The arc of history gets personal

I traveled for more than 30 hours to make it home for my maternal grandmother's 90th birthday last Sunday. And, although it was brutal and the only thing that got me on the plane to West Coast after landing in at JFK was the support of K and her mom and a chair massage in the depths of Terminal 7 (truly the best $40 I have ever spent), part of me marveled that I could fly from Arabian Peninsula to California in about the time it used to take my grandmother (in her youth) to travel back to college in North Carolina from her home in New Jersey.

Both of my grandmothers are still living (the paternal one is 94). They are sharp as tacks, though a strong wind could knock either one of them over. As I've moved into my mid-30s (sigh), it's been very cool (and not a little reassuring) to watch them age so gracefully and in remarkably good spirits. The world has changed so much in their lifetimes, and they have rolled with it. They are of a generation that viewed progress as mostly inevitable and technology as universally good, but they still deserve mucho credit for their openness and curiosity, especially my 90-year-old grandmother, who has become more progressive politically and socially as she's aged.

It is also mind-boggling to think, given how far we have come within the lifetime of this grandmother, what unimaginable things are in store for us in the years to come.

In my grandmothers' lifetimes, homes have gone from gas lighting to electricity. Kitchens have moved from ice boxes to refrigeration. Telephones, cars, frozen food, mass-produced anything, to say nothing of computers, cell phones and email, are everywhere. Massive labor-saving devices like washing machines, dish washers, vacuum cleaners, and microwaves changed lives. Such work was, of course, done by hand when my grandmothers were girls (and still is in many parts of the world. My years in Cameroon gave me a profound appreciation for washing machines in particular. Doing heavy duty laundry by hand is an incredibly long and arduous chore). There have been more than a few revolutions and movements that accompanied and/or fostered these technological advances. And they have made real gains despite how discouraged some of us often are at the slow rate of change. Women were granted the right to vote the year my grandmother was born, and this year a woman ran for president. Jim Crow ruled the South and the country was 40 years away from the Civil Rights Movement in 1918. This year an African American (whom she voted for) became president. True, 2008 has been a banner year for progress, but there have been growth spurts throughout this and the last century that come into especially clear focus when viewed through the lifetime of one close family member.

So what's next? I remember sitting my History of Mass Communication class in 1993 listening to my professor predict Blackberries and iPhones. I'm chagrined to say our group of college sophomores was more than a bit incredulous. Maybe in 20 years, I thought. Try less than 10. What could possibly be in store for us in the next 50?

Happy birthday, Mimi!