DIMMABLE

by Melodie Johnson Howe

Dimmable. This is a word that describes the new ecological light bulbs as compared to the old ecological ones that could not be dimmed. These bulbs are not really bulbs. They are long coils. My husband loves them. He has put them in our library where they hang below the narrow shades revealing the tip of the bulb. Décor is not a necessity for him. He has also put these earth-saving coils in our bathroom. So now when I turn on the light and prepare to peer at myself in the mirror I have to wait. The coils may now be dimmable, but they still take time to warm up to their full potential of shedding light. And because my glass sconces, one on each side of the mirror, are shaped like opening petals, the coils protrude from them creating a kind of giant clitoris with penis envy.

As I wait for the light to finally shed its awful reality on me, I ponder the word dimmable. Being blonde I immediately think of the word dumb. As in dumb blonde. Could I be a dimmable blonde? Not at my age. I’m too long of blonde to be dimmed at this point in my life. Besides I was blessed with a very high IQ and when pressed a biting wit. This was a not a good combination when I was young and some poor guy thought he had hooked just another pretty dumb blonde. I smile at the memory. At least I think I did. I can’t see myself yet.

I lean against the vanity counter and wait. The coils have lit the room up to a moody atmosphere, I throw cold water on my face. I grope for a towel, dry my face, then peer at the mirror again. I’m beginning to take shape in the growing light. I squint at my forming image. I wonder what fell off of me during the night and was evilly replaced by a new line, a droop, or a pudgy piece of skin. Maybe we have things backwards. Maybe older blondes should be dimmable and the younger ones should be the brightest bulbs in the GE package. But then how would those poor young lusting Romeos ever get any?

The light is up to its full potential. I feel triumphant. But what have I accomplished except to stand around for a few moments and think about the word dimmable. Have I really helped save the planet? And do I care? The planet will go on with or without these coils, and with or without me.

Yesterday was Earth Day. Did anybody know that? I didn’t. I only found out about it because I drove into the congestion created by the celebration which had all the streets blocked off. (By the way Earth Day had more attendees than The Santa Barbara Book Festival.) I was going to a memorial service for a woman I didn’t know, but wanted to get to know. Now the cynics among us might say, “You’re a little late, Melodie.” Not really.

Julia Cunningham was a writer of children’s books and a poet. Her words, read by friends, filled the memorial service with a dark beauty, passion and sly humor. The words of a poet. I remember phrases such as, “the knives of night.” She used the word gutter as a verb. As in “guttered through the night.” She wrote a children’s book called DORP DEAD about a boy with dyslexia:

I’m not just bright, I’m brilliant, the way the sun is at noon. This is not a boast. It’s the truth. It’s my gold, my shelter, and my pride. It’s completely my possession and I save it like an old miser to spend later. I purposely never learn to spell, which for the simple indicates stupidity. I fall all over my tongue when I am asked to read in school, and when we have a test in arithmetic I dig in the wrong answers very hard with a soft pencil and then smudge them over with my thumb to make it look as though I had tried.



As you can read, she didn’t deal with dyslexia in any pedantic way. She dealt with it creatively with words that could make a child’s mind and heart soar with possibilities. She dares to put this “disabled” (never her word) child in danger where he must use his intelligence to free himself. She also wrote from the point of view of a pencil and a rat; the rat witnessing the birth of Jesus in the manger. So beautiful it broke my heart.

Which brings me back to dimmable. I am now in full light. With blind faith, I smooth all my anti aging creams onto my face. Julia Cunningham, because of her powerful heart felt words, because of a long life dedicated to writing, is undimmable. Finished, I turn the lights off, but I’m not plunged into darkness. My planet saving coils eerily fade away to nothing, as I walk undimmably into my office and my own world of words.

PS
My husband has just informed me that we have these coils to save the price of electricity not the planet. A distinction I will wrestle with when I next turn the lights on in our bathroom.