Sinéad O' Connor: Requiescat in Pace

It'll be seven hours and fifteen days (at least) before I can think about the apparent suicide of Sinéad O' Connor without a certain resentment. How could she? How could she do that to herself? To her children? After they'd all already lost her son, Shane? The beautiful voice. The guts to rip up a photo of the pope onstage.

I wish she hadn't deprived us all of her company. The despair was all too obvious, but her personality was so large no one succeeded in containing the destructive parts. "Loneliness is a crowded room," is a saying she says she understood after becoming famous. In her 2020 interview with Tommy Tiernan she admitted to having been "very lonesome" and "seriously in danger of dying" and to trying anything, in public, to stay alive. She mentioned a poem a woman wrote about blending into the plaster in her family home. Tiernan brought up "acute pain"and she confessed to this too, and to having agoraphobia. She didn't "nurture friendships," she said, and then most people didn't "like me," and she didn't trust people: "I'm not really good at making friends."  

She described herself as a Muslim, saying: "Muslims believe nothing in this world should be worshipped but God, and that's how I feel." 

The picture of the pope she ripped up on Saturday Night Live came from the wall of her mother's room. I can see how ripping up what her mean mother worshipped--or affected to worship--could be deeply satisfying; "fight the real enemy" she said,

And yes: a bunch of men and women sworn to celibacy and granted authority are not all bad, but they aren't on a good path. O'Connor dared to say so to a religious American audience in 1992, to make people aware of child abuse a good ten years before most media outlets paid attention to the Magdalen laundries, the dead babies, the abuse of effeminate boys and rebellious girls. Holding that pope responsible was one brave move.

New Substack on Banned Children's Books

Dear Readers, 

The Critical Mom will continue to provide "every thought I ever had" on current events, personal experiences, and favorite recipes. I've also launched a new substack, The Beautiful and the Banned, on favorite but "challenged" children's books. The ones I loved in kindergarten, the ones I read my children, the ones most people--not me--think endorse "colonialism" or "racism," terms whose definition has been stretched beyond recognizability, to the point where they're practically meaningless. For example, the artist, academic and civil rights leader Julius Lester, in his afterword to Sam and the Tigers, his charming version of Helen Bannerman's classic, Little Black Sambo, wrote, "many whites had loved Little Black Sambo as children, and were afraid their love of it made them racists now." Of course it didn't (writes this admirer of one of the best children's books of all time.) Each new post of my substack will explore why some poor falsely accused book should never have been challenged.  When I read, "many teachers have removed the book from their classrooms," as I did of Claire Huchet Bishop's fabulous The Five Chinese Brothers, then I'll be urging you to put it back on yours. Enjoy The Beautiful and the Banned and consider becoming a paid subscriber.

 

Post-Chemo Exercise: When You Get Comments

The last post commented on friendly comments you get after chemo. Here's one on the honest observations. The kind only a child could make. Or an oddball.

During chemo, exercise consisted in a short walk to the grocery store, after which I fell asleep on the sofa. On bad days, I walked the length of my room before thinking "time for a nap."

When chemo ended, my energy returned. After four months of relative sloth, I was back at the gym on the cross trainer. 

"You've changed your hair!" said an old guy I hadn't seen since before chemo. His face, a mask of horror, made me smile; I'm tired of people saying, "Oh, a new haircut!" or "your hair looks so punk!" 

As if my steel-wool locks could possibly be intentional. 

The next time I went to the gym, I'd just done my ten minutes on the cross-trainer when the old dude turned up again, looking me up in down. 

"You know, I have to tell you something!" he said. "You've gained some weight!"

I didn't mention the common misconception that breast cancer patients waste away. Our waistlines expand. Maybe it's the lack of activity and the comfort food. Maybe it's the estrogen blockers and the consequent slowed metabolism. Maybe anything. Most of us gain at least two kilos.

"I've been sick," I said. Why didn't I just ignore him? No idea. He startled me. I hate gaining weight. I'm female. 

"Did you change your diet or something?" Continued look of horror. "You used to be so skinny!"

"Uh, no. I guess I did gain around four kilos. I've been sick."

"Oh, but you look good!" said he. With the same expression.

"I will," I said to myself, "after a few months of the gym and no more Prosecco with dinner."

"That guy's been watching you a long time!" said my oldest friend. And we laughed.

The Brillo Queen Look: How to Handle Comments on Your Cancer Hair

First the tips, then the explanation.

(1) Laugh. At least to yourself. Not at the person who was trying to compliment you.

(2) Reflect on the pleasant urge of women to be friendly. It's heartening. It just doesn't tell you anything about how you look.

(3) Consult the mirror. Are things that bad? Surely better than days of baldness. You can even wear mascara now.

As any woman who's been through chemo will tell you, first you're bald and then your hair grows back. Feels like porcupine prickles, so much so that when you lie down, you continue wearing those little cotton caps so the prickles don't hurt. After the porcupine phase comes the kinky hair phase. How kinky? 

Think of Brillo. The steel wool inspiring--I believe--Phyllis Diller's hairstyle:

Didn't she once call herself The Brillo Queen? I love her humor as well as her wisdom: "Comedy," she said, "is tragedy plus time."  She added, "There isn't a comic in the world who hasn't come out of tragedy," illustrating the notion with the way an irritant in an oyster shell, over time, creates a pearl.  

Look at her hair! It's pure cancer-lady hair. Mine is shorter at the moment, but she's got my style exactly. When it grows out, I'll try, as I did the last time I had chemo, to tame it with the various greases and glops marketed by my local hair salons and drug stores. 

But it will look just like Madame Diller's hair. 

And it will provoke the following (actual remarks):

 (1) "Oh, you have a new haircut!" This was meant to be friendly--uttered by a store employee at a place I hadn't been to in months. I explained, "Oh, this is just my hair growing out after chemo."

I saw I'd horrified her. I should have kept my mouth shut and said, "Thanks." I made her feel like she'd said something wrong, and I know she meant well. But how, I wondered, could anyone think what was corkscrewing out of my skull was an actual fashion statement?

(2) "Your hair looks great! So punk!" Ladies and gentlemen, the last style I wish to emulate is punk. True, I enjoy looking at punk. Walking through Berlin last weekend, I admired the tattooed people in leather and body piercings wearing black leather, rubber, and what we used to call Hooker Heels. All those people are young. They look to be under thirty. 

If you're under thirty, you can do anything you want to your hair and you'll still look like you're under thirty. 

If you're my post-menopausal age, you want to look younger. Once upon a time before cancer I had long, flowing wavy hair. That's what I want. Long. Flowing. Not Phyllis-Dillery.  

I am told my hair will eventually calm down. It was starting to do just that five years after chemo. Then I needed more chemo. On the plus side, my earrings show more with cancer lady hair.

(3) You look great!

This one deserves a smile, a thank-you, and a mirror check. It means you no longer look like you're at death's door, but your skin is drier and you have a few more lines in your face. Don't fret! Use moisteurizer and remember: when your hair is longer and contains enough glop, your wrinkles aren't quite as prominent. (I tell myself this. And it's my very favorite delusion).