If Grandmothers Ruled the World
September 10, 2024
She said something interesting. Two women might balance the world. Then she clarified. Two grandmothers.
That’s a passage from my play Moving Toward Equinox, about the first female presidents of the US and Russia planning to meet for the first time.
If grandmothers ruled the world, we wouldn’t have the problems we have. I first heard this around the time former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first elected female head of state in Africa, took office. Carole Marsh Longmeyer, writer of the children’s book If My Grandma Ruled the World, makes two important points: “Grandmas have gifts, and one of them is making everything better. They also don’t put up with much, do they?”
I’ve always thought grandparents and grandchildren get along well because they have a common enemy. That might be the case in the world, too. The enemy? Corporate greed? The military-industrial complex? (Are those the same?) Authoritarians? Liberals? Conservatives? If grandmas don’t put up with much, they ain’t gonna sit there and let us be run over roughshod, right?
My two very different grandmothers were the models for Oxana and Laura, the two characters in Moving Toward Equinox. Oxana is dad’s mom — stern, pragmatic, skeptical though always protective and aloof. Laura is mom’s mom — guided, guarded, practical while always protective and loving. Both sets of qualities can make leaders great. A grandmother who would be a leader would need all these qualities for there is a time to be aloof and a time to be loving.
Maybe that’s what I’m getting at in my play? Alliances are built through cooperation and collaboration, with qualities complementing each other. With the future of the world at stake, we must be allies, not adversaries.
In the world of my play, the American woman who gains the highest office has bested the incumbent by challenging him in the primaries and winning the nomination. Seems the country was ready for a change from a volatile, out-of-his-league, pompous fool to someone who was more practical and pragmatic, maybe even grandmotherly, but who could be simultaneously stern and loving. And with a sense of humor. Laura, when she opens the drawer of the Resolute Desk, finds the note left from her predecessor with two words, “fuck you,” followed by five exclamation marks. I may change Laura’s lines, when she throws away the letter, to this recently uttered remark: “Same old playbook. Next question?” I may need to change one thing in a revision: the American president calls to congratulate the new Russian president.
I’m writing this while thinking of tonight’s debate between the Vice President and the former President. While Harris is no grandmother, she comes across grandmotherly in many ways, like last Saturday when she was at Penzey’s in Pittsburgh and met a woman overcome with emotion. The woman said, “I really appreciate you” amidst her tears. Harris opened her arms and took her in an embrace, saying, “We are going to be okay.” One of grandma’s many gifts — making everything better.
