Wedding planning ground to a screeching halt last week as we fought tooth and nail about religion. Fauxhawk and I come from different Christian traditions, and although we are not particularly religious, we feel tied - spiritually, culturally, emotionally - to our own distinct branches of Crazy. I mean Christianity. Fauxhawk grew up in a New England liberal Congregational church; I grew up with all the bells and smells of the Greek Orthodox tradition. They're as different as chalk and cheese, but it never mattered until we started planning our wedding. Suffice it to say that things got really, really heavy. And by "heavy" I mean that we unleashed upon ourselves an unholy terror of epic proportion.
When faced with delicate and highly fraught issues, I often find it difficult to articulate my feelings. I am by nature adverse to confrontation, and tend to start bawling before the words can take shape. This is not much fun for the other person involved, since "WAHHHHHHHHH!" doesn't contribute much to a dialectical argument.
As the intensity of the situation began to dissipate, I remembered a story Fauxhawk once told me about a couple that wore sock puppets when they argued. Though I mocked them at the time, it occurred to me that this idea was not entirely crazy. How much easier would it be to confront your mate if Socky McSocklestein was doing the dirty work for you? It's not YOU who's stubborn, it's Socky McSocklestein! Socky has brass balls! Socky went to debate camp! In short, Socky's gonna kick your ass.
For whatever reason, that layer of separation protects from our own frailty, allowing us to speak freely and openly about controversial issues. The good people over at Sesame Street have been doing this for years, and now they're tackling the Israel-Palestine debacle with some old fashioned muppet diplomacy. This fascinating article describes how the producers of Shara'a Simsim, the Palestinian version of Sesame Street, struggle to strike a balance between idealism and honesty as they touch upon issues that have divided the region since 1948. The writers - some of whom were lifelong PLO revolutionaries - find that even seemingly benign topics (who should claim hummous as their national dish - Palestine or Israel?) are fodder for conflict resolution.
Perhaps the peace process would be more efficient if Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas shared a dish of hummous on Shara'a Simsim and let their personal muppets duke it out.
In the meantime, I am designing my own sock puppet in anticipation of more wedding drama. Sockina von Sockington will be a formidable opponent. She will also have impossibly long eyelashes, a tiny waist, and mile-long legs that will beguile her aggressors. Fauxhawk will be no match for her feminine charms and extensive training in Lincoln-Douglas debate.
Images and video from the New York Times Magazine.
