a profound mystery. Infinite, boundless, beautiful.

As we reach the end of A to Z, I leave you with this Apache blessing.

May the sun bring you new energy by day, may the moon softly restore you by night. May the rain wash away your worries, may the breeze blow new strength into your being. May you walk gently through the world and know its beauty all the days of your life.

Y for Yearning

When my daughter, Kate, was young, she would beg to go spend time in Hope with her grandparents. On many Friday evenings, Charlie and I would meet Mom and Dad halfway, at the “Scottsburger” exit on I-65, and off she would go for a weekend visit. 

Around bedtime, the call would come.  “I want to come home.” Then, when she would come home on Sunday evening, she would want to be back in Hope.  The proverbial wish to have your cake and eat it, too. Impossible, my little darling.

Oh, the yearnings of youth.  Some of which remain for a lifetime.  And the beginning of a new year is a time for reflection on such things.  Well, that, and the fact that I’m home alone for eight days while Charlie is away on a business trip.  Me with too much time on my hands can be an interesting thing.

I have been yearning of late.  For home.  Except I’m not sure where or what that is.  It was ten years last November that we’ve lived outside the US.  In a few months, we’ll start our ninth year of residence here in Singapore.  When we left the US, Tennessee was our point of departure and had been home for about two years.  Prior to that, we had an Arizona postal code.  Before that, we’d had brief stays in Wisconsin, Kentucky, Kansas. 

Ever since Adam and Eve were sent away from Eden it seems the human condition has been one of a deep longing to go back home.  Think of the songs.

Home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play

.

Take, take me home, cause I don’t remember…

Our house in the middle of our street…

Homeward bound…I wish I was homeward bound…

Please celebrate me home. Play me one more song

that I’ll always remember and I can recall

whenever I find myself all too alone

I can sing me home

I’ll be home for Christmas…if only in my dreams.

Take me home, country roads.

The yearning is palpable in these tunes. So what is home?  It’s more than geography, more than brick and mortars, a floorplan or furnishings. It’s a dream, a vision, a feeling, a hope, a yearning. Home is something internal, something we carry with us wherever we go.  It may sound a bit cheesy, but home is where the heart is.  And that’s not a spot that Google can map. 

I guess each of us decides for ourselves and makes our own home.  And we know it when we find it.  And there’s no place like it.

X for Xyst

Three letters left to go which brings us to X, perhaps the most challenging of the 26 little characters. Alas, along came xyst (rhymes with mist) to save the day.

Xystus is an architectural term from ancient Greece that refers to a covered portico outside the gymnasium where exercise could be taken during inclement weather.  The Romans adapted the term and the usage – a xyst is a garden walk planted with trees. Which made me think of the beautiful botanic gardens here in Singapore.

I’m going on my ninth year in Singapore, my 11^th year of living outside the US.  During that time, I’ve relied on my feet and public transportation.  Since the day I returned my leased baby blue BMW prior to heading off to Geneva (I adored that little vehicle - even if Kate insisted it was a station wagon, I more vehemently argued it was a sport wagon) I’ve been without personal wheels. 

Kind of weird since I practically grew up with a car.  The day I turned 16, there was a car waiting for my use.  Dad got a new company car every year, but he loved car trading so there were usually a few sets of wheels in our driveway.  I recall going to a family funeral a few hours away from our home in Indiana, a family of five in one car, and coming back a few days later in two vehicles.  Walking around the neighborhood after the funeral, Dad had spotted a deal too good to pass by – so he wrote the check, signed the papers, and a new pony was added to the corral. 

Walking, busing and cabbing changes things.  It’s a mixed bag.  Depending on where I’m going and the bus route or availability or a taxi or my stamina, it may take a lot longer.  On the other hand, given the cost and availability of parking in certain areas, walking can be the fastest way to get something done.  Case in point – it’s an eight minute walk each way to ION.  But one evening, we were meeting friends at Sky and I’d done my hair, had on nice shoes – and it was pouring down rain.  I asked if we could cab it – Charlie reluctantly agreed after trying to convince me of his prowess with an umbrella.  Forty-five minutes later, the taxi had finally completed the four block journey and delivered us at the covered drop-off spot – dry, but exasperated.  Our friends had opted to drive themselves…and they were even later as the carpark was full and at a standstill.  They had finally ditched the car in an illegal spot and bailed out. 

What on earth does this have to do with our x word?  I’m getting there.

Since we moved here, I’ve been walking regularly in the Bot Garden.  It’s spacious, it’s green, it’s peaceful.  Since then, I’ve read a few articles that espouse the health benefits and brain boosts that walking in green spaces can provide.  A few weeks ago, I was at the doctor’s office for lung function tests – I have a bit of   My lung function has actually improved!  I’m attributing most of it to walking, particularly in the garden. 

asthma and hadn’t had this test for about six years.

The point of this X entry?  Get outside. Find a xyst.  Take a walk.  Breathe deep.  Look up.  Look around.  It’s exactly what the doctor ordered.

W for Witness

W is being brought to us by Marvin Gaye.  

Can I get a witness?  When things just aren’t right, when we need affirmation, confirmation, verification – we want a witness.  Another living, breathing human being who hears our story, sees our side, shares our joy or pain or anxiety, and makes our experience real and concrete.  

Webster defines a witness as one who attests to the genuineness of something, one who provides evidence of an event.  The Bible calls for punishment on those who bear false witness (Deut 19).  It also makes it an offense to refuse to bear witness (Lev 5:1) and it requires two or three witnesses to make a case (Deut 19).  The more who see it, the more real it becomes.

Maybe this is part of why social media is so popular – our online friends bear witness to our lives, the big stuff, the small stuff and all the in-between stuff. Someone sees, hears, connects with us.  Our lives are real, genuine.  There is evidence that, like Kilroy, we were here.

One of my favorite evenings during the holidays is dinner with Charlie, Kate and Jessica – just the four of us, a precious gift of remembering and sharing and laughing and crying.  We bear witness to the strength of our love for one another through the years.  We reaffirm that, regardless of what woes or wrath or weirdness may come, that love, grounded in our faith in Christ, will not fail us.  Life may be wacky, wild, and even wicked at times, but we will not fail to bear witness for one another.  “I know you.  You are good.  You are loved. You are precious. ”  

Isn’t this what the holidays are all about?  Going home to bear witness to one another.  In some cases, it may be accusatory and damaging and debilitating.  When done right, it’s life-affirming, soul-inspiring, heart-filling. That kind of witness says that when you forget who you are, the welcome mat is out, the door is unlocked, come home and we will tell you.  

Remember when…

And the stories unfold, the memory returns, and the soul is made whole.