Step number one: “Trim any unsightly parts.”
That’s how the instructions started. They were instructions for how to roast brussels sprouts that came on the little card attached with a blue rubberband to the Trader Joe’s stalk of brussels sprouts. My friend handed me the somewhat shriveled produce two days ago, “Here," she said,"our family isn’t gonna eat these.”
“Did she know?” I think to myself, as I peruse the card. “Did she know she was passing along pro tips for cultural survival?”
“Trim any unsightly parts.”
Just that.
It’s a gem, really.
Modern streetsmarts in four words.
The more you think about them, the more relevant they become.
Trim any unsightly parts.
I mean, most of us are already extremely well-conditioned in how to apply this on social media posts. The “crop” tool takes the MVP award for most of us and our editing habits. We remove “unsightly parts" like, for example, the unfolded laundry on the couch and the corn flakes all over the floor, the homeless woman sitting to the left of the boutique store entrance, or the CEO sitting with folded arms and a bored look just behind the speaker delivering diversity and inclusion training to a mono-demographic audience. We know to trim those parts out before that pic comes anywhere near our Instagram account. Step number one: check.
But it doesn’t stop with social media.
Trim any unsightly parts.
This is a good rule of thumb for conversations too.
Remember that time you opened up to your friends about your depression and asked for their support? And how things got really awkward after that? There it is. You violated step number one. You left the unsightly parts all hanging out, and see what happened? It made your friends uncomfortable, and you were left feeling even more alone and in the dark.
Or think about that conversation you wish you could have with your family. You’ve probably put off coming out to them because of how well you understand instruction #1. You know how they’re going to respond, and life will just be simpler (also, oppressively lonely) if you follow the social steps. Or maybe you’ve bucked the system a couple times and called out a racist comment or some classism in family convos, but then you got ganged up on for pointing out unsightly things. Depending on what your family is like, they might have shut you down in the nicest, most honeyed-with-concern-and-condescencion way possible, or you might have received an all out assault, but either way, you probably got trimmed like an unsightly part.
So if you want to survive social situations and interpersonal conversations, take these cooking instructions to heart: trim the unsightly parts.
But maybe we should define “unsightly.”
I could be off on this, but in my experience “unsightly” could mean anything from a mild difference of opinion on trivial matters (like your most recent hair style) to globally complex and painful subjects (like the refugee crisis) and everything in between (like who you voted for in the last election or whether God loves everyone the same). If it causes discomfort, it is to be avoided. Trimmed.
“Trim any unsightly parts.”
It’s how we operate as a “civilized” culture. How we make sure our slaughterhouses and meat-packing facilities are tucked away in the fringes of remote industrial sectors so that no one has to see the ugly realities of the meat industry. (Well, no one important that is. No one other than the underpaid employees and the residents in the surrounding low income neighborhoods.) How we edit poverty out of sight through gentrification in our downtown areas. How we walk past homeless people on the streets without even acknowledging their humanity--they are unsightly, so we trim them away. We keep our old people in facilities and our immigrants in camps, cages, and red tape. We do our best to keep the public eye trained elsewhere, like, for example, enjoying our massive entertainment industry or watching the latest touchdown in a posh NFL stadium.
Trim any unsightly parts.
I ignore the rest of the instructions on the cooking card, prepping the brussels in my own usual way. But I can’t get away from the social commentary of those first four words. The way they reflect myself back to me and my culture back to me.
It is uncomfortable, but I’m trying not to trim it. I’m trying to welcome the mirror. Maybe if I own my unsightly parts instead of trimming them, maybe they can be transformed. Maybe if we make space to welcome and acknowledge each other's unsightly parts, we'll discover beauty and healing we hardly dared hope for.
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