assignment #19 - lily gardner: people with more estrogen refuse to listen to those without estrogen, on principle

My father takes pleasure in making every car ride the time to bestow unsolicited advice. My narcolepsy conveniently kicks in during any moving vehicle trek. I’ve avoided most of these diatribes through the sheer miracle of biology. But there are times in which a car ride nap is not possible - I am heavily caffeinated, it is too short to be worthwhile, or, a new development, I am the one behind the wheel and he is seated to my right.

My father is old. Point blank, hands down, no other way to say it: old. And as I understand it, increasing age brings about the sense that one knows more than other people. He qualifies this by noting that he also recognizes how little he knows more, but that part of the equation doesn’t often show in our conversations.

My father has given me a lot of advice. He asks me to write it down, in case he miraculously becomes senile. I never do. Perhaps I am the senile one, as I remember none of it. Or perhaps the advice has just been subpar.

He told me never to think of myself as better than my education, no matter how terrible. This is coming from a man who dropped out of college three times. Unfortunately, I never attend school, so it appears that lovely piece of advice has gone down the drain.

He told me that I will get better gas mileage, my breaks will last for longer, and it is environmentally superior to not drive fifty miles per hour in a thirty-five zone. I am waiting to get my first speeding ticket, he still holds the handle above the seat (does that thingy-ma-bobber have a name) every time I take a sharp turn, or, at this point, merge.

I remember when he told me the story of stealing a stool from his dorm room in an act of spite. I now place my largest plant upon it. I remember hearing about the movie theater we once owned, the restaurant, the hotel. It has not dissuaded me from owning any of those things. I remember learning that he pitched in to buy back the house of a friend who was a conscientious tax objector. I am proud.

We are not religious, but he memorized one Bible verse. “Just not, that ye be not judged.” I come from Eastern Kentucky, Bible or not, I think I could’ve figured that one out.

As I sit here, watching the snow fall, I find it so difficult to figure out what advice has truly impacted me. I am impulsive to the core, and so, in times of true struggle, I trust my gut. Of course, the instincts of my gut come from the life experience my parents and teachers haphazardly curated for me at a young age. But it is now my gut, clouded perhaps by my obsession with probiotics and Kombucha.

I was once told that knowledge is power, the implication of advice being to use mine in that way. But I now wonder, is it? Or is money power? Are there pieces of advice I have gotten that haven’t been futile? Have I turned any good piece of advice I’ve ever received into an ironic comment (“love yourself” “manifest your future” etc)?

It is cold and so I am wearing a flannel. The last time I chose to wear one was in the fifth grade. They say fashion comes back in favor every few decades. I am reading a magazine that my grandmother, the writer, doesn’t believe is real. Just as well, I think “people who produce more estrogen,” womxn, is too post modern for her taste. She would consider the repetition of such a long phrase to be bad writing.

Maybe the best advice is not stagnant. Can there really be one principle that guides someone’s life forever? Is there a piece of advice more valuable than what we come to ourselves?

I do not know, which is perhaps, the best piece of advice I’ve ever been given.