Jen Jeffrey Billington
The 2004 Adam Sandler movie called, “Spanglish” is what one would call a ‘dramedy’. It is funny, but with a very life-like situation and it is very thought-provoking. My husband has never seen it, and recently, I thought if he watched it I could see him finding Paz Vega’s character “Flor” delightful. She was the exotic beauty who became the housekeeper of Adam Sandler’s character “John Clasky”. Tea Leoni played John’s wife “Deborah” who was the ‘uptightness’ in the movie which rendered Adam’s character to look upon the delightful housekeeper.
I know, I am not an exotic beauty like Flor, so maybe I don’t want my husband to see this movie after all. This momentary thought made me think a little further about the two women in this movie.
Deborah was driven. She wasn’t a power-hungry, career-driven woman, but she was driven. She was driven to keep her household running smoothly and, like many of us who are privileged to work full-time in the home, Deborah could be pretty uptight.
When we are married, raising a family and operating our households, we are focused on teaching the kids to pick up after themselves, and we are cleaning the house in sections, because it takes all week to get the whole thing done ---and when we get finished with all the tasks, it’s time to clean the beginning task again – it’s never-ending.
We take the time to make a grocery list and plan meals to cook, we shop for the meals we cook or to prepare – that’s three meals a day and to have healthy snacks in the house in between. We feed the animals we might have and make sure they go potty outside. Our lives literally revolve around everyone else’s schedules.
Our time to shower, to eat and to go to the bathroom depend on when we actually get that chance. Our time is not our own (any more than it is for our husband who goes to work each day and deals with the public). But we both choose what we do.
My husband chooses to be the businessman he is and there are many things he likes about it, even if he could find a few things to complain about – he still chooses this life. Just as I choose mine. I may find things to complain about too, but I choose to be the stay at home person who runs a household well. Right now, we have a family of five with an adult son and grandkids. That’s a lot of laundry to keep up all week long.
As I ponder the movie with these two very different women, I understand the woman who is delightful and I understand the woman who is uptight. Which one am I?
I’ll give you one guess.
It’s not my desire to be uptight and that isn’t even a word I would use to describe me, because I am pretty balanced, but if I had to choose which woman represents me most, it is clear that I would be most like the uptight housewife.
Why would I be uptight? Just because my role is in keeping my household running smoothly – that isn’t what would make me uptight. What would make me seem uptight are the moments when my family may not follow through with the way I have things running. Then, I will go through the house asking for shoes to be put away or to not waste food, or to not rot their minds with certain tv programs. After I have worked hard to bring the ebb and flow, those repetitive requests are when I might get uptight.
But if I didn’t do the prompting for the ebb and flow, everyone would do their own thing, and the house would soon be a place of unrest. It would not be a comfortable, safe place to relax or to feel at home in. It would be out of order with no ‘flow’.
Now, our house is not immaculate. We are ranchers and we will have hay on the rug at the front door. We have seventeen animals and that is a lot of mouths to feed and take care of, so there really is no time to be immaculate. But for what direction I can bring to this household, I do my best. My husband knows where to find his undershirts hanging neatly in the closet and he can see when he would be running low. It is never a surprise, because things are put neatly ‘where they go’ to make things easier for my family. There are many ‘little things’ like this that make this house a home.
I would not describe myself as uptight, but I do know that not one person close to me would ever confuse me with Paz’s character Flor. Flor ‘looked’ at ease. She was pretty, she was dreaming, and found the people she was involved with to be interesting. She took time to compliment them. They were not her everyday comfortable people to be around – they were her job.
But Flor was not at ease. She was a single mom raising her daughter and she didn’t feel she did a very good job. Yet, to Adam’s character John - she was a fresh breeze.
Of course you know where the movie plot is going even if you have never seen it. Yes, he saw Flor as a melody and his own wife as… well, ‘constrictive’ – choking the life out of him at times. No wife wants that!
Even if we ourselves, may not be ‘choking’ our husbands, we still wish to be more like Flor - delightful and breezy.
I actually WAS Flore when my hubby met me. I was single, but I was content and happy. I may have looked joyous all the time because I didn’t have anyone else to ‘upset my order’ and I made decisions in life based on my small and simple little world – without having to make everything work together for others. I was the only one I had to take care of, so of course I was breezy.
People may think when a woman marries that she now has it ‘easy’. But when I think about my single days, I am reminded of the times I had to go on a spontaneous hike, or have quiet times of meditation and prayer – carefree days without having to make sure both of the puppies have ‘pottied’ and hubby isn’t coming home at lunchtime for a meal that I am to prepare. I did however, put a great percentage of my life into my work (which I enjoyed) but I felt validated. I had purpose and felt important in my community. I have purpose now, too. And I must remember that.
