Point of View: She’s Shriven
It was Tuesday night when it occurred to me that I hadn’t — because I was flying back from having spent the weekend in Pittsburgh — seen the first half of the Steelers’ delightful 24-14 win that Sunday over the Giants.
Mary had recorded it, and so it was with a light heart that I headed down the hall, with her behind me, toward the larger TV where I presumed she’d show me — yet again, for I have never kept pace with change — how to summon it up.
“Was it the football game you were interested in?” she asked when we got there.
“Well, just the first half — I saw the second half, you’ll remember, when I got home. The Steelers were leading 14-0 at the half, so I thought it would be fun to watch.”
“Uh-oh,” she said. “I thought you’d watched the whole game — I deleted it.”
“You . . . deleted it. . . ?”
“Yes, forgive me, forgive me,” she said, pitiably. “Maybe I can retrieve it. . . .”
“That’s a venal . . . no, no, that’s a mortal sin, you know. Now, I’ll have to read about Emily Dickinson!”
Well, it serves me right for persisting in ignorance. I will have to learn how to record things myself. And anyway, she didn’t do it with full knowledge of the sin, the one, you know, having to do with the erasure of vitally important shows.
“You’re forgiven — you’re not guilty!” I called out reassuringly toward the living room, where she was watching a Sam Shepard play, knowing that that would resonate particularly with her, who’s never forgotten the sign on the Pittsburgh bridge, the one painted 20 or so years ago, in big white letters, that said, “She’s Guilty.”
Why is it that women, the chief reason that there’s any joy in life, or any life for that matter, have received such short shrift by and large down the centuries, except for the few societies, like Crete, that were matriarchies?
She’s guilty? The church, and often society, would seem to have it so.
Why that is I haven’t the remotest idea.
And let it so be recorded.