Beloved Hard-core Badass

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about death. No, this is not a hey-I-live-in-Colorado, legal-marijuana-fueled monologue about life and death and what it all means! Actually, it has been on my mind partly because my grandfather, my last living grandparent, passed away a few weeks ago, and partly because on the very day after it happened, I started my new job and had to weed-whack around every grave in a local cemetery. 

That first time was kind of hard- I was thinking about my grandfather, and reading the headstones and wondering about the lives of all of these people buried there. The graves for one-day old babies that were laid to rest seven years ago yet still have fresh flowers set out each week. Or the woman whose grave is marked with just a fading wooden cross, "Ambrocia" written on it in sloppy, white painted letters. And the two men, presumably brothers, who have matching headstones engraved with pickup trucks and ATVs. A lot of people live a very long time in the mountains of Colorado- there are several 95+ lifespans in that cemetery. And a lot of people don't- like the few women buried there who were born in the 1970's and passed away before the new millennium, whose headstones say things like "always beautiful" and "we will love you forever". 

After working at this job for a few weeks and trimming around the same graves each Thursday, I started to notice something else. Male and female graves are very, very different. While there are endless numbers of "beloved wife and mother" graves, adorned with hearts, flowers, the not-infrequent holy cross, and the disturbing trend of a full-color glamour shot decoupaged onto the headstone (creepy), the ways that men are remembered after they pass are often far more interesting. 

There's one for a guy who died at age 56, engraved with intricately drawn golf clubs, a winning poker hand, and the Denver Bronco's logo (basically, they could have saved a lot of time and money by just writing "Big Drinker" on the headstone). There is a grave marked only with a crossed pair of vintage yellow skis, driven into the ground. One plot has a stone with a scene of horses and a farm that says "beloved father, husband, and rancher". There are too many to count with guns, deer, rivers and mountains. 

Why is it that men are remembered for their interests, hobbies, and occupations, and women are only memorialized by their relationships to other people? Men can be buried with a lasting monument to their love of the land, four-wheel drive vehicles, or even gambling, but women are almost always praised post-humously for their ability to successfully marry and procreate. 

Don't get me wrong, I would be delighted if anyone referred to me as "beloved", in life or death. More often terms like "crazy", "sarcastic" or "loud" come to mind. Being described as beloved would be a great honor, if an unlikely one. But is a loving wife, mother, or sister really the most descriptive thing a woman can be remembered as after she dies? 

I want my headstone to say "Caitlin Kennett, beloved hard-core badass" or "Enthusiastic Serial Hobbyist". Why not? Etchings of flowers and hearts show us nothing of the people that these women were. And this is Colorado, for gods sake. Not one female grave with an etching of a mountain, a bicycle, skis or a horse. I find it difficult to believe that everyone buried in this cemetery lived and breathed to care for their husbands and kids and nothing else. We should really start making cemeteries more progressive, people. Think of how fun it would be for some stranger to come upon your grave 70 years later and read something like "great mom, even better table dancer".

And when I pass, if you must decoupage my photo onto my grave, make sure it's this one: 

It's a Man's World

As someone who moves around a lot, I find myself constantly being "new" in my occupation. There are more versions of my resume saved to my ipad than selfies. I keep my cover letter short and non specific, so I can change the date and recipient at a moments notice and ship it out. I have enough uniform shirts from former jobs that I could make a queen-sized quilt for my bed. 

So when I started my current position, as a seasonal parks worker for a local municipality, I knew what to expect. I've heard a lot of it before. During my interview, my now-supervisor asked me what I would do in a specific situation: if you are mowing and come upon a picnic table, soccer goal, or some other relatively heavy, park-dwelling object, what would you do? 

"Probably wait till another coworker came along to help me move it," I told him. "I'm very serious about not lifting more weight than I am capable of moving on my own. I don't want to get hurt."

This was, of course, the right answer, but he then went on to say that he by no means was implying that I was weak (avoid sexual discrimination, check), and in fact added: "You look pretty strong."

I know, I should take that as a compliment, or I should assume he had inferred from my resume packed with extensive landscaping experience that I am able to handle myself, but all I heard was "well, one can clearly see you're no twig". You're right, boss man, I am not petite or skinny, and I hope the whole department knows how lucky they are for that. I have worked with petite girls who wanted to landscape before. You know what happens to them? They quit. 

On my first day, we arrived with our crew of six at a park that needed to be mowed. I hopped out of the truck, lifted a trimmer off the rack, filled it with 2-stroke mixed gasoline, and turned to see my supervisor waiting for me. "So, have you ever used a trimmer before?"

Side-note to all department heads everywhere: it is really important (and a huge time saver) to share the resumes and relevant work experience of new employees with their crew supervisors. It is doubly important if your new employee is a girl in a male-dominated field. By taking the time to mention to my new supervisor that I have been landscaping for eight years, we could have avoided several unnecessary and frankly embarassing moments (for me and my supervisor) over the last two weeks, in which he tried to train me on every piece of mowing equipment, all of which I had previously used.

I certainly am not singling out these particular coworkers as being clueless. This happens at every job I have had. In 2012, I had a supervisor refuse to believe me that I knew how to operate a zero turn lawnmower. I humored him, as I have many, and let him show me how the controls worked. Why not? Nothing to gain by showing off. Plus, eight years of this line of work has taught me a teensy-weensy thing or two about the average male ego. 

And there's also the interpersonal personnel (say that five times fast) challenges to being the new Girl. For the first couple of days, no one will speak to me. Most men in the landscaping/maintenance field have never had a female direct coworker and (as I found out from a supervisor at another job, where my presence was discussed at a meeting on my first day, along with proper warnings and precautions) have been drilled on the wide array of statements and actions that constitute sexual harassment. Here's what I have learned: basically, it's anything. Acknowledge that I am of a different gender in any way, and I can sue the pants off you (but not literally, because that would also be sexual harassment). 

It has taken me years, but I have devised the proper way to ease the tension almost immediately: swear. Cuss like a drunken sailor, preferably one who just found out the beer is all gone. Once the males have determined that it is acceptable to use any color of language in front of me, they relax. Next, I make a joke at someone's expense. This is my favorite part, because I will never get a laugh out of a crowd as huge as the one I get when a group of new acquaintances realizes that yes, the girl is funny. It's a combination of general amusement and overwhelming relief: oh thank god, our work lives are not ruined, we will not be fired for letting a foul word escape our lips, we do not have to stop speaking when she enters the room. This will be okay.

At my first job working with all men, in 2007, it took me almost an entire summer to reach a place where my male coworkers didn't look at me like I was some sort of wily foreign insect with superhuman, job-snatching powers. 8 years later, I can assimilate in a day. Now, if I could just get them to believe that I know what a leafblower is...