SPF

When I was in high school there was a song that hit it big. Well, it wasn’t a song so much as a commencement speech that was spoken over the sound of a fairly catchy beat. The speech/song topped the charts in the spring, and I think that year’s graduating class at my high school even used it for their own commencement, which at the time seemed super hip and fresh, but looking back now I can see it was actually kinda lazy.

Regardless, the speech—as it was played on the radio—was spoken by Baz Luhrmann, who is a notable filmmaker. He is probably most known for directing Romeo + Juliet, starring Leo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Most girls I went to school with truly lost their shit over this movie. And, as such, I had to fake the loss of my own shit, despite hating the movie, because that’s how peer pressure works.

At the time, “Free to Wear Sunscreen” was known as that commencement speech the irreverent Kurt Vonnegut gave to MIT. This was the part that intrigued me the most, as I was a very progressive and heady teenager who was extremely into all things Vonnegut. This made me highly intelligent, and also, a bit too cool for school.

My dad and I hollered out in excitement any time we heard Vonnegut’s words, spoken by Baz, come through the radio. Although I had to make sure Dad understood my frustration with the sudden interest in, and adoration for, Kurt from my classmates, when I had been a veritable fan of his for nearly seven months. So, as long as everyone understood I loved Vonnegut before it was cool to love Vonnegut, I was happy for others to discover what a badass Kurt Vonnegut was.

The speech gives sound advice. Not just most notably to “wear sunscreen,” but also unforgettable lines like: “Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.” This spoke to me as a teenager who was prone to beat myself up too much.

And while that spoke to me at the time—a young, tie-dye wearing, misunderstood Vonnegut lover—it spoke to me even more last week on the way home from work, when I heard this spoken by Baz on the radio for the first time in more than 15 years.

It was late at night and I was driving home after class. For reasons I can’t quite understand, the moments after class has adjourned and I’m alone in the car are often a stream of intense and conflicting emotions. Most of this is because I’m very keyed up after class. I’m usually reeling over a great discussion, or a profound thought from a student, or the thrill of an intense argument handled with maturity by disagreeing intellectuals. But I’m also evaluating the nuances of the class. Did everyone feel their voice was heard? Was anyone shot down too quickly? Did they truly understand why I paired that journal article with that book chapter? Are my probing questions eliciting the right thoughts? And, the question that constantly plagues me: Are they learning? 

Now, on the one hand, I’m fully aware these aren’t fourth graders and I’m not a truly powerful influence over their learning. Instead, these are adults with jobs and spouses and kids and other things occupying their minds. But even still, I take my job as an educator very seriously—despite all the joke telling in class.  

I assumed when a person completed the requirements for a PhD they would suddenly have all the answers to all the questions (in the field) and instantly become an expert on the topic. I had this same assumption about birthing a baby; once I completed the task, I would suddenly be an expert in parenting.

But it wasn’t the case with birthing children and it’s not the case with teaching students. The PhD did do a lot to further my knowledge of the field, but I’m still learning. 

Knowing this, that no one is an expert, least of all me, I work hard to ensure the environment is ripe for learning. No matter who is credited with dispensing the knowledge. Which is why I’m most drawn to delivering courses in a seminar style format, in which students are assigned readings each week and all the class time is devoted to discussing and debating the content.

I serve as referee.

And most every class, I find myself hearing a new perspective on government or policy or public service from a police officer, or an FBI agent, or a nonprofit executive director or a small business owner, a perspective that comes in direct conflict with a truth or a principle I’ve always believed or held. 

I’m still learning. And the sources of that knowledge are a moving target.

So last week, after one such class, I drove home digesting the conversation—the questions, the reactions and the true civility among a group of people who don’t always agree with one another—and I heard the words of Vonnegut come through my radio. And I listened. Perhaps more intently than I had listened to them as a 14-year-old. And I began to cry. Not an ugly cry, not a pull-over-on-the-side-of-the-road cry, but the gentle, beautiful crying of a pretty woman on a television drama. One tear at a time came up and out from my bottom lid, and slid gracefully down my cheek and even I couldn’t tell—from inside the dark car with Baz talking to me—if I was happy or sad.

I suppose I was comforted. By familiar words from my favorite writer.

And I was so moved by these words, so taken with the emotion that had come over me in the car that when I pulled into my driveway, I sat for a moment in quiet reflection. But, in this day and age, quiet reflection can only get you so far before you are overcome with the need to do an Internet search on your iPhone.

I attempted to search for the lyrics to “Free to Wear Sunscreen” to discover one of the first Google hits was an article explaining how the song was mistakenly attributed to Kurt Vonnegut.

In an instant my beautiful and graceful Emmy-nominated tears dried up and were replaced with a horrified and grief-stricken Oscar-worthy gasp. As a person who holds the self-appointed title as President of the Kurt Vonnegut Fan Club, I was all at once horrified and embarrassed to discover that one of my favorite passages of Vonnegut’s wasn’t even written by him.

I stumbled up the walk to our porch where Jim discovered me a few minutes later staring out into the night.

“Meg? You okay?” he asked, opening the door.

“Kurt Vonnegut didn’t write the sunscreen speech,” I muttered.

“Alright. Well, I can see how that could be upsetting...Why don’t you come inside and let’s talk through whatever the hell that means.”

After I explained this to Jim he laughed, fondly remembering the Baz “song.” He, too, thought Vonnegut had written it. Obviously, this wasn’t hitting him just yet because his only real response was to shrug.

I knew of only one person who would feel as let down as I did in the moment. So I texted him.

M: Hey Dad, remember that Vonnegut commencement speech about sunscreen?

D: Of course. Except Vonnegut didn’t write it, right?

M: I just now found that out. I’m not taking it well.

D: That’s to be expected. So, who did?

M: Who did what?

D: Who actually wrote the speech?

Until that moment, I hadn’t given much thought to whose words they actually were. And I began to wonder if perhaps the words would mean as much to me if they weren’t coming from the brilliant mind of one of the more profound writers there ever was.

Before I could reflect too long on this question, I pulled out my phone again. This time, when I searched for the speech, I realized it was actually written by a woman, Mary Schmich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the Chicago Tribune.

I was intrigued to discover a woman wrote this. After all, it was spoken by a man in the hit song. And up until 15 minutes earlier, I thought it was written by one, too.

But knowing it was a woman behind the words suddenly changed them for me. I read the article, the original article, and I suddenly saw the speech differently. It wasn’t a wise, brilliant, satirist sighing and laughing at youth today, telling them to chill the f*ck out. It was a woman, roughly the same age I am now, looking around at other women and reminding us to be kind to our bodies, our minds, and, for the love of God, protect our skin!

This was a revelation. Maybe not a big enough one to make Jim understand all my chest grabbing and gasping, but suddenly these words had new meaning. A woman, a well-known and well-respected columnist, was using her platform at a newspaper to give some pithy advice to others. And her words were usurped. 

By men.

Now, I’ve matured enough to realize I wasn’t all that wise at 14, and there are numerous other people now whom I would rank above Kurt Vonnegut. I’m also mature and wise enough now to know that advice from a woman—even a Pulitzer Prize-winning one—might not have been enough to influence me then as it is now. 

And while I can certainly interpret the words differently now than I did then, I can’t help but realize that, regardless of who said the words, there is only one single thing I’ve done every day, consistently, for the past 18 years:

Wear sunscreen.

Advice...by Mary Schmich



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