Ponderings over a Tuna Fish Sandwich

Studies have proved it, but we all inherently know it- memories can quickly be triggered by a simple sensory experience.

Here I am eating a tuna fish sandwich, the anchoring element of my homemade lunch today (boring, I know). While I’ve progressed from Miracle Whip to Hellman’s and to brown bread versus white, the moment that I bit into it, I was transported back 25 years- to the Friday afternoons when I used to eat tuna fish sandwiches with my beloved cleaning lady and baby-sitter Margie, after I came home from morning sessions of Kindergarten.

Margie never really did much eating- she is a tiny bird of a thing and to this day prefers cigarettes to nutritional sustenance- but she would sit with me as I ate and lovingly watched reruns of the Mary Tyler Moore show. Back then, I used to want to be a cleaning lady when I grew up, just like Margie. But as I reflect on my life trajectory now, as an actual grown up, I wonder how much I was actually influenced by Mary Richards, the main character of the Mary Tyler Moore show.

Mary was a single woman in her 30s who moved to the big city of Minneapolis to “make it on her own”. While in this day and age, that doesn’t sound like such a big deal, it was a big deal indeed back in the 70’s when the show ran. Mary was the epitome of an independent woman and a type of character that hadn’t yet been depicted yet on TV.

Flash forward to the premiere of “Sex and the City” in the late 90s, which resonated so strongly with young, independent women from all walks of life. I wonder if this show - which I also loved so dearly - wasn’t just picking up from where Mary left off. What is interesting is that while Mary didn't define herself by finding "Mr. Right" (http://www.museum.tv/archives), at least 2 of the main characters in Sex & the City were all about finding a man (Carrie and Charlotte). Perhaps because they had already proven that they could make it on their own and be successful within their respective careers, going back to square one - finding a man - became their new frontier. Another thought is that perhaps the four female leads on S&C together represent the varying, often paradoxical, facets of being a liberated, powerful women in a big city in the new Millenium.