Class

“Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky. Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-knowledge. It's the sure-footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life. ”  ~Ann Landers~

Anyone of a certain age or raised in families like mine know certain things about how to speak, how to act and how to carry yourself. When I was a little girl, I would spend time with my Maya-my Great Grandmother Marguerite. I actually had lessons on deportment, entertaining guests, setting a table, serving tea (yes, really...you have no idea how important it is when to have milk, sugar, lemon, etc. on the tray, OR which kinds of teas you serve it with. Dizzying.) and just general life lessons when I would visit and spend time with her. I think she thought it was important because when I first got to know her, I was a very simple Alaskan girl and I think I may have embarrassed her a little. I was the first "child of color" whom she was related to. I don't think she wanted this little Native girl who was suddenly her great-granddaughter to reflect on the family badly. Or maybe she thought I was cute and curious and loved that I was interested in her life and what she knew. I don't know. For what ever reason she taught me the things I know, I am grateful.

Maya was old school. Southern. You could tell she was a little wild in her youth, but she showed her good breeding through and through. She was of a good, old family from Georgia and the Carolinas and being a woman-in both the family she grew up AND the family she married into-meant knowing how to carry oneself as well as knowing how to cook, take care of things and strive for excellence. I think I was the last girl in my family to actually get "lessons" from her. Maybe she thought I was too much work, or maybe she realized that the world had changed a lot and didn't think teaching my sisters or other cousins these things was important. Again, I don't know. My sisters never got "lessons". They were a little more than wild though...and they tended to wear out my grandparents and great-grandparents with their boundless energy and enthusiasm for life. 

Miguel Cervantes, the author of Don Quijote de la Mancha, talked about a different kind of class in that book. I believe the line was:

"There are but two families in the world as my grandmother used to say, the Haves and the Have-nots". 

Maya came from a family that "Had". During the years of the Great Depression, her family became one of the "Have Not As Much". They weren't destitute, but that time changed the nature of society, the make-up and behavior of many families and the relationships they had with money. Still, she maintained the lessons of her upbringing. And passed them on.

Mind you, I don't think anyone that has innate class should be a snob or needs to act haughty. There are a lot of people I knew growing up that have that disdainful sniff and "look" they give you if you begin to err in your proper forms of social and personal conduct. Maya said it was usually the newly rich or those who carried on airs about who they were that acted this abominably. Maya said a woman of class never behaved like she was above anyone else, but that she never seemed surprised or taken aback. She would always be gracious and kind, and ever helpful. I did catch a few times when she said things that belied her former station in life, but she really was extremely steady in her beliefs and behavior.

I look at the state of the world around me today, and there are very few people who show they have class or breeding anymore. I find myself struggling from time to time to remember my place and how I'm supposed to act. But, the women in my family have strong voices and I'll hear them in my head when I begin to act common and like a fool. 

I hear my Maya chastising me for some of my choices. And could hear her sweet, genteel I-told-you-so voice, holding her chin high and a dainty little sniff after in my head when I got separated from the Dreaded Ex. 

"Why honey, that's what you get for marrying beneath yourself..."

Being the extremely feeling and high-strung, emotion driven girl that I am it was hard for me to maintain my composure from all the lessons she taught me. As I've grown older, it's become important to me again. I'll never go back to being anything less than the woman I was raised to be. I refuse to be anything less. I am her great-granddaughter after all.



I've had and had not. I grew up not destitute, but with rather frugal parents who would rather invest their money for later and give us things that weren't so much material as they were important.

My parents stressed education, so I was fortunate enough to attend an excellent school in Seattle for my formative years. My lessons came in handy there. I was still different though. Not my entire family came from such refined roots. I also came from family who were simple, hard-working villagers from the Bering Sea Coast of Alaska. My Granny Alice was the head of this family, and had just as much class and elegance as a Yup'ik woman possibly could. She was different than a lot of women of her time and home, I think...

How does a village girl with these lessons of more elite families from the South and a large city like Seattle manage to combine the two parts of herself? Well, I am always comparing and contrasting dissimilar things to make them more understandable and easily accepted to myself and my children.

People in both my families were hard workers. People in both my families didn't take excuses for not excelling. People in both my families had very strong morals and values. People in both my families held family ties, traditions, passing on of knowledge and education in very high regard. And people in both my families were different. Even the family from the village. We always have been looked at as somewhat foreign. We're not like everyone else. Or at least a good portion of us aren't like everyone else. I have my Granny to thank for that. She was regal. She was formidable. All 4'11" of her.

People of class tend to be born with it. Regardless of their station in life, they strive to excel. They strive to be accepting, but hold themselves to a higher standard. People of class are always learning, always growing, and always taking on new skills and information. People of class understand the culture of man is always evolving. They may be part of society, but they tend to hold themselves to the things they know to be true for themselves and their family. Tradition is most meaningful-whether that be the kind of tradition that has Battenburg lace and embroidered pillow slips, or the kind of tradition that follows the seasons and subsistence calender in the wilds of Alaska.

Going through so much with so little has reminded me that every single lesson I've ever been taught has been important. Now I think I understand where my Maya AND my Granny got their strength, their quiet acceptance, and their strong voices.

You see, it's not the situations you go through or your circumstances that determine your worth...or if you have class. It's how you handle those situations and circumstances that bring the class out of you.

Strength of character, how you maintain your social and personal conduct, and the attitude you go through life with show your true nature.

You either have class of you don't. Some rise above their circumstances at birth, some stay in them. But how you handle yourself throughout is the most notable marker of good breeding. You don't need money. You don't need the best schools. You don't need to be of noble birth. A person of class will always show themselves to be exactly that.

Continue to be brave. Courageous. Steadfast. Have the discipline to maintain your values, morals and expectations of not just yourself, but your children, family, and friends. Be gracious. Be kind. Be compassionate. Be nurturing.

But most of all, be the best person you possibly can be. Circumstance or not.