It is easy to get caught up in the uptightness of Deborah if we do the ‘grass is greener’ thing.
I choose to be married. I choose to be a stay at home person taking care of this wonderful family I have. I remember the lonely nights when I was Flor - the days when I didn’t have my husband, children, grandchildren and animals to care for. My happiness.
So, the question is this… how can we be less uptight, and be delightful?
I choose to be this woman who is married to a wonderful man, has a wonderful family and who runs a wonderful household, but …I do watch out for the Flors of life who look so breezy and could catch my husband’s eye for even a smidgen of a second. That’s not being a jealous wife,that is being a territorial wife. I protect what is mine.
And just as Adam’s character John could not cheat with Flor, my husband would not readily cheat on me. He sets proper boundaries (more so than John did in the movie) but we know that even a ‘thought’ of another woman seeming more appealing than we are, can throw us into a feeling of not measuring up, and we remember, ‘I used to not be this way.’
So how can we be the woman in which our husbands are delighted?
It really IS in our attitude. We have to take just a moment to ‘think’ about being breezy, being delightful, and being charming. It isn’t that we aren’t those things already, but just like any job that any of us do – we get caught up in it and we don’t pay attention to what our family sees.
They notice if we skip a shower, they are watching when we get frustrated because the puppy won’t ‘go’ in the time we allotted for them to go so that we can finish dinner and not burn the bread. They are watching when we breathe a deep sigh as we pick up the clothes they drop on the floor just a few feet FROM THE HAMPER…
Are we NOT supposed to get frustrated? Are we always supposed to be Mrs. Cleaver without complaint or disarray?
No. We are human just like everyone else. But to be mindful and think of being ‘delightful’ rather than never being mindful, is something we can do to ‘change things up’ occasionally and bring a little ‘freshness’ into our role. Not to advise that we should ‘always be on’ – but to ‘occasionally remember’ to be on. To think about Flor’s delightfulness and to be Flor on some days.
Be exotic, be breezy, be the other woman or the woman you used to be.
How? Go on the hike you used to take. Take time to meditate. Do something out of the ordinary. Put the puppies in their kennel and take off! Tell hubby you will be away at lunchtime and go to the pool. Let laundry go one day and create! Paint, write, bake – whatever in place of the everyday ‘things that need to be done’.
You might ask, “But this would be thinking of myself and doing something that I want to do, how will this make me delightful to my husband?”
This is where the ‘balance’ of Deborah and Flore come in.
We don’t ditch our role in life, and we don’t stop doing the things we do to have that flow in our household each day, but we do take the time occasionally to refresh so we don’t burn out.
We give ourselves permission to be Flore. Just once in a while. As we take time to do something that puts us in a carefree mood – our stress will lessen and we actually feel ‘delightful’.
We may not be Flore every day, but …neither is Flore.
Flor is striving, she is trying to make ends meet raising her daughter alone… she is searching. There are many things about Flor that John does not see. He only watches her in those few moments when she seems carefree and when she is attentive to him or his family.
We are attentive to our husband and family, but delightfully so when we are refreshed and after we have taken some time out of our ordinary days, to do something out-of-the-ordinary.
Go ahead - fix up. You may not have anywhere to go, but you will have fresh hair and a little make up or an outfit that says “I made the effort” when you see hubby at the end of the day.
Of course, he may ask, “Where are you going?” or “Why are you dressed up?” But don’t let that agitate you because you know good and well that it IS out-of-the-ordinary if you only fix up when you are going somewhere. But realize that your lifestyle may require you to not fix up every day – and that’s okay. That is why it is special, and shows you are making and effort.
Now, I am not a recluse by any means. Even though we live in the county, I will go to town for appointments, for lunches, or to shop for the things we need. But the everyday of taking care of our animals at home and at the ranch, requires me to wear clothes that can get dirty. I will sweat while I am working, and my hair frizzes. Why would I make my hair straight or put on frilly clothes if I am not going anywhere other than the ranch? My daily routine makes sense for me and my life, but I CAN change things up here and there to be delightful. I can be that breath of fresh air that breezes in just like Flor.
A breeze isn’t constant – it comes to refresh.
And, that is something we all can do. We don’t have to change up our lifestyle or daily order – but we can be that occasional breeze, refreshing and delightful.
jenjeffreybillington@gmail.com